2003 has been a troubled year for the collectible toy market in Asia, and after its opening day, the Hong Kong Plug-In Xmas Toycon appears to be a fitting reflection. Normally occurring three times annually, the Toycon series was abbreviated to 2 exhibitions in 2003 due to the SARS crisis.
The epidemic interfered with production so severely that product release schedules continue to be affective eight months later. More significantly, the already slow economy in Hong Kong was clobbered by the near total cessation of tourism and business travel for several months. Markets for non-essential goods and services have been affected most, and (as much as some of us might think otherwise), designer toys don't rank at the top of most consumers priorities when times are tight.
The most obvious effect visible at PIXmas '03 is the drop in attendance of both exhibitors and attendees. Among the missing are designer toy heavyweights Eric So, Brothersfree (although a cryptic banner strung against one of the columns said "Brothersranger") and Hot Toys. Other missing faces include 2da6, Spanky, Ching & Co, Da Joint & Sugoi— along with probably a dozen that have made appearances over the past year or two.
Despite these noticeable changes, there’s some pretty nice looking figures on display:
CRAZYSMILES
One thing that hasn't changed is the line outside of the crazysmiles booth. As in every show for the past few years, attendees arrived early to the exhibition center only to queue up again to get a dose of Michael Lau's latest offerings.
Michael's work of this past year has followed two main stylistic tracks: one he began last year with cc king and has continued into his crazychildhood series; the second returning to his figure design roots by "vinylizing" his 12" gardener characters. Today he released new gardeners, both classily displayed under glass atop white pedestals.
Gardener 002, "MISS" is rotocast rendition of one of the female gardenergala characters. Approximately 6 inches tall, Miss has brown hair worn in pigtails, bright pink facial skin and blue lips. She wears pink sneakers, blue jeans and a red tank top with a design bitten from Shepard Fairey. In the vinyl gardener tradition, she also has metal chain jewelry and a terry-cloth wristband on her right arm. MISS comes with an extra five pairs of hands, each molded in a distinct pose.
Gardener 067, "LAZY XXX" is vinyl take on the "LAZY" characters within the 101 gardeners series. He has jet-black skin with gray hair and goatee, and wears the white pinstripe jersey often worn by members (both human and plastic) of the now-defunct Hong Kong hip-hop group LMF. Like his pig-tailed counterpart, Lazy XXX comes with 5 additional hands sets, each with a tattoo "8" on the left hand.
Michael also previewed a set of vinyl figures that will be available through his new sixs exhibition space in January 2004. The three characters are versions of his crazychildhood characters ("thegirl," "mydog" & "mycat") each with heads in the shape of a numeral "6."
FLYING CAT
While having little actually for sale, Toycon regular Flying Cat announced a number of new projects that it is either producing and distributing (including Takumi Iwase, David Horvath, KidRobot, SEG and Playbeast).
Piggang, veteran Flying Cat designer Takumi Iwase's newest figure, veers away from the rock & roll theme with this 1920's-era gangster swine. Limited to 500 pieces in two colorways (white and black suits), available late January. Noupa is designed by David Horvath of Uglydolls fame and is based on a character that pre-dates Uglydolls by several years. Flying Cat will release a 4-piece collector set of ABS mini-figures late January, with plans to follow up with blind box assortment.
In addition to these projects, Nathan Jurevicius' new Scarygirl figures took primary shelf space and new projects by STRANGEco were also on display.
SCARYGIRL
The internationally popular Scarygirl series has propelled its artist Nathan Jurevicius into designer toy recognition, and this Toycon featured a series of new projects. Producer Flying Cat announced Chihoohoo, the fifth Scarygirl limited edition vinyl figure, plus a new line of Scarygirl Mini Figures (the unpainted sculpts were on display). The new minis will be available mid-February in a blind box assortment and in window boxes for the US market. As with Mini Treehouse, STRANGEco will distribute in the United States.
Nathan also announced a Special Edition Scarygirl & Toycat set, which was produced to coincide with his exhibition at Melbourne's Outre Gallery next month. The new Scarygirl & Toycat set will be released in two versions: a general release of 150 pieces with gray face and 50 pieces with a pink face for the exhibition only.
STRANGEco
Flying Cat was gracious to allow us shelf space to display our new projects, including figures by SF artists MARS-1 (co-produced with Recon), and Sam Flores (with Fifty24SF Gallery), plus Titus by Rocketworld and Mechabot by Go Hero. All impartiality aside, the figures appear to be making a splash.
MEDICOM
The only other booth to attract a line was Medicom's Hong Kong distributor, Fonca. They are selling limited edition 400% and 1000% UNKLE Kubricks. Today the green 400% version was on sale, and the limit one per customer was strictly enforced: a HK ID card or foreign passport was required for purchase so the Fonca staff could record the unique ID number!
These are larger versions of the normal size UNKLE Kubricks released earlier this year. For those unfamiliar, this is the logo character of the Mo' Wax project of James Lavelle and DJ Shadow. Also known as POINTMAN, the character was originally designed by NYC graffiti/gallery/multi-media artist, Futura 2000. As the name suggests, the figures' heads are sharply pointed which makes the 1000% edition around 2.5' tall. If you buy one of the many popping up on eBay, be prepared to shell it out for shipping.
Check back tomorrow for more details and photos of the other attendees, including Jason Siu, IT Rangers, DaTeamBronx, Comix Box, Toy2r, newcomer Creative Place and AdFunture’s Monkey Show.