David Horvath interview.

The DAVID HORVATH interview,by Ploom2.

Introduction,Who, where,why and how ?

Occupation:Toy Designers

Location:Home/studio in LA, with small studio in Seoul Korea. Sun-Min and I have both been in Korea now since August working on art for various shows coming up and our new toys for 2005.
Sun-Min and I are co-creators of the Uglydolls, and we're now working on our next collaborative character project, POUNDA. We also have a Noupa 4 pack coming out featuring her Spider Boom character.

Question:How did you both meet?.

Answer:Sun-Min and I had been together since we met at Art School in the mid 90's.
When she had to move back to Korea after 9/11, I sent her many "miss you" letters with my character Wage at the bottom. She then hand sewed this character into a doll for me as a Christmas gift.

Question:How did the first product get into production?.

Answer:I showed this ugly doll to my pal Eric Nakamura who owns the Giant Robot store, and he wanted to try selling some in his shop. Sun-Min sewed 20 more Wage dolls and they sold out in one day.
That lead to more dolls, more characters, our being able to reunite, and it grew from there.
Now you can find Uglydolls everywhere from Barneys NY and most museum stores such as the Whitney, MOMA, Moca and Louvre to your local comic book shop and Benetton in Hong Kong.
The Uglydoll vinyl figures were released in July

Question:And when did you go "professional"?.

Answer:we formed two companies in 2002.
"Prettyugly", based in New York, would handle Uglydoll, and "Sun-Min and David" based in LA would handle both Uglydoll and our other characters

Question:and since then, things have grown.....

Answer:We have been fortunate to be able to work with many great companies such as Critterbox, Flying Cat, Super 7, Sony, NHK, Coca Cola Japan, Yumiko, and others. Sony co-produces our TV animation show with NED in Japan, LITTLEBONY, which is shown on NHK TV every weekday morning.
We have been very lucky to meet so many nice people from these companies.

Question:What are your backgrounds when it comes to artwork and figure design?.

Sun-Min and I both went to the same art school in New York. I didn't really do well there and my bad drawings are self taught.
Sun-Min has over 10 children's book titles published in Korea, so she has done quite well with her art after art school. We have the most fun when creating hand made dolls and paintings for shows.
Our next show is at Fewmany gallery in Tokyo, followed by a show with Bwana Spoons at Gr2 in LA

Question:The very first figure was uglydoll?

Answer:Uglydoll was a plush doll first. We created the characters when we first met almost 10 years ago, but Wage was the first, sewn for me as a gift from Sun-Min.
The 10 Uglydoll vinyls took about one year to develop with the incredibly talented folks at Critterbox toys. No one can touch what Critterbox does, really. The toys they produce, such as Baseman's and Biskup's figures...Kaz's Smoking Cat, are all a very important part of toy design history

Question:Your style , to me, is quite young, how do you feel your figures fit into the figure world?

Answer:As for my "style" or lack thereof, I think it can be seen as "for children" but really it is for the child in all of us.
We are all children.
We're just brainwashed into believing there is something called adulthood.

Question:Do you like the term "urban vinyl"

Answer:We're not too interested in the term "urban vinyl" really.
We love to find Kaiju vinyl toys in Japan. (see attach for our #1 favorite)
I do like Michael Lau's pigs a lot.
Dehara is our #1 favorite figure maker, and ofcourse Tim Biskup and Baseman are giant favorites.
Others who are not so much known in the "art-toy world" such as Dan Yaccarino, Rodney Greenblat (who was making vinyl with Medicom long ago), Todd MacFarlane (the original "toy art" figure maker), Richard McGuire (the genius GO FISH set, still our favorite "art-toy"), David Kirk. (his wooden toys from the early days blow our minds) and our ancient, 20 year old plush toys from Edward Gorey.

Question:How did noupa develop?

Answer:Noupa is a love story about a garbage man who falls in love with a girl who ends up being the leader of an underground movement to stop the evil Security Monkey from taking over the world with his army of Super 7.5 robots. He joins her cause to get close to her, and ends up saving us all.
Something like that.
Noupa was created almost ten years ago on the day I first met Sun-Min and started as an animated short online. The animation file was far too large so we had taken it down and that was it until Flying Cat met with us in Hong Kong

Question:The packaging on your figures have small fun slogans,or are you being subversive? ;)

Answer:It's all for fun, as everything should be.
But you can take it seriously if you like.
In 1993 I read the following on the bottom of a bat man costume:
"PARENTS WARNING: Cape does not enable child to fly."
And they were serious!
Can you imagine, they wrote parentS! Plural! Who has more than one parent?

Question:Are malls evil ? (a slogan taken from noupa packaging)

Answer:What's in a mall? Only what you take with you.

Question:The american release of noupa is window boxed, different to the hongkong set, do you prefer window packaging to blind?

Answer:I always LOVED how old Star Wars figures were available in strange alternate packaging. (see attach)
Actually the HK figures are blind, and the boxes in the USA are open window boxes, and available in 4 packs. I wasn't really thinking about ratios. You need to be able to find all the characters if you want a complete set...otherwise how can you complete the story? For me, the most important part of toy design is story telling.

Question:Where their any difficulties in turning plush figures into vinyl?

Answer:The vinyls and coca cola figures were both based on the original Uglydoll sketches, from which Sun-Min modeled the plush after. All three are very different interpretations of the same character.
For us it's all about the characters and story. Both can exist at the same time.
The plush is there to comfort you, and the vinyl is there to protect you.

Question:What's the future for ugldoll and noupa?

Answer:Our 10th Uglydoll plush and vinyl will be released in mid 2005, Uglydog.
Pounda toys and books from Critterbox in 2005.
And if you are a fan of Littlebony, look for some great Littlebony toys in 2005.
More Noupa as the story unfolds, with collaborations with some of our favorite artists around the corner.

Question:If your figures were used in a tv show, who would you like to play the characters (such as al pacino,jean reno,jackie chan or kylie?)

Answer:News coming soon.!!!

Question:Youve been lucky enough to work on Dunny's, how many designs did you work through to reach the final versions?

Answer:The Dunny 8" and 5-pack are all a part of the same story. Little Inky is a menacing giant (originally a curious rabbit who was poisoned by an innocent squid) out to turn everyone from good to bad, from
loving to fearfull. (So each Dunny had 2 faces. Tuen the head around to change the indentity....people make the mistake of thinking that is the back...you have to turn the head around 180 degrees.) There are no Uglydoll elements in there, but the red robot is similar to the robots I put in most of my work, from Noupa to the CD cover for Superchunk, etc. For me, red robots symbolizes fear. Green robots symbolize hope.

Question:How do you develope your ideas?

Answer:We do all of the toy design at our home studio, both on the computer and on paper.

Question:Who were the main influences on you growing up

Answer:Richard Scary for sure. I admire Gary Baseman's working philosophy. I learn a lot from him.

Question:Top 5 artists/designers

1:DEHARA: He's not trying to compete with anyone and he imitates no one.

2:RODNEY A/ GREENBLAT: His creation of Dazzeloids for Pippin blew me away.(link)

3:BASEMAN: I learn a lot from this very smart and talented person.

4:TIM BISKUP: He understands something about character design very few of us can put our finger on.

5:JOHN HERSEY: have you seen his stuff? No? Then you have been fooled.

Question:Is there a figure you wished you'd designed

Answer:I can't tell you, because they are coming out next year.

Question:What is your favourite fish?

Answer:Gold fish by Pepridge farms

Question:Why do cows "moo" and not "woof"

Answer:You think thats air you're breathing now?

Question:Do you have a list of items yourself and Sun-Min Kim have made,perhaps for the collectors out there?

Answer:If you went out today to buy everything we made, not including limited edition prints or one of a kind items, you would have to buy 93 different items, 71 of them being toys. Don't buy all that stuff. Just get the ones you like. We never try to complete collections. We just pick up what we really like.

A current limited edition plush can be found on www.super7store.com

Pounda.New critterbox figure for 2005

The office toy colletion.

images from early noupa gif animation.

Please to do take or copy images from this site without permission from the authors at www.ploom2.com

Figure designs are Copyright of the respective producers/designers and manufacturers

This site has no affiliation with any figure producers.

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	Introduction,Who, where,why and how ?
	Name:David Horvath
	Age:33
	Name:Sun-Min Kim
	Age:28
	Occupation:Toy Designers
	Location:Home/studio in LA, with small studio in Seoul Korea. Sun-Min and I have both been in Korea now since August working on art for various shows coming up and our new toys for 2005. Sun-Min and I are co-creators of the Uglydolls, and we're now working on our next collaborative character project, POUNDA. We also have a Noupa 4 pack coming out featuring her Spider Boom character.
	website:www.davidhorvath.com www.noupa.com
	Question:How did you both meet?.
	Answer:Sun-Min and I had been together since we met at Art School in the mid 90's. When she had to move back to Korea after 9/11, I sent her many "miss you" letters with my character Wage at the bottom. She then hand sewed this character into a doll for me as a Christmas gift.
	Question:How did the first product get into production?.
	Answer:I showed this ugly doll to my pal Eric Nakamura who owns the Giant Robot store, and he wanted to try selling some in his shop. Sun-Min sewed 20 more Wage dolls and they sold out in one day. That lead to more dolls, more characters, our being able to reunite, and it grew from there. Now you can find Uglydolls everywhere from Barneys NY and most museum stores such as the Whitney, MOMA, Moca and Louvre to your local comic book shop and Benetton in Hong Kong. The Uglydoll vinyl figures were released in July
	Question:And when did you go "professional"?.
	Answer:we formed two companies in 2002. "Prettyugly", based in New York, would handle Uglydoll, and "Sun-Min and David" based in LA would handle both Uglydoll and our other characters
	Question:and since then, things have grown.....
	Answer:We have been fortunate to be able to work with many great companies such as Critterbox, Flying Cat, Super 7, Sony, NHK, Coca Cola Japan, Yumiko, and others. Sony co-produces our TV animation show with NED in Japan, LITTLEBONY, which is shown on NHK TV every weekday morning. We have been very lucky to meet so many nice people from these companies.
	Question:What are your backgrounds when it comes to artwork and figure design?.
	Sun-Min and I both went to the same art school in New York. I didn't really do well there and my bad drawings are self taught. Sun-Min has over 10 children's book titles published in Korea, so she has done quite well with her art after art school. We have the most fun when creating hand made dolls and paintings for shows. Our next show is at Fewmany gallery in Tokyo, followed by a show with Bwana Spoons at Gr2 in LA
	Question:The very first figure was uglydoll?
	Answer:Uglydoll was a plush doll first. We created the characters when we first met almost 10 years ago, but Wage was the first, sewn for me as a gift from Sun-Min. The 10 Uglydoll vinyls took about one year to develop with the incredibly talented folks at Critterbox toys. No one can touch what Critterbox does, really. The toys they produce, such as Baseman's and Biskup's figures...Kaz's Smoking Cat, are all a very important part of toy design history
	Question:Your style , to me, is quite young, how do you feel your figures fit into the figure world?
	Answer:As for my "style" or lack thereof, I think it can be seen as "for children" but really it is for the child in all of us. We are all children. We're just brainwashed into believing there is something called adulthood.
	Question:Do you like the term "urban vinyl"
	Answer:We're not too interested in the term "urban vinyl" really. We love to find Kaiju vinyl toys in Japan. (see attach for our #1 favorite) I do like Michael Lau's pigs a lot. Dehara is our #1 favorite figure maker, and ofcourse Tim Biskup and Baseman are giant favorites. Others who are not so much known in the "art-toy world" such as Dan Yaccarino, Rodney Greenblat (who was making vinyl with Medicom long ago), Todd MacFarlane (the original "toy art" figure maker), Richard McGuire (the genius GO FISH set, still our favorite "art-toy"), David Kirk. (his wooden toys from the early days blow our minds) and our ancient, 20 year old plush toys from Edward Gorey.
	Question:How did noupa develop?
	Answer:Noupa is a love story about a garbage man who falls in love with a girl who ends up being the leader of an underground movement to stop the evil Security Monkey from taking over the world with his army of Super 7.5 robots. He joins her cause to get close to her, and ends up saving us all. Something like that. Noupa was created almost ten years ago on the day I first met Sun-Min and started as an animated short online. The animation file was far too large so we had taken it down and that was it until Flying Cat met with us in Hong Kong
	Question:The packaging on your figures have small fun slogans,or are you being subversive? ;)
	Answer:It's all for fun, as everything should be. But you can take it seriously if you like. In 1993 I read the following on the bottom of a bat man costume: "PARENTS WARNING: Cape does not enable child to fly." And they were serious! Can you imagine, they wrote parentS! Plural! Who has more than one parent?
	Question:Are malls evil ? (a slogan taken from noupa packaging)
	Answer:What's in a mall? Only what you take with you.
	Question:The american release of noupa is window boxed, different to the hongkong set, do you prefer window packaging to blind?
	Answer:I always LOVED how old Star Wars figures were available in strange alternate packaging. (see attach) Actually the HK figures are blind, and the boxes in the USA are open window boxes, and available in 4 packs. I wasn't really thinking about ratios. You need to be able to find all the characters if you want a complete set...otherwise how can you complete the story? For me, the most important part of toy design is story telling.
	Question:Where their any difficulties in turning plush figures into vinyl?
	Answer:The vinyls and coca cola figures were both based on the original Uglydoll sketches, from which Sun-Min modeled the plush after. All three are very different interpretations of the same character. For us it's all about the characters and story. Both can exist at the same time. The plush is there to comfort you, and the vinyl is there to protect you.
	Question:What's the future for ugldoll and noupa?
	Answer:Our 10th Uglydoll plush and vinyl will be released in mid 2005, Uglydog. Pounda toys and books from Critterbox in 2005. And if you are a fan of Littlebony, look for some great Littlebony toys in 2005. More Noupa as the story unfolds, with collaborations with some of our favorite artists around the corner.
	Question:If your figures were used in a tv show, who would you like to play the characters (such as al pacino,jean reno,jackie chan or kylie?)
	Answer:News coming soon.!!!
	Question:Youve been lucky enough to work on Dunny's, how many designs did you work through to reach the final versions?
	Answer:The Dunny 8" and 5-pack are all a part of the same story. Little Inky is a menacing giant (originally a curious rabbit who was poisoned by an innocent squid) out to turn everyone from good to bad, from loving to fearfull. (So each Dunny had 2 faces. Tuen the head around to change the indentity....people make the mistake of thinking that is the back...you have to turn the head around 180 degrees.) There are no Uglydoll elements in there, but the red robot is similar to the robots I put in most of my work, from Noupa to the CD cover for Superchunk, etc. For me, red robots symbolizes fear. Green robots symbolize hope.
	Question:How do you develope your ideas?
	Answer:We do all of the toy design at our home studio, both on the computer and on paper.
	Question:Who were the main influences on you growing up
	Answer:Richard Scary for sure. I admire Gary Baseman's working philosophy. I learn a lot from him.
	Question:Top 5 artists/designers
	1:DEHARA: He's not trying to compete with anyone and he imitates no one.
	2:RODNEY A/ GREENBLAT: His creation of Dazzeloids for Pippin blew me away.(link)
	3:BASEMAN: I learn a lot from this very smart and talented person.
	4:TIM BISKUP: He understands something about character design very few of us can put our finger on.
	5:JOHN HERSEY: have you seen his stuff? No? Then you have been fooled.
	Question:Is there a figure you wished you'd designed
	Answer:I can't tell you, because they are coming out next year.
	Question:What is your favourite fish?
	Answer:Gold fish by Pepridge farms
	Question:Why do cows "moo" and not "woof"
	Answer:You think thats air you're breathing now?
	Question:Do you have a list of items yourself and Sun-Min Kim have made,perhaps for the collectors out there?
	Answer:If you went out today to buy everything we made, not including limited edition prints or one of a kind items, you would have to buy 93 different items, 71 of them being toys. Don't buy all that stuff. Just get the ones you like. We never try to complete collections. We just pick up what we really like. A current limited edition plush can be found on www.super7store.com


	All content © Ploom2.com 2004	Please to do take or copy images from this site without permission from the authors at www.ploom2.com
	Figure designs are Copyright of the respective producers/designers and manufacturers	This site has no affiliation with any figure producers.