Adorable half-animal warriors from Varanasi - Introducing Art Toys to India
Exploration of forms with rotational symmetry. The form had to become a strong identifying factor for the entire art toy line. An oversized head with a tiny male/female body was chosen as the base form.
Moodboard generation through visual audit of various art toy styles from around the globe, along with study of traditional Indian toy crafts. The objective was to achieve a synthesis of Indian craft with expressive urban vinyl laguage.
Many different charcater lines were explored independant of the selected form. These included Old Delhi, Clubbers, Historical Indian Warriors and Mythological characters like Jatayu
Six ‘little known’ anthropomorphic warriors were chosen from Indian mythology and each was explored in terms of expression, iconography and animalistic features. Thus, while Jatayu is stoic, Sharabha is vicious and Vasuki is mischievious. Anthropomorphic warriors from the epics are relatively unknown amongst even Indians and thus lend themselves to an interesting art toy range.
Multiple colourways were explored for each character. Varanasi toy craft uses a vast pallette of lac finishes which were incorporated into the colour combinations. Two lines were designed - a Standard line which uses muted, naturalistic colours with bright accents and a Chase line which uses extravagantly combined vibrant colours
We made several field trips to Varanasi for the production of Little Known Heroes. We met turned-wood artisans, lacquer artisans and hand-painted toys artisans. The toys went through various rounds of iteration in the process and were collectively produced by three different groups of artisans. An exclusive completely hand-carved line was also developed. Locally sourced sustainable materials were used to make the toys.
Bali
Garuda
Jambavan
Jatayu
Sharabha
Playing Cards for Packaging
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Little Known Heroes
Little Known Heroes combines western illustration style of designer toys with the traditional craft skills of India into a line of toys that is completely new. The result is a range of adorably lethal half-animal warriors from Indian mythology which are little known and in danger of being forgotten, taking the best from intricately detailed Indian patterns and the exaggerated Western character illustration style that gives the warriors a strong emotional connect. This project was sponsored by Quicksand Design Studio, Gurgaon and was a three-member team project.
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