Overview and Diary of my Delectables Project
You can follow my progress on Instagram too!
November 2014
Delectables Inspiration
Last year I started my “kawaii-cute” art phase where I revisited my childhood obsession with cute Japanese stationery and characters. Traditionally, cute things were exclusively a girl thing, with the exception of toys for infant boys. But in recent years, the emergence of the Brony circle has disrupted the status quo. Boys, and even grown men, have started liking and collecting toys that are marketed towards girls. Here, I saw on opportunity to bridge the gender gap in toys. I wanted to find a way to bring the sweet spirit of cute characters with unique personalities to both male and female audiences.
In November last year, I saw this really cool Dunny by Alex
I thought that it was simultaneously cute and cool, appealing to girls with its cupcake subject matter and boys with its radioactive character. At the same time, I got a blast from the past while browsing the #toys hashtag 0n Instagram. Does anyone remember Tea Bunnies?
March 12, 2015
Delectables Concept
Fast forward four months and I FINALLY got around to sketching a concept for my Delectables line. I was busy from January onwards with my Aquacorns line, and learning how to mold and cast resin toys. Without further ado, here’s the first sketch of what may be to come!
Here’s a concept drawing for a new toy design I’ve been working on. Inspired by @johnnythepezdunny ‘s Dunnycakes. I plan to create a whole series with each flavor having a different character/ personality. What do you guys think? #kidrobot #designertoy #vinyltoy #dunny #customtoy #cupcake #customdunny #mjhsu #mjhsutoys A photo posted by Mei-Jean *MJ* Hsu (@mjhsu) on
April 26, 2015
Cupcake Sculpts
I finally found time in my schedule to create the first sculpts for my Delectables! The bottom “cake” part of the cupcake was fairly easy. I used a silicone cupcake wrapper as a push mold to help get the right shape.
The icing hat was difficult and required two bakes. First, I created a plain cap with two holes cut out of it for the Dunny ears. After baking the cap, I had to sculpt the icing on top. At first I tried pushing the clay through a metal icing tip, but the tip was to small and the clay too thick to make it effective. In the end, I had to sculpt the icing by hand, which was quite a challenge.
May 14, 2015
More Cupcake Sculpts
I had a few initial concepts for my Delectaables line that included different types of icing hats. Last night I sculpted a second type of icing, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to include both of them in the first release.
My solution was to bring the question to my Instagram community!
Most of my followers liked the one on the left, which I have dubbed “fancy icing” better than the one on the right (“poop icing”). So I decided to go only with my fancy icing, at least for the first batch of Delectables. But I’ll still keep my poop icing around just in case I need some more variety.
May 19, 2015
It’s Moldin’ Time!
Molding my cupcake base and fancy icing.
June 1, 2015
First Casts
Casting my first Delectables. This is also my first time using colored resin! I used Smooth-On’s So-Strong resin tints with my Smoot-Cast 65D resin.
June 4, 2015
Painting…Almost Done!
Started painting my dunnys. Almost there! I’m planning the release sometime next week.
Note to self: get a better lamp for when I work at night!
June 7, 2015
Delectables Release Announced!
I’m pleased to announce the release date of my new Delectables line! You can read about it in my release blog post: Delectables Release
