The Ballad of Sir Jurie

Place not ye faith in Hippocrates,
poor healer at best twas he,
I say to you sir,
tis no better cure,
Than that served by great Sir Jurie.
-From The Ballad of Sir Jurie

In my quest to try new things and break out of my creative comfort zone, I recently grabbed a Mini Munny. I discovered Kid Robot when I was interning with these people in NYC. There was at least one collectible, blind-boxed, designer-painted vinyl figurine on every desk. It was awesome.


I wussed out on buying a DIY vinyl for a few months, until a couple members of the old ICG crew picked them up. I decided it was high time I reminded myself why I'm not an Art Director.


I picked out a white MM, and was overjoyed to discover my "mystery accessory" was a bat. I immediately scrapped the lava monster design I'd been thinking of (I may do it later) and started thinking about what I could do with a Louisville Slugger.


I hate baseball, so making a ball player was out. I briefly considered painting him to look like a proctologist. But I would have had to make a white lab coat, and I really didn't want to sew anything. Eventually, I thought it would be entertaining to make a knight, with a bat instead of a sword. When it came time to the name, I guess I was still on that doctor kick though, and I dubbed the little goof "Sir Jurie".


I learned a couple of things:

1) Sharpies are not your friends. Using them is a one-way ticket to Smearsville. Population: you.

2) If you don't paint well on paper, there's no reason to believe you're DaVinci on vinyl. My spray-painting went surprisingly well (I haven't touched a can since college). The paint markers? Not so much.

3) Munnys are theives. I was excited cause a MM is only 10 bucks. Then I bought a can of metallic spray paint, two paint markers and a can of fixative. All in all, the shiny little bastard put me out about $25. A lot of this stuff I'll use over, but I was foolishly thinking I'd be done with just the metallic paint and a six-pac of sharpies. (See item 1)


Overall, he ain't bad for my first attempt. I kept it simple. After I had so much trouble just painting the black and brown, I decided to skip highlights and shadows. The metallic base is really what makes it, so I didn't want to give myself any more excuses to screw it up. I ended up changing the visor at the last minute because I didn't have faith I'd be able to do the sketch justice. Then I changed it again when I totally fucked up the alternative. But I am really happy with the "tail hatch". That and "X-Calibur" crack me up.