Tupa's Treasures

My brother gave this to my son for Christmas this past December. He said he picked it up at a truck stop somewhere. I love it when you find an old toy at one of the few mom & pop stores still around.

May the 4th be with you!

This was a recent commission I did; super fun too!

Starting Tuesday I will be doing retro-themed artwork for http://retroist.com/ twice a week. Get your requests ready!! Each one will be 4×6″, watercolor, ink and $25 each if anyone wants to buy the original (free US shipping)

We made our annual trip to the Round Top Antique Show recently. They have a lot of antiques, home decor and such but they also have some toys and other items from the 80′s and 90′s but you have to really look for them. That being said here is my haul from this years hunt:

This is my $.25 pile. We found one dealer who had a box of Kids Meal toys and we made away with quite a few of them.

This is the $.50 pile. I had never seen those Flintsones houses from the 1990′s movie. I didn;t much care for the movie but these toys are pretty sweet, each one came with a car that fits inside. I’m not sure, but I believe the Birdie toy from the first picture goes with the little McDonalds house in this one, she fits inside it perfectly.

My other $.50 pile. The mummy is an old candy container and the ornament in the back has Marmaduke on it.

This is the $1 pile. I really like the Wolfman and the shark tooth with the Jaws 2 packaging.

These were both $2. The bear is an A&W mascot and the Hardees bucket glows-in-the dark!

And this baby was $5. I carried it around with me and used it to hold all my other loot. It was a great conversation starter!

And that’s my haul from the antique fair! Can’t wait until next year!!

My brother recently picked up a Camping World catalog from 1981 and passed it on to me. As I was going through it I noticed these two TVs on one of the pages. But what is interesting is what is playing on the TV’s; Flintstones and then what appears to be a  group of DC superheroes water-sking. Anyone know anything about the water-sking superheroes? Was it from a TV show or something?

Some Lala Loopsy fun; the toys actually have buttons for eyes but I changed them out for real eyes…

I had so much fun taking pictures of my new custom toys around town I went out again last weekend and took some pics of my favorite dinosaur toy:

Recently I traded some of the art I have done in the past couple years for some awesome custom toys. After I got the toys in the mail I took them and drove around town and took some pictures of the toys in interesting places. This is the first time I’ve taken any of my toys outside in a long, long time; and I had a lot of fun doing it. Here are the pics:

This week the topic for the League of Extraordinary Bloggers is:

When I was a kid, my favorite _______ was _______.

Everyone knows my favorite movies were Star Wars and Goonies and Gijoe and Star Wars were my favorite toys; but hardly anyone knows what my favorite stuffed animal is.

So, when I was a kid, my favorite stuffed animal was Winnie the Pooh.
And here he is:

A Sears GUND Winnie The Pooh.

I first got this guy as a baby (in 1976) and have loved him ever since.
I still have this guy to this day, on display in my room. Behind glass.
Somewhere in my toddler days his shirt was lost and was later replaced during the Cabbage Patch Dolls craze when you could buy different outfits for the dolls. His shirt isn’t a Cabage Patch brand shirt but another brand that provided cheaper alternatives.

When we lived in Indiana we came down to Texas one summer to visit the family and while we were here a guy pulled out in front of us on the highway and totalled our car. We survived without too many issues, but I remember going back to the wrecked car wherever it had been towed to to get our belongings, and I was so worried that my Pooh Bear wouldn’t be in there, but he was.

I did an ebay search a year or two ago to try and see if there were anymore out there and what brand he was and so forth and I actually found a few on Ebay:

Since High School I have used him and my second favorite stuffed animal (Cuious George) to inspire various comics and comic strips. One of my first self-published comic books I did in High School featured him as a warrior fighting villians on a tropical island.
This is a sample comic strip from several years ago:

Here is a picture of my two favorite stuffed animals; Pooh Bear and Curious George.

Here is a pic from 1986/87 when my brother and I loaded up our stuffed animals in our red wagon and took them outside for a “parade”. I thought it would be neat if they got to see the outside world since they were always inside. This may be the last time I ever took them outside. I didn’t want them to get dirty. You can barely see George’s and Pooh’s heads in the wagon:

This is my brother and you can more clearly see Pooh:

This is a picture of my bedroom after we moved to Texas, probably summer of 1989:

On a side note, that red bear in between my homemade dollhouses I have also had since I was a baby and still have to this day. At some point in the past my Dad gave it to my Mom for Valentine’s Day and it got passed to me.

And here are some pics from my second Christmas. I was born on Dec. 4 1976 and this pic is from Christmas of 1977. You can see George in the background, I am assuming this is when I got him since I haven’t seen any pictures with him in them before these:

I could have sworn I had seen a picture of me in my crib with the Pooh bear but after going through all my Mom’s photo albums and slide reels I couldn’t find it…

I have done at least three comic books featuring these guys and did one two years ago that was 58 pages but I never finished it all the way.

This doll and his companion have been with me almost my entire life and pop up every couple years in my art. Keep your eyes peeled for the next artistic interpretation of my most favorite and loved stuffed animal.
And actually, Pooh Bear is probably the most beloved of all my possessions.

See what the other League members loved as a child:

Goodwill Hunting 

Space For Rent

Fortune And Glory Days

Achievements in Gaming

Pop Rewind

Crooked Ninja