Thursday, September 07, 2006
Designer Paper Toys??!!
A little while ago, this clever UK artist Mark James and the guys from Monsterism got together and produced an interesting toy called Cardboy that uses the box it came in as the head. Part toy and part cardboard...ok...Very Eco-friendly, Green, reusable materials, blah, blah. ok, cool. I liked them ok, but something about spending money on a figure that used cardboard wasn't that appealing to me. Well, it was a hit and now they have Series 2 which features shoe boxes as the heads and comes with some cool accessories like a skateboard or a basketball and this guy will probably end up in the Designer Toy Hall of Fame.
Well the whole cardboard box as a toy thing is catching like wildfire and just this week, I received an email showing off a soon-to-be-released line of cardboard toys designed by uber-hip fashionista artists. Here's the tag:
Super-Bastard is a new Box Art Character Toy designed and created by Undoboy. www.undoboy.com Each blind boxed toy is 4 inches tall with 4 different character designs (one per side) and is actually made of cardboard. Now I know what you are thinking but its not what you think. Each piece is quite sturdy and has a removable top (head) and bottom (legs) so you can play. The character art incorporates all kinds of Iconic images and pop culture references. Creative, Funny, Stylish, and Kitschy all at the same time. I have a really good feeling about these. There are 16 different pieces in the set.and only 1000 sets produced.
I encourage you to check out www.super-bastard.com. There are great turnaround images of all the pieces in the set along with a demo video. Click on the larger image and watch the top and bottom pieces disappear.
They are going to be sold for $6.00 each. Dunno, buying a cardboard toy that comes in a cardboard box seems a little redundant to me. Wouldn't it be more eco-friendly just to sell the box itself as the toy?
Well, as I was cruising VinylPulse tonight, I noticed this Japanese artist Shin Tanaka's paper toys called Spiky Baby as well. I thought, oh gawd, more paper toys! What is this world coming to?? Upon further inspection however, I read that Shin's paper toys are available FREE as a .pdf download!! FREE toys?? Hmmmm, paper or otherwise, I was intrigued. I went to the site and clicked on the link and next to the simulated open blind box was a paper figure designed by an artist. When you double click it, a full-color .pdf document is generated and you can cut the figure out, glue here and there, fold origami-like and presto, a free designer paper toy! You can even download the blindbox that the toy would come in!! Now this is the way things should be! If you want more, just hit the back button and "open" another blind box! I think I downloaded like half a dozen. It's really cool! Shin Tanaka has put my faith back into the toy artists and designers.
Shin's free, down loadable paper toys kind of makes the market for other paper-based toys seem...a bit thin...
Check it out for yourself and download the entire collection for free at ShinTanaka.com
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3 comments:
I'm so glad that someone said "all you have to do is pay for the paper". Reminds me of high school art class when people would just draw something for you because you asked them.
Carboard and paper toys for sale? They're quite charming when they're free, but $6 for some of them? I'd rather get an action figure, or a hamburger combo. you get paper, and graphics, and food. and SOMEBODY had to have designed it. that's awesome, and delicious.
Thanks for sharing this, though. Good to know what toy trends are growing and whatnot. Great site :-)
--ji
jun, jl,
thanks for the comments! I did google Gundam paper model kits and dayam do those look like the real thing when complete. I'm sure there is some very patient folding and gluing going on there.
I wasn't going to even do a post on these designer paper toys, but when I see two articles with one at cost and one for free, I thought it would make for an interesting comparison. ying and yang of paper toy design if you will.
Glad you guys liked the post! Thanks for reading!
I liked this design, because you have to use a little imagination for children and adults also combine and play with the designs!
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