Huck Gee Gold Life Dunnys

A new set of Dunnys has dropped, this time all made by Huck Gee. They're dubbed "Gold Life" and they're totally Asian-inspired, mostly Japanese, but by way of that odd Western way of looking at "Asian" as a universal thing. A few of the figures in this set are boring, imo, like the geisha models, and the er, "human" figures are kinda ubiquitous. For instance, I didn't buy the ninjas in this set because I have the Fox Ninja from the Dunny 2011 set that HG designed and he looks better (again, imo). I bought the highlights, sans the Wandering Monk and Tazmo the Rifleman due to insanity of prices of chase figures on ebay. I did, however, get the Shinsengumi Panda (not what he's called in the set, again, something Western), a samurai-armor-clad rhino and Gold Claw, a white tiger with awesome claws, a cloth cape and a straw hat.

Tokidoki Cactus Pups

KidRobot X Street Fighter

Adding on to the last post, designer toys have gotten so popular in the last few years, that popular franchises have gotten in on the act. Futurama, The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy and now Street Fighter have all had lines designed for them. The Street Fighter line - debuted in early July - is especially impressive, representing all 12 of the original World Warriors sporting alternate colors for quite a few of the characters. My favorites of the bunch have to be Dhalsim (his necklace and yoga fire accessory are both awesome), Sagat and Balrog, who I have yet to get.

KidRobot Dunnys

Dunnys are a designer/art toy line created by KidRobot. Several collections of these are released every year, all designed by artists that usually contribute 1-2 designs per set. As designer toys have become a legit medium in the mid-part of the last decade, these toys and their designers have their own cult following, and some artists have really gotten a foothold designing for sets like these. The sets are usually themed, like Britain, or animals, or graffiti or somesuch design scheme that the artist has to adhere to. There are also sets that are numbered with a year, like "Dunny 2011" for example, where the artists do like a free design sorta thing. And as is the rule with blind box designer toys, these sets have "chase figures" which have a ratio of discovery of like 1/80 or less and can be quite valuable. In the latest sets they've even gone to things like "golden tickets" where, when you find one you can send it in for an ultra-rare handmade Dunny, some of which go for several hundred dollars on ebay.

A lot of these figures have crazy quality and are made of lots of different materials, thus making them quite varied and even though they're all based off of the same basic Dunny mini figure, they definitely don't look the same. For example, there's a design that looks like a gumball machine, the little plastic balls inside the head shake around inside, or with another one shaped like a cute lion, it has a furry mane, a Dunny from the Azteca line has a huge stone head and gems in its eyes. Another, shaped like a gorilla, is flocked and 100% fuzzy all over. They also sell blank Dunnys of different shapes and sizes, where you can make your own custom figure. If you Google "custom Dunnys", you'll find never ending galleries of creativity from budding designer toy artists everywhere, famous and non!