ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

If you thought all vinyl toys were starting to seem the same, look no further than Mark Ryden’s YHWH. After three years in production, Ryden will have his first vinyl figure available through his publishing company Porterhouse (which put out those great “goth” pin sets) last year and  Necessaries Toy Foundation (responsible for, among other things, Camille Rose Garcia’s vinyl figures).

Per Hi-Fructose (thanks to Attaboy for the head’s up): The unusual figure in nostalgic packaging is “a 3D representation of ‘YHWH’, an amorphous pink blobby bunny mini god with multiple eyes taken from Ryden’s painting of the same name. It is a gorgeous product produced in a rich pink, with high quality blue doll eyes rimmed in a deeper rose. There is an additional ’special edition’ that will be of 80 run in black and 80 in white, that will be signed by Ryden. The box itself is a piece of graphic confectionary itself, like a magical curio from a time gone by. Looking similar to a Chinese firework box, the box is embossed with gold leaf, and features hand wrapped paper.”

The painting can be seen above left with Brian McCarty’s photographic recreation above right.  As for Mark’s first toy, he said:

I love toys. I have collected toys for a long time and they are a major inspiration in my work. There are so many obvious toy possibilities within my paintings, that many people have tried to persuade (begged) me to make toys. I have resisted up until now because I didn’t want “toy production” to take over my life, which I fear it could. I was finally talked into doing a toy by my son, Jasper. I couldn’t say no to him! I also let him choose which image in my art to make a toy of. He choose YHWH. I put an homage to Jasper on the box. Of course this all came about 3 years ago when Jasper was seriously into the “Urban Vinyl” craze. I hadn’t planned on the LONG process of making this toy. Now Jasper has moved onto to other interests (punk rock).

This was not an easy toy to make (see Hi-Fructose for production details from Long Gone John), and while prices have yet to be announced (ETA is summer 2009), it should put the art of Mark Ryden into the realm of affordability for the average collector. Bring it on!