We’ve been invited to take part in the TriForce Tribute gallery show in Portland during March. In case you’ve been lost for the last 20 years, the TriForce show will focus on everything Zelda, the amazingly fantastic video game that has rawked our lives for decades. The show is being put on by our wonderful friends at Jolby and Always With Honor, and promises to be an amazing event.

We’ll be doing four plush pieces for the show (two main characters and two sub-characters), but we’re keeping the specifics under wraps for now. We’ll be trying out some new techniques and some new detail effects on these, though, so they should be uber-awesome.

Here are a few specifics for the show:

The Triforce Tribute is an epic multi-medium show celebrating all things Zelda. Curated by Jolby & Always With Honor. The show will run March 9th to April 21st 2012 at Land Gallery in Portland, OR.

Piggums the pig,
He’s not very big.
A cube of a sort,
No legs-he’s quite short.
And partial to overripe figs.
He roots in the grass,
While snorting alas!
Piggums, the super cube pig!

Mickey, what do you want to be when you grow up? “Fireman!” Mickey-Luv, is there anything else you might want to be? “FIREMAN!”. Mickey my dear, what is your most favorite thing in the whole wide world? “FIREMAN!” Not anything else…nothing? “NO, FIREMAN!”

There you have it, Mickey wants to be a doctor when he grows up, mom says so.

Peet came to us not so long ago. Discovered wandering around the local farmer’s market, happily pocketing items into his pouch. Once apprehended, Peet’s pocket was found to contain the following items: 2 small bananas, 1 green pepper, 2 red tomatoes, 1 small terrier (owner unknown), 1 knitted scarf, 3 hazelnuts, and 2 medium sized eggplants.

When asked his plans for the unusual assortment of items, he simply shrugged, smiled and said, “lasagna”. Now, far be it from us to question a budding chef, but really, a terrier? Anyways, Peet is hard at work in the kitchen as we speak, humming and stinking up the whole place. He is throwing a party for all of the neighborhood cats. He claims to have a new recipe in mind. Oh dear. Well, if you have a small animal at home, perhaps Peet is not the guy for you, but please keep him in mind if you have an adventurous side-especially in the kitchen!

From the depths of space deep within the bowels of star system z165-xx34b comes the mysterious and bewildering Lord Zerrung. His tale is one of woe and misery. A tale so frightful it will turn your skin as white as a marshmallow and your ears the shade of ox hooves…

…Just don’t ask us, cause honestly, we can’t understand a word he says.

BUT APPARENTLY, it’s AMAZING! and SCARY! and it will make the HORSES SWEAT and, and the CO…WS W…ill… bark, and, and…

During our mini-hiatus we’ve been talking a lot about the state of DFF, and where we want to go over the next couple years. How do we expand? What products do we want to concentrate on-just plush, or do we start developing other products featuring our cast of miscreants?

Business decisions are always some of the hardest for both of us. We are by nature firmly housed on the creative side of this endeavor. Developing a business side and mindset has proven more difficult and still feels bit foreign to both of us. But we’re working on it…

I would love to say that we got it down rock solid, but we still have a way to go. We are, however, finally gearing back up, which feels great. Shows for this year have been and are being booked, and we have amassed quite a bit in our sketchbooks that will fuel us through the rest of the year. Whichever direction we end up going we will at least have a partial roadmap. It may not get us all the way there, but it’s enough to keep us going until we need a restroom break.

The Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio recently asked us to participate in their Get Stuffed! gallery show in December. We gladly accepted and have been working frantically to pull our pieces together in the two short weeks we had to prep for this show.

Normally, we like a bit more time to contemplate our work when preparing for a show, but this was an opportunity to flex our muscles a bit to see if we could “rise to the occasion” as they say. I’m glad to say that our pieces went out last Friday, and while it was a challenge, the work that was produced for this show is unique and definitely carries our mark.

The Get Stuffed! show runs from November 19, 2010 – January 21, 2010 at the Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Whew! Summer has come and gone, fall is upon us and we find ourselves packing up our playclothes and settling down to our studies once again. Plush You! Seattle opens next Friday and we are so pleased to have some of our work on display at this fabulous venue. Since we live in and LOVE  the Pacific Northwest, we decided to do a piece that expressed how we feel about it, thus the Tree Hugger.

Made from a vast mix of reclaimed fabrics; corduroy, wool, assorted felt, and linen, this piece was great fun to create. And since we have played hooky over the summer, it’s been a great piece to get us going again! Now, we are dreaming of new pieces, better pieces, BIGGER pieces! Yes! Yes!

A little excited to get back to work, and hope you all will like what we will be sharing with you over the next few months, enjoy the day, enjoy the evening, and get some good sleep.

Until we meet again…

Unite! Unite!
Put up a fight!

We’re tired of the jokes
The punches, the slaps and the nasty eye pokes

We simply just want the freedom you see
To live and to thrive, nerdy and free

But until we reach our new level of life
We will fight, we will scream, we will rage against strife

So take your footballs, your beer and your racing machines
We’ll settle for fortran, c-sharp, comics and zines

Because we are rising from the ashes like that bird-I think it’s a stork
To proclaim a new age, yes the time of the dork!

It’s not easy growing up in the lakes of Southside Philadelphia. You have to have smarts-Philly lake smarts to keep your head above water so to speak. Ronnie James is just such a jellyfish. He was born in the harshest of conditions and learned from a young age that a clear head and quick mind are the keys to keeping yourself straight in a tough situation.

when he was old enough he leveraged his love of music into a position as tour support for the powerhouse rock group Dio. It was his key to a better life. Once off the streets, Ronnie James was able to parlay his experiences into several self-published, self-help novels. His breakthrough work, "When Trouble Strikes, Keep Your Legs About You" sold nearly 2,500 copies and landed him an AM radio spot.

After a few years of radio time, RJ came to us hoping for a change an a simpler, less hectic lifestyle (of course we’re not quite sure how you can get much less hectic than AM radio), which we were happy to oblige him with.

RJ swears like a sailor, appreciates a good cheese steak and loves to filter feed in the bathtub.