Designer Toy Awards 2012 — the Nominees
16.08.2012 by Roisin McGuire
Over the next few weeks, up until the big event of New York Comic Con, we are going to present a summary of the nominees for the Designer Toy Awards. Kind of like those reviewers and critics who judge the Oscar nominees — the highs and lows of those shortlisted and our predictions of who will win.
We start off with the much sought after title of Artist Of The Year. As long as between now and New York, each of the artists in this category have kept their presence in the vinyl toy world active by presenting us with signature work. None have deviated from what they are most well known for. What we are excited about in this category is just that — style. Where they stick to their guns, know what drives them and they challenge themselves accordingly to meet the expectations of their adoring fan base. Suitably, this is a public voted category.
The nominees for the Artist Of The Year are: 64 colors, Buff Monster, Chaukoskis, FERG, Huck Gee, Jon-Paul Kaiser, MAD, Skinner, Sucklord and Tara McPherson.
64 colors are an artist duo who are most well known for their cuter than cute marshmallow character Marshall. With his retro styling and un-ending smile he has been adored by many. But they also move in darker territories — notably when Marshall got toasted in 2011 and this year with their Supermagical 8" Dunny design for Kidrobot. The night time, willowy scene featured enough little gems and introduced their wider style to make 64colors a real contender for DTA AOTY. Cast your vote here.
Buff Monster is renowned for his "art of pink" featuring ice creams blobs and boob like beasties. His best 2012 release was his self produced Melty Misfits trading card series. Harking back to the "got, got, need" swap meets in the playgrounds of our youth and with a very heavy nod to Garbage Pale Kids, the Melty Misfits were brilliant little bits of art. Along with new The Destroyer colour ways and his Boob Ball and a Jibibuts design its been a pretty hot pink year for the Buff. So what are his chances of AOTY? We rate him pretty highly in the list of contenders. Sink the pink to support Buff.
Chauskoskis — the Mexican wonderkid of the custom toy world, and now finding his feet in getting his talents printed onto vinyl toys. Other than the huge quantity of brilliant customs he has had success with his Birro the Clown Dunny and made an appearance in our very own The Super Amazing Spectacular Collection with 'Dieter Sweet Pea'. Birro was a production version of a custom he created whilst Dieter Sweet Pea was pure graphics and it proved that Chauskoskis skills could cross over to production pieces. He is a young un in the list of contenders but outside chances of coming through with the public vote could put him up there with the rest. Underdog or top dog? You decide.
FERG is best known for the design icon Sqube and the popular Squadt toy line released by Playge, a collaborative creation effort between Ferg and ThreeZero. He is part of the Circus Posterus collective and along with his toy output he has been actively involved in numerous exhibitions. Place your vote for FERG.
Master of the custom toy and fan favourite with a pretty well established place in the vinyl toy artist roster, Huck Gee deserves this nomination for any number of reasons. His enthusiasm for vinyl is difficult for others to attain, let alone his creative ability of his own twist on Japanese history — particularly anything with a sharp weapon. He attained his own Dunny series with Gold Life, numerous customs and will have grabbed a few extras voters with the recent release of Skull Slinger. Fire in the hole!
Jon-Paul Kaiser and his stark black and white style won him favourable attention as a toy customiser and he soon picked up design commissions for production pieces — from Captain Stūrnbrau, a FatCap and his Dunny 2012 design. As a fellow Brit we have to wave a supporting flag. Wave yours and cast your vote.
In a similar vein to Huck Gee, Mad (aka Jeremy Madl) is one of the stalwarts of the vinyl toy scene. This year saw him focus a lot of attention into making hand cast resin figures in all sorts of colours with his mini Mad*L. Pile on his giant hand painted Dunnys and untold number of custom Mad*Ls and he has kept his presence up with a Dunny 2012 design. Take a pot shot.
Skinner lives in a world of pretty ugly and dangerous kaiju — he is also up for the Best Sofubi category with his Lulubell collab. Its a different flavour of vinyl but one that has a dedicated and possessive fan base. AOTY in the world of vinyl toys for a kaiju artist? It might happen! Make it so.
Sucklord is this year's host of the Designer Toy Awards and for that reason alone — he cannot be allowed to win! Although there is a really strong chance he has already loaded the "winners" envelop. Reasons he should be allowed to win include his stint on Bravo TV's Work of Art reality show which brought the world of vinyl toys and particularly the art of vinyl to a wider public. Is he on the edge of art world glory? Push him over it and VOTE SUCK.
Tara McPherson is a force to be reckoned, not just in general but in this category. The Lilitu figure turned heads and redefined the toy as art. But is this one toy alone enough to secure the title of AOTY? Even if it was an amazing piece of art? You know what to do.
Buff Monster is renowned for his "art of pink" featuring ice creams blobs and boob like beasties. His best 2012 release was his self produced Melty Misfits trading card series. Harking back to the "got, got, need" swap meets in the playgrounds of our youth and with a very heavy nod to Garbage Pale Kids, the Melty Misfits were brilliant little bits of art. Along with new The Destroyer colour ways and his Boob Ball and a Jibibuts design its been a pretty hot pink year for the Buff. So what are his chances of AOTY? We rate him pretty highly in the list of contenders. Sink the pink to support Buff.
Chauskoskis — the Mexican wonderkid of the custom toy world, and now finding his feet in getting his talents printed onto vinyl toys. Other than the huge quantity of brilliant customs he has had success with his Birro the Clown Dunny and made an appearance in our very own The Super Amazing Spectacular Collection with 'Dieter Sweet Pea'. Birro was a production version of a custom he created whilst Dieter Sweet Pea was pure graphics and it proved that Chauskoskis skills could cross over to production pieces. He is a young un in the list of contenders but outside chances of coming through with the public vote could put him up there with the rest. Underdog or top dog? You decide.
FERG is best known for the design icon Sqube and the popular Squadt toy line released by Playge, a collaborative creation effort between Ferg and ThreeZero. He is part of the Circus Posterus collective and along with his toy output he has been actively involved in numerous exhibitions. Place your vote for FERG.
Master of the custom toy and fan favourite with a pretty well established place in the vinyl toy artist roster, Huck Gee deserves this nomination for any number of reasons. His enthusiasm for vinyl is difficult for others to attain, let alone his creative ability of his own twist on Japanese history — particularly anything with a sharp weapon. He attained his own Dunny series with Gold Life, numerous customs and will have grabbed a few extras voters with the recent release of Skull Slinger. Fire in the hole!
Jon-Paul Kaiser and his stark black and white style won him favourable attention as a toy customiser and he soon picked up design commissions for production pieces — from Captain Stūrnbrau, a FatCap and his Dunny 2012 design. As a fellow Brit we have to wave a supporting flag. Wave yours and cast your vote.
In a similar vein to Huck Gee, Mad (aka Jeremy Madl) is one of the stalwarts of the vinyl toy scene. This year saw him focus a lot of attention into making hand cast resin figures in all sorts of colours with his mini Mad*L. Pile on his giant hand painted Dunnys and untold number of custom Mad*Ls and he has kept his presence up with a Dunny 2012 design. Take a pot shot.
Skinner lives in a world of pretty ugly and dangerous kaiju — he is also up for the Best Sofubi category with his Lulubell collab. Its a different flavour of vinyl but one that has a dedicated and possessive fan base. AOTY in the world of vinyl toys for a kaiju artist? It might happen! Make it so.
Sucklord is this year's host of the Designer Toy Awards and for that reason alone — he cannot be allowed to win! Although there is a really strong chance he has already loaded the "winners" envelop. Reasons he should be allowed to win include his stint on Bravo TV's Work of Art reality show which brought the world of vinyl toys and particularly the art of vinyl to a wider public. Is he on the edge of art world glory? Push him over it and VOTE SUCK.
Tara McPherson is a force to be reckoned, not just in general but in this category. The Lilitu figure turned heads and redefined the toy as art. But is this one toy alone enough to secure the title of AOTY? Even if it was an amazing piece of art? You know what to do.
So its up to you, this is a public vote category. Pick your favourite or pick the most deserving. This one is totally open, we couldn't pick an outright winner — but if we were forced to dangle our carrots and try to sway it, its a flip between Huck or Suck.
Cast your vote for the DTA Artist Of The Year.
Cast your vote for the DTA Artist Of The Year.
