When Labubu went viral, nobody in the independent designer toy world was surprised. We'd watched Kasing Lung build something genuinely special for years — a character with real mythology behind it, made with real craft, by a real artist. The surprise wasn't that the world fell in love with it. The surprise was how long it took.
I've been part of the UK independent designer toy scene for over 20 years — long before Toy Art UK existed, long before most people outside the scene had heard the words sofubi or resin figure. I've watched it grow from a small, passionate community of collectors and artists operating almost entirely below the radar, to something that suddenly has a lot of new neighbours.
And I mean that in the best possible way.
Pop Mart didn't steal our audience. They built us a bigger one.
What Pop Mart Got Right
Let's be honest about something. A lot of people in the independent designer toy world were sceptical when Pop Mart started making noise. Another mass market company packaging art as product, they said. A conveyor belt dressed up as a gallery.
They were wrong. And I'll tell you why.
Pop Mart understood something that the mainstream toy industry had completely missed — that adults want objects that mean something. That the relationship between a collector and a figure isn't transactional, it's emotional. That the artist behind the design matters. That scarcity creates desire, but story creates loyalty.
Kasing Lung didn't create Labubu for Pop Mart. He created Labubu because he had something to say, and Pop Mart gave it a platform. That's a meaningfully different model to everything that came before it — and anyone in the independent scene who can't see that isn't paying attention.
The world Labubu Opened Up
Here's what happens when someone discovers Labubu. They buy a blind box. They get hooked on the character. They start following the artist. They start wondering what else is out there. They start asking questions that the mainstream toy market has no answers for.
Questions like: who else makes figures like this? Are there artists doing this independently? Where do I find them? Where do I go to meet them?
That's where we come in.
THE INDEPENDENT SCENE - AND WHY IT MATTERS
The UK independent designer toy scene has been quietly producing some of the most extraordinary artist-made objects in the world for two decades. Sofubi figures cast in Japanese vinyl. Resin sculptures made in editions of ten. Characters with stories as rich as anything you'll find in a Pop Mart series — but made by one person, in a studio, with complete creative control.
No licences. No blind box algorithms. No minimum order quantities. Just an artist and an idea and the determination to make it real.
The artists who exhibit at Toy Art UK — our annual Leeds event now in its tenth year — represent exactly that tradition. Pete Fowler. Onorio Depiro. Garin St. John. Nathan Jurevicius. People whose work sits at the intersection of art, craft, and character design. People who have been doing this long before it was trending on TikTok.
this isn't a competition
I want to be clear about something. This piece isn't an attempt to position the independent scene against Pop Mart. That would be both wrong and boring.
Pop Mart and the independent designer toy world are not in competition. They are different points on the same spectrum — a spectrum that runs from accessible and joyful at one end, to rare and deeply personal at the other. Both ends have value. Most serious collectors inhabit both.
What I'm saying is simply this: if Labubu is the record that made you fall in love with music, the independent scene is the record shop you find six months later. The one where the person behind the counter knows everything, where nothing is on a chart, and where you leave with something you'll still have in twenty years.
what happens next
Toy Art UK exists to be that record shop.
If you're in or around Leeds this summer, we have something coming up that might be perfect for you. In June 2026 we're bringing a curated selection of independent designer toy artists to the Leeds International Tattoo Expo at First Direct Arena — a chance to see original work, meet the artists, and get a genuine feel for what the UK independent scene is all about.
No prior knowledge required. Just curiosity.
Toy Art UK at Leeds International Tattoo Expo, First Direct Arena, Leeds — 6th & 7th June 2026.
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