ARIFIN AMIN’S forte is fine arts, a path that he took after being encouraged by his teachers who saw the spark of talent that he has had since he was young. In time, Double A (his handle in the designer toy scene) followed his heart, releasing his first designer figure: DID Chibi Hapser.
“When I was young, I liked to draw. As I grew older, my taste in art changed. I began to admire comics, especially Japanese comics. Then I also began to like animation. When I went to study, I majored in fine arts. I was also a kampung boy.
“All this culminated in the design of DID Chibi Hapser, my first designer toy,” said Arifin.
DID Chibi Hapser began as DID Hapser, one of the three designs Arifin submitted to Inch Lab, a local platform for designer art collectables. However, when he wanted to try his own hand at making his figures, he sketched them out first.
“The idea was finalised on paper before I gave it shape. People say that the colours and the sharp teeth design are my signatures, but actually, it’s just my favourite colour, and the teeth design was inspired by my favourite manga,” said Arifin.
He then sculpted the master, the model for the mould, using epoxy. It was sculpted in multiple pieces and held together using magnets.
The figure looks like a person in a dragon costume wearing a hoodie, a pair of jeans, and a pair of shoes. The design is youthful, the colours have a young adult tone, but the backstory of DID Chibi Hapser is quite dark.
“DID stands for dissociative identity disorder. Back in the day, it was mistaken for multiple personality disorder. In a rural place, like a kampung, it might be described as a possession.
“Hasper is a combination of happy and serious. Together they conjure the image of the duality of the figure, the person inside and the costume.
“The story behind DID Hapser is that it is a dead person inside who is being kept alive by the magic of the dragon costume. Chibi just means this is the cute version of the figure,” said Arifin.
He even had planned for the character to have its own mini-comic and perhaps a short animation – all things that he liked when he was younger.
“The whole thing was a learning process. And the MCO just makes things more challenging. I had to work with what I had and what I could get,” said Arifin.
The mould for the figure was made with silicone. While most people used a blank master to make the mould, Arifin painted his, to see how it would look.
“Making the mould itself took several tries. I tried to make the key, the guides for the two halves of the mould to come together, with a plastic ball, but it reacted with the silicone. So, in the end, I just cut the moulds in half in a pattern so that they could only fit one way,” said Arifin.
His medium of choice for DID Chibi Hapser is Smooth-Cast resin, a tried and tested method to cast figures with a smooth finish. But even then, it didn’t go well at first.
“I don’t have a pressure pot to vacuum out air bubbles, so I had to mix everything by hand, slowly folding it over itself, to avoid air pockets.
“The problem is, I picked a fast-drying resin. So one time, it was cured before I even had the chance to pour it into the mould.
“Some of my first castings also had large air pockets. Some even had mysterious shiny spots that were sticky and didn’t cure or disappear even after I sanded and painted it,” said Arifin.
After a successful cast, he uses a rotary tool to create the gaps needed to insert the magnets and corresponding metal plates, patches the holes with resin, and paints the figure using acrylic paints.
For packaging, Arifin turned to block printing. He carved his own designs on linoleum. Yes, the same stuff people use for flooring. He uses it as a stamp to print art on the boxes and even the included certificate of authenticity.
“I plan to do 20 figures in all for this series. I sold four of the first five in a flash sale on my Instagram (@aarifin_amin). One will be used as a display piece at an upcoming group show (My Toys 2.0 EXPOSURE, Greydea Studio, from now to Aug 8). The rest will be sold through pre-orders and at the show,” said Arifin.
