What hasn’t gone plush these days? Now you can make yourself into a Plush Person or just buy one of these Marvel Superhero Plushies and indulge that fantasy you’ve always had but never sated.

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I’m a big fan of toys, not all toys, but cute, adult-adaptable toys. The Germusu pouch is a good example of that: it’s small enough to sit in my pocket, large enough to keep all my change, and funky enough to make me look cool. Created by artist V.Germy, Germusu are pouches with a twist. Each zipper-mouthed germ has an awesome personality.

The first-ever do-it-yourself designer plush toy based on the popular Wee Ninja character shape is set for release as over 60 artists show off custom Plushform art works in one mega-event called Plushform to be held tomorrow night (June 27) at Rotofugi Designer Toy Store and Gallery in Chicago. Plushform is ready to go right out of the box. The stuffed and sewn DIY plush has a water-based primed surface making it extremely smooth and suitable for practically any medium. Acrylic, oil and spray paint, pencils, pens, markers, watercolor — whatever you want. Unlike mainstream blank plush toys that are specific in shape and purpose, Plushform allows the artist to do what they do best, acting more as a blank medium than a specific character or thing. While the general shape of Plushform no.1 is based on the Wee Ninja, the body form has no mask or eyes, no top, bottom or sides built in.

The name is clever (it did take me a while to get it though) and the concept is great. Crammed Organisms is the world largest plush show at which you’ll be able to pick up a designer soft toy for the display shelf. Don’t worry, though, whatever you pick up will never replace your old teddy bear from childhood that you secretly hide behind your pillows when your mates come over to your place for a beer.

Cat Rabbit is a Hobart based artist and toy designer who constantly creeps locals out with her bizarre doll creations. Cat Rabbit, who is often seen bleeding from the fingertips whilst looking at kittens in a pet store window, is making the journey from her Tasmanian base to Sydney to delight us with her plush creatures. Her hand-sewn creations can be seen at Newtown’s Ruban Rat designer toy store and gallery from May 9th.

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That fun, fluffy, and playful Japanese furball, Domo, is now a plush toy which comes in four colors: classic Brown, fabulous fuchsia, royal blue, and polar white. Quick, clear some space on the mantlepiece!

LA-based renaissance man David Choe draws from toy culture and comics as much as he does from Japanese painting and conceptual high art. Choe has a massive body of work, which includes sculptures, installations, murals, paintings, photographs, and graphic novels. Legend has it that his first exhibition at an ice cream shop stayed up two years longer than originally planned because his pieces sold faster than the ice cream itself.

Melbourne-based artist Beck Wheeler is in the middle of an exhibition at St Kilda’s Uber Gallery which runs until March 30th. The show, called Hey, Hey, Which Way? is ‘a labyrinth journey into the afterlife. Based on a board game she used to play with her siblings, Wheeler has entwined fables, the polemic, beliefs, the oddly beautiful and lucid realities of the departed. If dreams were an ocean, then she has paddled across it and collected all the messages in bottles that have drifted between the living and the dead’. Sounds like fun! We caught up with her to get the lowdown on what to expect: Sounds like you’ve been in some deep thinking space lately? ‘I like working with dark subject matter, but producing playful imagery. The mystery of what happens after you die, is one of the mysteries that someone has yet to prove. We know the earth is round, we know butter won’t cure a burn, that smoking is bad for you, that e=mc2 … but what happens to us after we die? I asked a bunch of people I knew what they reckon happened, and then started making drawings and paintings from the ideas and stories they told me’. Tell me more about how your hometown of Beach Haven has shaped your art, if it has at all? ‘I love the fact that Beachhaven sounds so beautiful and that anyone who hasn’t been there would start imagining a sunny haven of beaches, white sand and sunbaking couples. The only beach in Beach Haven is a mangrove swamp that someone dumped piles of sand on. If you tried to go swimming you would end up knee high in swampy mud. It’s one of the dodgiest areas I know. My dad always told me to get out as soon as I could. So I did. I don’t like to think that it shaped my art too much, but I guess what I took from it was a sense of irony’.

Barry the Beaver is exactly what he looks like: a collectible vinyl vibrator. It was only a matter of time before lowbrow art and the toy collecting scene crossed over into sex toys. And remember, if someone raises their eyebrows, just tell them that it’s art! Jeremy Fish has created the 5.25 inches Barry the Beaver, which starts buzzing with a turn of the tree stump base. It also features a handy bendy tail.

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January 26 was the release date of The Vivisect Playset mini-toy figure series produced by STRANGEco’s. The Vivisect Playset features mini-figures by artists Anthony Ausgang, Luke Chueh, Peter Gronquist, Thomas Han, Joe Ledbetter, Greg Simkins and Amanda Visell. Quite a lineup! The concept is based on an annual group art show, curated by Luke Cheuh and hosted by Gallery 1988 in San Francisco, which focuses on the dissection and reconstruction of animals to demonstrate human emotion. [see also the plush toys of Beck Wheeler]