Interview with Sam Millen creator of the Tiny Heartheads and Metlex One

designer vinyl toys dunny munny bearbrick qee kozik huck gee kidrobot toy2r

Tell us a little about yourself
Im a designer hailing from Folkestone, Kent, UK. I work fulltime as a freelance graphic designer / toy designer / and making other stuff for a living. I also run a small art gallery with my girlfriend (www.leighmulley.com), so I use the gallery as my office whilst manning the gallery (www.thegrocerygallery.com) at the same time. I also do a bit of window vinyl when people are looking for some. I’ve been into design all my life and studied interior / product design at college, then went onto Industrial Design at University, where I started to really work on character design, now Im beginning to start up a graphic design business with a couple of friends.

How and when did you get into designer toys?
I had been into toys and characters ever since I was a little kid, but Id have to say it was 2003 when I properly got into the designer toy scene. I went upto london on my birthday with my girlfriend, and I had planned to visit Playlounge as I had come across some info about the place online. I ended up buying 3 blind boxed series 4 QEE, then I kinda got hooked and started buying from online shops and ebay all the designs I liked. Then after joining some forums online and meeting like minded people I found out about more designer toys and got more into the custom scene.

What are your favorite toys and/or artists?
There are a lot of different designers that I really like, ranging from Tado to Peskimo to SKWAK and the cool KOA and loads of other people, the people who make their own designs really inspire me. I also just happen to find a load of wicked stuff on flickr through checking out peoples contact lists, they are the designs which inspire me the most, the people who maybe arent that known on the scene and arereally creating original designs

Can you tell us a little about your own collection
It’s a bit weird as I dont really have a proper collection, I actually dont have many figures at all, I tend to spend all my spare money on materials to make new figures. I do have a few of my favourite QEE and a couple of UNKL tinpo figures. I always get a bit bored of designs, mainly my own so I’m always redesigning websites and packaging etc, and I like to keep a blank canvas all around me so I dont get influenced that much, my pc desktop is plain blue

When did you get the idea to make your own toy?
I had the idea to make my own figure after I kept running out of blank figures to customise. I was mostly customising 8 inch qee figures, and kept running out of cash to buy more blanks, and after reading some posts on couple of forums about molding techniques, I decided to give it a go and make my own figure so I wouldnt ever run out of stuff to work on.

Can you tell us a little about the design process?
Well from scratch I design and produce a figure like this. The initial design comes from sketching, then I take the design into Adobe Illustrator and vector it up, and finalise the design. I then make a master model mainly from wood and clay, and take a mold from this in Gelflex. Once this mold is set , I make a cast of the figure in resin plaster (which is what I at the moment make all my figures out of), this figure can then be sanded smooth, finished off and have a couple of coats of primer sprayed on. I then use this figure and make a mold in silicone rubber.

How did you work out how to produce your design?
I had seen some people doing a bit of mold making at college / university, so I knew I could use a material called Gelflex, which is a rubber type material which can be melted on a standard oven hob and then poured to make the mold. So I made some master models of the tiny hearthead out of MDF, wooden dowl and clay after I had worked on a load of sketch designs. After I had made the master mold out of Gelflex I cast a figure using Plaster resin by Gedeo, I then tidy up this figure and get a nice smooth finish, with the primer/sand/primer/sand technique. Once I have a high quality master model, I then make the silicone rubber mold, you can see how I did it here : http://www.tesselate.me.uk/tessetoys/html/guide1.htm

What are your plans for the future concerning toys?
I have a lot of plans to develop the hearthead series, and Im working on some of those ideas now. I also have a BOILER series under development, which should be pretty cool, now all I need is some more hours in the day to get them all made I’m also going to start making my designs in full resin. I’m also making some new molds, where I can make a lot of figures at the same time, it takes so long to make a lot of figures when I can only make two at a time

What other interests do you have (besides designer toys)?
I’m into electronic music a lot, and collect labels such as Airecords, Adaadat, SKAM, and run a music review site : www.tesselate.me.uk (which I havent done anything on for 6 months plus, but will be) I also play a few games on the xbox 360 when I get time, at the mo ive been playing SKATE and The Orange Box, and you cant beat a bit of the mightly Quakeworld, but Super Mario Galaxy is out soon, so the hunt is on for a wii!!!!

Where can people learn more about and/or buy your toys?
You can find all the info about Tessetoys and my designs on : www.tesselate.me.uk/tessetoys