Sunday, May 15, 2016

Design Festa 43 - Indie Toys

The latest Design Festa, one of Japan's largest gatherings of craftspeople, musicians. and other creative sorts, took place at the Tokyo Big Sight on a beautiful spring weekend.

Many of the indie sofubi stalwarts were there, and in addition to those I wanted to provide a look at some makers working with other materials, since Design Festa really brings everything together, from sofubi to felt to yarn to wood, and more. So here's our toy report, with makers arranged alphabetically.

Atara
Super creative wooden toys. Click here for Atara's website.

 More after the jump:



 Blobpus

How awesome are these Blobpus x Galaxy People collabs!






These Biterfish are customs by Kaji-san.



Chima Group




Dan


Dol Roffo
Long-time yarn worker who often collabs with sofubi makers.




Engimono Department Store
This booth represented quite a few toy makers. There were so many people lined up that they had to move the line to a corner and bring people over a few at a time.







 Galaxy People


I really like this mashup.





Drawn by Brian's daughter

Hints and Spices
This intrepid toy maker made the trip over from Australia to attend.







Toys + chocolate = winner!

Indigo
Very talented felt maker. Click here for their website.







Jungle

The grey one is a one-off.






Another custom. Cool figure.
Markaro


 
 

 
Nice write up of the figure's backstory.
Company history
 Marukai

In-development sculpt


Love the backdrop



Masataro Toys
More nice felt toys



Booska is the perfect character for a felt project!


Handmade packaging, Nice touch!
Max Toy





One Up


Paul Kaiju
Paul released this sweet Mockbat at the show!
Pico Pico




Rampage Toys







Great paint work
Science Patrol
Toys circled by trains - TES!








Sunguts




Touma

Tovi
Tovi also flew over from the land down under.

There are magnets in each toy so you can remove them from the dango stick. (Dango is really tasty Check out this write-up I did of a dango stall near Nakano Broadway.)

Super glossy dessert-themed toys.

Who doesn't love Skittles??


 Yamomark






Hand puppet fight!
Thanks for reading! Head on over to our Facebook page to say hi and tell us which toys are your favorites!

2 comments:

boon velvet said...

Hey Andy! Excellent coverage as always, bud.

I'm interested in learning more about Marukai's Hikari robot remake. Do you know if they're planning on remodeling anymore from that series?

Thanks!

andy b said...

Thanks! Yes, I believe the one he's currently working on is a new version, and he brought out another head part to show me. That's all I know about the series. Incidentally, the same guy who makes those has a physical shop not far from Nakano Broadway.

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