másCustoms is a self-managed custom footwear company I started back in 2004. Formally known as MASKREATIONZ, másCustoms mentally came into play through a heated conversation between friends about the continuous sightings of the same shoe on people's feet. "Dont you hate it when you think you've found a pair of kicks that you think no one will have then the next day you see someone with them?!" This is how my thought process all started.
This conversation lead to many outcomes in my life which actually shape me to who I am today. I started become more into finding rare shoes, which lead to an obbsession to collecting shoes, which lead to money becoming tighter in my pocket (and still does), to wanting to create my own conceptual colorway for shoes. I started sketching out and coloring in designs I would come up with in classes, while watching movies, etc. After a few friends and family looked at my designs, I got persuaded to actually make these designs come to life. "You're an artist, so why not comibine your sneaker obsession with that."
The first customs I ever did were these Skittles Nike Huarache 2k4. There had the red/ white colorway just as the Skittles bag with little painted Skittle candies skattered around the shoe with acrylic paint and topped off with the logo on the toe of the shoe. I was ecstatic to see my drawing actually become a real shoe. They were good for a while until I started critquing my work as failures because I could of done better. That led me to put off making customs for about 2 1/2 years to improve my painting skills. Spring of 2007 came around and I came up with several ideas back to back and jumped right back into the customizing game with improved painting skills, refrences of techniques I wanted to experiment with from other known customizers, and a inspired thought process. From 2004- 2008 másCustoms went through numerous name changes, from MASKREATIONZ to MAS to MAS Customs to the now másCustoms. They all hold my initials, M.A.S., but it was brought to my attention from a peer that my intials spelled the spainish word for "more", más. I ran with that! Now that I have gotten more familiar with digital art, my little sketches now become digital mock-ups to show myself how my creation may come out.
I have experimented with a wide variety of techniques from painting with leather paint to deconstructing shoes and reconstructing them with my own fabrics. I am inspired by a lot of other customizers out there and everything around me. I've been getting a lot of recognition, curious people gazing at the creativity, customers, and some of my favorite customizers' attention. All this is really becoming bigger via my Facebook group page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=83680772277 (You can check this out for a good majority of my custom pieces) where I inform my viewers my status on different pieces, obtain orders from potential customers, and advice/support. I am and always will be learning how to be just a that step above the retail market in creating customs people would love to own.
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