Interview with Brandon ‘Manimal’ Usher

Please tell us a little about yourself
My name is Brandon ‘MANIMAL’ Usher, I’m 30 years old and live in Connecticut-USA. I’ve been married for a few years now, no kids yet - but our 2 cats keep me responsible enough for now. We just bought the dopest house a year ago ( how time flies ) and are in the process of morphing it into our own style…which means displaying any and all toys anywhere and everywhere and fiendishly collecting prints and canvases from my favorite artists. I’m very lucky to have a wife who likes these toys and art enough to want them all over the house.
I grew up skateboarding and loving board graphics - Itook that love and got into graphic design. Not wanting to work for a design firm I chose to do freelance work as well as start my own skateboard company which I ran from 1995-2000. It grew to a point where I had had to choose whether to grab a business loan to continue or let it die. At the age of 19 and still too immature to be responsible I at least realized that a loan for large amounts of $ wasn’t a good idea so I let it fizzle out. I still wonder today what might have been but it was fun while it lasted!

How and when did you get into designer toys?
I was running a videogame store and hired a kid as a favor to a good customer of mine. The customer’s little brother needed some sort of job and the customer assured me his brother was an ok kid. I hired the kid and he turned out to be a pretty good guy - One day the kid came in and handed me a QEE. Not knowing what the heck it was I asked and was told that a guy named Harry Oh , a buddy of his, designed the graphic - I dug it and went home to drop onto www.TOY2R.com and www.qeester.com ( RIP ) to see what this little qeechain was all about. After an hour of pouring through all the designer graphics and realizing that any regular person could come up with a design and have it possible put into production….well I was stoked on QEEs and decided to dig further……

Tell us a little about your own collection
My collection started with that Harry Oh ‘no worries’ USof QEE bear - I still have it today and always will - it’s where my collection started. The spark. From there I also discovered DUNNY and quickly grabbed at many many blind boxes starting with the LA series - which I believe to be the best dunny series to date. From there I ran wild - snatching up CiBOYS, Inventsville, ScaryGirl stuff for my wife and anything really that could be sold in a blind box. I loved the idea of the randomness and luck and never quite knowing what you might get!……that is until I learned of case layouts - used em a few times to get what I wanted and didn’t have as much fun.

About 8 months ago I changed direction in my collection and abandoned 90% of my mini 3 inch blind boxed toys. I did and always will continue to collect QEE. I read a lot of people starting on blind boxes and graduating to larger toys - its what happened to me as well. I have since discovered Kaiju and Japanese toys in general and love them - different materials are used in their production - very high quality stuff that is matched by almost no one in the industry here in the USA. The JPN stuff is very fun and I love to display all the odd and unusual monsters and creatures. So out with the small and in with the big! I bought a few nice glass display cases and cabinets to show off my now much larger ( in volume as well as size ) toy collection. I prefer larger toys now - Kozik’s 10′ Smokey is a grand piece indeed and I dig it along with all the chubby 10′ labbits and jumbo Qee and Trexi - my collection is now fewer pieces but on a much larger display scale - more in your face.

What are your favorite toys and/or artists?
I’d list my favorite artists at the current moment to be Abe Lincoln Jr. , Playskewl, SKET One , Kozik , Ed Templeton , Shan Michael Evans, Bil Betsovic, ……those are the faves - no way could I list em all - but those guys are at the forefront of what I choose to decorate my home in.

As far as toys I dig anything the JAMUNGO guys put out as well as Trexi and Qee. Im also a big fan of RxH and Secret Base stuff as well as any and all Hedorah toys - I love that disgusting monster!

When did you start customizing?
The very first custom I did was for a Secret Santa swap on Qeester - I did up a sweet little gingerbread cooQEE Bear - seen here.

I was excited more about the secret santa idea than the toy painting at first - but crafting that little Qee - when I was finished I loved the experience so much I couldn’t stop

What are your favorite toys for customizing ?
QEE are my favorite toys to paint hands down - best quality DIY in the market today. I like the animal shapes - they never bore me and you can do so much with them - they just spark creativity! I also have started to airbrush some JPN kaiju toys - Secret Base and RxH sculpts are what really interests me as well as painting Hedorah.

What materials and techniques do you use?
Anything I can get my hands on! The usual acrylic and oil based paints and paintmarkers, airbrushing has been a recent new toy for me and have had fun using it as well as some success being made with it- I like to find junk objects and work them into customs from time to time, cutting into the blanktoys and applying random objects like springs or gears for eyes or hair and whatnot - so many things are still out there for me to use on my customs - I like to collect junk from my day to day and see where it could be used on the next custom. Technique wise - I don’t subscribe to any certain one or a particular style for that matter - which makes it hard to peg something as a MANIMAL custom per se - anywhere from slinging drips of paint to using stone flex spray and expanding foam - to a steady hand brushed line - I run the gamit on techniques and applications for my customs.

How much time do you spend customizing a toy?

I have never really timed myself. Depending on the toy and the idea - anywhere from a weekend to a few months.

Do you make other art besides customizing toys?
I paint with oils - mostly abstract art that is more conceptual rather than subject based - quite different from what we all see in the Toy Community.

What other interests do you have (besides designer toys)?
I’m a videogame nerd - playing daily on any and all videogame systems - if you have XBOX LIVE - send me a friend request to MANIMAL - other than that I spend free time reading books and magazines, listening to music and watching TV - all the regular stuff regular people do here in this manimal kingdom.

Do you take on commisions?
Yes I do ! mention this interview and be a new customer - you will get a killer introductory price on your first custom from me!

Where can people see more of your work and/or contact you?
Im currently searching for a web wizard to help me rebuild www.manimalkingdom.com so for now I can be found on the various TOY boards showing off recent work and can be contacted thru those sites as well as brandonusher@hotmail.com and www.myspace.com/manimalkingdom