As promised, here’s the first of our videos featuring Simone Legno at the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention. We shot this video on the Preview Night outside the event hall where the artists (including Simone) were drawing on the big wall mural. We were also checking out his cute cap, tokidoki clothes and the awesome tokidoki x Onitsuka tiger shoes. Hehe.

We do have a couple more videos lined up for you, so if you want to stay updated on when those are up, sign up for our RSS feed!

P.S. Just a reminder that our Tokidokizens Giveaway is still on-going so keep those comments coming!

P.P.S. Also thanks to TOYSREVIL for linking us up on their tokidoki post! *waves back to TRE*

Finally this is what we have been waiting for. The STCC’08 online art auction has gone live! The minimum bid for the tokidoki Art piece (as seen above) is at SGD$70 SGD200. Please note that this is a blind bid - meaning that you submit to STCC, the maximum amount that you will be willing to bid, the person with the highest bid wins. Bidding starts at 6pm, 1st July and ends at 6pm, 8th July (GMT+8).

Good Luck tokidokizens, may the best fan win.

(edit: as at 7pm (GMT+8) the minimum bid has been changed to SGD200 - I guess there was too many bids for charity… but we have no idea which one/s yet.)

On Sunday (Day Two of the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention), Tokidokizens got an unexpected surprise/treat at being able to go for lunch with our favourite designer, Simone Legno of tokidoki. Thanks to our friends at Queen’s Couture, I was able to join them for a short lunch after the “Live Art Demo” session at a quiet Japanese restaurant somewhere in Millenia Walk (away from the crowds at Suntec).

Along the way, Simone was stopped by a few fellow tokidoki fans who wanted a photo together him. He was very obliging and posed with them. From our small bits of conversations and my own observations, Simone is indeed quite friendly, down-to-earth and easy-going in person. He did not say no to anyone who wanted a photo or an autograph even in the crowded event hall.

I must say that I was quite tired out from the past two day’s activities so it was actually a tussle for me to stay coherent and not be too awestruck to speak during lunch. However I wasn’t as tired as Simone himself, having only had an average of four hours of sleep every night he’s been in Singapore coupled with jetlag! So I’m very amazed and totally respecting his professionalism - he could still gather his reserves of energy to appear at all the activities and autograph sessions at the convention. Kudos to him!

Lunch was a pretty quiet affair peppered with the occasional conversations. As it was in an informal setting, the subjects talked about revolved around the usual things you would find of a lunch amongst friends - food, weather, work etc. Being Italian, Simone appreciates good food and would cook at home for friends and family when he’s not traveling around the world. Since this was not the first time he is in Singapore, Simone has tried quite a few of our local delicacies though he couldn’t recall what they were (except for chicken rice!).

I did ask him whether he expected the overwhelming response that he got when he was here and Simone said that he was quite surprised at the popularity of the tokidoki brand here in Asia. In fact he did not expect to see his products flying off the display cases as quickly as they did (Simone thought that he would have to ship half of them back)!

By the end of the lunch, we took some photos and I got him to sign my tokidoki SANDy and Skeletrino before walking back to the convention. At the event hall, I shook his hand and thanked him (he thanked us for our support as well) before Simone had to rush off for the final autograph session for the day. What a great way to end my weekend escapades at the convention!

p.s. I’m still a bit awestruck… so pardon me if this sounds a bit incoherent…

p.p.s. We’ll be posting some videos we took over the weekend at the “Live Mural Art” session soon. Stay tuned for it via our feed!

Missed out on our other STCC updates? Read all about it here!

• tokidoki@STCC 2008 - Preview Night
• tokidoki@ STCC 2008 - Day One
• tokidoki@ STCC 2008 - Day Two

After the madness of Day One, we were so contemplating not going for Day Two of the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention. But passion overruled logic and extreme tiredness and I decided to pop by for a last glimpse of Simone Legno aka tokidoki! If you were hoping that the last day of the show would be quieter, think again… it was just as crowded as Day One but with much more structure (queues for autographs etc).

I reached there around 12 pm and decided to take a stroll around to see if there were more interesting things at the other booths. Remembering that there was an autograph session on-going at the Play Imaginative’s booth with tokidoki and Devilrobots, I decided to just take a peek and check out the situation. Wow… there was actually an EXTRA LONG queue snaking around the booths surrounding Play Imaginative’s!

(Simone Legno and Shin from Devilrobots)

People were carrying their tokidoki and Devilrobots items, I saw some with the Plus Robots (which was retailing at the booth), and some just bought the toys on the spot and got the two of them to autograph it. At least I was happy to see that the two artists were relaxed, seated and bantering with one another.

After that I just went around to the other booths, gathering a couple of autographs from the other artists like Pete Fowler and Touma (he was wearing a Knuckle Bear wrestling mask amusingly enough!) before the next event on my list. That would be the “Live Art Demo” by Simone back at the tokidoki booth! By this time, the booth was crowded with people trying to get their hands on the last of the tokidoki tees, stationery sets, accessories and stickers and I decided that I would just stand around and see if i could grab a few stray shots with my trusty phone-cam. Then Simone arrived and he was so much more relaxed compared to Day One and definitely looking more awake than he was at the Preview Night. He took out his tokidoki + Hello Kitty bag filled with his markers, bantered with the lovely sales staff before settling down to start on the artwork.

Each artist who did the “Live Art Demo” were given a mounted canvas panel to work on. Simone started by drawing in one of my recent favourite characters - Rocker Cactus Girl. As time went on, he added more and more of the cute and fiesty tokidoki characters into the panel and colouring them in at the same time.

Initially I thought I could squeeze through the crowd, but check them out! All tokidoki fans armed with cameras big and small - my puny phone camera would never stand a chance.

So I decided to whip out my pass and stand inside the booth, next to the first glass cabinet in order to get better photos of Simone at work. He was quite meticulous in his drawing, not really rushing like he did at Butter Factory, but taking his time to plan and add little details and colours to the artwork. Occasionally Simone would stop for a while and take stock of the design before adding more subtle details to it. Halfway through, he took out even more markers from his tokidoki LeSportsac bag and the artwork got more and more colourful!

After an hour, Simone finished the design and posed with it for all the fans standing in front. If I’m not wrong, this artwork (together with the rest that was done by the other artists) will be placed up for auction after the convention. Here’s what it looked like on display!

(Finished tokidoki artwork - we want!)

Updates, videos and even more photos will be on-going as we wind up our whirlwind weekend here at the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention 2008 with the amazing Simone Legno of tokidoki.

Yes there’s still my totally unexpected lunch with Simone Legno to be shared, so make sure you keep checking back to our site, or just subscribe to our RSS feed - makes it so much easier!

Missed out on our other STCC updates? Read all about it here!

• tokidoki@ STCC 2008 - Day One
• tokidoki@STCC 2008 - Preview Night

Stay tuned for juicy details when Jackie from Tokidokizens gets an unexpected dream-come-true-lunch-date with Simone Legno. Subscribe to our feed and be the first to know when Jackie recovers from her awe-struck experience with Simone Legno.

Also stay tuned for video coverage of Tokidoki’s live art demo at Butter Factory.