Tony Shiau Nakanari was born 1979 in South Taiwan and from childhood began collecting and designing toys. It grew from one of Nakanari’s favorite hobbies to a career he wanted to pursue when he grew up. “Designing toys never started on paper for me, because I never really liked to draw. Instead, I would picture a design in my head and just start molding them out of Super Sculpey, adding new features as I went along.” Nakanari's distinct designer toys are infused with oriental style and a colorful mixture of innocence and cute characters. “The Misfits of Nakanari was the very first toy line I came up with. I used two different characters to show contrast, just like good vs. evil.” In 2004, B.B.birdyprmier toy designer and first to launch Taiwanese designer toys, picked up Nakanari’s “Misfits of Nakanari” design for his Funny Club series. That year Nakanari also began working on the Funny Club Show. “As show director for the 2004 Funny Club Show,” explains Nakanari, “the idea was to have a number of artists bring their talent from 2D to 3D artwork on blank canvas toys. This was the beginning of my dream of working with over 150 global artists, traveling the U.S. from the east to the west coast as well as exhibiting in Asia.”
Nakanari has exhibited with other well knows artists like Emmy award winning "Teacher’s Pet" creator Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, graffiti legend "Seen", Cameron Tiede, popular toy designer MAD, Sket One, Frank Kozik, Jada Toy Crew, x-concept designer Chito and Mattel’s Hot Wheels head designer MIQ WILLMOTT. Nakanari’s work has been exhibited and collected around the world.
