A lot of Filipinos are not just creative, they are also clever in that they can find ways to make the most of their situation. One such guy is Elmer Padilla, a street artist who makes realistic action figures from rubber scraps.
His story was shared on Facebook by netizen Adrian Soriano Bernabe who posted about his craft on the GUHIT Pinas public group page. According to Bernabe, he got curious why there were people crowding around Padilla one day while he was at the public market in Imus, Cavite.
Photo credit: Adrian Soriano Bernabe / GUHIT Pinas – Facebook
He went closer to check out what was going on and discovered that the people were crowding around Padilla because of his awesome action figures. The toys looked so realistic and incredibly detailed that it was quite difficult to believe these were made from discarded flipflops and other rubber scraps.
If Bernabe had not seen Padilla create some of the action figures, he probably wouldn’t believe the ones the vendor was selling really came from the rubber scraps. Indeed, it’s difficult to believe that but this only means Padilla is a highly talented artist.
Bernabe said that Padilla had a lot of action figures there, including Deadpool, Hellboy, some Transformers robots, and various well-known superheroes and characters. But the artist in him did not just stop at figures he can copy from existing creations because he also made his own robot designs.
According to the amazed netizen whose story was later posted on Viral Manila, he learned that Padilla hails from Catbalogan, Samar but had gone to Cavite to try his luck there. His main bread and butter is being a construction worker but he enjoys making the action figures on his free time and sells his craft to interested customers.
What are Action Figures?
Action figures are dolls or little figures that represent a real person or a fictional character known for ‘vigorous action’. These poseable characters often come with jointed limbs to allow the owner to change how the character looks.