The love of all things toys that Wandering Planets Toys co-founders Gavin Hignight and Chris “Doc” Wyatt have is brimming with every interview they give. It’s infectious. You can’t help but get hyped up about the majesty and fun and wonder that action figures bring fans when listening to the duo. The pair made names for themselves in the craftsmanship and genuine affection for the action figures they bring to consumers’ hands. From toys based on Nancy Drew, The Prisoner, Kolchak the Night Stalker to the foray into brand-new action figures like their Planetoid Raiders line, the quality and care the duo have for their work is on display again and again.
Now Wandering Planet is partnering with sculptor and horror artist VELIKAN to bring the world of CRYPTID COMBAT to fans everywhere. The combined team has just launched a campaign on Backerkit to create two 5-inch soft vinyl art toys that mash up Elder God goodness with wrestling wildness. Cthuluchador and The Ultimoth Warrior are two cryptid contenders that are ready for you to help them duke out the dynamic darkness in the ring!
I spoke with Chris “Doc” Wyatt and VELIKAN recently about CRYPTID COMBAT, how the project came about, and their favorite part of working on the monstrous mashup.
FreakSugar: Before we get into the toys themselves, what can you tell us about the origin and genesis of CRYPTID COMBAT?
Chris “Doc” Wyatt: For us at Wandering Planet, CRYPTID COMBAT originated when we saw the sculpts of horror artist Velikan and hit him up. We desperately wanted to be in the Velikan monster business!
VELIKAN: It came about by coming up with the word Cthuluchador. It stuck in my head and I started drawing it. Mothman came about because you can’t have ONE wrestler!!!!
FS: What can you tell us about the CRYPTID COMBAT toys themselves?
CDW: They’re 5-inch scale, non-articulated soft vinyl monster wrestling figures– one of Cthulhu (called “Cthuluchador”) and one of the Mothman of Point Pleasant (called “The Ultimoth Warrior”). They come in three different paired colorways.
FS: Back in the 1980s, I remember owning the WWF wrestling soft sculpt figures where you put your thumb in their backs to thumb wrestle with another wrestler. And of course there were the M.U.S.C.L.E. action mini-figures. Did you have any wrestling toys you have fond memories of owning? Did that play a role in this project?
V: Oh my brothers and I had several of the 8” HEAVY rubber wrestlers. I still have king kong Bundy. You can knock a horse out with that toy! And yes, it played a big roll. When I sculpted the Cthuluchador, it was in scale with that line of toys. The ones I made were huge. I sold them on Kickstarter and that’s when Doc found me. He knew immediately that they needed to be sofubi. But the size was a bit of a detriment. Especially packaging. He 3D scanned them and I printed them out in smaller sizes. 5” hit the sweet spot.
FS: What can you tell us about the Backerkit campaign itself?
CDW: It’s pretty straight forward. The tiers allow you to get a single toy, or for a much bigger value, get them in pairs (so they can fight each other!) We have a retailer tier for shop owners who want to get in at wholesale by volume.
FS: What kind of backer rewards are available to contributors?
CDW: In addition to the toys themselves, as an add-on we’re offering a retro metal lunchbox featuring art of the CRYPTID COMBAT characters by Velikan.
FS: What has been your favorite or most gratifying part of working on the project?
V: By far seeing the figures how I imagined them. I am not a painter. I sculpt and I mold/cast things. I tried painting mine and it was… okay. But these are GORGEOUS. Doc really brought my vision full circle.
FS: Do you have any plans to expand the line?
CDW: We absolutely do! Velikan already has a ton of insane ideas! But to make that happen we need people to back this first wave!
V: I will keep expanding it myself, but my personal ones will be unpainted blanks in a different size. If you want this to be continued in the scale and colorful grandiose style these have shown to be, ya gotta back it! I would love to get a few sets out so they can be mix and matched for bouts throughout the cosmos!
FS: If you had a final pitch for CRYPTID COMBAT, what would it be?
CDW: Monsters! Battle! MADNESSSSSS!!!!
V: Hand made art toys from start to finish! Are you ready to ruuummmmmmble??!!
The Backerkit campaign for CRYPTID COMBAT is well on its way to hitting its funding goal, with 22 days left as of press time to get in on the chaotic action!
From the official press release for the Backerkit campaign:
Beware the Horrible Might of CRYPTID COMBAT! Elder Gods and classic cryptids come to life as sofubi-style fighters. Fan-favorite independent toy company Wandering Planet Toys is teaming up with sculptor and horror artist VELIKAN to create two brand-new 5-inch soft vinyl art toys. Inspired by classic horror, cryptids, and professional wrestling, Cthuluchador and The Ultimoth Warrior are ready for battle in the arena and on the toy shelf. Fans can sign up on the Backerkit pre-launch page to receive an email when the campaign launches.
“I grew up in the late ‘80’s and merged my youthful interest in WWE with my later interests of H.P. Lovecraft and cryptids.” said VELIKAN. “I was lucky enough that Wandering Planet had the same interest in such things! I hand sculpt my designs out of Super Sculpy and then make a silicone mold to cast them. This gives me a hard resin figure that outlasts anything else I’ve tried. The originals are seven inches tall so that I can get the details in, and they are then scanned and painstakingly hand reproduced by sofubi masters. Hardly a machine involved in the process! They are true Art Toys.”
The showdown of the century will threaten the tenuous sanity of toy collectors everywhere! While fans wrestle with madness, these monsters will wrestle in the ring! In one corner is H.P. Lovecraft’s ancient evil, Cthuluchador! In the other corner is the terror of Point Pleasant, Mothman—the Ultimoth Warrior!
Will Cthulhu pull off moves that even the Mothman won’t see coming?! Or will the terror-gaze of the Ultimoth send squidface back to the depths of R’lyeh?!
“When we saw VELIKAN’s insane sculpts for Cthulchador and Ultimoth, we knew we had to work out a collab,” explained Wandering Planet Toys co-founder Chris “Doc” Wyatt. “Seeing these two mythic titans of horror clash is a weird fiction dream (nightmare?) come true. It’s as if 1930’s pulp fiction slammed into 1980’s wrestling culture, and gave rise to Japanese-style vinyl kaiju mutants. It’s madness.”
The non-articulated CRYPTID COMBAT figures are rendered in Japanese sofubi-style soft vinyl and are available individually for $75 and in pairs priced at $120, packaged in hang bags with original header card art by VELIKAN. These Hand-Sculpted Horrors come in three unique colorways: THE INSANITY SMACKDOWN, THE MIGHTNIGHT MATCHUP, and FIRE VERSUS ICE (Backerkit Exclusive Edition). In addition to the figures, Wandering Planet Toys will also be creating retro-style lunchboxes featuring CRYPTID COMBAT art by VELIKAN. Fans can sign up to support the campaign on the Backerkit pre-launch page and follow Wandering Planet Toys on X, Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook for more updates.
