Heroes Club Art of Toys San Francisco Ca
Robin Kwok may look like an unassuming shop possessor, merely he's actually humanity's best hope for destroying Godzilla.
Safely locked behind glass in the back corner of the Heroes Club, Kwok watches over the Oxygen Destroyer, an ultimate weapon that'southward 2 anxiety long and looks like the silver core of a reactor. Dorsum in 1954, it was the only way to impale the original Godzilla. Only 5 of these life-like reproductions were ever fabricated. This 1 sells for $thirteen,998.
"For die-hard Godzilla fans, this is the holy grail," says Kwok.
Kwok, 54, has run the Heroes Club on Clement Street since 1990, later three years in a previous location. Technically, it could be called a toy shop, as it does sell some cheap $ten Godzilla figures, simply the dozens of mitt-painted stormtroopers, zombies and monsters lining the walls are closer to fine art than playthings.
Kwok builds and paints most of the models in a cramped workshop in the back of the store. Tiny paint bottles and one-half-finished models lay everywhere, including a 4-foot-long prop spaceship from Disney's Space Mount, complete with dangling cobweb optic cables. His tools haven't changed much since his studies at the San Francisco Academy of Fine art, the highest tech in his workspace is an old airbrush. He makes some models from scratch, others he assembles from limited edition resin kits. Each sculpture takes months to terminate and sells for hundreds of dollars.
These days, lxxx percent of his buyers are collectors from other countries, simply in that location was one detail San Francisco local who was a big fan: the late Robin Williams.
RELATED: Memories of Robin Williams
"I met Mr. Williams in '87, when I first opened. Over time, we became friends. He lived shut past to the shop, on Lake Street, then he would come up here in his spare time," says Kwok. The pair bonded while they were both going through divorces, and kept in touch over the years, speaking on the phone on the twenty-four hour period before Williams' death. Kwok keeps a pristine binder of memories from their human relationship, including personal letters, magazine clippings featuring photos of Williams in the store, and a signed receipt for a $ane,200 buy (see photos of them higher up in the slideshow).
While most of Kwok's piece of work revolves effectually iconic sci-fi and horror franchises, Williams was more interested in Asian characters and armed services figures. In a 2018 Sotheby'due south sale of his possessions, a large-scale model tank sold for $875. In a series of now-deleted Twitter posts, his daughter Zelda asked fans for help identifying some parts of his collection, which she said included thousands of figurines.
As a housewarming souvenir, Kwok crafted Williams an original slice inspired past the 1928 moving picture, "The Homo Who Laughs." The moving picture is obscure, but the character is immediately recognizable. Sitting on an antique chair, he wears a tattered pinkish and orange arrange, white confront paint, and a macabre red lipstick grinning while property a shotgun. It's clearly the early inspiration for the Batman villain the Joker.
Although the shop does have other celebrity clients (Nicolas Cage, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Guillermo del Toro) and a healthy stream of walk-in window shoppers, today most of their sales take place online. To adjust to the shifting retail landscape, Heroes Club built a strong web presence, including a YouTube aqueduct chosen Art of Toys that shows the meticulous detailing in pieces like Peach Flower Island. Each eyelash on the woman's face was painted and attached individually, a grueling task that took v hours.
Adapting to changing tastes has also been a challenge for the store. Customers savour characters from contemporary video games, and many franchises, similar Alien, continue to produce films, only most of the stock showcases vintage properties. Kwok chalks this upwardly to more than just nostalgia, but a modify in movie-making style.
"The new 'Avengers' is visually entertaining, but once you walk out of the theater, y'all probably forget what it was nearly. In an older movie like 'Exorcist,' they don't take much budget or CG graphics, so the director has to spend more fourth dimension to create the temper. Those details banner in your retention," he says.
An example of that concept hangs almost the entrance to the shop: a screaming face up from the "Exorcist" that but flashed across the screen for i second, but still haunts fans to this day. It's these types of details that excite Kwok the nigh — obscure references with such resonance they deserve to be re-created by a craftsman who'll spend hours just airbrushing eyelashes.
As for the future of the shop, Kwok admits business isn't what information technology used to be. He's not officially the last toy shop in San Francisco, but laments the fact that near of the others take closed. Still, he's not discouraged, and plans to proceed honing his craft in the studio every day.
"I'll retire the twenty-four hours I can't paint anymore," he says.
Click through the slideshow for more photos of stormtrooper sculptures, the artist'due south workshop and a personal letter from Robin Williams
Dan Gentile is an SFGATE digital editor. Email: dan.gentile@sfgate.com | Twitter: Dannosphere
Source: https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/The-last-toy-shop-in-San-Francisco-Robin-Williams-14364944.php
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