The Toy and Comic Convention in Singapore event 2008

I was at Suntec City 2 Saturdays ago to visit the first ever Toy and Comic exhibition to be held in Singapore.

Unfortunately, I only knew about it last minute when I saw several of my friends plurking about it. By then, it was too late for me to be an early bird registrant and I missed my chance in getting a Happy Tree Friends goodie bag! Happy Tree Friends is a violent cartoon series, but the characters are undeniably cute 🙂

I met fellow blogger, ChillyCraps who was my fantastic plus one for the day. He patiently waited for me at the foyer and together we bravely swam through over the sea of humans who were already there. It was already crowded just 30 minutes after the event started.

It was really scary!

Nevertheless, it was all worth it because as soon as we entered through the doors, it was like being in another dimension altogether. Wonderful displays of toys were all over the place. CC and I instantly hyperventilated over the sheer awesomeness of it all!

The first thing that caught my eye was the Wii fit. Having already watched the viral video of the Wii fit girl, I was very curious to experience it for myself.

rinaz on the Wii Fit from chillycraps on Vimeo

Above is a short video CC took of me while I was trying out the Wii Fit. It was a very interesting experience and actually curiously fun! I was so tempted to get a set for myself, but a Wii unit with the tablet would cost about $900 altogether, a tad bit steep, I think.

Pretty soon, guess who I saw? It was Darth Vader roaming around the convention. And the interesting thing was that there were loads of people clamoring over him trying to get a picture session with him and his soldiers.

The picture is a little bit blur because CC and I had to be really quick before someone else pushed us away for their photo-op! I looked a little to happy even with Darth Vader seemed like he was about to chop my head off with his lightsabre 😛

CC then stumbled upon one of his favourite characters – Ultraman! The both of us, like most Singaporeans, grew up on ultraman! 🙂

We then explored around the different toy displays.

There was the wierd

Like the popular but creepy Blythe dolls. They might be cute to some, but with those type of eyes, its easy to imagine that they’ll come to life when you are sleeping and do bodily harm to you.

We were fortunate enough to see some of the artists at work. One of them was Mori Chack, famous for his Gloomy Bears as seen as in the pictures below.

Actually, I thought that those bears are kind of creepy with the blood stains on the mouth and claws. Its probably an acquired taste to get one of these, perhaps.

For some reason I was quite fascinated by these toys. Partly because they are gold perhaps, but also because they were sort of like transformers, but morph themselves as golden lighters instead of cars.

The cute

Here are a couple of Kubrick and Tofu dolls that CC and I were rather crazy about. It looked simple, just a rectangular head over a plastic body, but owners are able to do their own customizations by drawing over the head – which I thought was pretty cool 🙂

And these are rather cute too. Tofu dolls with them holding up their noses! They are smelly Tofu!

And before going to the Toy Convention, I’ve never heard of Monsterism before but I love these figurines very much! They are so kitsch and I love the retro design as well. The website looked pretty spiffy 🙂

And I love this giant plushie by dooodolls! The plushies are easily recognized by their boogly eyes. But I like this one specifically because it is big and smooshie! It feels just like cuddling Cartcart 🙂

The wonderful

I quite like this Homer Simpson action figure, spoofing Thor! The clerks must have had a sense of humor as they put Homer and Thor side by side!

There was also the very popular Tokidoki! Over here in Singapore, it is so famous that it has been inspired and even copied in many designs, especially bags and purses.

Unfortunately for me, that entire counter was extremely crowded! I could not even see what was on display. I could only see the heads of the clerks running around busily attending to their customers.

Regardless, I managed to capture these pictures. Aren’t they adorable?

There was also a booth which showcased some displays from many famous movie scenes. Can you recognize which movie these came from?

The old school

I was amazed to see Lau Fu Zhi being exhibited. Its’ so old school! I used to read these comic books a lot during my primary school days. Most of the cartoons were wordless which made it simple to understand 🙂

And who doesn’t know Astroboy? The famous robot boy who has graced our television and magazines since childhood 🙂

The interesting

While roaming around, we stumbled upon a kiosk and I noticed loads of bread. I called out to CC. “Look! There is even a refreshment stall here. Lets take a bite!”

It looked like bread. It smelled like bread. It even felt like bread to the touch. It was only when I squeezed it repeatedly and the bread did not disintegrate was when I realised that it was not true bread.

What cool stuff! I got one for myself, for the novelty factor. Besides, I could use it as a stress ball 🙂

These are stickfast. A popular Singaporean made toy. CC mentioned that he used to collect them before. And I thought that, it was very well done as well as affordable.

Then we explored though the other side of the convention where there were heaps of artists displaying their works.

One of them was this lady from C.D.S who is showing off her manga illustration. Looking through the portfolio, the works looked good enough to rival even commercial ones from Japan.

I also saw a digital artist doing a live demonstration of how he works, drawing on his tablet using Photoshop. This guy here was from ‘Imaginary Friends Studios’. I admired his skilful and deft touch.

Digital artist at work at the Toy & Comic convention from rinaz on Vimeo

I also saw a couple of wacom products which fascinated me. Having worked on a wacom tablet myself for my artwork, they can be quite useful. But drawing in such a small tablet can be quite cumbersome and I’ve always wished that they could integrate it to the monitor instead.

And thats when I saw this :

You can draw directly on the monitor itself! Very useful for a designer.

After spending about two hours in the convention, CC and I reluctantly left for our appointment. Regardless, I love the Toy Convention! Even with the amount of people there, in a claustrophobic environment. I enjoyed myself thoroughly 🙂

I didn’t get a Happy Tree Friends T-shirt in the end. But I guess posing with a display works too.

Links :

• CC’s blog post

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• Gundam seed cosplay meetup
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P.S. After we left the convention, we saw Darth Vader queuing up for a bowl of noodles. I guess even a fearsome evil ruler like Darth Vader needs to eat.

Even Darth Vader needs to eat from rinaz on Vimeo