BORINGNATION

Hello MFC!
In my last 'My Favorite Artists' article, I covered Guramani, my favorite sculptor.
Today I'll cover Figyu A Ya, a circle with over a decade of experience at Wonder Festival, who creates handmade, large-scale mixed media doujin figures.

These creations are made with a variety of materials, but mostly fabric, resin, and wire.
I really love pieces of art that are made with inexpensive or mundane materials. There's something amazing about transforming things as ordinary as fabric, wire, cotton and construction paper into a finished sculpture, it really shows a mastery of creation!!

What initially fascinated me about Figyu A Ya is how different their work is from most figures documented on MFC. These aren't conventional resin garage kits, and they're also not typical doujin figures either. They're enormous mixed-media sculptures, assembled from ordinary materials, even construction paper. It conveys a sense of passion unlike anything else! Looking through the production photos feels less like watching someone follow an established method for figure sculpting and more like watching them invent a solution for every individual part as they go.

They've been creating since at least 2012, with one of their oldest Hatsune Miku figures being sold at Wonder Festival 2012 [Summer].

But it's not just Wonder Festivals- one of their pieces was also on display at the AJC Creators Contest 2019 / AJC Creators Collection Exhibition in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, where it won an honorable mention award!

Red Oni-chan is also a nice example of the improvisation I mentioned earlier. The original design was supposed to have pigtails, but while creating it, Figyu A Ya felt that the hairstyle didn't balance well with the large club and changed it to buns. I really enjoy details like this in their production notes, because you can see the design evolving alongside the physical sculpture rather than every decision being completely settled beforehand.

Just how are these huge sculptures created? Well, they usually start by making the face.

The fabric is laid over a base and then adjusted. Once the fabric is perfected, layers of resin are applied on top, ranging from 3-8 layers.
The limbs are made with felt stuffed with cotton over wire, then covered in fabric afterward. Shoes are made of construction paper, fingers are made of wire.

Seeing one halfway through production also makes the finished result more impressive. Before the clothing and finishing work brings everything together, you're looking at exposed wire, stuffed fabric limbs and a resin-covered face floating on an unfinished body. I will admit that these are the pictures I find creepy, lol.

For figures they produced in multiples (usually only around 1–3), they would create the first one as a test, then make the others at the same time. Once it's all done, they sometimes create a base or wall stand for it, and then it's ready for display and sale! When one of these is sold, the creator always refers to it as being 'married', like the creations are being sent off for a happy marriage, which is kind of sweet. When purchased from the Wonder Festival venue, customers would typically carry the piece around and back home in their arms.

They're often sold at amazingly low prices, too. Commercial prepainted 1/1-scale figures can easily cost thousands of dollars (in USD), but the most expensive Figyu A Ya I've found so far sits at a measly 35,000 yen (roughly $220 USD at the time of writing), while plenty were sold for only 5,000 yen (roughly $30). Absolutely crazy prices!

I've seen a lot of people call these figures uncanny, scary, or ugly. I understand the uncanny reaction, though I'll admit that seeing them dismissed as simply "ugly" has always made me a little sad. There's so much craftsmanship and personality in them.

But these are large physical recreations of stylized 2D anime characters made partly from fabric, so of course they're uncanny! Anime proportions translated into something nearly human-sized are inherently strange. Conventional scale figures soften that because they're small, and they're polished. At a larger scale, the viewer's brain probably starts interpreting the object differently. But that also makes the style truly distinctive and recognizable.

You can see similar responses in comment sections of other 1/1 scale figures as well. Like the comment section of this figure, people are like "uncanny ew" lol.

This Black Rock Shooter figure was never sold, but I find it so amazing. The style really suits a darker design!! I think the uncanny quality can benefit the subject in some cases, it can capture a cool and unique, even a slightly grungy look.

This Shinobu is super cute, with a removable hat, the float ring and peace sign, and even her nails are painted! In fact, a lot of these feature high levels of detail like that, you can tell how much care was put into every little part.

This Flandre's face is so cute!!

This Miku has a really adorable pose and expression too, I actually find the faces of a lot of these to be really charming. You can also see how carefully the hair is positioned and refined, especially with characters who have long, flowing hair, like Miku!

And this Sonico too, she looks so sweet and timid. The pose with her arms between her legs makes her feel very reserved, which I find fitting for Sonico's personality.

Here are the creator's links if you'd like to follow them! Their blog and Twitter stopped updating after 2021, but surprisingly, Figyu A Ya returned to Wonder Festival for the 2024 Summer event, where the official dealer catalogue lists them at booth 2-17-15. Their copyright applications included Ascendance of a Bookworm, SPT Layzner, Fang of the Sun Dougram, and Hatsune Miku. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find photographs of their booth or confirm exactly what they displayed or sold there. I would appreciate it if anyone is able to find that out!

Twitter
Blog

Also, if anyone owns Figure Maniacs 2013 Spring Edition... Figyu A Ya is said to have a section somewhere, so I'd be interested in seeing that! And thank you for reading as usual!