Production Art Toys and Their Customs: "Jaws" by Coarsetoys
 
|
Jaws images above via. |
Published: December 14th, 2011
|
Coarsetoys unveiled their "Jaws" figure in 2008 amongst a portfolio of other highly popular projects. Collectors have bought up these super limited production toys so quickly that the demand vastly outweighs the supply by creators Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk. Currently, eBay has the market value for a Jaws as being worth $500-600! While these toys have a high value and a tremendous aesthetic appeal, they also are well designed and as such, toy customizers have assaulted that world to create even more fantastic versions. To learn more about the world these toys live in, Coarse has provided backstories to their Jaws Pain and Jaws Loser toys. For more info, I found these interviews with Mark Landwehr to be very interesting.
Running Opportunity LOL, I saw the beautiful customs of Coarsetoys Jaws figures and while the pricing keeps them from being in my home, the least I could do is attempt to blog all that I may find. If you click here, you can surf through more than twenty five high value custom Jaws and see how each artist added their unique style to these toys from Hong Kong. Following that, I contacted some of the best toy customizers and fplus, Nikejerk, and Kevin Gosselin were extremely kind in writing about Coarsetoys Jaws and the customs they created.
As a note, this article is not complete - nor may it ever be. Hopefully more customizers work on the Jaws platform and contribute their thoughts. Furthermore, it would be fantastic if the Coarse collectors out there would be willing to e-mail me so as to build upon this base with how they came into collecting and why they commission for costly but valuable art. Thank you so much to the contributors below!
Josh "fplus" Pearce
"I think my biggest attraction to the piece as a customizer, is it's a fairly normal proportioned human figure. It still very much has that distorted "urban vinyl" feel, so it's not just a big action figure or something, but It's a nice change of pace to work on a more developed form instead of all the fatter, stouter platforms out there. it's minimalistic in a way, and yet, I wouldn't add a thing to the base figure. Every time I work on one, I come up with five more ideas for characters to make out of it. Also, the shark crown is just baller. the vinyl is nice and thick, so if you pop an arm off or something, there's not a lot of chance of it tearing or anything. I'd love to see a female noop someday (wink wink)"
|
fplus on the internet: Website | Store | @fplus on Twitter | Flickr.
Check out our previous posts on fplus here.
Jared "Nikejerk" Cain
"So I've only done the 1 Jaws to date but I am currently working on a 2nd... and it really is a hard figure to work with. The most difficult part is it's not a platform figure where you have alot of room to manipulate the shape and silhouette of the figure. You really have to use the Noop to create a humanoid design, where the crown offers more room for interpretation. For Fangs, I spent quite a while speaking to the collector about his personal interests to try and conceive of a design that would have personal meaning to him. That is how we arrived at turning the Noop into a Shaman and using the crown to personify his spirit animal. The body tattoos are a very important cultural rite of passage in the South American native cultures, and the patterning for his shorts came directly from some textile patterns that I found that related to one of the tribes that was also known users of ayahausca. At first I wasn't quite sure how I was going to translate the crown into an anaconda, the animal the collector chose, but when it came to me it made so much sense. The tip of the crown worked out perfect for the head of the snake and the abstract coiling of his body over the top of the crown matched his tattoos and the textile pattern quite well. The collector also asked for a blank surf board which wasn't really connected to the design but turned out pretty good. I was told it had a bit too much curve to it but I didn't have a real board to compare it to...living in Atlanta GA. I was also very intent on making a custom box so I created a vector design based on the painted figure and used that to screen print a custom wooden box. I re-used the same foam insert from the original box, created new custom inserts to replace the red ones, cut a slit for the surf board and there you have it. The only custom Jaws box that I know of. I am incredibly proud of this piece and am honored to have it along side several other amazing custom Jaws. The Jaws I am currently working on is proving to be quite a task. It is going to have a custom made crown to replace the Shark, more body tattoos, and clothing. It has been a long time coming and I can't wait to reveal it. Stay tuned."
|
Follow Nikejerk on his Blog | Flickr | Twitter.
Read our interview with Nikejerk and check out our previous posts on the artist here.
Kevin Gosselin
When I contacted Kevin for a paragraph or two on Coarsetoys and their Jaws figure, this artist went above and beyond! Read our exclusive full walkthrough with images by Kevin Gosselin on his recent Jaws custom - "Coarse Jaw Samurai Pain."
Get more Kevin Gosselin from his Website | Store | Facebook | Twitter | Flickr
Read our interview with Kevin Gosselin and check out our previous posts on the artist here.
If you collect or customize these pieces and would like to be included in future revisions of this article, PLEASE e-mail me! Also, if you haven't checked them out already, enjoy our series of blog posts specifically about various Jaws figure customs.
If you enjoyed this article, you may want to check out the following:
©2010-2012 Opportunity LOL
Reproduction without explicit permission is prohibited. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
