Creature Feature- An Interview with Uglydolls creator David Horvath
By Adam Barraclough
Back in 2001, Sun-Min Kim forever changed the course of pervasive art history when she sent her then long-distance boyfriend, David Horvath, a hand-sewn plush doll modeled after a little character he frequently doodled into the corners of his correspondence with her. The apron-wearing little fellow was named Wage, and he was the very first Uglydoll. Eventually, Sun-Min would bring to life more of David’s drawings, and what began as a huggable love-letter of sorts would result in a hugely successful line of plush dolls. David’s infectious character design has since been translated into several other mediums- from collectible vinyl figures and an upcoming video game release for Sony’s PlayStation 3, to an animated children’s TV program in Japan and an Uglydolls-themed show currently in production for the US.
Adam Barraclough – Aside from being one of the greatest love stories ever told in toys, the history of Uglydolls also contains the roots of what has become a much larger industry in designer plush. I’m wondering at this point if you ever imagined it would take you this far?
David Horvath – No way. When Eric Nakamura from Giant Robot Store said, "Oh, I’ve got to put some of these in my store," (the store had just been open a couple of months at that point) I was pretty much just begging Sun-Min to sew more of them. Since the original one was a gift it felt strange to ask her to make more but she was very excited, and we were big fans of Giant Robot, though we thought it was kind of odd that they would even want them. We thought they would be sitting on the shelves for a couple of months and nobody would buy them, but it would be cool to tell people- "Go down to Giant Robot and you can see our characters there."
I think we dropped off 20 Wages and 2 Babos on the first day, and that was when the first real big shock came. I dropped them off in the morning and I got home pretty late that night. Eric had sent over an e-mail saying, "David, do you have any more Uglydolls?" They were gone. That was great and terrible all at the same time. You know, it took Sun Min forever, she wasn’t used to it- this was like weeks of work, and then they’re just gone like that.
AB – How did that evolve into what it is now?
DH – We were so shocked that they were just gone. We thought that maybe one person had just bought them all. So, we made a second batch- twice as large, and dropped them off at Giant Robot and a second store, Plastica (in L.A. on 3rd Street by the Beverly center.) And again, both stores sold out. I think it took two days this time. So then we knew it was time to bring to life the other characters we had created in this world, pulling them off paper and into 3-D.
A year and a half later, I think Sun Min was making up to roughly 1,500 Uglydolls by hand. She was getting really tired and her hands had changed colors a couple of times and we decided that we either have to stop or go into some sort of production where they are still hand-made, but made by other people who would understand what we’re trying to do.
AB – So are these characters in any way reflective of yourself or people that you know?
DH – Yeah. Definitely. I base them on people I know, myself, and Sun-Min. I also kind of write them for people to find other people they might know within the characters. When people read the tag we often hear (when we’re sitting in stores spying on people shopping), "I know someone this would be perfect for," or "I know a guy who’s just like this." It’s hard to do that on purpose, but we’re happy that it seems to be happening.
AB – You’ve also had a chance recently to work with Kid Robot on their Dunny vinyl project. What can you tell me about that?
DH – That came about through my friendship with Paul Budnitz the owner of Kid Robot. He has been so great with us since we first started Uglydolls and we’d had a few events at his store in New York City in the past. We just started hanging out and he showed me this neat little sculpted shape at dinner one night. Actually, a friend of mine dropped that original Dunny prototype into his soup, I felt really terrible. But the original hand-sculpted Dunny-thing was just such a funny little shape, and right away when I saw it I turned his head around and said "Well now he’s evil, and they’re not ears they’re horns." So when Paul called me a week later to do some designs, I was interested in doing them mostly because I wanted to put a second face on them.
AB – What’s next for you?
DH – We have an art show coming up in January at Giant Robot with Bwana Spoons.
AB – Is that going to be more of a traditional gallery show; what will you be exhibiting there?
DH – We’re actually going to be featuring a couple of new characters, for the first time at the show, and then following up the show with more limited edition products and items- toys, t-shirts, and even books, this time. There’s a character that Sun-Min has been working on that we’ll be releasing a vinyl figure of in a limited edition set. The character is called Spider Boom and she’s a spider that becomes pregnant when she eats desserts and cakes. It’s coming out pretty soon- we just saw the final paint masters for those and then they’ll do a separate figure after the gallery show. She’s doing a bunch of paintings based on this character. We made a new character together called Pounda, and I shouldn’t say much about him, but we’ll do a bunch of works and paintings and follow-up with mostly published items and a few toys.
David’s work can be seen at www.uglydolls.com and www.davidhorvath.com
