I've been into Sci-fi since my childhood. Being born in England in the mid 70's meant you were brought up surrounded by it. Going back to nursery school, "Britains Space" toys were in the playbox along with the sticklebricks, and our paper for drawing was invariably the back of photocopies featuring a lunar exploration story.

In real life the Space Shuttle launches and Spacewalks were huge inspiring events. At the same time E.T and Star Wars were packing cinemas there was also a lot of science fiction on British TV too. Doctor Who had been going for decades, John Wyndam's books "The Day of the Triffids" and "Chocky" were serialized, as was Douglas Adam's 'Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy". "Battle of the Planets", a dubbed and violence-censored version of the anime Gatchaman, was on every week.

The BBC even made a sci-fi series "The Boy from Space" for primary schools to trick us into being educated; I can't remember much of the plot, just that it featured a lost backwards-talking alien child in a simple silver and blue costume, but the sounds, aesthetics and the eerie atmosphere were burned into my brain forever.

Science-fiction was everywhere, and I'm sure elements of all those things are evident in my work in some way or other. In terms of what influenced me the most, I'd have to say "Strontium Dog", the tale of mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha. It was a futuristic sci-fi western with heavy social overtones dealing with bigotry and class-system unfairness.

The weaponry alone was awe-inspiring; electronux (electrified knuckle dusters), chunky blasters that shot a myriad of round types, and time weapons that would alter time but not location, leaving adversaries floating in the freezing vacuum of space). What is so creatively inspiring is the playfulness of series. Just a really wild ride, with an anything goes approach to it's cast. In real-life radiation sickness is more likely to result in reduced brain function, cancer and an early death, but in Strontium Dog you could be born with a head like a well-masticated stick of chewing gum (Max Bubba), maybe a Bull head (Bull Reagan) or maybe no head at all (General Torso).

Not a film, book, or cartoon, but another source of inspiration that can't be overstated is the toy-line Astro Myu 5. It's a Japanese collection from the 1970's that seems to encompass all the popular toy formats of that age. A 60 cm missile firing jumbo Mazinger-styled robot, 25cm articulated Henshin Cyborg style vinyl-costumed dolls, and Kamen Rider scaled sofubi mini-figures. As if that weren't enough there is also a clatter of tanks in two sizes, artillery carriers to facilitate rapid rearmament and a huge vinyl battle map play-sheet to enact your battles on.

Thematically and aesthetically AM-5 has been a huge influence. People always talk about how this or that artist must have been on LSD when they came up with their ideas, but the AM-5 line really does have a hallucinogenic dream-like quality to it. Clear torsos, bizarre undulating armour and weaponized arms. Their childlike heads are protected by intergalactic gladiatorial helmets, each one as distinct as the planets from which they get their names. The idea of scale is played with. The mid-size figures fit inside the jumbo robot like Russian dolls, but the mini robot is the same size as the regular mini heroes. The "wave" tanks, vehicles in their own right are actually moving bases that you can fit the characters feet into, god-like segway-riding avatars charging across a lunar landscape. There was a comic strip published in one of those phone-directory sized manga monthlies that probably explains it all away, but I'm happy to leave it all to my imagination.

Before the toy-making I never really looked at sci-fi art outside of it being a story-telling vehicle in comics, movies and so on. However, in terms of character designs that still impress me, I'd have to say Frank Hampson's green-skinned Treens and their cold scientific leader the Mekon. They were to be found in the "Dan Dare" strip in the 1950's Eagle comic. The Mekon was a frail creature with a huge rounded dome head that housed his superior brain. His body was so weak that he relied on a levitating chair, shaped like a halved rugby-ball, for transportation. Hampson worked so hard to make his vision believable. The design elements worked together absolutely cohesively; the city of Mekonta, the sleek weaponry, the uniforms with their goggled helmets, the anti-gravity vehicles and spaceships... everything. I think the designs of my vehicles owe a lot to that retro-futuristic aesthetic, along with Kevin O'Neill's absolutely insane work on "Nemesis the Warlock".

A few other costumes I liked are the black ribbed stillsuits from David Lynch's Dune, the Cybermen, Sea Devils, and Ice warriors from the classic Doctor Who era, and the X-wing and Tie-fighter pilots from Star Wars.

Giger's Alien was of course an amazing creation, but it would be too good and too real for the Galaxy People universe.

I've always been artistically creative in one way or other. At university I'd studied Fine Art printmaking, and in England I'd been exhibiting 2D work, painting and etchings, predominately abstract landscapes based on coastal surroundings. When I came to Japan about 18 years ago I started focusing more on the unfamiliar structural forms; the monorails, the overhead wires, buildings and so on. Working in mezzotint and copper plate etching, these shapes started resembling some kind of floating extraterrestrial assemblages.

At the same time I was becoming interested in the Japanese toy culture. First, licensed toys such as the Akira Gachapon series and the Medicom Toy's Star Wars Kubricks. Going to festivals to pick those up I came across indie sofubi makers like Real Head, Blobpus and Skull toys. Rather than making licensed characters those guys were creating and producing their own characters. I started looking deeper into the history of Japanese toys. I discovered Henshin Cyborg, Astro Myu 5 (which I talked about earlier), Kamen Rider and all the Bullmark Kaiju.

I had absolutely no intention of making any characters myself, but one day I started playing with a ball of beeswax that I'd bought for some painting technique. That became a character called Chirops, and I kept going.

I can see similarities between traditional printmaking and soft vinyl production. Both editioning methods, both heavily process based. I'm planning a series of etchings based on the toy sofubi toys. Kind of completing the circle.

I think it evokes futurism but it's also a retro throw back to a favourite toy-line of the past, Fisher Price's "Adventure People". Creating names is probably my least favorite part of toy-making process, and with new characters it's something I actively dread. I often have the toy sculpted, produced in vinyl, painted and ready for release before I settle on what it's called.

I'm sure I have hundreds of character ideas scribbled down, though only a dozen or so have made it into vinyl so far, plus the vehicles. There are a few more in resin. Most start life as absent-minded doodles on scraps of paper, on the backs of receipts or crosswords and whatnot. Just shapes with animal features and weaponry mixed in. When I've got something promising I'll work out a back story in my head and work on the body and details from there. I don't keep a sketchbook but do have some big scrap-books that I'll paste all the sketches into, those become my idea bank when I decide it's time to add another sculpt to the ranks.

Both consoles came out well. The modeling was done with plasticard sheets rather than polymer clay, and I approached them with a kit-bashing mentality, searching hardware and modeling stores to find parts I could modify and use for buttons, levers and so on.

Though much more detailed, in a way it was easier making the computers than creating the humanoid figures as everything is geometrical and can be measured. Creating organic monsters is much more difficult. I don't have a natural acumen for sculpting so I have to really persevere to get things simultaneously symmetrical and natural-looking. Even simple stuff like the direction of feet seem to hold me up for way longer than it should. Sculpting has a problem solving puzzle-like element to it that I find ultimately satisfying, though often frustrating.

Miranda O'Brien/Kimberg from the Clutter Gallery approached me to do one of their artist spotlight shows, my first solo show since I began making the toys. I thought I'd sell some things but didn't really expect everything to go so fast. I couldn't make it to the show because of the current flight restrictions, but I think the gallery did a great job with the display and the promo images. Looking forward to the next one!

The natural world and biology is absolutely inspiring. From the cellular level up there is just so to be inspired by. I was looking at Haeckel's radiolaria illustrations while designing Helios, one of the first soft vinyl toys. When you start looking that small everything starts looking alien. The last few years I've been spending a lot more time outside or on ferries with a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope, searching for birds on migration, so I expect they'll show up in some form or other in my work at some point.

2021 was actually Galaxy People's 10th anniversary, but it's only really been in the last 10 months or so that things have picked up at an increased rate. Over the year I've been doing regular monthly online releases, and that really seems to have helped find new collectors, as did the show at Clutter.

I'd love for that to continue and hopefully at some point I could afford to dedicate more time to creating monsters. A lot of people outsource parts of production process to other artists, sculptors or factories, and I do think that speeds up the process considerably. For me though, I like to do everything that I can, from the sculpt to the wax to the painting and header art. The only things I don't do are the final metal molds and the pulling of the vinyl. It just wouldn't be practical or safe for me to try to handle that too.

One of the things about this culture that I'm very aware of is the cyclical nature of many people's collections. People chase the hyped items and dump them later. So far that hasn't really happened with my creations. They rarely show up in the aftermarket, and I'm very grateful for that. People seem to appreciate them and hang on to them. Maybe I just have a better class of collector ha ha.

THE GALAXY PEOPLE: SCI-FI TOY MAKER IN JAPAN

Official website: https://store.galaxypeople.toys/
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