Customizing Urban Vinyl Workshop by Daniel Yu for [Artificial Artefacts]

Tis not a common happenstance that a toy-customizer would hold a workshop about customizing toys (be it a newbie or an old-pro), much less hold it in this little island of Singapore, IMHO. Disregard the simple fact that the toy-communities here are splintered into so many different genres and toy-categories, with a small pocket of dedicated art toy-specific collectors. With that in mind, the "spirit" of DIY or self-customization is still in it's infancy, for the general populance. How many of you folks have bought or gotten yourself a DIY figure, and have yet to start on it? Simply because you do not know how or where to start?

Daniel Yu has been dabbling in customed-Playmobils for a short while now, starting first with action figures. An artist himself, Daniel's recent work sees a lot of sculpt-work and creation of characters. For [Artificial Artefacts]; Daniel conducted a "Customizing Urban Vinyl Workshop", utilizing Blank DIY Trexis sponsored by Play Imaginative, one fine Friday afternoon, as part of the Arts Fest VA Workshop [blogged]. TOYSREVIL was there to get some tips (and I sure did!) and to get into the spirit of DIY. CLICK THRU for event and custom-Trexi pics!


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The workshop began with a slideshow introduction into the realms of toy-customization. What exists in the world now, and what everyone can aspire to, and glean inspiration from. The venue for the workshop was at the open basement that which is dubbed "T-Junction" at SMU ("Singapore Management University"), which saw an extraordinary amount of peeps roller-blading and jogging by. heh.

Notice how the tables and palettes remain virgin-clean and fresh. That would change pretty soon, once Daniel brings everyone thru the basic paces of paint application and art materials.


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With Trexi-forms picked, and acrylics dissolved in water, paint brushes began to coat the blank toys with each participant's imagination. The workshop started from 3:30-ish pm and was scheduled to end by 6:30pm. By 7+pm, there were a few who still stayed behind to complete their figures. Peep below for some of the completed ones I managed to snap :)


Besides bringing the folks thru their paces, Daniel had also brought along his own sculpted Trexi-form (shown below) which I cannot wait to see fully painted! Kudos to Daniel for holding the workshop, and for the folks who attended and took part in what I think is a small but crucial step in helping the development and evolution of the toy-culture in Singapore, IMHO.


[3 x images in slideshow above / CLICK for full-screen viewing]

[More images via my Facebook-album]