BeeFy & Co. are most recognized for taking all things geeky and making them incredibly cute. You have recognize their irresistible plushes or t-shirts.. which includes the sad yet cute Jon Snow. They also boast their own cute creations, please check them out this year at San Diego Comic Con.
Can you tell our readers what BeeFy & Co. is? and how did you get your start?
BeeFy & Co. is a designer toy, apparel, accessory and art company influenced by Pop Culture. We create original characters and stories and also recreate our inspired versions of some of the most popular characters in Pop Culture.
Two things I grew up loving, is drawing and collecting toys. During the urban vinyl toy craze and introduction of collectible art toys in the mid 2000’s, I became a huge fan. With a fresh Animation & Media Arts degree collecting dust on the shelves, I was curious how difficult or easy it would be for me to produce my own vinyl toys. Creating and producing my own toy was a dream come true. So I did a lot of research on the market and process. Luckily one of my good friends had a newtork to a vinyl production company. After getting a few quotes and numerous business start up pitches to a lot of friends, the rest was history.
What Exclusives are you bringing to SDCC 2018?
We will be releasing three SDCC Exclusives this year. We will have the Exclusive Shadow Bulbapoo plush (Inspired by Bulbasaur), the Shiny Snorlypoo (Inspired by Snorlax) and the Chakra Kyubi (Inspired by Kurama from Naruto). Each Exclusive plush are Limited Edition of 100.
Your plushes are incredibly cute but also pretty innovative, with removable body parts, magnets, pose-able parts, and now sound… how did you decide to bring the two together?
As I mentioned, one of my passion is collecting toys. I love action figures and any toys that has action features that allows more playability to them. Creating plushes was not something I would ever imagined doing with BeeFy & Co. Because of the long turnaround time for vinyl production compared to plush and most of my character designs tend to lean on the cute side. I thought my characters would make great plushes and gave it try. Our first few plushes were your typical plushes that didn’t have any features. As the popularity and demand of our plushes grew, I wanted to keep improving and making these plushes better.
I wanted our plushes to be more than just a collectible. I wanted to add more playability to them and make them really special and separate our plushes with other plushes in the market. I went back to my roots and what I love and know most about toys. So I experimented in combining action figure features into our plushes such as articulation, poseable parts, magnets, accessories and sound. I came up with the term “Action Plush” for our plushes (Action Toys + Plush). After releasing our first few plushes with new action features, they were a hit! Everyone loved them. Everyone who first discovers all these awesome features on our plushes, their initial reactions are their eyes becomes big, jaws dropped and ends with huge smile on their faces. These are the priceless reactions I love to see every time.
Your t-shirt line is pretty extensive in geek culture, how do you decide what’s going to get made and what doesn’t?
I tend to make the designs of characters I love most first of all. Then I would try to make the most popular characters from past and current pop culture. I will release characters following their movie releases also. With the increase popularity of comic book movie releases, it has definitely made my decisions easier. If it is a character I wouldn’t wear, I wouldn’t make it.
How did your board game come about and what else can you tell us about it?
I grew up with board games and video games too. Those rainy day board games at home and in grammar school were awesome. Such as Monopoly, Game of Life, Connect Four, Candy Land and Sorry. There seem to be more gravitation to videos games than the traditional board games today. I wanted to create something classic but also brought people and family together. So I decided to put a twist on some of my favorite classic board games.
I incorporated my characters into these games to make them more appealing but kept the game play similar. Like the classic game of Sorry, I incorporated the story of the Great Zodiac Race of the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals. Each player chooses three animals and they race to the finish line. First team to have all three members at the finish line wins! While they race across the board you can bump off your opponents. The best part of all this, is that the board game is FREE! It is free to download on our website www.beefyco.com. Just download the pdf images, cut them out and piece them together and you are ready to play! This also allows kids to learn to build the the board game, creates bonding time and builds communication skills with friends and family.
Do you get to enjoy SDCC or is it just non stop work for you?
I wish I get to enjoy SDCC. But I try my best to enjoy every minute and bit of SDCC with the limited free time I get, like running to the restroom, I would whip my head all over the place to catch glimpses of all the awesomeness around me. It is pretty much 110% all work.
What separates SDCC from the rest of the cons?
Wow, where do I begin. EVERYTHING! Everything about SDCC is 10 times Bigger and Better! You look at all the major toy and entertainment companies and their massive booths and set ups at SDCC. It is like going to Disneyland. So much to see, to do and to BUY! I am a fan first. I geek out the minute I arrive to SDCC. SDCC brings the best of all the Pop Culture industries. This doesn’t even include all the awesome festivities and events going on simultaneously during SDCC. The entire Gaslamp and downtown San Diego becomes SDCC.
What’s a typical day like for you at SDCC?
Restocking inventory early in the morning. Coffee run before heading to the convention center. I tend to always run a little bit late, so it would be normal to see me running to the booth with a large cart of inventory minutes after the doors open haha. Then the non stop grind begins from open to closing of the exhibitor hall. Restroom breaks are barely taken and if I recall, I missed 3-4 straights days of lunch last year. Meals are pretty much non existent during show hours. It gets pretty crazy. Once the halls are closed, we would go splurge and eat a huge dinner. After dinner we would try to attend some of the SDCC after party events, club or bar hopping and party the night away. This is the time I get to let loose and relax a bit.
As a vendor, what are some of the difficulties you have at a show as big as SDCC?
I would say being relevant to the attendees, fans, customers and SDCC. How do we as a vendor, company and brand stand out from the rest of all these other amazing vendors. At the end of the day, it is a business and every vendor at SDCC are competing for everyone of the attendees attention. SDCC brings the best companies, so you are competing with the best in your industry.
What are you looking forward to most at SDCC 2018?
EVERYTHING! All the lovely folks and friends that stops by our booth. It is the people that makes SDCC great. Besides the people, I have to say ALL THE TOYS! My favorite booth hands down have to be the Sideshow booth with all the new Hot Toys figures. Toys, Comics, Fans, Celebrities and Friends, I think SDCC is the closest thing to heaven for me, I can’t ask for anything more.
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