david horvath edition

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Business Editor : Paul Magee

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 David horvath
uglydolls & aliens
Have you been laughed at by people who
say you'll never make money from your
creativity? So has David Horvath, artist, toy
designer and would-be UFO hunter, but he
didn t let that stop him.

Read his fascinating story, exclusively in

SUBvert Magazine and learn how he went
from sleeping on the floor of an illegally
erected bedroom to international success
as co-creator of the Uglydolls and other
cool characters.
Photo by Corey Burton

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the cool kids
became outsiders
and i stayed put
David, with the widespread success of the
Uglydoll you are being hailed as one of the
top character designers in the world, but
did you have this passion for toys as a kid?
When I was 12, the class was going around dis-
cussing what they wanted for Xmas. The boys
wanted Atari, footballs, etc. I already had all of
that in my garage so I said I wanted GOLION, an
all die cast metal Japanese robot. Many of the
kids laughed until I explained that it said ages
13 and up on the box, meaning they weren t
old enough to play with it just yet. Then they
kinda just stayed away. So in a way, the cool
kids became the outsiders and I stayed put.
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So it sounds like you chose to follow your
own path from an early age. Did you get any
support from the people around you?
My mother was a designer at Mattel for many
years. I wish that had helped me some, but the
honest truth is, she wasn t permitted to discuss
her job with me and she stayed loyal to that
golden requirement. The only way I knew she
still worked there was through catalogs and
purple He-Man errors she brought home. But
those catalogs were inspiring. I always knew
that I wanted to tell stories through toys.
The resistance came from my father, who told
me that surrounding myself with toys and quit-
ting Art Center to go work at a toy store would
never amount to me making my own toys.
He would tell all his professional contacts and
co-workers about his waste-of-life son locked
up in his toy room, working at a toy shop. He
made many a famous or well known profes-
sional in the art and design world shake their
head at me (being told his version, not mine).
So there was resistance. Luckily, I didn t care.
He wanted to be a photographer more than
anything in the world, but went into advertising
because it seemed more stable to him. Avoiding
your life passion out of fear is a no-no in my
book.
When he would freak out
over why I had so many toys
(over 40 of them!) I would
ask him why science majors
had beakers and slides all
around their room. He
didn’t get it.
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Anyway, when I was 19, I did indeed quit adver-
tising at Art Center so that I could go work at a
local boutique toy shop to learn the ins and
outs of non-mass market toy distribution and
observe moms, dads, and kids buying toys in a
retail environment.
That job also got me into toy fair, and got me
deep into the side of toys I knew would prove to
be very important if I wanted to make my
dreams come true and go at it on my own.
Now I hear my father clips articles and such,
but from my early teens until well after we
started Uglydoll, he told me toys and those
stuffed doo-dads were a waste.
It s easy to get behind your kid when he s in the
paper, but with our daughter I want to be sure
to be there for her during the process, not the
irrelevant outcome. I hope I can use my past
run in with this resistance as a life lesson so
that I can do better than he did when raising my
own child.
i still draw the
same way i did when i
was 10
So your love of toys was a hard path to fol-
low then, but what about your growth as an
artist?
I didn t set out to be an artist. I still draw the
same way I did when I was 10. Is it art? I don t
really care but I did see a certain path I wanted
to take as someone who spends their time
working on their own toys and children's books.
It was mostly mental maybe? I knew this is how
it was going to go, as I wouldn t have it any
other way. Many months on my sister s floor in
the early days, and skipping meals sometimes
when things got serious at the start. But that
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stuff is always thrown in to test how dedicated
you are. I always say if someone from the fu-
ture travels back in time to tell you that your
life-long dream will fail 100%, and you still go
for it anyway, it will work.
You clearly had passion, did you set any
specific goals from the beginning or did you
wing it as you went along?
There was no winging it and the plan was al-
ways very specific. We get tons of emails asking
how to do XYZ, which is great. I pretty much
reply the same way each time, that, in my expe-
rience, taking the same path someone else did
results in getting close but never where you
want to end up.
Ignoring those paths and making up your own
route leads you to where you really belong,
wherever that may be.
I use this now pretty
much scientifically
proven method by
the hour and it
works
Can you share any techniques you use to
help you focus on achieving your goals?
Ugh, I wish you asked before the Secret came
out, but actually I have always believed in the
law of attraction since I first read about it 15 or
so years ago. I use this now pretty much scien-
tifically proven method by the hour and it
works. Your mind effects the universe, and it
also creates it. Your thoughts absolutely deter-
mine your reality.
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How you generally feel inside and what
thoughts you generally carry in your head is
what s going to keep coming at you. This is a
huge part. The biggest. The rest is all minor de-
tail, actually.
What about the excuses many people have
for not following their creative dreams; no
money, time, credibility, support etc. Did
you ever confront these same doubts?
Those aren t excuses. Those are hurdles. Just
need to jump. We had zero help. Zero cash. Ah
but we had a needle, a scanner, a pen, an old
borrowed digital camera, and a mac lap top
which I got by selling my 2 older macs from
when I had a job before.
That first, hand sewn doll sold for $30. And
then the next one sold. Soon we had $3000! So
we used that to make more and keep it all
growing.
I had one design-ish art job after graduating
from Parsons with my, now, wife and co-creator
Sun-Min. It didn t last long. The first few weeks
were great and I had a lot of fun animating in
Flash until the boss told me to change a color
to purple, and that was it for me.
Lesser paying jobs, be it retail stores or coffee
houses, are great because you get so pissed off
that your dream work comes out no matter
what.
When we decided to start for real, I slept on my
sisters floor for 9 months, eating not much
more than cereal, plain white bread, and salads,
and then moved to a tiny, illegally erected bed-
room within an industrial building in the then
very scary DUMBO, Brooklyn, surviving on a
daily menu of egg on a roll in the morning, a
bagel and coffee for lunch, and really good
$3.00 chicken legs from a local corner stand at
night.

but a “real” job with co-

workers wanting to hang
out and drink, late hours,
weekends, and comfortable
money coming in, is a dream
killer.
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One guy called me
that [a millionaire]
on a day I had to
skip lunch to
survive
Rent was a few hundred bucks, paid for by sell-
ing everything I owned in LA, keeping 5 days of
clothes and not much else. I bought an air bed
but had no table, so the computer was on the
bed. $5.00 a day was the food limit. Laundry
was once a week, and monthly subway passes
were $80. I had nothing else and often went
without the coffee.
A Japanese magazine shooting famous artists
homes came to do a shoot, and elected to take
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photos of someone else's much nicer room in
the building just to avoid wasting a whole day.
They even dressed it with our dolls. ( I tried to
tell them.)
I lived this way for the first 2 years of Uglydoll
when everyone was calling me a millionaire. One
guy called me just that [a millionaire] on a day I
had to skip lunch to survive.
Then, Sun-Min and I basically lived on the road
when we went into full production and sales
grew. Until we were married, we lived in hotels,
traveling from trade show to trade show, driving
across the US, stopping by small towns to find
small shops.
It's a lot to learn starting out on your own.
Did you have any particular people who
helped mentor or guide you?
Our sales team headed up by Alita Friedman
has been a huge help since we went into full
production in mid 2003. We have a small, close
group, and its more like a family than a sales
force. They re the nicest people on the planet
and they drive the ship very straight and
steady.

Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot was the first to

find us and his enthusiasm for our work and
toys kept us going. Toshiki from Zakka in NYC
was on board early on, and he introduced me to
Dehara for the first time. The many, many small
shops keep it all going and we ve been lucky
enough to get to know many of the owners.

Sun-Min grew up with pretty much the same

dream as me, and while she was in Korea, she
worked night and day on the actual dolls while I
stayed in Brooklyn trying to make it all work.

Most of all, the early fans who were not only

into our stuff but helped spread the word early
on. The rest is meaningless without them.

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get as much input as you can, and then
don’t follow any of it
Did you ever go out and actively ask people
for help and advice?
I realized when I was much younger, after calling
up Gary Baseman for some very good advice,
that I was getting great advice on how to do
things a way they had already been done.
The best advice I can give is to get as much in-
put as you can, and then don t follow any of it.
Any other heroes? and have you had the
chance to learn from any of them?
Growing up, the designers at Ban Dai Japan and
Tomy were my heroes. I had no idea who they
were, but I could see what they were doing and
I learned a lot from them.
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Now you've been in the industry for several
years do you find it easier to call on your
creativity at will? Do you have any tips for
being more creative more often?
I just make what comes out. For the Ugly Guide
books, there s no sketches. I draw and write
with a pen. No eraser, so it s all a mistake. As
for how to be more creative more often, sit
down and work. Done deal. Even if crap comes
out, sitting down and getting to work is what
matters. Read The War of Art by Steven
Pressfield. That will help with the procrastina-
tion, if that s the issue. That book was a great
help and I am pretty sure the above is a quote
from that book. It s ingrained into my brain, so
plagiarism not intended.
How do you keep your energy up with all
the work required to make it in this busi-
ness?
Meditation. Avoid all drugs and late week nights
out. Basically be what losers call a loser . Stay
home and make stuff for other people to go do.
Avoid the scene and avoid hanging with the
top artists in them.
And your views on fitness?
Mental fitness is just as important as physical.
Food is important. But what s most important is
monitoring your daily, almost hourly mindset. Do
you carry Life is tough, life sucks in your head
all day? Then it will be. Careful, because the
music, movies and games you repeat over and
over too often can keep you in a certain mind-
set, good or bad.

Scene-sters and others What about the rock and roll lifestyle of be-

trying to “make it” like to ing a hip artist and designer?

keep each other in check If you re living a rock and roll life style, you get
your photos in the backs of magazines only you
and hold each other back, and your buddies read and not much else.

and they hate anyone who My title is : Nerdy Japanese robot collector and

breaks away. strong believer in UFOs, ghosts, and the para-

normal. The artist part is helping me save my
pennies so I can switch over to UFO research
full time. See my blog for more on that.

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 Ghost hunting aside, how often in your
creative work do you find yourself doing
things that you are afraid of?

My daily routine is wake up, do things that

make me afraid, eat, draw, sleep, repeat. If
you re afraid, you re on the right track. Keep at
it!

Fear is fine but don t use it as a way to not do

what you need to do. Talking about your fear
can lead to a weekly Friday night talk about
your fears while drinking beer. Forget that. Do
your work, then drink.

How often do you find yourself failing at

something or abandoning a piece of work?

The real failure is not starting. So, never.

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Isn't it a shame they don't teach that ap-
proach in school!
Math was my favorite art class at school. I used
to fill in my test answers with UFO drawings.
I got an F, but was I wrong? If you get all A's in
school, what does that mean? Good job little
Johnny, you memorized what we told you to and
filled in the blanks. Maybe it s better to fail. I
want to send our daughter to a school where
they have a good balance of math, science, nu-
trition, financial planning, no tests, and David
Icke. So basically home school.
Early on I taught a class, once a week, at Otis
Art School for one year. It was supposed to be
a flash animation class, but I turned it into a self
help class. The class was called quit, get your
tuition back before the deadline, and use that
money to make your dreams come true, be-
cause this place is simply training you to work
for someone else.
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One student said I was his
best teacher ever, one
hated me, and the rest
write from time to time.
A lot of university students tell us they are
taught that art shouldn't be tainted by
commercialism. What are your thoughts on
that?
Why do artists have to starve but it s OK for
everyone else to suffer behind a desk doing
what you don t want to do for money? No
thanks. Or do you mean fine artists doing fancy
designer bag collaborations and putting images
on sneakers? Doesn t bother me any. We get
mad when kids paint on the walls outside but
then we get mad when they paint on a bag or a
shoe?
Don’t reveal your plan to ANYONE!
Are there any lessons you've learned about
money that you'd like to pass on to other
people just starting out?
Money! I ll never forget our second year at Toy
Fair. Many designer toy production houses set
up booths after seeing how well we seemingly
did the year before. As I passed the booths, one
of the guys was rubbing his hands, literally, and
told me well, I m ready to make a million dol-
lars! I looked back and said You mean spend a
million dollars, right? He looked at me with a
sort of ghost face, and sure enough, he didn t
set his booth up the following year.
There s nobody out there making instant cash-
ola. There s no All you got to do is ________ .
Even the guys you think hit it rich, did so well
after you thought they did. A few smarty's
make it SEEM like they are making it big time,
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with hopes of selling their brand or company
and its perceived value to larger companies
looking to grab up a hip, hot brand , but no, its
going to be a lot of work and nobody with some
magic money wand is coming. Hopefully.
When the money does come in, save it! Or bet-
ter, grow it. You re going to need most of it to
keep it all going. Making a lot of money costs a
lot of money! And according to the music vid-
eos, when you make it big time, being a million-
aire means buying nice cars and big houses,
right? Well turns out, those are expensive!!!
But the money is not as important as the start-
ing out part, START! That s all you have to do.
Really. You ll be surprised to find how few peo-
ple do. Don t tell ANYONE what you re up to ei-
ther. Don t reveal your plan to ANYONE! Not
because it s a secret, but because something in
the universe happens when you tell us what
you re going to do instead of just doing it. The
universe takes it all away and you never start.
Tell us what you did , not what you re going to
do . Then you ll be fine.
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With success comes more attention, is life
in the public eye what you thought it would
be when you set out?
Some kid posted a self made animated movie
up on one of those movie sharing websites with
characters that looked just like ours. So we
made him take it down. Sad, because he was
very talented and got a million hits.
He called us evil and posted that we are evil all
over the internet. Many fans of his movie called
us evil too. Should we see him in person, who
knows if there s a danger.
But the truth is, if a giant entertainment com-
pany or toy company is looking to rip us off
(and they are) and sees a kid with imitations of
our stuff, they copy THAT instead of ours and
when we go after the said big company, they
claim that our stuff is not unique, using those
copy cat works as examples. And if we don t go
after everyone, they can claim we are selective.
And there s a lot of copy cats. We work very started to move on with a sort of Thanks for
hard to stop them. So we make a lot of enthusi- sharing your thoughts polite kinda way.
astic kids with a lack of understanding in the
copyright & trademark realm very upset. I Uh, but he kept at it, sort of chasing me around
don t like that part. That kid was very talented and started to add insults such as if someone
and the animation was a college final. His pro- gave one of these to me as a gift, I would throw
fessor should have told him way beforehand. it away (which is a horrible thing to do, I think.
A gift is a gift, good or bad.)
So how do you handle the negative atten-
tion?
Anyway I soon realized,
After our recent art show with Dehara at Giant
Robot, a boyfriend of one of the employees
sadly, that my first true,
who was apparently helping out, came over to
let me know that he hated my work, and that he
live and in-person critic
believed my work missed an opportunity to say had turned out to be not
something to the viewer. (I made drawings of
sad fat little kids raised on junk food emerging
much more than a drunkard
from video game packaging and internet
browsers.)
heckler who only wanted to
I was fine with his comments, and after listening
somehow lift himself up by
as intently as I do to the good comments, I trying to bring me down.
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I then realized he really was helping out there
and his job was to take photos of anyone who It’s the rot you feel when
bought the art. I always buy a few of Dehara s
pieces when he has a show so as he took my
you don’t do your own work.
photo, he said stuff like try to look like you
care. Etc to try to get a rise out of me. I didn t When you let fear take
say anything, and I thanked him for taking my
photo. There s no come back to drunken jeal-
over for too long, you
ousy, so you should never try. It wastes your
energy.
begin to hate seeing
I only remember him because nobody before
others get theirs done.
him or after him has said anything negative
about my work to me in person. Uh, except for
If you do your work, and know you gave it your
some of my past art teachers.
all, and if you live your life the way you really
I m human and a few things bring me down. But know you were born to, other people s negativ-
a joker like that never could. I felt embarrassed ity seems to roll right off.
for him, because I know what makes people say
Even with the risk of criticism a lot of peo-
such things.
ple go into the arts to express themselves
and also get some recognition, do you think
of Uglydoll buyers as your audience?

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The vast majority of our audience is not an
audience. It s people of all ages buying toys,
and while they love our products, they don t
care much about who we are.

99% of people who buy our dolls have no

clue what a kid-robot or designer toy is. That
may be the secret to why it works so well,
maybe.

Because, while we are a small boutique com-

pany, our dolls aren t actually designer toys.
But the small band of people who show up at
our art shows to show so much enthusiasm
for our work and toys mean as much to us as
members of our own family, and we always
look forward to seeing their faces.

We didn t set out to see those faces, we set

out to do our work. But they are a fantastic
and meaningful bonus to an already very ex-
citing career, and our fans are a real source
of joy for us.

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heroes
Special thanks to David Horvath
For sharing a revealing and inspirational story.
http://www.uglydolls.com/
http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/
Portrait photograph of David
Thanks to Corey Burton and Hilda Hufalar.
http://flickr.com/photos/hch05/
Special behind the scenes thanks to
Jocelyn, a very talented illustrator.
www.redbubble.com/people/bahgoesthesheep
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