TOKIDOKI FEVER!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! So check this out, Sat night I got to meet one of my favorite illustrators named Simone Legno. He is well known for his Tokidoki brand which consists of cute loveable edgy characters. He is also one of the major players in the Vinyl and Pop culture art world. His fame is almost as big as Hello Kitty and people of all ages flock to see this guy in person to shake his hand and tell him how Kawaii his characters are.

In reading about him online I found that he adores Japan and I guess Japan was his inspiration in creating this style of illustration that has made him a household name. Now I can totally relate to him in that sense because I too love all things Kawaii. I'm finding that some artists who draw in that style are often mistaken to be japanese artists however in Simone's case, he is from Italy. I tell ya this world is turning Kawaii and we should all thank Japan for giving us that inspiration to work off of.

Well back to my Sat night experience, Simone was signing autographs at the YOYAMART store in NYC. When I got there I realized I should have gotten there much earlier because the line had already grown just to get into this tiny store. Who knew! This was my first time at a signing like this so I really had no idea what to expect. The wait time turned into 5 hours on line. You had to buy your TOKIDOKI toys first then get on a seperate line for autographs. It was very overwhelming but totally worth it and I'm glad I stayed the whole way through. As late as it got I was glad to finally shake Simone's hand and tell him how much I loved his work and hope someday my work becomes as big as his ( hee). He then said thank you and very humbly stated that he was soo sorry for making me wait so long. But I was just glad to finally meet him in person. He was a very cool and down to earth person. He happily signed all my tokidoki stuff and even sketched a character in my little sketchbook at about 11:30pm. He basically made sure everyone got an autograph and a little drawing on everyone's toys and sketchbooks. You could tell he was tired but you could also tell how much attention and appreciation he had for his fans. It was a great experience and I hope to see him again in the future.


PS. SImone - I love'a the Mozzarela!! (hee)
PSS. Thanks Pat for telling me about it!