TTF09 WRAP-UP: Q&A with LouLou & Tummie (Artists @ Taipei Toy Festival 2009)

TRE (cyber) caught up with Netherlands-based Illustrators, toy collectors and toy creators LouLou and Tummie [www] to find out their impressions of last weekend's Taipei Toy Festival [tagged-on-TRE] - for which happened to be their first time at TTF, along with the launch of their plush and merchandise line TUMMIE & FRIENDS [www] via BUBU Co. [tagged]!
CLICK THRU to read the Q&A, along with one of the most bestest toy-score pic/s I've had posted on TRE thus far in 2009!



TOYSREVIL: How many times have you been to TTF so far? (Including
this year)

LOULOU & TUMMIE: This year was our first time!

TOYSREVIL: How was the experience at the event? Especially with the
debut of your toys with BUBU Co.?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: It was overwhelming. We got so much great responses and people lining up for us so that was great. We think we did pretty good for the first time :)

We have to thank Bubu Co. who produced all the products and made sure everything came out great and also did a super job on promoting 'The Tummie Friends' and making sure we had a great time.




TOYSREVIL: Besides the toy-launch - did you folks enjoy the event? Did you also manage to go around the booths? What are your impressions?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: Yes, we had a blast! We went round to see all the booths... a hundred times!!! and everyday we noticed something new :) We met a lot of great people and other designers and we made some new cool friends.

TOYSREVIL: That's something I lurve about events like these as well, discovering something new everyday! Did you score any good toys? Or wish you did or regret
not scoring during the event? What do you collect?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: Oh, we certainly have :) (We had to throw stuff out of our suitcases and we bought two new bags to take all the toys we bought back home, haha! :)

We bought way to many to list here but some of our favourites are definitely the three 'first strike' figures of the Chi Bo toys by Chi-Kit Kwong LouLou was looking out for the past year. The new pink 8" treeson and the Treeson blindbox set by Crazy Label are great. We finaly bought the strawberry/ pixie version of the Berenjena by DGHP wich we wanted for quite a while and Tummie just had to have Robby The Spaceman by Itokin Park.


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LOULOU & TUMMIE: We like lots of cute toys and robots basically :) We're not perse looking for the catches or the limited editions, we just buy anything we like. Designer toys, robots, wooden toys, plastic, vinyl, vintage... anything will do... we even shop for fun stuff at Toys 'R' us :)

TOYSREVIL: What was your personal overall impression of the event? A Success or Failure? And Why?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: We can't compare to other years since this was our debut. We got the Tummie Friends products out there for the first time and it was great to see that people loved it and we had a fantastic time. We got sore arms from the signing sessions and cramps in our cheeks from smiling while posing for pictures so we think it was a succes :)



TOYSREVIL: Anything interesting that caught your eye? That made you want to own or try to own the toy/figure/s?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: There were a lot of inspiring toys but we probably loved the three Chi Bo toys (just mentioned it before :) the most. The designer is a super talented and the plan is to produce a line of 60 characters within the next few years wich is quite a task. We saw pics of the prototypes here on TRE about a year ago and LouLou was psyched to see them in real life on the fair.

TOYSREVIL: Nice! Any improvements need to be made? Or suggestions to improve for 2010?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: Haha, well... working airconditioning would be nice! The first day the sweat was gushing from our backs! Luckily the following three days it was fixed :) But actually there's really nothing that we can think of... it was good.

TOYSREVIL: What was your most memorable happening/incident/item of TTF 2009?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: Actually there isn't one specific moment, we loved it all! The thing that we really loved most was meeting all the people.


TOYSREVIL: How about 2010? Looking forward to going / exhibiting again?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: Oh yeah, if we have the chance to go there next year we definitely will. Unfortunately we live quite far away (Netherlands) so we'll have to see if we can fit it in by that time. But we're sure Bubuco. will be there to show the goods :)

TOYSREVIL: What's next for LouLou and Tummie? For Tummie and Friends?

LOULOU & TUMMIE: We will most certainly expand the range of plush toys and other products of 'The Tummie Friends' line and hopefully we can do some more collaborations with other designers and brands. We're chock-full of ideas :)

[All Images via BUBU Co-flickr & LouLou-flickr]