Adventure Time Toys are Out @ Mcdonalds Restaurants UK !

Cartoon Network's Adventure Time  is rad animation series. It was a lot of enjoyment to lead the development of the toy range and work together with Molly.

Large part of good luck  came down to cartoon network being very open to our suggestions , we were allowed to restyle the looks of 32 characters for the vinyl toy inspired figurine range! That was a rare freedom...

So the simple idea behind it was that the crazy loopy animation characters could mix and match to make weird combinations. The heads clip off to go with any body in the range. 32 figurines make for 1024 different possible combinations!  All the figurines follow a proprietary shape , with unique detailing to each character.

The promotion is running for the extended 8 week length at  McDonald's restaurants, UK. In the set , there are 2 character figurines and a sticker sheet.

I have to admit, it is still my fave toy design project to date. I was eager to share about these ones. I hope you enjoy them (:]

Mcdonalds Happy Creativity Toys

I'd like to share about another set of toys that got out today in French McDonald Restaurants. I was fortunate to lead this project, working together with lovely Molly.

The Theme of the set is creativity and individual customization, using Happy as the main character. In the set you have Happy Canvas that can be drawn on with a pencil; A pencil holder cannon; A Secret Keepsakes that can be customized with sticker decoration and Happy Frame with changeable expressions.

My favorite is the vinyl toy-like Happy Canvas :]

Many thanks for stopping by!

Transformers Figurines for Nestle

  

I'd like to share another  range of toys that I had worked on. Transformers: Robots in Disguise,  for Nestle Cereals.  This particular one was really fun to work on because we were allowed to stylize the looks of original characters: SuperD (super-deformed) transformers that light up once held in front of the light!

And here is the visual from the animation itself, that Hasbro released earlier this year:

Pokemon & Hello Kitty Toys for McDonald's

Colorful Kitchen set toys, developed specially for McDonald's France. So, left to right, you see egg cup, drink mixer, ice trays, cookie cutters and stampers, egg cup again and 2 fruit juicers at the center. With this set we were particularly pleased with how surface texture/finishes came out to be: mat or shiny, slightly speckled or smooth (reminds me of days when all of these were Maya shader considerations!). That little extra glossy finish on the character eyes did make the premiums pop!

This set has a bit of a special place in my heart as it was my first lead-designer project over a year ago..It was a challenging one, with numerous re-design attempts... honestly, how many different egg cups/ice trays can one imagine?? 8 is the answer... :D but at the end of the day, hopefully it is enjoyable to use these in kitchen.

Other than that, it pains me, that I rarely do blog updates .. I hope to share some freelance work for a show's mechanical puppets soon enough. And start to throw in some more personal work too.. :/

Lastly, to those who read this, thanks for popping by! (:] xox

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Toys

How to Train your Dragon 2 is an exciting film ! The winning designs were the gliders that offered that similar exciting experience. I mean , who didn't get in trouble in their childhood for having too much fun throwing paper planes in the classroom? :D
Working on these toys, about 2 years ago I was learning the ropes of toy design pipeline with this project:  visualizing concepts as well as representing them professionally, creating production artwork (sticker sheets and pictograms for how to use the toy); revising prototypes with redline drawings etc. etc.
I remember the engineering team doing their absolute best to find the perfect balance between the weight of the plastic and shape of paper wings to make it fly with confidence. Very rewarding when it all worked out well in the end.

Smartphone Sound Booster

Carlsberg asked to come up with some cool products for their 'Born to be Chilled' campaign. Out of the range, I've worked on the sound amplifier design . We nick-named it The Slipper :D . There were other designs suggested, such as some cool faceted amplifiers, which I thought looked more cool... But oh well, I guess :]

Generally the product is compatible with most smart devices and does actually boost the sound :D I saw some colleagues around the building doing some little work , their phones playing loud music with the help of this little fella :]

The benefit of silicone material is that the sound bounces around a little bit softer  in the chamber. With hard plastic chamber the sound would have a really tight and sharp quality to it.

It was distributed in ASDA stores at the beginning of summer (sorry, I'm a bit late to share this  design here :/ ) .