[MS] Is this what you do for a living?
[Squish] Remember all that stuff I just mentioned above? Add teaching animation part time and dicksmithing to that and that’s what I do for a living (minus the ukulele, archery and my cat – those are my fun time hobbies. And my cat). Functionally it’s dicksmithing, teaching, freelance 3D modeling (I do so much stuff I literally can’t even remember it all) and 3d printing odds and ends for people. Other stuff is lower profit margin, but still being monetized…
[MS] How did you get into making adult toys?
[Squish] I thought it’d be funny? I kind of joked about it for a few years like ‘I bet I could do this and make money off it’ and then one day was like ‘I have money. I’m doing the thing’ and that was late January of 2020, so I’ve only had my shop open for I think 3-4 months at this point. I don’t really ease in to hobbies…
[MS] What is it about making sex toys that you enjoy?
[Squish] Literally everything that isn’t mold-making, dealing with my sketch-a** website or cleaning silicone off your [everything]. They’re fun to make, I like designing the things, and they’re fun to boop around on the counter after they’re done.
[MS] What should I know about your shop? It goes without saying and you know all too well that I love your shop. To me it’s just madness on a plate, my particular favourite is the Flan.
[Squish] My shop is anarchy. I seem to not be able to stop myself making perpetual food-related designs, even though I want to. I really do. But toys that look like things that shouldn’t be toys amuse me (ice cream & flan).
But I have no actual ‘theme’ to my stuff. I think the only ‘rule’ I have for myself is to never make a dick that looks like a dick. I’m not really into anatomical designs and there’s so many of them, I figure I’ll just get weird with it because if I think it’s funny, someone else probably will too.
Also face butt plugs. No idea why that’s a thing, but that’s a thing… The idea of making a whole line of crappy gag gift designs is deeply appealing to me, but I’ve not gone super into that because I feel like they’d never sell. And since I don’t really make any of this stuff for myself, the idea of having 30 different molds with a bunch of weird plug designs sitting in a box in my already over-crowded office until I die is unappealing to me.
[MS] Everyone loves this one, have you had any embarrassing moments related to your work making sex toys?
[Squish] I think you have to have shame to be embarrassed? I think the closest thing I get to embarrassment is when I post dildo pics on social media and the hoard of weirdos comes out of the wood works with comments like ‘do we get any pictures of those in action ;)’ or ‘wow you’re into some really kinky stuff.
Don’t stretch yourself out too much’. And I’m just like A) Here we go again B) The fact that that’s my first reaction says a LOT about society C) If I were a dude, nobody would be making those comments D) No, I don’t have any pictures OR videos of these in action. If you want that, then buy a dildo and make your own and E) But I don’t even use any of these and also stop judging people, normal and responsible dildo use isn’t going to like… destroy anyone’s various holes or bits.
So not really an embarrassing story, but hopefully somewhat amusing? I’ve started collecting the weird comments and I’m going to make a big archive of them somewhere for grins. Shout out to all the people who get harassed by weird social double standards and asinine social constructs/discrimination <3
[MS] Where do you get your ideas from?
[Squish] Acid @_@…. Not really… I just sit down and start sculpting for the original designs (hell puffin, fur coat, etc) and just kind of see what I end up with. Representational stuff is just my now perverted brain looking at everything through the lens of ‘could this be a dildo’.
public bool MakeDildo (string thing, bool isWanted, bool canDildo )
{ bool shouldDildo = false;
if (thing == canDildo && isWanted == true) then {shouldDildo = true;}
return shouldDildo;}
[MS] What’s an idea you would love to do but won’t/can’t and why?
[Squish] So many… Some cause my brain is like ‘this is egg shaped, but totally shouldn’t be made into an egg cause it’s creepy af’. Mostly, I’d like to do stuff without seam lines or obvious flat areas where yu pour the silicone into the molds, but since I’m still relatively new to casting stuff i’m actually enforcing the ‘calm the f down’ for once. One day perhaps… One day I’ll make that banana with flappy peels.
One time I was working with some REALLY annoying clients and I was like ‘I should make a dildo in the shape of their [redacted animal] mascot and make it [redacted color] and send it to them. Obviously that’s not a thing I actually did, ’cause that’s, you know… wildly unprofessional. A girl can dream though…
[MS] What’s your favourite toy and/or maker? Why?
[Squish] I’m not really sure I have one tbh. I’m not really much of an insert-able person myself, so I mostly just study which designs people are buying from other makers, popular shapes, popular color features and the like. I have mad respect for the people that do this full time and can do the really crazy technical pours repeatably (dense ribboning – I’m coming for you).
I do really like the stuff monster cocks does in the sense that they seem to have figured out a reliable way to paint unnecessarily complex dildos in a way that doesn’t risk delamination… That’s kind of the stuff I wanted to do when I got into this, then realized painting silicone is sort of hell in a hand basket. The weird thingy they have with little teeth all around it is cool looking because of how the silicone scatters light in the teeth. Big fan of that aesthetically.
[MS] What advice would you give to new makers or newbie consumers?
[Squish] To newbie makers: You will get silicone everywhere – put drop cloths down. Maybe do some small scale projects to make sure you’re comfortable molding and casting before going out and buying a whole vacuum chamber setup and several hundred dollars worth of silicone. I basically went out and bought $700+ in supplies (vacuum chamber, silicone, printer resin, pour cups, mica powders, etc) because I knew my obsessive personality wouldn’t let me rest until I’d literally burned through all that silicone and failed, or gotten enough stuff to work to justify getting more things.
That’s probably not reasonable or responsible for most people to do (I’m not sure it was responsible for me either, but that never seems to stop me). Also research material safety and safe colorants and such and sulfer = bad.
To new consumers: Don’t use external Etsy ads and if you do, clear your cookies 😛 I think I’d mostly suggest just asking makers questions before you order if you have them? I’m usually pretty down to send extra squish pics of stuff and what not if I can. Also maybe do a bit of research about different silicone firmnesses and the materials usually used to make toys and such so if someone says a toy uses 00-50 silicone, mica powder and glow pigment, you know what that entails. There’s a lot of controversy over glitter and pours with hard line divides in them and such because they can cause issues later down the line.
[MS] Where is best for people to check you out?
[Squish] To buy stuff, my website: https://www.somethingsquishytoys.com/
For more regular updates, twitter: https://twitter.com/squishy_toys
For eventually a little showcase sort of dealio, instagram: https://www.instagram.com/something_squishy_toys/
And occasionally Facebook, but I’m not telling you where (side note – if you send me a friend request and I don’t know you, I won’t accept the request. Nothing personal 🙂 I will respond to random messages though).
