Toy Photography won’t be this popular if not for the toys. But for those who are true storytellers these toys are just part of the layers in making of a good narrative for their composition in a creative way of putting it.
Most of the ones who tell the tale often use simple toys to ultra articulated ones, but do we need it really for aesthetics? The good folks at ToyPhotographers.com had solely focused on LEGO as their main subject for these stories and they balance the aesthetics that has become one of the popular ones to use but what about Playmobil?
Playmobil is not entirely a construction toy and its sort of LEGO’s original competitor because it doesn’t copy what the later has been known for namely having use the brick technology that made them a worldwide product. For Playmobil they focus on the “play value” for their brand and the quality of their product is on the same level as with their brand competitor or even more.
The product began its popularity in 1974 founded in Germany with slight similarities with LEGO namely their “Playmo People” had the same concept with the hands, but the figures are entirely different, which is twice taller than the average LEGO minifigure and over the years they’ve evolve themselves to what is Playmobil today.
Not-So Popular
Though not as popular as LEGO in general public, Playmobil is largely known in Latin America and some parts of Europe. In Australia it’s exclusively distributed by Modern Brands and sold in a niche market where you can mostly find them at Toy World or selected “Toys R’ Us” stores and sometimes through online vendors like Kidztopia. In the Philippines its aggressive marketing through in-store events has made it to the general public, which usually had mistaken them as LEGO or getting confused for another construction toy brand. But Playmobil is not entirely a construction toy as the only reason why they’ve been considered known in this category is because some of the sets need assembly out of the box.
They’re distributed by Ban Kee Trading in the Philippines, but from the early 2000s they’ve been exclusively available only through Hobbes & Landes. The popularity was eclipsed by LEGO and slowly drifted from the market. But in other Asian countries they’ve been popular like in Singapore where they have an exclusive Playmo Store similar to the LEGO certified stores in some parts of the world.
Mixed and Match
Most sets of Playmobil include one or two figures and have a variety of themes, but they’re popular with the Castle and Pirates series in the Philippines due to the amount of removable and interchangeable accessories. The figures are fixed assembled and they can’t interchange their body parts to make a new figure, but that has changed as Playmobil had released their version of the blind packs in 2012.
The blind packs comes in disassembled and just like LEGO’s popular MiniFigure series these Playmo People can interchange their parts and currently on their eleventh series. What makes it more interesting is they kept the boys and girls blind packs separate for those who only want to collect the blind packs for boys or girls.
Playmotography
Though LEGO MiniFigures have been a popular subject being used by most toy photographers to produce their creative compositions, these Playmo People can be subjects for the image stories and as mentioned being popular product in Latin American and some parts of Europe.
In the Philippines there are a community of like minded individuals who are into Playmobil, but its unfortunate that is limited to just collecting and acquiring like the usual common toy collector without maximizing the toy’s potential being used as a subject for narrative photography. But one of them has used them for his stories through the social media site Instagram. You can find Jon San Pedro’s photo stories using Playmobil to his creative photography as @PlaymobilManila on his Instagram.
For more about the brand LIKE Playmobil on Facebook and follow on Instagram and don’t forget to visit Playmobil.com
In the Philippines you can find out more about the product distributed by Ban Kee Trading LIKE PlaymoPH on Facebook!
If you’re based in Australia you can find out more about Playmobil through ModernBands.com.au or check out the toys at ToyWorld.com.au
To see more of Jon San Pedro’s Playmobil adventures LIKE PlaymobilManila on Facebook and follow on Instagram @PlaymobilManila
You can also see more Playmo Stories LIKE Pinoymobil on Facebook and follow on Instagram @Pinoymobil
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