Live from North Torrance Pole

It’s not exactly Santa’s workshop, and there’s a smell as if a plastic lampshade is melting on a lightbulb, but thousands of little boys and girls will be pinning their seasonal dreams on toys designed right here, in an industrial studio in Torrance.

Chief elf, owner and art director at Mystro Menis, a three-person toy-prototype operation specializing in action figures, is Denis Carratala. The slight, boyish 30-year-old is bent over a miniature garbage dumpster to demonstrate how finishing touches are engraved into the model with a heated electric wax pen, generating fumes of that peculiar odor. He explains how a trash bin might fit into a Christmas wish list.

“It’s part of the ‘Back Alley Series’ of accessories for our World Wrestling Federation line,” he says, pointing to a tray of tiny wrenches, baseball bats and a snow shovel. Scattered elsewhere are the life-size tools--airbrushes and heat guns, lathes and “vac-u-formers”--that the toy designer utilizes to give three-dimensional shape to fantasy figures from television and movies. Many of them are based on figures licensed as part of fast-food promotional campaigns, such as the windup Rugrat Monkey guaranteed to start kids whining for a Whopper, or the Small Soldier Rip Roarin’ Kip Killigan that might drive adult collectors to a Burger King diet.

Finishing the dumpster, Carratala remarks that as a former martial-arts instructor with a black belt in hapkido, he is “no stranger to the world of violence.” Yet he’s bothered by some of the more “extreme toys” geared toward an older collectors’ market, such as figures from the Sony Playstation game “Resident Evil.” “I wouldn’t want my son playing with a doll using a ripped-off arm as a club,” he says.

Regardless, computer games and, to a greater extent, television and movies, drive the toy industry. “Even the least likely movies generate toys,” he says. “Even ‘Waterworld.’ ”

With designs of his own, Carratala hopes to soon entice investors to bring his imagined characters to life. It’s a dream he’s had since 12, when he storyboarded a video game. After working at his parents’ Redondo Beach toy store, Carratala founded Mystro Menis as a T-shirt company, moving on to skateboard design and eventually into the competitive world of toys. Southern California, Carratala notes, is home to a dozen toy manufacturers, including Applause and Mattel.

The toy designer’s career path can be more streamlined now. Otis Parsons College of Art and Design, where Carratala teaches a model-making course, recently added a bachelor’s degree in toy design. But much of what he teaches boils down to a simple lesson learned from a favorite boyhood toy, a plastic Evel Knievel.

“What really makes the magic happen,” Carratala says, “is when you believe that what you are sculpting will be the kid’s absolute favorite toy. I mean, like his best friend.”

Mystro Menis, (310) 618-8850