What toys do you wish you had growing up? That question spurred a creative awakening for Aaron Moreno, when it was posed to him by his 8-year-old son…
What toys do you wish you had growing up?
That question spurred a creative awakening for Aaron Moreno, when it was posed to him by his 8-year-old son.
It was 2013, and the two were developing a shared language around action figures. Moreno had collected them as a child, and his son was doing the same. For Moreno, now 37, it brought back memories of G. I. Joe soldiers, plastic Master of the Universe barbarians and “Star Wars” figurines.
They were the usual 1980s-baby staples, but, reminiscing with his son, Moreno thought of all the characters in comic books and horror movies that he was much more drawn to and would have loved to collect as toys, if only they had existed.
For the next three years, Moreno made dozens of series of resin figures based on the obsessions of his youth, re-envisioning merchandise for cult movies, like “Critters” (1986), which is about volleyball-size aliens with spiky hair and a taste for flesh, and “Creepshow” (1982), a compendium of short horror stories, featuring celluloid nightmares about cockroach infestations and invasive alien vegetation.
Moreno encased each of his figurines in packaging designed by Gabriel Hernandez, an illustrator friend, and sold them online in runs of up to 50. Often, they would be gone in minutes.
Moreno is one of several creators in whose hands the action figure has gone artisanal. What was once the dominion of large toy companies has, in recent years, become a medium for independent artists who mold, cast and package plastic and resin collectibles — sometimes using repurposed parts of other toys — to celebrate the niche obsessions of their youth.
Fans pay $50 or more for these figures, which often channel brash 1980s aesthetics and a mutable sense of nostalgia.
“With a lot of the guys who collect and do this, it’s all deeply rooted in their childhoods,” said Peter Goral, 33, who started making artisanal action figures around 2007 and said he now lives comfortably on the income they generate. His most popular figure to date, the Phantom Starkiller cosmic ghoul warrior, was also recently released in a limited edition by Super7, a designer toy company.
Goral’s company, Killer Bootlegs, in Rockford, Illinois, is so named because the pieces frequently recall the unpolished aesthetic of unlicensed action figures made abroad in the ‘70s and ‘80s; those “bootleg toys” have since become collector items themselves.
