Reactor-88 (aka Ryan Crippen) is a web designer/digital artist located in Los Angeles. He enjoys spending time with his wife, hanging out with friends, playing with his dogs, and riding his mountain bike around. He caught the vinyl art toy bug back in 2005 while on a mission to get back into traditional painting. His Spade-Skull and Totem toy designs are highly sought after by toy collectors and he has been a fixture in custom toy shows in the U.S. and abroad.
Q: Where did the name "Reactor-88" come from? Is it your grafitti/street name?
A: I appreciate street art, but I have never been a grafitti artist. The name Reactor-88 spawned from a time when I was searching for a name for my portfolio website. The reactor part came from an abstract 3D digital art piece I created with a what I dubbed a mini reactor. Eighty-eight was an arbitrary addition just because it sounded too plain by itself- the number has no greater meaning other than it looks cool (like an infinity symbol) and sounded good together.
Q: How do you paint such clean, crisp lines? Do you use masks and stencils?
A: All of my linework is done by hand- no stencils or masks. I'm very patient and have many years of practice behind my artwork- I'll attribute most of it to that. I do have some tricks I use to keep my hands steady- like no coffee.
Q: Are you Native American?
A: Nope- I'm a Hapa (half Asian / half Caucasian).