The Next Great Blank Toy Contest's Winner is…

Do you remember when we previously announced "The Next Great Blank Toy Contest" from Martian Toys? It was a design competition with the intent of finding a great designer toy form and then producing the winner in vinyl, and now the ultimate winner has been announced! Out of over 150 submissions, the judges (of which I was one) selected the above piece as the winner, a form titled "Jaspar" and designed by none other than Gary Ham! A cartoonishly ghostly shape that Ham actually designed on Halloween, "Jaspar" is named after his son's middle name as well as being a play on Casper (as in the friendly ghost). While ghostly forms aren't a new thing within designer toys to be sure, this seems like a brilliant blank form to me, lots of canvas to be covered while still some slight sculpted detailing to be played with. And while there was only one winner, we've heard that Martian Toys might be reaching out to some of the other entries to make production agreements outside of the contest. It seems like 2018 might be a good year for the DIY vinyl blank!