"Toys, Movies and a Blog – How Design Influenced My Life": A Talk by Andy Heng
This humble blog remained somewhat dormant for the couple of days (*pats blog on the head for comfort & warmth*), was primarily because I had been preparing for my talk at the Singapore University of Social Science (SUSS), which happened on Saturday yesterday - titled “Toys, Movies and a Blog – How Design Influenced My Life” - as part of the annual Singapore Design Week.
The week spent (quite literally) digging thru my past 30 years, had me physically exhausted, and very nearly had my talk direction derailed, if not for the night before (at 2:40AM), when I realised I had prepped beyond my hour's worth of sharing, to eventually cutting down on the amount of images in my slideshow (#imsuchanoob), of which a typo slapped me across the face at the end of it all ~ *Calamity*
And the ironic part of it all? I had written/typed out an entire blogpost for this talk, somehow after providing myself with the words with which I needed the photos for, thinking I could somehow memorise it all at the end of it…? HAH.
Nevertheless, I survived the day itself, and am proud of the folks who stayed through the end of my extra hour's worth of rambles and pictures of toys! YOU FOLK ROCK!!! ... Organizers on the other had... ANYWAYS - my sincere THANK YOUS for all who choose to turn up! I know the venue was not the easiest to get to, and truly appreciate the effort and trouble. I wished I had available free toys to give to everyone there too...
*WAVES HI to new readers of TOYSREVIL from the talk!*
I had chosen to separate my previous work and life in Interior Design, and designing for Film & Television, for over a decade on this blog (But if you were with me from the "start", you'd see me posting my on-set mages :p), and having this talk really helped and pushed me to reassess and re-evaluate my journey (online and offline), and frankly it has drained me quite a bit more than I let on lol
For folks who are reading or interested, you can check out my design work for Film & TV on:
Blog (for Films, with trailers)
#andyhengart Tagged On Instagram
And in lieu of featuring "old" toynews from the past two days, permit me to instead share a selection of slide-images, of what I had shown on Saturday, AND additional images which I edited out.
I had shared snaps & talked about my teenage dreams of being a comic-book artist, transitioning to studying & graduating in Interior Design, which later led to designing for Film and Television.
Featured below is a vain-glorious look at my winning designs for the inaugural Singapore Young Designers Award back in 1988 (*I was 1 of 9 winners).
Besides this being the first time I won any contest, it was also the first time I wore a tie, a pair of dress pants, a jacket, and faux leather shoes - so I could meet the general public, and meet the President of Singapore then, the late Wee Kim Wee. This impacted me, as before then I had been a tee and jeans kinda guy and being thrust into the public spotlight, really pushed me out of my shell then, IMHO. I was just 18 years old then, have yet to serve my National Service, and still in (Interior) Design School.
I spoke about my early days as a (Senior) Set Designer (for the then pre-MediaCorp "Television Corporation of Singapore") in the mid-to-late 90s, in which they provided me with the basic tools to transition to Feature Film, and later as a Art Director for (long & short form) broadcast television. For all intents and purposes, I am essentially "Self-taught" is this arena.
FYI: All drawings (presentation & working plans etc) were hand-drawn (inked) / analog - of which I am proud of, and has helped carried me to projects throughout my working life.
In my previous #worklife as a Production Designer and Art Director for feature films, I am credited with 6 movies (IMDb page), including:
1. "ForeverFever / That's The Way I Like It" (1998 / AD)
2. "The Teenage Textbook Movie" (1998 / PD)
3. "Street Angels / 少女党" (1999 / PD & AD)
4. "Song of the Stork" (2002 / P&D)
5. "Perth" (2004 / PD)
6. "Rice Rhapsody" (2004 / PD & AD)
You can view more still images on my dedicated Facebook, and watch trailers (and "more") on andyhengart.blogspot.com.
I spoke about my earlier work in Film and Television Designs and Art Direction being influenced by my own dreams of drawing and loving comicbooks, and my passion for toys, culminating in a particular project from 2004, a #longform tv show titled "ROUGE" - of which select images are shown here of;
(Pic #2) initial character concept sketch. (3-4) character styling using my own collection of 1/6th-figures (and clothes)!
(Pics #5-6) my storyboards for the opening title sequence I had designed & styled, & directed by myself (No I am not skilled nor talented to edit, c'mon lol).
(Pic #7) Screengrabs of finished boradcasted version (alas I do not have the full final sequence to show-n-share).
(Pic #8) On-set images of the main cast, dressed in character (along with store-displays & promotional posters we created etc) and on-camera/on-air.
(Pic #10) And I get to design and we made a B-movie styled spaceship for one episode! How awesome a #geeklife I got to have?!!
*These were slideshow & additional supplementary images for my March 9th talk at #SUSS for #SingaporeDesignWeek.
I shared with folks what led to the creation of "TOYSREVIL" - both as an online nick and eventually the blog. I had been a "toy-collector" first, translating my career (then) of creating an image within the (camera) frame, with background dioramas, and utilising the sense of scale from my past experiences in Interior Design, Television Design and Film days, into a #toylife fulfilment of my own self-made project(s). Before the blog, I had my own website (2nd pic) just showcasing my kitbashed figures!
You can view MORE of my 1/6th hobby on Facebook and hobby-blog :)
I shared with folks how TOYSREVIL evolved from a hobby, with posting in online toy-forums, to public platforms (who here remembers "Multiply"?), to starting & the reasons for running my own blog for the past 14 years.
TOYSREVIL has always been more than a "hypebeast" / "billboard" for toynews - where I can reminisce about my toy-collecting adventures, my views on related select geek & pop culture subjects, and how it all connects to my personal life. I post art/sketches (because I love to draw), and post select movie & anime films (because I love & enjoy them) .... Essentially sharing my own loves with folks online, as primarily a one-author-show , and I am thankful folks still find something interesting enough to want to visit my blog.
Do You Remember A Time When Toys Were Fun? (2007)
I Like Resin Toys (2011)
Living The 1/6-World: Adventures of Team-Building in the 1/6th-scale Hobby (2011)
LEGO & ME: Of Bittersweet Memories, Unold Stories & Bootleg Alternatives (2014)
The while the www-landscape has changed, and readership needs have since shifted, so too had my real-life - especially after Stroke - as have my language and the way I write also altered, not to mention my life-view, world-view, and even how I look at toys, and what they mean to me now ...
In the 14 years since the launch of this blog, I had authored it for 5 years before I suffered from Stroke, survived and pushed on for over 8 years since, and the words and language shows, at least to me when I read my older posts.
And while it might be “just a blog” to the average reader (*Understandably so, of course), but in many ways, it has become a mirror to my own life (Or should I have said "Reflection"? :p) ... and even as far as to say I “brought up a 14 year old”...??! :)
Thank You For Reading TOYSREVIL
Cheers
Andy Heng
