Kieran Nolan » Designer Toys

Black Ox Fighting Bot

kieran — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:53:12 +0000

Just stumbled across this website from Japan all about robots and found the very impressive walking, fist throwing robot by Vstone called the Black Ox . It stands a mighty foot and a half high, has twenty articulation points and will lay waste to any miniature cityscape or opponent that stands in its way. The Black Ox is the nemesis of Gigantor, from a manga first published in 1956. It's great to see a fictional character brought to life like this, next step will be a full-scale model :)

Sinister 7 – Interactive Munny

kieran — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:01:21 +0000

This article from Sparkfun.com details a really interesting piece of work made with some of their equipment, an electronic version of the Magic 8-Ball game that detects motion through a gyroscope and displays its information on a mobile-phone screen embedded into a custom painted Munny. The DIY aspect of this project is great, as is the end result, an interactive twist to designer toy customisation.

Mephist Fiesta: Beast-666

kieran — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:18:57 +0000

This is a submission I've sent into a character design / repaint contest for the 'Mephist Fiesta' series of designer toys by Touma and Play Imaginative. Beast-666 has a fondness for barcodes, microchip implants and death metal :) - link

MadVillain / MF Doom Vinyl Figure

kieran — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:40:35 +0000

It was inevitable, sooner or later prolific underground rapper MF Doom, who's persona is heavily based on comic book character Dr Doom, would make the transition from vinyl record to urban vinyl in the form of his own action figure. Now it's going to happen in January through a collaboration between Stones Throw records and KidRobot - link

The figure will be MF in his Madvillain guise, all masked up with trenchcoat and hat. Check out the classic All Caps video to see the animated Madvillain.

Anatomy of a Kugg

kieran — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 20:05:02 +0000

Plastic and Plush has a really interesting two part feature on the development of a series of Urban Vinyl figures called 'Kuggs', right from concept design through to the prototyping and final production.

The Story of Kuggs - Part 1
The Story of Kuggs - Part 2

The Diabolical YouTube

kieran — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:56:43 +0000

Was having a browse through YouTube, the free video hosting community that's a surefire target for Napster style lithegation in the near future by pissed off media conglomerates... anyways found this video, a 1980's style Japanese toy commercial (produced by bbpbx.com) for the 24" talking 'Diabolical' Biz Markie Doll (famous rapper once sued by Gilbert O'Sullivan)... surreal stuff... Bonuz Biz links here!