This year’s Singapore Toys, Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) boasted another star-studded lineup – this time with a theme based around ‘by fans, for fans’. At the preview event, we got to talk to two of the event’s star guests, Simone Legno (creator of tokidoki) and Batman artist David Finch.
Simone Legno – creator of tokidoki
Simone has been busy in Singapore – he’s already been here to our sunny island at least 25 times – especially since he’s collaborating with River Safari for his latest project. (Have you seen his art for Mermicorno and Manatee yet?) He’s no stranger to collabs with Singapore-based entities, with SMRT being one of them. As many fans of tokidoki know, there’s no store here that carries the brand, so the only place to get them is at STGCC – and lucky fans queued up to get autographs from Simone himself!
Among the items available at STGCC were tokidoki x Hello Kitty and Unicorno collections which come in bright colours that you’d expect from tokidoki. Those who purchased the VIP Loot Packs even got a limited edition STGCC x tokidoki towel.
The tokidoki creator has been super busy this year, and will relocate to Japan very soon thanks to his rapid expansion in the Asian region – particularly in China. Fans of the brand can even look forward to a tokidoki hotel which is planned to be in Beijing sometime in the future!
David Finch – DC artist
When it comes to Batman, fans of the superhero will have heard of Eisner-award winner and comic artist David Finch. Hailing from Canada, Finch is also a part of the creative team for New 52 Wonder Woman along with his wife Meredith Finch.
Once a high school dropout, the self-taught artist today is a DC-exclusive artist who cites Batman as his favourite character. His art style is often described as dark and moody, which is probably why it fits so well with the masked hero.
David has proven to be a versatile artist who comes up with various iterations of his favourite hero – a talent that he credits to his constant retraining and drawing exercises (he even advises younger artists to copy anatomy books).
At the Drawing Masterclass segment at STGCC, David proved his skills by live drawing Batman and Joker on stage while being interviewed by the audience. Clearly, he’s a man used to drawing to deadline because he’s generally expected to turn in four pages a week.
As a man who says drawing is easy, he prefers to collaborate with writers because the best of them really speed things along as they make great visual choices.
