ABOUT TINY GIANTS
The Tiny Giants story began in the summer of 2004.
I had purchased a couple items from eBay and as I was emptying the Packaging foam from the box it had come in into the trashcan I noticed that there was these two small model trains in the bottom of the box. I decided to keep them and display them in my house. My crewmate came over one day and thought it would be a good idea to try to replicate scale pieces onto them. When they were finished I put them back on display and there they sat for about a year.
Later that year we were hosting these private get together’s at my house in the San Gabriel valley where lots of old school Los Angeles graffiti artists we’re coming through to catch up with one another and paint a little for old time sake.
It was at these events that the first Tiny Giants trains were painted. I bought some models online and passed them out to artists such as Prime, Chaka, Duce, Sleez, Wisk, Hael, Ruets, Dust, Hex and others to hand paint for me as it was something a little more tangible and personal then just having them rock In a piece book... The collection was actually born in this way, these artists blessing me with these one of a kind gifts, I never intended or even dreamed of where it would go from those first few trains.
Over the next year was able to amass a small line of cars (about 25 or so) and my girlfriend at the time bought me this case to keep them in and I took that case to one of my skate shops that I had going on back then to display it for the customers who came in....
After about 2 years of The case being displayed in the store I had noticed how many people naturally gravitated to the box and would sit there and stare at it for long periods of time, practically anybody that came in and was into graffiti I’ll take a photo of it or make some mention how cool they were or if they were for sale. I decided to reach out to a few more artists to maybe fill another case to display at one of my other locations.
After a few years we had about 60-70 cars and we decided to display them at this small art gathering we hosted in Covina Ca. The response was great and people loved the little trains. So in 2011 we had our first official Tiny Giants show showcasing about 135 trains they were predominantly done by Los Angeles based artists with a few others sprinkled in. Although the turnout was great and The trains were well received the only piece of negative feedback we seemed to repeatedly get was that not much of the true “Railroad Artist Community” was involved.
I spent the next 4 years working on the collection and trying to get more familiar with the history of Railroad graffiti and the contributors to this underground movement.
I had been immersed in Los Angeles and NYC graff culture for the last 25+ years but had no clue how deep the railroad community was and how much rich history there was to discover.
In 2015 I linked up with Dioxide who was a LA local artist and Railroad enthusiast who had a custom model weathering business and we Put on an exhibition in DTLA at KGB gallery. We decided to make it a paid event with vendor booths and live music, raffles, food, railroad related art and my trains of course. We had about 400+ Cars or so at that event from artists from all over the country. And even a couple Canadians and European artists.
I brought in Dioxide to showcase some of these cool pieces he had been making for a few years of weathered panels with fallen flag railroad logos and to help me bring this concept I was working on to life for Tiny Giants 2.
Originally I wanted lifelike trains painted on the walls for the backdrop of the trains on display but as the project evolved we incorporated artists to come and paint over the installations to spice it up a bit.
With Montana Colors behind us We asked Soak TIO, Kick MSK, Redes, King157, Chuck BA, Wasp & Paser MFK and Merlot to come and paint live for those in attendance and the show was a success! We had over 800 in attendance and everyone was hyped on the event!!
Still, the only piece of negative feedback was “Not Enough of the Core Railroad Community Was involved”
Over the course of the Next 2 years I nearly doubled the Collection to 800 cars and Launched the online Gallery where artists could showcase works without having to sacrifice anonymity and The growing collector community could build their own Prized collections.
In 2017 we linked up with the legendary Artist OG Slick and his Retail Shop “Big Dicks Hardware” as our presenter for TG3 which we hosted at the Container Yards Massive compound located in the heart of the Arts district of DTLA. Each hanging piece has been custom framed. All aged pieces have been hand weathered by Diox One and hand painted by the featured artist. EVERY custom painted artist piece comes with a hand signed and hologram numbered embossed Certificate Of Authenticity.
The items are "ARTIST PRICED" so do not ask for a discount.