‘There was a planet, full of Monsters of all shapes and sizes, moods and colours, just going about their usual Monstery business. However, a sudden and unexpected global cataclysm rendered every animal on the Planet into a shapeless blob.
Now, they can't remember what they used to look like. They need our help to remind them (they can't fix each other, it's far too messy).
The Putty Monsters need us to adopt them and mould them into as many monster shapes as possible, then photograph our creations and upload them to their online Monster Database.
Every now and then a Monster will be uploaded that they remember! That Monster will then come back to life on the planet and resume its Monstery business.’
Well who wouldn’t love a gadget which describes itself like that?!
The above is the story of Putty Monsters, winner of online retailer Firebox’s Inventor Competition. Putty Monsters are based on Firebox’s top seller Thinking Putty and giving it a whole new, simple-but-effective twist. Each pack contains a random colour and texture of putty, and a random selection of acrylic eyes, blind packaged so the buyer doesn’t know what to expect.
The idea then is that you use the putty to create a Putty Monster. Now, I can tell you’re thinking ‘And…?’ so here’s the fun bit. Your monster will melt at room temperature, so you’re encouraged to snap a photo of it, and upload it to an online database, including your monsters personality and name. User are encouraged to comment, discuss and vote on the uploads, then, every once in a while, a popular monster will be ‘brought back to life’ on the monster planet and animated on a special interactive part of the website. Thus overtime you’ll be helping to repopulate the destroyed planet!
Old fashioned toy idea, very modern twist. What isn’t to love? Add in to the mix that the inventor is 12 year old Leicester boy, Tom Spring who beat off over 1,200 entries and you have something special.
Putty Monsters will be available on Firebox in June, and you can preorder them now for £9.99 from PuttyMonsters.