I have been a brand designer since the 1990’s and only started focusing on toy design and painting since 2019. I had a passing interest in vinyl toys and designer toys since the early 2000’s but I wasn’t fully immersed until 2019 when I started designing resin toys and having conversations with other artists about how to produce and paint vinyl toys.

I had a fairly extensive art background, and creating designer vinyl toys requires skills in sculpting (or 3D rendering) to create the original model used to make a mold. And many toy designers are also painters and create limited editions of their toys in different colored vinyl casts and then apply limited paint applications for their collectors.

When I started there wasn’t a lot of engagement with the artists I was interested in, so I would reach out, “artist to artist” and ask a lot of questions. I learned a lot from people in the scene and studied a lot of their sculpting and painting techniques and began experimenting with resin casting to understand the engineering behind a good sculpt that reproduces well.

My name is Deon and my artist name is Kachina! Kachina!. I run a Brand Design business as well as a Toy Design business where I design, produce and paint my own toys, as well as paint toys for other toy designers that live across the United States. In general the toy world is huge, and I’m interested in a small slice of specialty toys created by artists in limited runs using a method developed in Japan in the late ‘60s that produce seamless vinyl toys known as “Sofubi”.

The group of artists from around the world that are making vinyl toys are amazingly talented and are inspired by Japanese culture, pop-culture, robots, horror, monsters, sci-fi, Kwaii figures and fantastic creatures from their own imaginations. All of the figures beautifully cast in an array of bright soft vinyl and painted with airbrush and bristle brush.

The designer toy world is very interesting because of the crossover of so many skills from sculpting to painting to understanding the molding / casting and manufacturing process. The foundation is primarily comprised of tangible skills people relate to being a fine artist and I feel that creates a strong community of artists that are willing to discuss the process and share information on how to get from point A to B and reliable resources. I learned so much from networking with knowledgeable talented artists that were accessible through social media.

Another aspect of the community is the open collaboration with other artists, I always learn so much from working with others. Currently I have one vinyl toy that has been molded and produced, he’s a sun figure named ‘Sunny”. I get a run of 50 casts pulled in a single color, and paint several limited edition runs, and also invite other artists that I am interested in to collaborate with me and paint limited edition runs in their style on my toy. This keeps my figure fresh and exciting in peoples minds, and expands interest between our groups of followers. I also paint limited edition runs in my style for toy designers who produce their own lines of toys. I’ll share some photos of my collaborations with Elixir Toys (@elixirtoys) and Wonder Goblin (@wondergoblin) where I have collaborated with them and painted their amazing toys. These collaborations present a fantastic opportunity that allows me to expand on the toys I paint, build relationships with artists and get exposure to each other’s social media audiences. It’s also common to take commission projects from collectors where I paint toys from their personal collection, or paint one of my toys specifically to match their collection.

Designer toy collaborations also extend to sculpting as well as painting and many times a toy designer will hire another artist to either 3D sculpt or create a wax sculpt of their design and many wonderful projects are realized because people with complimentary skill sets are able to meet through a social media community and push the bounds of imagination for the sake of creativity and love of toys. It’s truly one of the most exciting corners of the art world because it exists in a very amazing niche of artist-funded commercially produced product, that relies on the skills of traditional artists and then crosses-over into the world of Collectors and Pop-Art.

As I mentioned earlier, in addition to being a Toy Designer / Painter / Sculptor, I run a my own brand design business. I have worked for many large advertising agencies with very large brands as my clients. In 2013 one of my work associates got ill and passed away and while I was attending his funeral I made an interesting observation. I could clearly remember working with my associate, but not the specific projects we worked on. I recall there being a constant blur of urgent jobs each more important than the last, but the jobs themselves were long gone and forgotten. I looked around and none of our clients were in attendance at his funeral. I realized in that moment, this was the legacy of my life. Working on projects I can’t remember for people that wouldn’t show up to my funeral if I died. I decided that I needed to make a pivot in my life right then and decided to work on projects that were important to me, and ‘real’ in the world.

I wanted to create things that people could hold and touch, practical art that would bring them joy or give them pause, something that would last. A piece of art that one day might be displayed in a museum or auctioned to an art collector, or perhaps lost outside and dug up hundreds of years into the future, essentially in the same shape as it was when it was created. An archeologist won’t ever be able to dig up a website I designed in 2015, but vinyl toys will be around for a long time because this art form has literal permanence beyond its creators – plastic is forever.

I love the collaborations with other artists as well as my collectors. It’s amazing to me how deeply we connect with people through toys. For many of us that represents the earliest interactions we had while learning to work with others, and there’s an openness around the idea of toys and ‘play’. I rarely have toy battles that last more than a few seconds these days, but most of the play as adults comes in the appreciation of a beautifully sculpted and painted toy, or creating displays of specific artists or their color palette. They’re toys, but they’re also unique pieces of art. They’re limited and bear the unique expression of their creators. To have the toys I created, or toys that I painted be displayed in personal collections around the world, next to artists I admire is extremely rewarding to me.

To be able to connect with a person I’ve never met in person who lives on the other side of the United States from me. All because they have an emotional connection to something that I sculpted and brought to life from my imagination, gives me a feeling that this is my purpose. I might not be able to make a huge impact where millions of people are affected, but I can make several small impacts where a few people are hugely affected and maybe that’s just as good. Making a living by creating love and smiles sounds like a perpetually rewarding place to be.