Interview with the creator of Ozzel

dunny munny qee bearbrick kidrobot designer toy vinyl 

Tell us a little about yourself
Okay Dokey. My name is Paul Burke, im 28, i live pretty much smack bang in the middle of england and during the day i while away the hours between 8:30am till 5pm as a mild mannered graphic designer.

How and when did you get into designer toys?
Its a bit weird actually thinking about it. I’ve always had toy figures from when i was very little. Star wars, Action force etc. All the toys you played with and made fight each other haha. After I started getting into anime and manga when Akira came out over here in the UK i started getting figures of characters i liked from the films. Which lead to Mcfarlane toys etc etc. But its fairly recently i’ve gotten into the more designer / customised toy area. About a year and a half ago I found Vinylpulse.com and i’ve been hooked and thinking up ways of how the toys are made and how to make some myself ever since.

What are your favorite toys and/or artists?
I really like the toys that Itoken Park makes, 123 Klan’s designs, Rolito Park, Tesselate’s Tiny Heartheads and Metlex’s, Muttpop’s Luche Libre figures.. Monster5’s sculpts are amazing!, my friend (and the guy who sculpted the Ozzel) Jon-paul Kaiser’s sculpts, Okkle’s custom’s and art, Peskimo, Tado, I love the characters both of those design teams come up with! Reactor88 from reading your interview with him, his painting is so clean! there are too many haha i’d be here all day!

Can you tell us a little about your collection
My collection is rather limited to be honest. To look on my shelf you will see more of my painted up Ozzel’s than anything else. The toys i do have though are ones have really caught my eye and i couldn’t resist buying or i received as gifts. I think most of the toys I do have now are Rolitoland Park ones as some of them are just too cool! At the weekend i got my hands on a lovely 123klan Roscoe in Orange, and the Smoked black Rolitoboy Clear Mind. Brilliant!

When did you get the idea to make your own toy?
Its quite a weird turn of events actually. I was reading Vinyl Pulse and Vinyl Abuse every day and looking up Designer toys all over the place, and during the evenings i’d started repairing the rear arches on my car with filler. I had to do (and still do) quite a lot of actual filler reconstruction and to me it felt like i was sculpting the shape rather than just patching a hole and it just clicked. I thought, why dont i try to make one of my characters I’ve drawn into a little figure like i’ve been looking up all day?! It just came to me while i sat on a cooler box on my drive using a detail sander. haha. So a bit of research on the internet and i bought myself some Super Sculpey and asked my sister to lend me some wire from her hobby boxes for an armature.

I basically started teaching myself how to do sculpting in my spare time from looking up guides on the internet. Im not very good at it but its great fun and i’ve made a little figure i hope to cast a few of with some accessories soon.

Anyway, a few weeks later my flatmate introduced me to Jon-Paul Kaiser at a console games night we had round at my flat. We got chatting and I found out he was a sculptor. A really good one as it turned out and was into all this designer toy malarky as well. He asked to see the figure i’d started and to look through my doodle book and spotted the little bears i’d drawn a few years ago and thought they would make a nice little toy. I agreed, he went off with a photocopy and a few weeks later we had a little master figure sitting in our hands.
Can you tell us a little about the design process?
I basically re-drew the Ozzel front and back in illustrator for the actual paint scheme templates i use. I then copied them into Photoshop where i just sat and played really. The Punisher design came from me just staring at the shapes on the little fellow’s face. It just kind of clicked. I then proceeded to do 9 more designs over the following 2 days. I was really feeling it and ideas were just coming out of me. I thought 10 paint schemes was a nice round number.

For the commissioned or surprise birthday present scheme’s i’ve done i printed out the template and hand drew the designs onto the sheets during my breaktimes at work. I dont really know why i did those in pencil rather than on the computer though. Sometimes i guess its just quicker and more natural to scribble ideas down that way. A lot of my designs come out like a stream of consciousness. I do a little bit which then just sets the ball rolling and before i know it i see something i really like in front of me.

How did you work out how to produce your design?
Again a lot of internet research on what kind of products and materials are out there and how to actually use them. For me one of the greatest inspirations which got me thinking “yes, we can definetly do this on our own and produce a toy in my kitchen” was the tutorials from Sam’s (Tesselate) website and forum threads. Its one of the reasons we originally used Gel-flex for the mold material and Resin Plaster for the Casting.

Also, my sister works as a teacher at the local college and had peeked the 3D tutor’s interest telling him about what we were planning on doing. He generously let us go into one of the evening classes and use the microwave there and tap into his knowledge of sculpting clay and Gel-flex mold making. And at the end of the evening class we had a very quick finished mold and heads swimming with ideas.

Over the following weeks and months we experimented with mold after mold. I’ve cut that gel-flex up and re-melted it so many times now i’ve lost count! haha

I’ve also been through a far few boxes of Resin Plaster in the process too. But its all learning and the little break throughs you make with each attempt are so rewarding! The grin on my face from getting just half a cast produced must have been priceless!

If your willing to dive right in and give it ago you will find it so much fun and more realistic than you would originally think!

Do you make other art besides toys?
Yeah I doodle characters and things like that in my doodle book or any available scrap piece of paper lying around. I make vector and photoshop art when i get chance, and recently i’ve been doing some freelance web design with the webmaster at work.

What are your plans for the future concerning toys?
Well me and Jon are planning on carrying on from my Punisher’s and doing some joint colorway variations which i’m really looking forward too!

And i’m going to be experimenting with the little figure (mini-sloth) I made myself with silicone molding rather than gel-flex and getting the hang of casting in Plastic Resin. I tried casting in Plastic Resin at the beginning but i didn’t get very good results. But i’m not going to let that stop me! haha

Also me and my girlfriend have made a few experimental plushie versions of the Ozzel’s. I dont have a clue about sewing but she is a really good seamstress and has been teaching me. So hopefully we will get some of those made up at some point.

I love making my own toys! its opened up so many new areas for me to learn new things i would never have even tried before. Badge making, casting, mold making, gocco printing and sewing! )

What other interests do you have (besides designer toys)?
Erm i have quite a few hobbies really, well enough to fill my free time up a little too much sometimes haha. I ride bmx whenever i get chance and its dry. We recently got a really nice concrete skatepark in my town and i generally head down there. I also snowboard when i get time. I collect old consoles i always wanted when i was younger but couldnt afford, so i have quite a collection on the go and i also get on xbox live whenever i can on my 360. I’ve been teaching myself how to play the guitar from tabs on the internet over the past few years. And i study kung-fu during the week at a local kung-fu school.

Where can people learn more about or buy your toys?
I’ve been posting up quite regularly on the Vinyl Abuse forums with mold photos and my painted Ozzel’s so there is some info up there and i’m always happy to help with any questions people have. And im currently getting my head around making my website (www.porlzilla.com) where people will be able to see more about the Ozzel’s and also buy them from there.