Reactor-88’s Custom Corner: Jan Calleja

 

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Welcome to the January edition of Reactor-88's Custom Corner. To kick off 2014 we're highlighting Jan Calleja. Jan is a freelance graphic artist and toy customizer based in Quezon City in the Philippines. Jan has been customizing toys for five years now, and recently quit his full-time job in advertising so he could have more time experimenting with his custom toy creations.

Jan has a very interesting style of blending together toys with other recognizable machinery, whether it be an airplane, a car, or weaponry to create some very unique pieces. He usually does a lot of research before starting a piece, so there is some rationale behind his designs. At first toy art didn’t really click with Jan, but with his new found passion of creating these toy/machine hybrids, he now gets it. Jan still goes back and forth on whether to call his finished pieces toys or sculptures that have a toy-like appearance.

Regardless of the label, I feel Jan’s work has wide-reaching appeal and he definitely has a bright future ahead of him. Jan doesn’t have a website yet, but if you’d like to contact him about a commission, you can email him at chilikala@yahoo.com or send him a message over on his Facebook page. To see a full gallery of his work, I highly recommend you check out his Flickr page– amazing stuff!