Fig-lab

A quick word about Tom Painter’s amazing LameToy Generator! It Rocks. Basically a Character Fruit Machine that lets you mix and match the heads, torsos and legs from its amazing arsenal of wild characters to create even wackier characters. And it keeps growing (literally) exponentially. Contributors include 123Klan, Lmac, Eleven18 and many more. And now…

The issue the every toy collector wrestles with is not how to get started, nor when to stop (easy: when the bank account is empty / spouse threatens divorce / etc) but what to collect; where to draw the boundries? what will slake your toy lust? what is your Holy Grail? Personally I’ve tried to…

While the Toy Festival itself is kind of a sad affair, more or less a glorified Swap Meet, and definitely a far cry from the monolithic Wonderfest held just the week before. But like any good flea market there are great bargains and strange treasures to be found. To my pleaseant surprise, Cronic, one of…

Looks like there is going to be a Gloomy Bear Show from Sep. 3 – 22 at the Marui department store in Shinjuku just down the street from FewMany. Mori Chakk the creator of Gloomy is looking like the loner of the Designer toy scene and seems to keep himself insulated from all the Collabo…

This week’s mini show at FewMany is from the french designer Rolito. There are two versions of the RolitoBoy for sale (which was my favoritest toy from last year). One is a collaboration with DJ food of Ninja Tunes (one of my favoritist recording artists) which comes with a special Rolito-mix mini CD inside the…

One of the many joys of my new job being near Shinjuku is that I can check out the weekly show at FewMany. FewMany is a great shop/micro-gallery focused on the designer toy scene and is run by the good folks at Wonderwall who distribute Toy2R to Japan and export local talent like Touma and…

I really forgot what a massive undertaking Wonderfest can be. It took about 4 hours to get from one side of the hall to the other. And while there was the usual bounty of obscene garage kits and the usual gaggle of sweaty otakus taking pics of them, sprinkled here and there amongst the deitrus…

WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. I still thinking Robots are going to be a big big part of this whole character figure scene. I’m still waiting for someone to do a generic robot figure that designers can start Kustomizing! These remote control ones we’re pretty cool. WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. Speaking of Robots, this…

WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. I always keep an eye out for new characters that I haven’t seen before. Dont & Not seemed to be well developed characters with a nice range of associated goods. Have their own home page and were apparently spun out from one of my fave Japanese TV programs, Vermillion Pleasure…

WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. Nice paint colorway on this Indie Sofubi from Rumble monsters. Most of these Indie dudes only produce one figure a year with limited edition colorways at each toy show. Or sometime they do a new head for any existing torso. Often they crank out the variations in super limited lots…

WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. Lots of people had created Custom Pinky:St figure parts so you could create Pinky versions of obscure anime characters. WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. Some of these we’re pretty full-on. While I’m definitely a fan of all the designer colab figures (painting up a basic white figure a la Bearbrick…

WonFest2005.JPG Originally uploaded by datadub. What’s a toy show without at least one new Kubrick? This one is part of the Kanegon project so you gotta buy an exclusive $110 figure to pick it up. I assume that Medicom will release this figure in 3 color variations in combination with 3 different versions of Kanegon.…

Quick rundown of what I acquired: 5 basic kubes from Tokyo Tribe Series 3 (400yen each); Glico Alien Baltan 2nd Type Kubrick (400yen); Glico Fake Ultraman Kubrick (1000yen); Bape Kubrick Series 2 Camou Secret (2000yen); Bape Kubrick Series 5 Camou Secret (2000yen); Devilrobots Plush Shocker (200yen); Bullmark/Medicom Monochrome Garamon Sofubi w/ Semi-ningen Kubrick (8000yen); Gargamel…