2010 was the year I started “customizing” toys. I’m neither an artist, nor a talented sketcher, but I still enjoy these moments spent on papers or plastic. This is for me the best way to free my mind, to relax or, on the opposite side, to focus and think deeply about work. Maybe strange, but I get better ideas for work while drawing some lines. Perhaps having my body (my hands) busy that way lets my brain relax and 100% ready for something else. Indeed, I usually use pencils without thinking what I’m targeting to sketch, just letting my fingers do what they feel doing and discovering now curves and shapes. That’s quite interesting as at the end I can pick some recurrent elements and gather them for more structured projects.

Working… I mean playing on Do-It-Yourself toys gives another dimension to this hobby. This is definitely harder and involves more tools, which doesn’t always fit my current job. Pencil and paints aren’t really welcome on my desk as my boss wouldn’t see the link between them and financial products. Lack of space and relation to my work taken into account, I’m basically only using one toy from Kidrobot (Trikky, the cat). I sketch over and over again, replacing the previous drawings by new ones, like a black board. Since I’m not expecting to make it as a piece of art, I feel more free to fail at trying new designs as well as practicing my skills on non-flat “canvas”.

Since I’m looking for inspiration through painting, I started to be interested into drawing tools, especially pencils and brushes. I don’t like so much the sharp nib of a pen as I feel needing some extra energy to spread ink on paper. Pencils are quite ok, but not what I could call the perfect flow applier. I read in many blogs/websites that Posca are great for vinyl figures: I have to disagree. The paint itself is good enough but the flow isn’t regular and the nib is too hard so you can easily damage the previous layer of paint. There is some Posca with brush but the result is too watery for me. Japanese calligraphy is using nice brushes with pen handles which are comfortable and giving the best result on paper (I tried the brand Pentel). Sadly, the ink doesn’t stay well on vinyl…
I’m still looking for the perfect tool: a brush with acrylic ink, thick enough for plastic so one layer would be enough and doesn’t dry too quickly. In Design Festa, One Japanese artist was using cars paint with brushes, showing a really nice result with vibrant colors. I should have a look on how to get some and keep them in a Japanese pencil.

Since I changed position in my company, it’s pretty hard for me to have some free time to spend on this hobby. I’m sketching definitely less and feel missing inspiration as well. I should maybe think about doing this at home, but strangely this is not the place I’m considering being stimulating enough for this practice.