Mar 05

We have moved our stuff over to a new page where you can get all updates about my latest wood creations, see tons of wip pictures and a growing collection of design & toy making tutorials! Thanks for the support all these years and see you there! ^___^
MY NEW WEBSITE - WWW.PEPEHILLER.COM
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Oct 08
It’s been a while! I was at holidays and finally have found a new room for our Smallstuffstudio! Yay! We have a temporary wood & resin workshop at the “Basislager” in Zurich. Our new address is: Smallstuffstudio, Räffelstrasse 22, 8122 Zürich. We are up and running now and also have invested some bucks into new machines like a precise bandsaw, a large table drill press and a sanding table machine to work on new wood toy ideas! So be prepared to see tons of new wood chaps to hit our online shop & galleries!
If you follow me on twitter you may have heard that we had a little opening night with BBQ a week ago. A large thanks to my shop mate André Hiltbrunner who helped to prepare all the yummy stuff, to my dad who took some great pictures of the opening night and to all who made it to come by and say hi!






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Aug 17
The second wave of walnut and maple Rample and Roams consists of the final 5 Roams of an Edition of 10 and 5 one-eyed Rambles with medi-kit accessory (wave one had 2 eyes and a camera accessory and was also limited to 5).
Ramble and Roam come as a set. Ramble is 5.5 inches tall, Roam is 2.25 inches tall. On sale tomorrow, newsletter goes out today!
Ramble and Roam are a collaboration with the London based artist Cris Rose - www.crisrose.co.uk




Ramble is the larger character, a robot grown from wood that feels he is missing something in his big hollow tummy. Coming in single and two-eyed variants, he has thoughts on what he might desire and looks to seek them out. Roam is the smaller chap, keen to help out and particularly good at finding lost things. With one big brass eye, he holds his find aloft and shuffles along as quickly as he can manage.
- SOLD OUT -
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Aug 11
From the first Prototype to the final series, see here a few Work In Progress pictures of the two Arborobots “Ramble & Roam”. The first wave was sold out in a few minutes but the second wave will be available soon. I case you want to catch a set be sure to sign up for my Newsletter and get the chance to pre-order yours befor they hit the store!

working on a first Prototype with drawings from Cris

preparing the walnut, maple and fir wood for the series

made some stencils for centering the holes and for cutting out the bodys

all body parts drilled and ready for further machining

turning the walnut rod for the neck pieces

wood profiles for the heads with drilled eyes

drilling holes for positioning the neck

brass pieces for the eye inlays

cnc-milled brass hearts and thought bubbles

some "Roam's" assembled and ready for the finish

constucton site of the first Arborobots series
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Jul 07
Designed in London, hand crafted in Zurich, Arborobots are the result of a colaboration by Cris Rose and Pepe – solid wooden bots that are happy to help.
Made from Walnut, Maple and Brass, these chaps are very limited.
Ramble is the larger character, a robot grown from wood that feels he is missing something in his big hollow tummy. Coming in single and two-eyed variants, he has thoughts on what he might desire and looks to seek them out. Roam is the smaller chap, keen to help out and particularly good at finding lost things. With one big brass eye, he holds his find aloft and shuffles along as quickly as he can manage.
The initial release of this pair will include Roam and two-eyed Ramble in Walnut and Maple. There will be 3x 2 packs that include both figures and a camera accessory, as well as 2 Roam and 2 Ramble figures sold individually. Finally, there is a single painted Ramble, crafted by Pepe and painted by Cris Rose as well as some framed original Polaroids of the pair.
Released July 7th.






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May 01

I have teamed up with the very talented resin toy designer & toy customizer Cris Rose for a collab series: The Arborobots (pronounced “Are-Bore-O-Bots”)! This new line of figures are designed in London and hand crafted in Zurich, meaning numbers are very limited indeed. We both hope to add to this line in parallel with our own individual releases for the foreseeable future. The first release will be a set of two robots that work together, reflecting the collaborative nature of this endeavor.
More about the Arborobots very soon!
Arborobots Backstory Part 1 of 2
“In an attempt to increase robot production and improve computational power, the research and development team at Omega Tellurion made an international request for anyone with new ideas and techniques. Among the flood of bizarre and inane suggestions from the general public, there was single proposal that stood out… at least in so far as it was the only submitted on handmade paper. Before the thick tome was even opened, it had garnered significant interest as it appeared that the hard cover and thin leaves of paper had not been bound, but were of one continuous form. The engraving on the front was also of an unknown method. While it seemed to be a finely etched hardwood, under picometer wave inferascope analysis it was clear that each cell and fibre was perfectly aligned and undamaged. Even the colouring on the pages were found to be pigments within the cells themselves, purposefully aligned to produce extremely high resolution text and vivid full colour images.
The contents of this highly unique book left the team of scientists puzzled and bemused. Expecting the language of technology and manufacture, this text read more like a gardeners handbook with a heavy dose of genetics. Having no specialists in either field, a request was made for the gentleman responsible for this submission to make a personal visit to the research lab at Omega Moonbase. In reply came a counter-invitation to visit a more terrestrial location. Switzerland.
Along with England and Norway, Switzerland was one of the few countries to insist on retaining their national identity long after most that had joined the Global Harmonious Republic had allowed their boarders to be dissolved. The destination was accessible only by air – a remote mountain valley deep within the largest of those national forests that had been re-established a century or so prior. No sooner had they set foot on the deep, lush grass, then they were greeted by a soft spoken man named Pepe. “
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Apr 17
Last Saturday i was taking part with some new toy series at the “Swiss Character Design” Show at BuroDiscount, Zurich. It was great to meet and chat with some local toy designer and toy lovin folks! Later a few shots of the opening night and if you are in the area, be sure to check out this show till the end of the month! For all my overseas readers & peoples who couldn’t attend the show i decided to grab a few of my wood toys and resin weebles after the show to make them available at my onlineshop for you!
Release on Monday, 18th April 2011 7pm CET!
- OCCTOBOBBA’s – 4.5″ Resin Weebles by Pepe (one red & one purple)
- AARGHBLOCK’s – 4.5″ Pear Wood Toys by Pepe (No.01-04)
- WHAAGHBLOCK’s – 2″ Elm Wood Toys by Pepe (No.03-05)
Head over to the shop and get one of these!
Now the Pictures of the “Swiss Character Design” show opening night @ BuroDiscount, hope you enjoy:







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Apr 08
I will take part with a lot of new wood and resin toys at the “Swiss Character Design” show at burodiscount in Zurich. The show will be on Saturday 9th of April @ Buro Discount, Zurlindenstrasse 226, 8003 Zurich. So if you in the area be sure to drop by, say hi and grab some great swiss plush, resin, wood, & vinyl toys!
See the Facebook Event page for some more info about the show.
I worked on three new series for this show and on two larger figures. If you follow me on fb, flickr, instagram or twitter you already stumbled over a few sneak peeks of my new toys. I’m pretty happy how all the series turned out and hope you will enjoy them too. Had fun shooting these toys in the woods & the water, see more and larger photos on flickr. I will take some shots at the show for you folks who can’t be here at Saturday.
OCCTOBOBBA’s – 4.5″ Resin Weeble by Pepe (5 pieces)




AARGHBLOCK – 4″ Pear Wood Toys (series of 9 pieces)



WAAGHBLOCK – 2″ Elm Wood Toys (series of 9 pieces)



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Mar 11

My latest Custom: “The Keeper of Sotek”
This tiny guy was my entry for the Custom toy Union Battle Bracket II
Read more about this contest here!
After winning the first battle Bracket with my “Shapeshifter” 3 inch Dunny Custom i had to defend my title and i’m very happy i could make 1st place once again! 
Read the Winner Announcement on CTU
You can see all the Work in Progress Pictures and the final shots on my flickr:
The Keeper of Sotek fickr Set
Hope you like him & thanks to all who voted for my Keeper on CTU, you rock! :]
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Feb 06

Limited First Edition | 12 Sapele Wood Toys by Pepe
RELEASE – Monday, February 7th
(Central European Time CET – 19:00)
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little sprite,
shine so bright,
show your light.
little sprite,
in case you flee,
first shine on me.
If you follow me on Twitter or Flickr, you may have seen some of the WOODSPRITES that have been floating around the past couple of days. These are soon growed up and ready to find their way to new homes where they can have fun! ^___^
You can see all 12 of the available WOODSPRITES here:
http://smallstuff.bigcartel.com/
The WOODSPRITES are all handcrafted by Pepe out of Sapele wood. The beautiful graining of this wood is reminiscent of Mahogany. Each sprite is unique in its shape and wood texture so you will catch here a true one of a kind figure. All WOODSPRITES
- Are crafted out of Maple and Sapele wood
- Have a natural beewax finish
- Have an iron-branding on backside with the artist signature
- Are are individually embossed with series number on the bottom
You like WIP sneak peek pictures? Check the flickr set to see how these little WOODSPRITES were made!

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