Keepers #2 - James Jarvis

My first James Jarvis toy was unintentional! :P I really wanted a pair of Stussy exclusive Nike Court Force Low and it happened to came with a toy. He's called Leon and he looks exactly (with James Jarvis style twist) like the bloke running the store!!!

Then I saw Clutter selling this exclusive Pink Gorilla called King Ken that's featured on the cover of the magazine. I thought I would have one of them! Who wouldn't like a good 12" pink gorilla?!?!

Now I am kind of hooked and really needed to check out who this Jarvis bloke is! As a toy addict, you read about the stories, in this case Vortigern's Machine, and found out how many colorways and figures that you've missed already... Many moons later, apart from the one and only olive green prototype King Ken, the brotherhood is complete at the Toy Shrine!

The obsession went deeper and deeper. His first toy was Martin released back in 1998 by Bounty Hunter, so it was a lot of catching up to do! The mini In-crowd characters were easy to get into, and there were still some sets knocking about at reasonable prices. More Vortigern's Machine characters, including a 20" Troll, Yods, Bird Gods, mini King Kens, Calebs, etc... So far I've only sold a pair of Wrestling Elves, because it is the one that's the least coherent with the rest of the collection and I can do with the room it freed up. Everything else is a keeper!!! :)

So with James Jarvis toys, it is very simple for me. They are filled with personalities, bringing to life many of the characters from his illustrations, which is good enough reason for me (well the designs are good of course). He's one of the best Britain has to offer and is going to take up a large quota in my collection!!!

Mini King Ken S1 signing @ Playlounge, London

See more James Jarvis toys at my Flickr set,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doc18/sets/72157605828084801/

Here comes the Keepers count :)

+6 King Kens
+14 Mini King Kens
+12 Kurbricks
+1 Be@rbrick
+6 King Kens
+7 Vortigern's Machine
+4 Martins & Leon
+2 KingKuns
+3 World Of Pain
+4 Yods
+2 Bird Gods
+6 Gashapons (capsule toys)
+42 In-crowds
+3 MartinXes
+1 Caleb
-1 Wrestling Elves

Keepers #1 - Rolito

There are many reasons to buy a toy, generally the top reason is that it makes me smile, let my imagination runs wild and into photos. Sometimes the toy is simply another cute looking figure and the quality is so so, but it represents wild and amazing things in my head!?

First of my favorite artists in my collection is Rolito. His Rolitoland (http://www.rolitoland.com/) website and the Mini Rolitoboy Book blew my mind back in 2006, and I just wanted to get every single figures that came from there!

The rolito pieces have been the main part of my collection the longest and still one of the biggest. However, in order to trim down, the bigger Nedzeds had to go except for the Colette Bleu edition. They have gone to loving homes, so I am happy :) The Rolitoboys, minis, Politos and Patapons are here to stay though!

Even better is that Rolito has applied his magic on the PSP and I can play in Rolitoland anytime anywhere!!! Check out his games called Patapon!!!

See more Rolito toys at my Flickr set,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doc18/sets/72157594263142452/

With the start of the Keepers post, it is time to start the toy count! You will find it at the top right hand side ;)

+14 Rolitoboys
+17 mini Rolitoboy(girl)
+12 mini Rolitoland Safari figures
+1 Nedzed
+2 Politos
+2 Qees
+2 Be@rbricks
+8 various customs
+6 Patapons
-5 Nedzeds

Playlounge

Every addict has a dealer, and the dealer that started my addiction was...

... I first came into contact with Designer toys and the first time I really took notice of them was at Playlounge in London. I stumbled upon it because I was looking for more Gloomy Bear key-chains and they were the only place that had it in stock in town. This was back in 2005.

After a few random purchases, including lots of Nara Yoshitomo plushes, I was attracted by the character designs on some blind box mini figures. They get you hooked exactly the same way as capsule toys, where you do not know what you are going to get until you rip the packaging open. You keep buying until you've found all the ones that you want >_<

This mini figure series was David Horvath's 2-Faced Dunny series 2!!! The addiction worsened and after many other David Horvath and Kim Sun-Min toys later, I was too far down the rabbit hole to escape ........

Since then I've sold most of them from the 2-Faced Dunny series, keeping only the ones I really want, including these two.

I don't believe that I will ever kick this addiction for good but at least I hope to distill the collection into the very best for my Toy Shrine and stop being a completionist! :P

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 (>_<)