Every once in a while, someone will do something extremely creative and flattering with my work, and this is one of the most impressive and coolest things I've ever seen someone do with any of my designs. Jim Martin wrote to me a while ago asking permission (bonus points for asking in the first place) to use my PAKKU-MAN design for a project he was working on. Jim told me he makes miniature kites, and wanted to create a PAKKU-MAN kite to enter in the AKA (American Kitefliers Association) Miniature Kite competition. Well, if I believed every sorry soul who came along and told me they wanted to use my artwork on "miniature kites", I'd be pretty a gullible sap, but Jim seemed like an honest guy, so I agreed that this sounded like a cool idea and sent him a non-watermarked digital copy of the design for him to use. He also told me he wanted to make a duplicate kite to send to me, which I was pretty enthused about. Yesterday, a package showed up in the post, and carefully concealed inside were two intricately-crafted, very fragile yet beautiful kites sporting my two versions of PAKKU-MAN. He even included rolls of string and a telescoping pincher arm to fly them with -- AND THEY REALLY FLY!! And you'd better believe I tried them out, running around the house and outside, amazed at how well they flew. The cool part is that they're so lightweight and fragile that you don't even need a breeze to keep them aloft, so unlike normal-sized kites, they won't go plummeting nose-first into the ground if there's anything less than a healthy gust of wind blowing about. All you need is to keep a steady walking pace and these things will soar like a champ!
Anyway, big thanks to Jim Martin for making and sending me these very nice kites. They now hold a place of honor on display in my studio
