Jon-Paul Kaiser grew up in England and by the age of four he was already well on the path he would follow continuously as a designer. He drew and doodled throughout his academic years, then moving into more complex work as a designer and illustrator. He started releasing original cast resin toys with his friend Porlzilla (who introduced him to designer toys). Along with the urban vinyl scene Kaiser has extensive experience working on licensed clothing, designing for high-street and online stores in the UK, designing for licenses as diverse as Star Wars (Lucasfilm), Ghostbusters (Sony Pictures), Simpsons (20th Century Fox), Kelloggs, Britvic, Transformers, Lego & Looney Tunes (Warner Bros). I had the chance to sit down and ask Mr. Kaiser about his unique designer pieces What follows is a document of our recent chat:
You have a very unique style of using detail, instead of an abundance of color to show off your figures. What would you call your style?
I don't really have a name for it myself, in conversation I'd probably refer to it as a sort of a Western comic-book take on Ukiyo-e, except that sounds a bit pretentious!
I can tell your art is heavily influenced by comic book art. What about it intrigues you so much?
I guess like most other artists in this field I grew up with comics, growing up in grey 1980s Britain getting to escape to dramatic worlds or alien battle-fields through comics was a great pleasure. I collected Transformers comics among others and would love the focus on the stories behind the more obscure characters and how they fit into an already established fictional universe. Later, it was seeing how a masterful comic artist like Mike Mignola could conjure up a character and setting with just a few stylized blocks of shadow that I found fascinating and inspirational.
I know I mentioned you let the detail in your art do the talking. How much does film noir influence your pieces?
I studied film noir at college, the style and lighting systems and the strong shadows that they cast. Though I've not watched a true noir film in years, I always bear these in mind when working out the lighting for a figure, and if I need reference points it's to noir stills that I'll turn.
How long do art pieces take to form from concept to finished project?
Oh man, there's no hard and fast rule with timings, for a more complex figure I might mull it over for weeks mentally whilst walking the dog etc and have a kind of fully realized image in my head before even committing it to paper, other times it's quick and straightforward and I draw straight onto a figure and have it finished in just a few hours.
Is there also a Japanese influence to your works ?
Definitely, I'm a massive history nerd and Japanese history; art, culture, military and legends are all a source of inspiration. It's a country and culture I admire and am fascinated by, perhaps because it's so familiar through pop culture and then when you delve just a little deeper it seems quite alien to someone from England. The woodblock prints have also been an influence on my style, as well as giving me the confidence to describe my work as 'art'. There's a strange snobbery here that if you use outlines on a picture that it's not real art, which I think perhaps comes from the narrow view of an older generation of art teachers passing on their own personal views.
Your "MacReady" from The Thing is just eye-popping. Please tell us some more about this one and why you chose to take on the likeness of Kurt Russell?
Thanks very much! Well, as an icon Kurt Russell with that beautiful mane of hair is pretty hard to beat! It started out with me exploring different themes for my Workers Project series of figures. I was looking at an explorer and had a friend dress in his mountain-hiking gear for reference, which just made me think of Mac in The Thing. The Thing is one of my favorite films, so ahead of it's time and with the arctic setting it stands out as a unique movie, and it's so rarely been visited as a pop-culture subject, so I decided to do it!
Do you ever make mistakes on figures and have to start over?
Oh yes! Not often though as I paint slowly and carefully. Mistakes do get made but generally a little bit of glasspaper can recify it. I've only had to strip down and restart a figure from scratch three or four times. Each time it's quite heart-breaking but in the long-run you know it's worth it.
Are they're any pieces that you're working on right now that you'd like to mention?
Right now I'm preparing for my appearance at Singapore Toys, Games & Comic Con, where as well as being a guest artist for panel talks I also have a booth, as well as a variety of customs I'll be debuting my own Atmosphere Teletubbies sculpt set. I've painted several sets of the original vinyl Teletubbies from the 1990s and decided it was time to step this up with my own original sculpts to be cast in resin. I've upped the creepy and ghoulish factor to them whilst still trying to remain true to the original aesthetic of the characters.
Do you collect any art figure pieces ? Or if there's something you want do you just go make it?
I have a huge collection of toys! It's slowed down a little over the last year or so mainly because I finally managed to get most of my "grail pieces". I've still got a few to go but the ones I haven't got tend to be really expensive!
Have you ever attempted something out of your comfort zone when designing figures?
Yeah, always! With most customs I'm trying to push my own imagination and skills, to have better ideas and a sharper finish. I've recently completed designs for a toy series that's now in production, I can't say much about it, but I worked very closely with the artist who curated the series. We bounced ideas back and forth and he really pushed me to leave my comfort zone and come up with figures way beyond anything I'd come up with before; both in concept and in the way they look.
Is there anything you'd like to add or tell the people out there, with regards to your art?
I'll be at Designer Con again this year, as well as STGCC, hope I'll see some of you there!
I want to thank Jon-Paul Kaiser for taking the time to answer these burning questions and for also making the designer toy world a bit more interesting.
Check out more on his works at his site here.