Better late than never?
This month's title, while late, is still not quite an art instruction book but is, rather, another art inspiration book: Vinyl Will Kill - An inside look at the designer toy phenomenon from Design Labs.
When I first thought of eventually publishing a webcomic, I immediately toyed (ye gads, another atrocious pun) with the idea that the characters I'd created might have marketing potential as action figures; I've even gone so far as to think about the packaging. Other artists have produced homemade items: small standees and other paper crafts, shrinky-dinks, laser-cut (!) or etched badges or, even contracted with factories to make metal pins based on their creations to supplement the donations that are typically the only income derived from webcomics. After all, as Mel Brooks's character "Yogurt" in his space-opera mashup film Spaceballs said: "Merchandising, merchandising -- where the real money from the movie is made."
Having heard of the vinyl toy phenom, from TV programs like the once-qualitative ones on G4, web searches, and seeing the actual products in the local stores favoured by trendoids, thought it might be one way to get into production. After all, I doubt that Mattel would be interested in a line of furry characters from a minor webcomic. A cottage industry might just work, though.
Hence this book. A quick perusal reveals scads of interviews with "them that are doing" and, I hope a thorough reading will reveal not only the thought processes behind creating these toys but, the mechanics of production as well.
The book comes in a box with a little window (accounting for the sheen on the rabbit above) in it allowing one to see part of the cover, which it nearly duplicates. I've also slapped my sig over this piccy as a watermark so it won't be stolen by an ebaYer too lazy to make his own scan. Also contained within is a folded-up poster and 36 collectible cards, which seem to be randomly selected from a slightly larger set. "Gotta catch 'em all"? Doesn't seem that they needed any additional marketing gimmick to sell this specialty tome but, who knows?
Sadly now out-of-print (copyright 2004) but still available on ebaY (what isn't?) some specialty book stores and even Amazon; selling as a collectible for umpteen-times its cover price.
Now, I have a background in plastic prototyping, via CAD-CAM and Stereolithography, and have done hand lay-up fibreglass work and metal casting, so will be trying to extrapolate that experience into modeling (additive sculpture) with polymer clays to sculpt the prototype figurines. Perhaps the instructional material from that effort might even make its way into this blog.
Rapid-prototyping is all about taking a project "from art to part" and, that translation often leads to something being lost or gained, as one discipline rubs up against another and either amalgamates or knocks the rough edges off. I'm curious to see how designing vinyl toys will affect my characters' looks in the model sheets, and question even if it should. After all: there's always garage kits to consider.