Official pictures have finally been released of Hi-Def! From the creative mind of kaNO and with a hefty amount of help from ToyQube, Hi-Def makes his debut at this years NYCC. 10 inches tall, fully articulated, records in hand, and wearing a m-65 military jacket, this all black colorway is ready for his first ever release. Only 100 of these figures will be available at the ToyQube Booth (#870) that will retail for $85. We were lucky enough to get a quick interview with the mastermind behind this piece, which can be read right after the jump.
VP: As a sneaker head is it your dream to one day have your own sneaker? if so what brand would you want to collaborate with?
kaNO: I would say that having my own sneaker would be HUGE for me, it is definitely one of my dreams. If I could pick a brand it would definitely be Nike any type of Nike SB or my take on any of the Air Jordan classics.
VP: Are there any other artists you look up to? Any that helped influence your artwork today?
kaNO: Definitely, I mean as far as the toy art scene goes, there is Michael Lau, Kaws, Futura, Jason Sui these are guys that made me want to get into the game when I saw there products, even after all these years they have some of the most memorable toys to me.
VP: how did you discover the toy scene and what made you want to do the whole custom thing?
kaNO: I discovered the toy scene when I used to frequent Toy Tokyo in the east village. I used to go there for comic book based toys, and slowly started checking out all the cool stuff they had on display. I found myself looking at toys that resembled my style of drawing and I was drawn into it. I work in animation where you spend most of your time drawing other styles and never really get to be known for your own personal work. I think as soon as I realized that there was an audience for the type of designs I did, I just went for it. I got into customizing because it was the closest thing to producing your own toys at the time, I also thought it was good publicity to let people know what you can do, this way when your toy does come out, its not just like you came out of nowhere.
VP: Any other custom sneaker labbits in the work at the moment?
kaNO: Not at the moment, but I do want to do a series of them mirroring my favorite sneakers, I would love to do a sneaker custom show set up in a sneaker store. I originally got the concept from the air Jordan 8’s which are also called the bunnie. I applied the deign on the labbit and it worked, and that was that.
VP: Where does Hi-Def come from?
kaNO: Hi-def comes from a several different concepts in my sketchbooks and paintings. On my website I have a painting I did of Charlie Brown as a robot DJ, I took this concept and evolved it until I felt comfortable making a figure out of it. I choose the name Hi-Def because I wanted to go very detailed with this figure, moneygrip and Bodega are very simple stream lined designs and I wanted to show more range on this figure. I pitched it to ToyQube as a collaborative co-production peace and we got cracking right away. The figure took a while to get out, but I was in no rush and the wait totally paid off.
