the david horvath edition - subvertmagazine.com

8/14/2019 The David Horvath Edition - SUBvertMagazine.com

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david horvath edition


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Creative Editor : Angel Greenham

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Business Editor : Paul Magee

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heroes

Special thanks to David Horvath

For sharing a revealing and inspirational story.

http://www.uglydolls.com/

http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/

Portrait photograph of David

Thanks to Corey Burton and Hilda Hufalar.

http://flickr.com/photos/hch05/

Special behind the scenes thanks toJocelyn, a very talented illustrator.

www.redbubble.com/people/bahgoesthesheep

submissions

We are always happy to look at submissions

from talented individuals who are willing to

make the most of an opportunity.

If you want to see your work featured alongside

in-depth interviews with some of the worlds top

creative heroes and distributed to a global

audience of artists, designers, musicians and

do-ers, then we want to hear from you.

Email us your favorite 3 pieces of work. (Im-

ages, writing, tracks, video, whatever you do.)

Tell us who you are, what inspires you and what

you want to achieve. (Lazy one line emails with a

link to your website never make it.)

[email protected]
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David horvathuglydolls & aliensHave you been laughed at by people who

say you'll never make money from your

creativity? So has David Horvath, artist, toydesigner and would-be UFO hunter, but he

didnt let that stop him.

Read his fascinating story, exclusively in

SUBvert Magazine and learn how he went

from sleeping on the floor of an illegally

erected bedroom to international successas co-creator of the Uglydolls and other

cool characters.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM

Photo by Corey Burton


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So it sounds like you chose to follow your

own path from an early age. Did you get any

support from the people around you?

My mother was a designer at Mattel for many

years. I wish that had helped me some, but the

honest truth is, she wasnt permitted to discuss

her job with me and she stayed loyal to that

golden requirement. The only way I knew she

still worked there was through catalogs and

purple He-Man errors she brought home. But

those catalogs were inspiring. I always knew

that I wanted to tell stories through toys.

The resistance came from my father, who told

me that surrounding myself with toys and quit-

ting Art Center to go work at a toy store would

never amount to me making my own toys.

He would tell all his professional contacts and

co-workers about his waste-of-life son locked

up in his toy room, working at a toy shop. He

made many a famous or well known profes-

the cool kids

became outsidersand i stayed put

David, with the widespread success of the

Uglydoll you are being hailed as one of the

top character designers in the world, but

did you have this passion for toys as a kid?

When I was 12, the class was going around dis-

cussing what they wanted for Xmas. The boys

wanted Atari, footballs, etc. I already had all of

that in my garage so I said I wanted GOLION, an

all die cast metal Japanese robot. Many of the

kids laughed until I explained that it said ages

13 and up on the box, meaning they werent

old enough to play with it just yet. Then they

kinda just stayed away. So in a way, the cool

kids became the outsiders and I stayed put.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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sional in the art and design world shake their

head at me (being told his version, not mine).

So there was resistance. Luckily, I didnt care.

He wanted to be a photographer more thananything in the world, but went into advertising

because it seemed more stable to him. Avoiding

your life passion out of fear is a no-no in my

book.

When he would freak outover why I had so many toys

(over 40 of them!) I would

ask him why science majors

had beakers and slides allaround their room. He

didnt get it.

Anyway, when I was 19, I did indeed quit adver-

tising at Art Center so that I could go work at a

local boutique toy shop to learn the ins and

outs of non-mass market toy distribution and

observe moms, dads, and kids buying toys in a

retail environment.

That job also got me into toy fair, and got me

deep into the side of toys I knew would prove to

be very important if I wanted to make my

dreams come true and go at it on my own.

Now I hear my father clips articles and such,

but from my early teens until well after we

started Uglydoll, he told me toys and those

stuffed doo-dads were a waste.

Its easy to get behind your kid when hes in the

paper, but with our daughter I want to be sure

to be there for her during the process, not the

irrelevant outcome. I hope I can use my past

run in with this resistance as a life lesson so

that I can do better than he did when raising my

own child.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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i still draw the

same way i did when iwas 10

So your love of toys was a hard path to fol-

low then, but what about your growth as an

artist?

I didnt set out to be an artist. I still draw the

same way I did when I was 10. Is it art? I dont

really care but I did see a certain path I wanted

to take as someone who spends their time

working on their own toys and children's books.

It was mostly mental maybe? I knew this is how

it was going to go, as I wouldnt have it any

other way. Many months on my sisters floor in

the early days, and skipping meals sometimes

when things got serious at the start. But that

stuff is always thrown in to test how dedicated

you are. I always say if someone from the fu-

ture travels back in time to tell you that your

life-long dream will fail 100%, and you still go

for it anyway, it will work.

You clearly had passion, did you set any

specific goals from the beginning or did you

wing it as you went along?

There was no winging it and the plan was al-

ways very specific. We get tons of emails asking

how to do XYZ, which is great. I pretty much

reply the same way each time, that, in my expe-

rience, taking the same path someone else did

results in getting close but never where you

want to end up.

Ignoring those paths and making up your own

route leads you to where you really belong,

wherever that may be.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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I use this now pretty

much scientificallyproven method by

the hour and it

worksCan you share any techniques you use to

help you focus on achieving your goals?

Ugh, I wish you asked before the Secret came

out, but actually I have always believed in the

law of attraction since I first read about it 15 or

so years ago. I use this now pretty much scien-

tifically proven method by the hour and it

works. Your mind effects the universe, and it

also creates it. Your thoughts absolutely deter-

mine your reality.

How you generally feel inside and what

thoughts you generally carry in your head is

whats going to keep coming at you. This is a

huge part. The biggest. The rest is all minor de-tail, actually.

What about the excuses many people have

for not following their creative dreams; no

money, time, credibility, support etc. Did

you ever confront these same doubts?

Those arent excuses. Those are hurdles. Just

need to jump. We had zero help. Zero cash. Ah

but we had a needle, a scanner, a pen, an old

borrowed digital camera, and a mac lap top

which I got by selling my 2 older macs from

when I had a job before.

That first, hand sewn doll sold for $30. And

then the next one sold. Soon we had $3000! So

we used that to make more and keep it all

growing.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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I had one design-ish art job after graduating

from Parsons with my, now, wife and co-creator

Sun-Min. It didnt last long. The first few weeks

were great and I had a lot of fun animating in

Flash until the boss told me to change a color

to purple, and that was it for me.

Lesser paying jobs, be it retail stores or coffee

houses, are great because you get so pissed off

that your dream work comes out no matter

what.

but a real job with co-

workers wanting to hang

out and drink, late hours,

weekends, and comfortablemoney coming in, is a dream

killer.

When we decided to start for real, I slept on my

sisters floor for 9 months, eating not much

more than cereal, plain white bread, and salads,

and then moved to a tiny, illegally erected bed-

room within an industrial building in the then

very scary DUMBO, Brooklyn, surviving on a

daily menu of egg on a roll in the morning, a

bagel and coffee for lunch, and really good

$3.00 chicken legs from a local corner stand at

night.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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One guy called me

that [a millionaire]on a day I had to

skip lunch to

surviveRent was a few hundred bucks, paid for by sell-

ing everything I owned in LA, keeping 5 days of

clothes and not much else. I bought an air bed

but had no table, so the computer was on the

bed. $5.00 a day was the food limit. Laundry

was once a week, and monthly subway passes

were $80. I had nothing else and often went

without the coffee.

A Japanese magazine shooting famous artists

homes came to do a shoot, and elected to take

photos of someone else's much nicer room in

the building just to avoid wasting a whole day.

They even dressed it with our dolls. ( I tried to

tell them.)

I lived this way for the first 2 years of Uglydoll

when everyone was calling me a millionaire. One

guy called me just that [a millionaire] on a day I

had to skip lunch to survive.

Then, Sun-Min and I basically lived on the road

when we went into full production and salesgrew. Until we were married, we lived in hotels,

traveling from trade show to trade show, driving

across the US, stopping by small towns to find

small shops.

It's a lot to learn starting out on your own.

Did you have any particular people who

helped mentor or guide you?

Our sales team headed up by Alita Friedman

has been a huge help since we went into full

production in mid 2003. We have a small, close

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group, and its more like a family than a sales

force. Theyre the nicest people on the planet

and they drive the ship very straight and

steady.

Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot was the first to

find us and his enthusiasm for our work and

toys kept us going. Toshiki from Zakka in NYC

was on board early on, and he introduced me to

Dehara for the first time. The many, many small

shops keep it all going and weve been lucky

enough to get to know many of the owners.

Sun-Min grew up with pretty much the same

dream as me, and while she was in Korea, she

worked night and day on the actual dolls while I

stayed in Brooklyn trying to make it all work.

Most of all, the early fans who were not only

into our stuff but helped spread the word early

on. The rest is meaningless without them.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM
http://www.dehara.com/http://www.dehara.com/http://www.zakkacorp.com/http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/eric/http://www.dehara.com/http://www.dehara.com/http://www.zakkacorp.com/http://www.zakkacorp.com/http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/eric/http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/eric/


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get as much input as you can, and then

dont follow any of itDid you ever go out and actively ask people

for help and advice?

I realized when I was much younger, after calling

up Gary Baseman for some very good advice,

that I was getting great advice on how to do

things a way they had already been done.

The best advice I can give is to get as much in-

put as you can, and then dont follow any of it.

Any other heroes? and have you had the

chance to learn from any of them?

Growing up, the designers at Ban Dai Japan and

Tomy were my heroes. I had no idea who they

were, but I could see what they were doing and

I learned a lot from them.

Now you've been in the industry for several

years do you find it easier to call on your

creativity at will? Do you have any tips for

being more creative more often?

I just make what comes out. For the Ugly Guidebooks, theres no sketches. I draw and write

with a pen. No eraser, so its all a mistake. As

for how to be more creative more often, sit

down and work. Done deal. Even if crap comes

out, sitting down and getting to work is what

matters. Read The War of Art by Steven

Pressfield. That will help with the procrastina-tion, if thats the issue. That book was a great

help and I am pretty sure the above is a quote

from that book. Its ingrained into my brain, so

plagiarism not intended.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM
http://www.garybaseman.com/http://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asphttp://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asphttp://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asphttp://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asphttp://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asphttp://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asphttp://www.garybaseman.com/http://www.garybaseman.com/


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How do you keep your energy up with all

the work required to make it in this busi-

ness?

Meditation. Avoid all drugs and late week nights

out. Basically be what losers call a loser. Stay

home and make stuff for other people to go do.

Avoid the scene and avoid hanging with the

top artists in them.

Scene-sters and otherstrying to make it like to

keep each other in check

and hold each other back,

and they hate anyone whobreaks away.

And your views on fitness?

Mental fitness is just as important as physical.

Food is important. But whats most important is

monitoring your daily, almost hourly mindset. Do

you carry Life is tough, life sucks in your head

all day? Then it will be. Careful, because the

music, movies and games you repeat over and

over too often can keep you in a certain mind-

set, good or bad.

What about the rock and roll lifestyle of be-

ing a hip artist and designer?

If youre living a rock and roll life style, you get

your photos in the backs of magazines only you

and your buddies read and not much else.

My title is : Nerdy Japanese robot collector and

strong believer in UFOs, ghosts, and the para-

normal. The artist part is helping me save my

pennies so I can switch over to UFO research

full time. See my blog for more on that.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM
http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/http://davidhorvath.blogspot.com/


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Ghost hunting aside, how often in your

creative work do you find yourself doing

things that you are afraid of?

My daily routine is wake up, do things that

make me afraid, eat, draw, sleep, repeat. If

youre afraid, youre on the right track. Keep at

it!

Fear is fine but dont use it as a way to not do

what you need to do. Talking about your fear

can lead to a weekly Friday night talk about

your fears while drinking beer. Forget that. Do

your work, then drink.

How often do you find yourself failing at

something or abandoning a piece of work?

The real failure is not starting. So, never.

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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Isn't it a shame they don't teach that ap-

proach in school!

Math was my favorite art class at school. I used

to fill in my test answers with UFO drawings.

I got an F, but was I wrong? If you get all A's in

school, what does that mean? Good job little

Johnny, you memorized what we told you to and

filled in the blanks. Maybe its better to fail. I

want to send our daughter to a school where

they have a good balance of math, science, nu-trition, financial planning, no tests, and David

Icke. So basically home school.

Early on I taught a class, once a week, at Otis

Art School for one year. It was supposed to be

a flash animation class, but I turned it into a self

help class. The class was called quit, get yourtuition back before the deadline, and use that

money to make your dreams come true, be-

cause this place is simply training you to work

for someone else.

One student said I was his

best teacher ever, one

hated me, and the restwrite from time to time.

A lot of university students tell us they are

taught that art shouldn't be tainted by

commercialism. What are your thoughts on

that?

Why do artists have to starve but its OK for

everyone else to suffer behind a desk doing

what you dont want to do for money? No

thanks. Or do you mean fine artists doing fancy

designer bag collaborations and putting images

on sneakers? Doesnt bother me any. We get

mad when kids paint on the walls outside but

then we get mad when they paint on a bag or a

shoe?

SUBVERTMAGAZINE.COM


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first the bad newsThe rest of this interview is PRIVATE and

only available to SUBvert Magazine sub-scribers.

Now the good newsSubscription is FREE & only takes a few

seconds. There are NO long forms to fill andNO payment is required EVER.

When you subscribe right now, youll get instant access to the complete interview including;

- David shares his thoughts on making a million dollars & reveals the truth about instant cash.

- He tells us in his own words what's even more important than money and explains why youshould never reveal your plan to anyone.

- We uncover the hidden dangers of success and the incident that had David branded 'evil' all

over the internet.

- And you cant miss Davids thoughts on what happens when you let fear take over for too long

and the secret to why Uglydoll works so well.

As a welcome gift, youll also get 10 proven ideas to boost your chances of success in the creative

world (one every few days). Plus, first access to new & inspiring interviews that will help you make

more money & have more fun in your creative life. Its quick and hassle free. (And easy to leave at

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