The Real Ghostbusters toy line from Kenner ran from 1986-1991 and it was yet another hugely successful venture for the company. The popularity of the TV show meant that the toys were always going be a huge hit but without the combined creative talents of some great toy designers and innovative artists it could well have been very different.

The toys all began their life at Kenner in Cincinnati, Ohio where product concept designers & industrial designers would work together to conceive ideas for the toys and then come up with full colour concept designs for them.

After a concept was approved for production, the toy would be sculpted and prototyped in 3D form. The initial sculpt would usually be done in clay or wax then later a hardcopy would be made. If you’ve ever flipped through a toy catalogue or looked really closely at the figures on the packaging then you’ve probably seen some of the painted hardcopies which were often used for photography.

The final part of the story is the toys packaging art, which would be produced shortly after the toy had reached 3D prototype form (either a concept sculpt, kit bashed model or hard copy/protomould). All of the packaging art for the Ghostbusters toys was produced by Lipson-Alport-Glass & Associates which was one of the Cincinatti based art studios used by Kenner.

Feel free to browse through this section using the drop down menu above to view early concept drawings, packaging artwork and proof cards.