Image credit: CoArt Publications
¶ About Retroband
Retroband creator and owner, Aaron Moreno, is an artist who has quickly achieved success in the field of designer toys. At the Retroband Headquarters based out of San Antonio, Texas, he meticulously hand crafts each intricate figure by sculpting, molding, casting, painting, assembling, and packaging each item individually.
See: Deadly Delivery
¶ Background
It was 2013, and the two were developing a shared language around action figures. Mr. Moreno had collected them as a child, and his son was doing the same. For Mr. Moreno, now 37, it brought back memories of G.I. Joe soldiers, plastic Master of the Universe barbarians and Star Wars figurines.
They were the usual 1980s-baby staples, but, reminiscing with his son, Mr. Moreno thought of all the characters in comic books and horror movies that he was much more drawn to and would have loved to collect as toys, if only they had existed.
For the next three years, Mr. Moreno made dozens of series of resin figures based on the obsessions of his youth, re-envisioning merchandise for cult movies, like “Critters” (1986), which is about volleyball-size aliens with spiky hair and a taste for flesh, and “Creepshow” (1982), a compendium of short horror stories, featuring celluloid nightmares about cockroach infestations and invasive alien vegetation.
Mr. Moreno encased each of his figurines in packaging designed by Gabriel Hernandez, an illustrator friend, and sold them online in runs of up to 50 via his boutique imprint, Retroband. Often, they would be gone in minutes.
¶ Accolades
In 2014, Aaron was pleased to receive “Break-Thru Artist of the Year” recognition from the Designer Toy Awards. “Making toys I wish I had when I was growing up,” is the motto behind everything that comes from the artist/designer, and this focus on nostalgia shows in all of his work.
¶ Notable Collaborations
With past commissions from Adult Swim, Toonami, NAMCO/BANDAI, George Romero, Clive Barker, and Columbia Pictures the Retroband client base is quickly growing beyond horror movie fanatics.
