Have you achieved one house and one pier?
Recently, it is true that the "ice pier" has been brushed on the screen, every street and alley, everyone's mouth, the first sentence of the meeting, is that you have an ice pier?
Every athlete and reporter shouted "This little Dency looks really chic"! There are also various key chains, badges, and even crystal balls, and this wave of play operations can be regarded as making the Beijing Winter Olympics understand.
Today we will follow this wave of heat to give you a popular science tide to play, and tell you how to become a tide play designer!
From the parents' generation who like to collect stamps and tapes, to the post-90s and Gen Z generation, the blind box tide play has become the object of more and more people's collection, and even an emotional sustenance. The following blind box characters, you will more or less have heard of:
MOLLY
LABUBU
DIMOO
毕奇
For many post-90s and millennials, smoking blind boxes, online boxes, waiting in line to collect a set of limited editions in the winter, has become a very normal part of their daily lives, and even some professional players have taken it as a career.
What exactly is a trendy toy? How did it catch fire? How does Design White become a screaming fashion designer?
Today I will talk to you in four parts about these things about tide play:
The history of trendy toys
The design process of trendy toys
Tide play designers need to master the skills
Tide play designer big bottom
01
Trendy toys are actually also called artist toys, mostly by
designer
、
artist
Sculptor
Most of them are very different in style and special materials, and most of the trendy toys are made of plastic or glue.
Compared with the traditional hand-made model, the trend toy does not have the deep story background of anime or two-dimensional plot, but through artistic design, different visual effects are achieved to impress the hearts of different consumers.
Michael Lau, the godfather of trendy toys
It originated in Hong Kong:
Trend culture first originated in Hong Kong in the late 1990s. At that time, Hong Kong's street culture was prevalent, and distinctive street elements such as sneakers, graffiti, and skateboarding were sought after by young people.
The godfather of trendy toys, Michael Lau, also has many friends who are obsessed with graffiti and street ball. Impressed by the trend culture, Michael began to experiment with the street elements into his creations.
1998 Hong Kong Trend Magazine "East Touch"
Michael was invited to draw the comic strip "Gardener"
The comic quickly became popular as Michael continued to create. At that time, Hong Kong happened to host the first TOY SOUL Toy Show, and Michael learned from his favorite G.I. Inspired by Joe's special forces, a series of 12-inch dolls were handmade on the basis of street-trending characters from the Gardener comics.
The concept of trendy toys
It also began to appear.
Gardener doll
Developments in other countries:
KAWS
At the same time that Hong Kong's trendy toys began to develop, american and Japanese trendy toys also began to sprout, and a large number of top artists emerged, one of the most well-known artists is the master of the fashion world - KAWS.
KAWS's original name was Brian Donnelly, and he graduated from the famous class in 1996
New York Institute of Visual Arts
(SVA), Bachelor of Fine Arts.
Because he loved graffiti since childhood, he later began to graffiti at new York City bus stops and phone booths. After being noticed by the brand, it received "spoof" active invitations, such as DIESEL, Calvin Klein, etc., and KAWS became famous in one fell swoop.
Kaws' iconic "XX" eyeball skull image passed
Spoof way
Repeatedly appearing in his artwork, in recent years KAWS has extended the figures to toys of various sizes, even giant ones
Installation art
。 Transform the flat artwork into a physical image that can be touched and interacted with, so that the audience can feel the artistic atmosphere at a deeper level.
BE@RBRICK
Another "tide circle" Icon that the tide play world has to mention is the BE@RBRICK building block bear designed by Akaji Ryuhiko. Akashi Ryuhiko is the founder of MediCom, and he has a different identity: interior designer, illustrator, fashion photographer, etc., and even worked in a computer manufacturing plant.
In 2001, Akaji Ryuhiko created BE@RBRICK inspired by the silhouette of a teddy bear. BE@RBRICK brick bears have a more diverse size and a very rich surface pattern.
BE@RBRICK has been putting
Trend elements
Street culture
The film is cross-border
And with artists, designers, popular brands around the world, it is loved by global trend toy collectors.
This bear acts as
A vehicle for contemporary art
Like a canvas, it records the gorgeous changes in the fashion circle and art circle every year.
02
Tide play type
At present, there are the following common trend toys on the market:
Blind box with gacha
Rubber toys
Soldiers
Handmade models
statue
Mech model
Blind boxes and gacha are the most exposed to the public, and can often be seen in various shopping malls. Blind boxes are similar in form to gacha, except that one is packed in a box and the other is wrapped in plastic balls, purchased on a gacha machine.
Gacha
Blind box
Rubber toys in tide play can be divided into
Glue toys
and
Soft glue toys
The styling style and texture of the two can be intuitively distinguished. The production steps of glue and soft glue are basically the same, but there are slight differences in the process, including the difference between the heating furnace (gelling furnace/oil furnace) and the temperature.
Urban vinyl
The style is simple and integrated into the street city culture
Soft vinyl
Simplified Japanese is pronounced Sofubi
Soldiers are divided into two kinds, one is a soldier in the narrow sense, that is, the "army men" (army men), the general proportion is the most classical 1/32, the most common is the common memory of many of us as children - green plastic creeps; the other is the ultra-simulated soldier model, the details of the face are carefully portrayed.
Hand-made models generally refer to models associated with IP such as animation, film and television, games, etc., mainly to meet the needs of enthusiasts and launched, today's model play has gradually formed a set of appreciation, sustenance feelings, collection, study and so on as one
Endemic pop culture
。
sculpture
Handmade statues are generally used
Limited edition
, do unions more elaborate. This also prompts it to be collectibles and even invested as wealth management products.
03
What a designer has to do
The design of a blind box toy generally requires several designers
Collaboration completed
Because it involves more design directions and a lot of work. If you want to design a molded role on your own, you need at least the following professional skills:
#01
Character design
Skills Required:
1. Imagination capable of creating small worlds for characters
2. Hand-drawn ability to express ideas clearly
Related professional recommendations:
Major in game, illustration, visual communication, pure art, etc
While the blind box character doesn't need the complex character character and story background of the anime character, it also needs to do something about the character itself
Definition and character building
。 For example, molly, which is well known, has always been the image of a little girl with blond hair and pouting.
The original Molly came out as a small painter, the ignorant big lake green eyes full of curiosity about the world, obsessed with colorful drawing boards, often immersed in their own creations.
Molly
So in the early stage of design, you need to determine the unique personality of the character, and then start the styling design.
#02
Graphic design
1. Modeling processing ability
2. Color matching ability
Major in graphic design, illustration major, visual communication major, pure art major, etc
After determining the category and personality of the character, it is necessary to draw a lot of line drawings to explore the details of the character modeling. For example, Ali's DingTalk's black swallow "Dingsanduo" image, after determining the animal "Swift" as the basic image model, the design team will start
Lots of hand-drawn creations
to try a variety of different styling combinations.
Nail three more hand-drawn manuscripts
Nail three multi color scheme
Nail three more refinement three views