Toy Artist Dano Brown & The Lost Def Jam Action Figures

If you’ve been following the blog, you probably know that I’m really into designer/art toys. I follow the topics on Instagram and elsewhere and keep track of all the new pieces that are available. During my fandom, I came across the work of Dano Brown. He makes one-of-a-kind custom action figures of various pop culture characters and has amassed quite a following for his work. Recently on the Gram, he posted some exclusive figures he did for the legendary hip-hop label Def Jam’s 35th anniversary last year. I thought they were cool and thought I’d get the full story behind them from the man himself.  

First, let’s get into what Dano actually does. He takes pieces from other action figures and creates new pieces (usually 3” x 3 ¼”). “What I do is actually something that people have been doing for a long time. We call it kitbashing,” said Brown. “It's basically just Frankensteining old stuff. And then I sculpt a little bit on top of them if they need sunglasses or a new hairstyle. At least 75% of it is kitbashed, which is just pieces rearranged.”

He got his start by watching others and admiring what they do. “I collect vintage and Nintendo stuff and then I come across a guy on Instagram [named] @deathbytoys that made custom toys, Nintendo themed ones,” Brown reminisced. “So I bought them and when I got them, I recognized some of the pieces from like old GI Joes I had back in the eighties, nineties, and I started to understand what it was like, how he put them together and then ended up becoming friends with him and he gave me what I needed to start basically the beginning steps and then I just started making my own stuff.”

Brown considers his pieces works of art rather than traditional toys. “For me, I consider it more art because when I got into it, that's exactly how I thought, he explained. “When I bought it from [Death By Toys], when I bought toys from other people, I didn't buy them to play with. I bought a bottom to hang up as pieces of art in my game room. So I've always went into it thinking of that.”

As Brown’s work progressed, he transitioned from making pieces for himself to selling them. In addition to the actual figures, Brown also designs custom packaging for each. Nowadays, he lists his one-of-a-kind pieces on Ebay for 99 cents, then lets his fanbase decide the value by bidding on them, sometimes going for over $1,000. “Well, I didn't have a lot of confidence in them, maybe for the first year. I liked them. I knew they looked cool and they looked great on my wall, which is what I was building them for, but I wasn't confident that they would hold up through the mail; And people would offer me $40 or $50 bucks or something, and I was thinking about the time I put in, it just wasn't worth it to me,” he said. “So I would just make stuff for myself, but then as things started to kind of blow up for me, the offers started to be more than $40 or $50. It started to get up into the hundreds until the point where I started realizing, okay, this doesn't really make sense for me to hold on to everything anymore. So I started selling it and then that kind of addicted to that part of it.”

The breakthrough figure that put Brown on people’s radar was his figure of Mason Ramsey, the yodeling kid at Walmart a few years back. He also had a figure of Dave Chappelle’s famous Tyrone Biggums character that went for around $1,300. His chance with Def Jam came after he did an art show and the Mason Ramsey figure blew up. “Well, I heard this's kind of like domino effect and I can't trace it exactly like who contacted who, but it seemed like I kind of ended up maybe in a little circle of famous people, because I just went through it. I did the Yodel kid and I got my art show and then it started with this podcast that I'd never heard of, but they're called 'Yeah But Still'. And they hired me to make figures of the two podcast hosts, and I did it. And when I did it, my phone just went strobe light, so many people contacting me. Apparently these guys had a big following that I didn't know about,” said Brown. “Then I did one for this guy, Kerwin Frost. I'm not actually sure what he does for a living, but his girlfriend reached out to me. I made one for him and I think it's probably the one that got Def Jam's attention. Because it kind of went in weird little circles, like you do something for somebody in the hip-hop world and the next thing you know, you're kind of working in the hip-hop world for a little while.”

Def Jam reached out to Brown to create four figures for the label’s 35th anniversary. The icons that he went on to make included emcees Slick Rick, LL Cool J and DMX, as well as Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin. “Those were the only four they asked for and they told me, not how to design each piece, but they gave me the pictures which pretty much limits me greatly,” Brown remembered. “They wanted them based on those pictures, which is fine. That's what most people do. As far as packaging design, all they said was they sent me a logo pack and said, just make sure these logos are on there somewhere. And they were actually really cool.”

However, the figures never saw the light of day until Brown recently showed them off on IG. “What most people hire me for is they want the toys, but what they really want is the social media that they want to post the toy,” said Brown. “I don't know who was planning on ultimately keeping the figures, but they were going to blast them out on social media. And then what had actually ended up happening, I found out just recently was those pictures that are on the toy, I didn't pick those. Those were provided by the label, but they didn't have permission to use them all.” He continued, “So they were getting permission from the old photographers, but those pictures are 20, 30 years old. So they were having trouble tracking down. I think they had three out of the four or something like that, and then the guy who was running the project ended up leaving Def Jam and going somewhere else, so the project just went away.”

Though the project never came to full fruition (and it is unknown what happened to the actual figures), it was still one of Brown’s most memorable commissions. “It's all crazy. That was definitely one of the crazier ones,” he reflected. “But anytime somebody like that reaches out to me, it's so strange. I mean it's really cool and flattering and everything, but it's hard for me not to be like, are you sure you don't want to find somebody else? You don't want to find a pro? But they're looking for something different, not something professional, I guess.”

Today, in addition to working at a warehouse (mostly for health coverage for himself and his family), Brown works on commissions for any customer who wants a figure done. “I got this far without planning, so I'm trying to just keep running through like Forrest Gump and just hope for the best. I've got a lot of good luck going for me and I've got a lot of jobs under my belt. I've got a lot of jobs in the future already lined up. So I don't think that this will probably ever be something that I can call a career, but I do make good money. It's just too unpredictable,” said Brown. “As soon as I started making money on this, the first thing I thought was 'Oh, I can't wait to fucking quit my job'. And then I realized that that's not maybe the smartest thing.”

To follow what Dano Brown is up to, you can follow him on Instagram at @dano_brown or on his website at danobrown.com. For an action figure commission, email Dano at danobananotoys@yahoo.com.

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