Wednesday 30 July 2008

Are you a Grandmaster?

Hello everyone,

I’ve got a very special blog update today regarding another of Eaglemoss’ fine Marvel products, the Marvel Chess Set (we’re still thinking of a name).

As some of you newshounds and forum members may have discovered, we’re looking at expanding our Marvel range of products by offering a unique chess set.

Similarly to the Lord of the Rings Chess set (which we also produce) we’re going to create new poses for your favourite figures, add new characters that have yet to be included to the Marvel Figurine Collection and aim to produce a chess set you simply can’t find in the shops. Our aim is to build up different teams/families of Super Heroes to battle their respective villains with each set based on a branch of the Marvel universe.

So, what does this mean? Well, imagine collecting a Spider-Man set of Heroes to battle their greatest foes: Spidey battles Venom, Black Cat fights Doc Ock and Aunt May takes on the Grim Reaper (ok, just kidding with that last one but seriously how old is she now?) The next set in the collection could then be based around the X-Men with Prof. X vs. Magneto, Wolvie vs. Sabretooth, Colossus vs a Sentinel etc… You get the picture.

So why am I announcing this on the Marvel Figurine blog? Well, as collectors of the Classic Marvel Figurine Collection and true Marvelites, you guys know what characters make the best figures and we want your opinions on the Spider-Man chess set. I’ve put up a few polls with some interesting choices, the discerning amongst you will notice that we’ve got ‘powers’ vs ‘civvies’, and we’re keen to see if you’d prefer a line-up full of Super Heroes and Villains or whether you’d like a few more of Peter Parker’s supporting cast instead.

Well what are you waiting for, let the voting begin.



P.S. I'll have a fully CMFC update before the week is out.

Friday 18 July 2008

It's a Special Day.

So I promised I'd have some figurine news and here it is:

We've finally sorted out the Professor Xavier fiasco!

If you've been following the saga of Prof. X on the figurine forum then you'll know a little of the history already but for those of you who haven't here's a quick breakdown.

We've always wanted to have Prof. X in the collection and he was originally scheduled for the first 60 issues, however problems with the initial sculpt led to him being delayed. We then had the problem with the size of the character, in his wheelchair he's a little too big for the regular issues but a little too small to be an outright special. So we have decided to go for a double-pack special.

This is essentially two characters on separate bases (with one shared magazine) in the same special. We really wanted the second character to have a shared history with Xavier, not just a somebody stuck in for no reason, and to be a character we probably wouldn't have in the collection unless we went way past issue 120. So, the guys on the forum have been voting frantically for over the last few weeks for their choice of character and I'm happy to say the overwhelming majority voted for Lilandra, who was actually my joint fast choice. I was also keen on Vulcan just to have the 'Third Summer's Brother'.

If you don't know who she is (shame on you), she's Professor Xavier's wife (although technically the marriage is now annulled) and former Empress of the Shiar.

Hopefully the double-pack idea will prove popular and we can add it to our list of specials (mega and regular). I'm personally very excited to see how the idea works, as it could be a great way to get some of the lesser known characters into the collection and also means that we're getting more Marvel characters into the series. For those of you worried about a shared magazine, I can assure you we'll be looking carefully at the magazine's content to make sure we have a detailed history on both characters.

I also have news of the upcoming specials, below is an image of the next regular special – the Man-Thing. He's coming out after the Sentinel mega issue (of which I'll have some images soon) and was sculpted by a very talented artist from South Africa, Aren Damiani.



And lastly I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who voted in the mega special poll. It would seem that Onslaught narrowly beat the Watcher, so I think I know what the next two mega specials will be after the Sentinel.

Keep watching this space and we'll have a regular special poll up very soon.

Rich

Monday 14 July 2008

Questions, questions, questions...

Thanks for all the positive comments, it's great to hear from so many collectors all around the world. A few questions have popped up, so I thought I'd answer these before moving on.

1. Abomination on a different base- Well here at Eaglemoss we're always looking at new ways to expand the collection and make it the best we can. As such we decided to try a more dynamic pose with the Abomination to see how he worked in an almost diorama type of setting, similar in some ways to the Spider-Man rooftop figures. Having received a lot of feedback on the figure, I think we can say that we succeeded in making a great looking Abomination but perhaps went a little too far with the base. Sure it looks good but many collectors have stated it stands out a little too much.

Personally I think it's great to try new things and bring fresh blood into the collection (a lot of fans have been crying out for more dynamic poses) but based on the feedback we will definitely be thinking long and hard before changing the base on any other figures. This blog and the other forums are a great place to talk to you guys about things like the Abomination, so in the future I'd like to get your opinions before we try anything new. And so for the next two specials Man-Thing and Sentinel we've gone back to the lovely basic black base.

2. Classic costumes vs. Modern costumes- Sure the magazine is called the Classic Figurine Collection and we always aim to put the character in their classic costume. However, for me Classic doesn't just mean the first costume the character appeared in, sometimes a character has a classic style/costume/look that appeared much later. We also have to get approval from Marvel on every figure we produce and sometimes Marvel prefer us to use an updated or different costume to the one we initially choose. A great example of both these points is the Beast figure. You could argue that his first appearance (human form, X-costume) is classic but for me and everyone working on the project his classic look is his original blue fuzzy form. However, when we started the sculpting process Marvel were very clear that the new cat-like Beast was the figure they wanted to see. We've also got to take into consideration the costume from a sculpting point of view and make sure we can supply enough quality art to the sculptor to make a great figurine.

So it's a bit of a balancing act to get the best looking figures and retain the Classic element we want to achieve. I think, and hope most people agree, that we've struck a nice balance between the pure classic costumes/looks each character has and their best costumes even if they are a bit more modern.

3. My favourite character has not been made yet- Let me know. Seriously, if your favourite character or one that you think has been missed out is not in our 120 figures list, let me know on the message boards and this blog. Last I heard Marvel had over 5000 original characters, so clearly we're not going to get through every single one but the more I hear a character's name the more likely they are to get in. In my mind once we got past 100 issues the choice of characters became so much more interesting. There were still a few relatively big names left but the selection became so much more personal. If we go past 120, which it looks like we might, then I'm going to open up a couple of polls and really let collectors have a say.

Hope that sorts out a few things and I'll aim to have another figurine update ready for you by the end of the week, until then keep on voting for the next mega special.

Friday 4 July 2008

Hello Everybody!

Welcome to the first official CMFC blog. We may have taken our time getting it up and running but now we’re here and I’m ready to ramble endlessly about our collection. First I’d like to say a huge thanks to all the collectors, without you guys the magazine wouldn’t be the success it is today and I’d have to find some other way to geek-out about Marvel comics.

Over the coming weeks and months I plan to use this blog to give everyone a little insight into the way we put the magazine and figures together as well as announcing new figures and products.

So today I’m working on issue 86- The Scorpion, the figure has been approved and we’re very happy with the final product. As you can see from the picture I’ve popped up, we went for the classic green costume from the 80s/90s. We could have gone for the new Venom look but let’s face it he just isn’t Scorpion and we’ve already had a Venom figure. Let me know what you think about the figure and go and vote in our poll for the next potential Mega Special after the Sentinel.