I love the imag­ined lands and char­ac­ters by Jesse Tise. A stu­dent at Art Cen­ter in Pasadena, Cal­i­for­nia, he has already pro­duced a great body of work that includes not only paint­ings but toys as well. Gloom­bah and Zaar­lak are just a cou­ple of Jesse’s cre­ations. They seem to show them­selves in much of Jesse’s cur­rent ...

Full dis­clo­sure: I love toys. In recent years I’ve grown very fond of “designer” toys — ones that are often lim­ited edi­tion and cre­ated by artists and illus­tra­tors. You can find them at shops like Kid Robot and Giant Robot, and each city seems to have their res­i­dent designer toy store. (Mine is Atomic Books ...