Pyroclaster Drone. Shipwrecked Plunderboy. Mer-maniac. If you’re anything like me, names like this stir up strange feelings of nostalgia deep inside. Nostalgia for a time when the world had inventive and creative toy lines and the creative forces behind them were churning out such beautiful madness routinely. Worry not though, there is a dedicated, passionate and constantly growing community of individuals who share those same feelings.
One member of that community is Luke Toywalker, half of the creative force behind Goodleg Toys from Germany (the other half being the equally maniacally talented Pablo Perra) who produce all the toys you ever wanted as a kid but no one had made yet. Ranging from Master of the Universe bootleg style figures (this collector’s personal weakness) to wrestlers to stuff so strange you just need to see it, the boys at Goodleg Toys have been making serious waves. I recently talked to Luke about what makes him tick, what they’ve got cooking behind the scenes and what toys mean to him.
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Who are you exactly, what do you do and how long have you been doing it?
Lucas Rellecke: My name is Lucas Rellecke, aka Luke Toywalker. I’m the CEO of Toy Sector, a Berlin based web store for action toys from the 80s and 90s. I’m also Co-Founder of Goodleg Toys, an indie resin toymaker based in Berlin, too. So what I’ve basically been doing in the past 3 years is collecting, dealing, and making toys.
What got you into the design and creation side of toys?
LR: Hyperactivity, passion, and the lack of ‘real’ toys at retailers these days.
What are your favorite knock-off, “mainstream” and old-school toy lines?
LR: Masters of the Universe, Turly Gang, Warrior Beasts, and all the other famous MotU KO lines. I’m also a huge fan of all these crazy Mannix combinations out there!
What do you draw inspiration from? Movies, comics, nightmares of skull faced, scythe armed he-men rampaging through an apocalyptic waste while robo-dinosaurs graze off piles of the dead in the background?
LR: You’re referring to Goodleg Toys’ War on Prehis toyline. I can see you’ve done your homework. Very well! Now, where to start… I’m a kid of the 80s & early 90s. Of course I’ve been and still am massively influenced by the toys, video games, comics and movies from that era. Being a kid of the 80s also means being a kid of the Cold War. That’s also what our toys’ve been about. Take classic 80s lines like MotU, GI Joe, Dino Riders or Transformers for instance. The essence of all these great toylines is war. A war where a supposed force of good (= the Capitalistic West?) is battling the force of evil (= the Communistic East?), to defend peace and order against terror and chaos. Our toys reflect this crazy situation we’ve been living in (and are still living in today somehow).
The industry knowingly or unknowingly tried to turn this essence into something heroic for kids. There’s nothing heroic about war in my opinion though. War is wrong. It’s mayhem, slaughter, death, and despair. It’s about turning young soldiers into beasts or machines, and cities into wastelands. Nothing else. That’s exactly what Prehis is about. War on Prehis is a bitter satire. It’s telling the truth. It shows how wrong a world can be, in toy form! It’s the truth the toys of our childhood didn’t tell us about! A truth that goes beyond the realm of good and evil the mainstream media & industry been teaching us about.
On the topic of comic books, are there any plans to make another comic based around any of your worlds again, like the “Rise of the Mace Drone” mini-comic you released with the Mace Drone figure. Possibly something longer?
LR: Definitely. ‘Rise of the Mace Drone’ is just the first WoP mini-comic of many more to come! The 2nd one will be released with our upcoming WoP figures in 2014. Eventually all these mini-comics will result in one big War on Prehis comic book. We also have ideas for other comics, sure. For Pablo Perra’s Shipwrecked Plunderboys for example. Our problem is the limited time we have on this godforsaken planet. *laughs*
It’s just Pablo and me at Goodleg Toys, accompanied by our friend Ralph Niese here and there. We would love to do alot more comic stuff than we’re doing. But right now this would go beyond our capacities. Manufacturing indie resin toys takes loads of time and effort. All our stuff is hand made! And sometimes you have to eat and sleep. Or have to take care of your little baby daughter and your wife. We’re putting out as much comics as we can though, guaranteed!
Is there any figure or toy line that you obsessively collect, regardless of how many you already possess? Anything you have a embarrassingly large amount of that would shock the world? …is it Gem & the Holograms?
LR: *laughs* Shit, no! I don’t like stuff like Gem & the Holograms. It’s lacking muscles, weapons, and deeper understanding of things! I have a specific fetish for MotU knock-off figures and ugly rubber dinosaurs though. My shelves are already bursting. But I just can’t stop collecting this garbage! They’re like abandoned pets to me, you know. When I see them, I feel pitty for them, and I have to pick them up. I can’t do anything about it!
At Goodleg Toys, how is the work divided between yourself and Pablo? Do you both design and cast evenly or is it more of a “one designs, one casts and paints” sort of situation?
LR: We both design, sculpt, cast, and paint. When it comes to artwork and drawings though, Pablo is the man. My drawings actually look like shit.
How do you go about designing a new piece? Do you start with a firm idea and go from there or are you more of a get-right-in-there-and-let-the-piece-find-itself sort of people?
LR: A bit of both I guess. For the most part I’m simply following my instincts. At Goodleg we do both kit-bashing and sculpting. Which means, for our figures we’re recycling parts of vintage toys as well as we’re sculpting our own bits. I think that’s just like mankind’s been doing it all the time, right? We’re putting to use what we ‘naturally’ find in our environment, enhance it, refine it, improve it. And what we don’t find, has yet to be created. Anew.
You did a Manborg figure a while ago (this figure being the reason I initially found out about your work) and it went over pretty well in that film’s fan community. Do you have plans to do more figures based of cult movies or was that just sort of a one off sort of situation?
LR: We released our 2nd movie figure just a few weeks ago: Bio-Cop. It was based on Steven Kostanski’s fake trailer from 2012. The toy was a success, just like Manborg. There’s a huge demand especially in the DIY movie scene for independent toymakers like us. We have a couple of movie related projects in the pipeline. So yes, we’re definitely down to make more movie based figures in the future!
If you could do a toy for any property (movie, comic, video game) what would it be and why?
LR: Unfortunately, there’s never been a decent Bud Spencer & Terrence Hill action figure release. God knows why! Probably because Germany is the only country where these two Italian actors can call themselves superstars! *laughs* However, it’s a real shame they never made into plastic. And I’d just love to make this happen one day!
Any super secret projects going on that will make people fill their shorts in excitement and/or jubilation?
LR: In 2014, the War on Prehis Battlesaur will be unleashed! There’s loads of more dope stuff to come though. I don’t wanna tell too much though. Be ready for some surprises!
As is Strange Kids Club tradition, before we finish this off, I have one final question: What is the strangest thing you remember doing as a kid?
LR: Knowingly pissing my pajamas in bed one morning, because I loved the feeling so much.
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In need of some Goodleg Toys to enact epic robo-dino vs zombie/cyborg he-men battles? You know you do. A little bird tells me that there will be a ridiculous new figure dropping in their store come the end of January. Watch for it!
