Smelter Skelter - Designer Toy

Art Director / Design Manager

T. Wei, also known as Tien Hee, is a multidisciplinary artist based in Wellington, New Zealand, and his work has this distinct quality where vintage cartoons and graphic design collide with something a little more abstract and offbeat. Smelter Skelter was his vision for a melted little robot with way more personality than its name suggests, and as Art Director and Project Manager I worked closely with him to take that flat illustration style and figure out how it actually holds up as a physical object. T. Wei's linework is deceptively simple, which made translating it into a sculpt its own kind of puzzle: getting the proportions, the "melted" silhouette, and the character's expression to read clearly in three dimensions while keeping that distinct New Zealand illustration sensibility intact.