Sunday, July 17, 2011

Skate City & The Roller Girls

In the mid to late 90s Tyco Toys saw a market in combining elements of Polly Pocket play with Hot Wheels track action, and the result was; Roller Girls!
I was assigned by the small dolls group there to come up with some drawings to pitch the line of dolls and playsets, each doll having a different theme, look, and personality.  Each would also come with an environment base that reflected the dolls' theme and offer some sort of action play.  The playsets would be themed as well, covering mid and higher price points in the Skate City line.


Skate City Salon: Tyco Toys, 1997
















Here are some of the initial concept renderings used to define Roller Girls;










This is the Skate City / Roller Girls line as it appeared in the Tyco buyers catalog;

I did work on the large sets as well.
Here are a couple of mid-priced sets in the line;





..It has always been interesting for me to see how a final product differs from my initial concept drawings.  Sometimes I'm more involved in the process of realizing products. It varies, and it's always nice to have that personal creative investment. But I'm just as happy being a smaller spoke in the larger wheel, because everyone else involved seems just as invested in doing their best. It's always a team effort and I'm very rarely disappointed in the results.


8 comments:

Oraia said...

I used to love these toys as I kid and have been trying to figure out the name of them for forever! Now I'm on a mission to find the pizza parlor, but it is proving rather difficult. Thanks for posting!

CME said...

I also used to have these toys, my problem was the girls skates ended up pinching too close together and they couldn't go down the tracks freely anymore. My favorite was the pizza parlor :)

KatyDaly said...

Hey! I also worked with TYCO (as a freelancer) back then. I was charged with coming up with the color themes for the sets. I have what I think is the full line of Skate City playsets, all in the unopened original packages. I was just thinking about selling them on eBay...

Edison Girard said...

I'm glad to know there are some fond memories there, mostly. Katy, cool to know you were involved at Tyco and received some samples. The Skate City line was only around a couple of years.

PPU said...

i just bought some of these at the thrift store new in the box, love the color scheme they used on the box, i missed these in the 90s guess i was done with the toys! great drawings man.

Unknown said...

hi my name is mercedes let me know please if your interested in selling them I would love to buy them they were my daughter favorite toys she would be tickle if I would surprises her for her birthday thanks mercedes��

Edison Girard said...

I'm so glad your daughter enjoyed those toys. I don't actually have any samples from the Skate City line. I would suggest searching on ebay, might be your best bet. Thanks!

Unknown said...

wow I loved these as a kid in the 90s!!!!! I'm having a lot of flashbacks just looking at this post :) THanks for sharing!! I'd love to play with them again even though I'm 27 now lol