… better together…

… better together…

Comments 0 Comment

I realize that I’ve been using a lot of swears lately to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I can’t help it, I have an Italian mother, and sometimes a good old fashioned expletive is the only way to truly convey the frustration I feel every time I turn on the news. Over the past couple of months it has been quite challenging to watch/listen without a deep sense of dread while exclaiming “are you fucking kidding me?” It seems like, everyday, there is a new offense to [fill in the blank: logic, civility, science, compassion, respect, civil rights… I could go on].

I’m generally a positive person, which is why its been so hard to “check-in” and stay informed about these daily events. Hypocrisy is something that I have great difficulty with, I find it to be a tell-tale indicator of a charlatan or manipulator. Unfortunately, there is a lot of snake oil being sold. With that being said, it is completely reckless and irresponsible to “check-out” right now, because there are entirely too many shenanigans going on.

I’ve been mulling on all of this over the past weeks, trying to figure out what I can do as a artist. How can I use my voice to incite an intellectual renaissance. Okay okay, yeah, that’s a little grandiose for some little cog with a blog. But I feel the need to add something to the collective consciousness.

Protest-Bots

So I’ve sent Protest-Bots out into the world, carrying a simple message of unity. A message to remind everyone that we all work better together. If we are going to truly change the world and make EVERYWHERE great, we need to do it together.

Protest-Bot Better Together
Protest-Bot Better Together
Protest-Bot Better Together

Wake up…
Stay Informed…
Cite your sources…
Call out the lies… and most importantly…
Get Better.

3… 2… 1… Blastoff!

3… 2… 1… Blastoff!

Comments 0 Comment

Picture it, Long Beach, 2011. I had decided that I was going to design a papercraft rocket ship to accompany my new Mr. Roboto papercraft. It was much more challenging to create than the Mr. Roboto, as I wanted it to have that classic bulb shape at the top and angular landing gear. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to pull it together pretty well, if I don’t say so myself.


Now it’s been a few years since I put one together, and I was riding high after my successful Kickstarter campaign, so I thought I’d cut out a new rocket using the same material that I used for my Mr. Roboto pledges [they were made with photo paper rather than just plain old cardstock]. I popped the computer on to pull the file up, but much to my surprise, the file was gone!

I proceeded to dig through all of my back up disks and archives. Anywhere I would have put the file, but much to my chagrin, I couldn’t find it. I was a little heartbroken at the thought of having to start the process over from scratch, but then I remembered that I had uploaded a JPG layout to the Costco Photo site [initially I was unhappy with how it printed because I didn’t like the color and was going to go back and adjust it, but never got around to it… it takes about 3 hours to cut one of these suckers out, so I really had to be in the mood to do it]. I logged in, and thankfully it was still there [bless you Costco! #Costco4eva].

I still needed a proper source file [Adobe Illustrator] so that I could make color adjustments as needed, and maybe play with the design a bit [à la Graffiti Pride-bot]. And thus began the process of redrawing the pieces in Illustrator. Granted, being able to scan the print [I couldn’t save the JPG back from Costco Photo, lame, so I had to print it to scan it] was a much more desirable process to having to break apart my first model [which I still have, remarkably] and scan the individual pieces, especially since I had made modifications since then.

So, long story short… I made a rocket… again!

A photo posted by Happi Devil (@happidevil) on If anyone is interested in a FREE PDF template so they can build their own, just shoot me a note [on the instamagrams, twitterzone, facespace]. Or if you don’t have the time, or are just plain lazy, and would like one made for you, we can haggle a price… ;D