80's Mash-up!!!

We've got some sweet sweet Madball art from a friend I met on Little Rubber Guys, named Chris Tupa. He totally went the extra mile and did four(!) 80's cartoon characters as zombie monster balls. Let's have a look!
First off, Deady Ruxpin (Chris didn't provide names so hopefully I'll do them justice)! I barely remember this dude except that his electronic bear mouth could actually hurt you if you put your finger in there. Chris's watercolors are great and add a level of dirtiness and grit.
Jane Retchson (best put I could come up with for Jane Jetson, sorry). Love the skull and cockroaches!
Hmmmm....blood vomiting Monchhichi....ummm.....how's about, Vomchhichi? I like it! (thanks Jeanne!) This thing looks like she went to town eating someone's guts. Blood is something you don't see to often in monster faced balls but I like it! Come to think of it, there aren't many female monster faced balls (girls like gross stuff too!).
Rigor Mortis Smurf. Done! I think that may be my best pun this week. Frankensmurf or Smurfenstein were also considered. This one's my favorite of the bunch. He looks really sinister and gross. The standard big/small eye are present and I really like the crappy grin he has! This also reminds me of that sweet Unicef commerical!

These are great and Chris has them for sale on his website, so go get 'em!

Slime Time!!

DUDE! this awesome painting just came to me via email from Patt Whelan. He's an illustrator and tattoo artist at Baker Street Tattoo in Media PA. He's also in the sick band The Claw.

He's renowned for his love of Madballs as evidenced in his various Heart Show pieces. Here he combines my two favorite things. H.P. Lovecraft and monster faced balls. He dubbed this dude Cthulubus, referencing Oculus Orbus and Cthulhu. My name for him would be Ball Of Cthulhu, though and he would come with madness insurance.

I Am Not the Only Nerd!

Here it is folks! Our second fantasy Madball and I must say this one is totally awesome and gross! Justin Gray is a Philadelphia based illustrator that I've been great friends with for about 8 years and you should check out his stuff at Burn To Build.
His fantasy Madball is named Henry Ballins or as Jeanne D'Angelo suggested Up the Chunks. I was going to point out "the one thing I love about this is.." but it turns out there's about a million things I love about this. For one, the finger in the barf is super gross. How'd that get in there? AND the broken bottles and syringe hark back to Garbage Pail Kids but seeing them this big makes me wonder what it would be like to not only swallow them, but then regurgitate them. Ouch. The tiny zits look so full that they're going to rip off Henry's face and the skin pulling around the safety pin makes me wanna get this guy a band aid. My absolute favorite is the bullet going through his head that I thought was just a bloody wound the first time I looked. Ew.

In conclusion, this is amazing! Justin IS a totally sweet dude who's stuff you should check out. And fantasy Madball art is fun so send me something!

Geekery Gone Out Of Control

As an illustrator, one of the often overlooked things I love about Madballs, are the little drawings that adorn the packages and various merchandising offshoots. James Groman and the others that worked on the line really had a great way of making two dimensional circles look gnarly but at the same time fill them with personality.

When the relaunch of the line happened in 2007, I really loved seeing the art for the revamps of old characters and the handful of new ones that got made, like Blech Beard. He wound up being one of my favorites overall and got me thinking of how I'd like to see Madball versions of EVERYTHING. Now that the line is cancelled (or in limbo, who knows), I'm taking it upon myself to add new dudes to the pantheon! I will raise that banner! ALL HAIL ORB!
Ok guys. We've been foolin around here for about two months. It's time for the real deal. The nitty gritty if you will. Or the Gritty Kitty. We're entering new dimensions of Madballology, out of the realm of pure research and headlong into development. I give you Er-ick the Retch-ed. My very own fantasy Madball. If there can be a pirate, why not a viking?! (And before you say it, Allen, I KNOW they didn't actually wear horns on their helmets but a wing wouldn't have been able to poke him in the eye like that). I'd like to think of an entire world where there are Madball versions of EVERYTHING. Not just cool things like pirates and vikings, but office workers, CEOs, painters, teachers, etc. How much cooler would your coworkers be if the constantly made barfing noises and were covered in drool and stitches?! Ok maybe that's not that appealing. Whatever, I still like to day dream about it.

Ok, so I have a few more of these that I'm working on in between actual commissions that you can expect soon. I'm also working on getting some guest artists to draw their own fantasy Madballs, and I'll be taking submissions as well! Send them!