FOOFNICKS, something else I created years back



Lonk, Hoz, Pimmy, Roop, Orf, Teepo, Yilp and the rest, they popped out of my head one day and on to pages of my sketch book. I licensed them to a company that makes toys for gumball machines.
Ive seen photos of the toys online- I think people like them!

Comments

mr_thye said…
I would be very interested to learn how your designs went from sketchbook to awesome capsule toys. Would you mind sharing with a up and coming graphic designer? Your insight would be much appreciated. thanks
Robert Curet said…
Mr Thye,

Thanks for your interest!
I will not tell you the path to making capsule toys was easy.
I had designed the Foofnicks to be a line of collectable PVC figurines. I took them around to alot of companies trying to license them out but nobody wanted them. I kept getting told "If it's not on TV it's not anything we want".
My Foofnick sculptures sat in a metal case in my studio for years. I kept on coming up with toy ideas, kept trying to find new customers and eventually I met a guy who knew a guy who bought toys for a gumball company.
I showed him the Foofnicks as well as a few other concepts and he wanted to make them!
The first thing that had to happen was to reduce them in size so they would be cost effective to manufacture. Next came the long negotiations with many factories to get the price that was needed. I also had to reduce the amopunt of paint decorations to meet cost.
All this back and forth took months.
Finally when all of it was through production the order shipped and was distributed to the thousands of machines all across the country.

I hope that helped!
Astronit said…
I just ran across a gum ball machine with these in them and spent $18. Of the 36 capsules I only got four different figures. Very disappointing distribution. How many figures did the company make, there were 10 different ones shown on the machine card.
Mike
Astronit said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Curet said…
I understood that Millions of individual Foofnicks were made over 4 styles of deco.
I have no idea how these figures were distributed. Sorry to hear that you could not get a complete set!
I know it may sound hard to believ being that I created them- but I do not have a complete set either!
Astronit said…
Hey Robert, The Gumball toys are really really cool! I have been able to obtain complete sets of Tribes, Tats, and Swamp. I have only four of the Pretty series though. If you would like I can send you some of my duplicates of Tats and Swamp.
Mike
Anonymous said…
I got a few of these out of a vending machine the other day and thought they were too cute not to look up. Good job on the design, I hope I can collect the rest <3
Astronit said…
For all the Foofnicks fans out there; see some fun pictures of them at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/astronit/sets/72157607015552531/detail/
Daryl Hrdlicka said…
Did you ever some up with a backstory for them? Where they're from etc.?
Johanna said…
HAHAHA that photo was taken by me! I haven't seen any in years but started looking to see if I could buy any online. I only have Swamp and Tribal foofnicks.. I wish I could purchase the complete set. They are so unique.

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