Mel Birnkrant - Featured Artist

Mel Birnkrant is an American toy designer and collector. Birnkrant attended Cranbrook Academy of Art, the University of Michigan, New York's Pratt School of Art and Design and the Académie Julian in Paris, France. In the 1950s, Birnkrant began collecting toys of primarily pre-World War II comics characters, drawn to the forms of the characters rather than their stories or personalities.

Beginning in 1968 Mel Birnkrant designed seven action figures as aliens. Each “bendy,” soft vinyl figure was designed to represent one of the planets in our solar system, know as The Outer Space Men (also known as the Colorform Aliens), which were originally produced by the Colorforms Company in 1968.

Some years later, in 2008, Birnkrant teamed up with Wall Street Specialist Gary Schaeffer and created The Outer Space Men, LLC (OSM). Since then, OSM has released several other uniquely designed action figures, as well as a graphic novel.

Mel’s latest work for Outer Space Men was creating digital avatars for Liquid Avatar Marketplace.