Kondapalli toys are carved from tella poniki, a soft pale wood cut in the hills above Vijayawada. Limbs, torsos and cart wheels are shaped separately, joined, then sealed with makku — tamarind-seed powder and sawdust — which leaves a warm bone surface before a single drop of colour lands.

What lands after is flat: marigold yellow, pomegranate red, indigo, green, palm-leaf peach, each field fenced by a black contour of even weight. Nothing blends, nothing shades. The system borrows that discipline — a primed ground, a small dyer's palette, and an outline around everything that matters.