Design Festa 38

Welcome to Kaiju Korner's coverage of indie toys at Design Festa 38. At this installment of the extremely popular show which combines art, music, toys, and random displays of creativity, most of the indie toy makers were nicely concentrated in one section of the show. I found that a big improvement over previous shows.

Many of the regulars were in attendance, like Blobpus, Marmit, Refreshment Toys, and so on. And the Max Toy booth featured a number of international artists who flew over for the event, so it was a good chance for collectors to talk with the toy makers themselves.

I'd say on a whole, it felt like there were maybe not quite as many toy makers or collectors in attendance this time around. I think the latter might have had to do with the weather, which turned cold and wet at times.

Still, the show had a nice mix of new toy releases, new versions of well known figures, customs, collabs, and even a few protos on display.

Alright, let's get to the pics! The makers are ordered alphabetically. Please click on each image to see its full size.

Black Rabbit

 120+ pics after the jump:

Love this display!

Blobpus

 

Chima Group

Banana choco!

Dream Rockets

Dream Rockets always with a smile!

GID blanks!

Figlab

Tokusatsu themed finger puppets!

Check out the Barom 1 on the right

KR V3!

Jeff Lamm x Unbox Industries Greasebat gummies represent!

Galaxy People + Shirahama

Along with some great vinyl + resin pieces by Brian (Galaxy People), Shirahams dropped a run of beautiful marbled GID Kumons.

Display case. As I told Brian at the booth, I think he's put together a really excellent body of work over the years.

Kaijin + Konatsu

Helmet flap rotates down. Impressive piece.

Proto sculpt of upcoming sofubi figure.

The parts are all one piece finger puppets, but they flip, rotate, stack, and fit inside one another, making for some awesome playability.

Kikkake

First painted clown release. Superb design and paint detail!

Marmit

Marmit had a fantastic variety of figures for sale. The paintwork on this one is eerily realistic, with a translucent effect in areas.

Clear blue body

One of my favorite figures from the show. The kanji on the chest is 悪 = aku = evil.

The fellow in the back who looks like a bread roll is a yokai called Nupepo.

I asked how long it takes to paint a figure like this, and he said about 30 minutes.

Max Toy + Friends

Joseph Summers aka squibblesink

Todd Robertson aka Mechavirus

Max Toy

Javier Jimenez

 

Jay22  Twitter: @jay222toy

One Up

Zenith towering over Toyville!

New figure: Kamikaze by Dream Rockets

Refreshment + rampage

Refreshment Toys

rampage toys

Sunguts + Pico Pico

Popular Sunguts gacha machine

Yamomark

And that's a wrap on KK's DF 38 indie toy coverage. Thanks for reading!