One More Thing

As I have talked about the non-designer toy stuff that I was growing up with in my previous post, I think they deserve a bit more attentions before moving on. Especially the very popular games and movie merchandise figures, like capsule and happy meal toys. They are mass produced but some of them are by no mean low quality! Here are a few examples.

1. Link from Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series - his eyes move as you twist his head, just like he was in The Wind Waker game

2. Mad Barbarian x Sony Postpet - designers lending their talents to a popular Sony software character

3. Wanroom - San-X makes everyday objects super cute

4. Le Frog - Happy Meal toy for the movie Flush Away, capturing the character perfectly

I guess what I am trying to say is that a great toy is all about its design and the emotions that it brings, and sometimes it only costs a few bucks :)

The Very Beginning

Before I start ranting about the current PopArt/Designer Toys stuff, I would like to show you the toys that I grew up with. There were the usual cars, cuddly soft toys, Lego etc... and here are some that survived my mum's great purge, which will sit proudly as the elders of my toy shrine.

Fisher Price Sesame Street (part of a playhouse set)

Smurfs

超合金 Chogokin Robots (in photo: Godmars sets)

I was also a Nintendo kid growing up in the Far East, so game character merchandises eventually shaped part of my toy buying habit. Also I am pretty sure that all the hours of Japanese cartoon watching and games playing are what is fueling my twisted imaginations for the photos that you see on my Flickr photostream today. Thank you Akira Toriyama & Shigeru Miyamoto san!

my first electronic game - LION Game&Watch by Nintendo

So before 2005, I was buying mostly Game/Cartoon merchandises, cute Japanese plushes and gashapons (capsule toys) that are fun, weird and mass produced for stress-free collecting. You didn't have to keep all the large boxes, cart-jacked by flipping flippers or remortgage your house!

...... and then it all got a bit out of hand!!!

not 500?

Some of you might have been thinking, what's up with the 500 target number and upping it to 800? My ideal target is 500 but I do love my mini figures and a quick count the other day made me realised this;  even though I will be very focused on a few artists, themes and styles, my collection on some of them have already reached 3-digit numbers. To accommodate my favorite artists, I think I will aim for 800 initially.

Here are two artists that I love and you might have noticed in my photos already :) I don't think I can part with most of their toys.

1. Uamou (Ayako Takagi 高木綾子)
 Simple high quality Japanese vinyl and resin figures with hundreds of colorways are very addictive.

Tower of Uamou from doc18 on Vimeo.

2. James Jarvis (Amostoys)
A funny take on modern civilisation with his In-Crowd collection.

As you can see just two of my favorite artists have taken a big chunk of the target quota, they will not leave much room for the others (Rolito, Devilrobots, Amanda Visell to name a few). Of course I will be talking about the artists in more details soon.

Welcome

Toy Shrine is a name that was termed by some of my friends on Flickr for my toy collection. Now I am using it to describe my relationship with my toys, and documenting it on this blog.

I like toys that make my imagination run wild, and my favorite hobby is to capture that vision through my camera lens. This is the main drive behind my ever expanding collection, but also my biggest problems, room and money. My recorded collection on rotocasted.com is 1000+, and I still have a lot of toys that are not covered on there. A smaller more focused and manageable collection is definitely the way to go.

I am setting myself a pretty impossible goal, a maximum top limit of 500 800 pieces in my toy collection regardless of size or type. Trying to make myself think long and hard what to buy and keep. Also I will try to find loving homes for the ones that I regrettably have to sell (mostly via my 'Toy Boot Sale' blog). Stay tune and see if I will survive this (>_<)