Thursday 27 August 2009

Enchanting

A bit of a shorter post this week (and a day early) as I'm actually away to the States for a couple of weeks from tomorrow.

First up I've seen a few comments asking us how we choose characters and how we choose poses. So here's a little insight:

Characters – When we choose which characters are going into the collection we look at a number of factors. We look at the character's popularity (within the collection as well as the comic world), we look at how many appearances and the importance of these appearances they've made and we look at how the character fits into our collection.

There's no strict set of rules except that a character must have enough appearances/back-story to make a good figurine and magazine. In the past we've gone for the A-listers first and then moved down through the ranks, while trying to keep the collection diverse. It's not the Spider-Man collection or the X-Men/FF/Avengers collection, so I'm always keen to have a healthy variety.

Now that we've got through pretty much all the 'big' characters the choice is a lot more subjective and it's very difficult to choose characters for extensions mostly because I can't decide who not to make. In the past few extensions, I've let you guys decide (on here and the forum) and I've let a few members of staff/contributors choose some.

I understand the need to complete teams and that is definitely something I want to do but if we just go for completing teams we've already started then we'll have pretty much an entire extension filled with one branch/area of Marvel comics. I know Alpha Flight/X-Men/Brotherhood are popular but it's great to have at least one character representing each area. I think there's a strong chance this collection will continue past 140 and each extension gives us the chance to fill/complete some teams and start new ones.

Pose – As for the pose, this greatly varies depending on the character. Some have very obvious, classic stances/poses that have to be done and others have great pieces of artwork that we can base a pose on. However, now that we've got down to some lesser-known characters, the costume and pose artwork can be slim. We'll try to order most of the comics a character is in and choose reference from these, we'll then ask our sculptors/artists to come up with poses and lastly we'll get Marvel's approval. We always try to capture a little something of the character in each pose, whether that's very subtle or a little over-the-top depends on the character.

At the start of the collection we went for more stoic, static poses that aimed to show the heroic (or villainous) nature of the character but without turning them in to action figures. As the collection has been extended and evolved over the years we've tended to make the characters more dynamic while keeping the integrity of the early models.

At the end of the day, it's for you guys to decide if we've done this well but we're definitely not slacking off. You wouldn't believe some of the arguments/debates we have in the office over the sculpt details.

Anyway, there's a little look into how we work (which made it a longer post than I had originally planned) and here's the Enchantress.



Enjoy!

Friday 21 August 2009

Bob, Blob, Glob?

Hello everyone,

Well I'm glad to see that last week's blog update led to a bit more action in the comments section.

From all the comments I can see that there's a certain character that you guys really want for a special. What was his name? Oh that's right – The Glob.

Well fair play he's confirmed, let's have the Glob in the collection.

So that's the chap below confirmed for 2010.



OK, that was a bit cruel.

So the BLOB it is then. I've enjoyed teasing you guys with this one for a while but I think it's only fair to say (bar any catastrophes) that we'll have him in the collection at some point next year.

Right so that's two slots sorted for next year, begin the comments for another. The Glob anyone?

And lastly today, it looks like Annihilus got the most votes so here he is:




We went for the classic Annihilus not the new Annihilation (more insecty) one and made sure to include the cosmic rod on his chestplate.

Have a good weekend.

Friday 14 August 2009

Mega Update

So I promised I'd be back this week and here I am with a slightly longer blog update than the last.

First thing I wanted to talk about was the specials for next year, which I know everyone is interested in.

So far I've started planning the first special for 2010 (due out sometime in Feb). We're going for an early Mega Special and one that may surprise you.

Drum roll please...

FIN FANG FOOM.

OK so why have we chosen the dragon lord? Well looking at the possibilities for Mega Specials/larger figures, Fin Fang Foom really stands out. For those of you who don't know, Foom is a character that appeared before the Marvel Universe really began (pre-Fantastic Four, even if it was just one month) and has in some capacity endured for nearly 50 years.

He's a great villain and will make a spectacular figurine. I know he's not the usual Super Hero/Villain spandex but I think Foom will look amazing standing alongside Galactus, Watcher and Sentinel. Other choices for Mega Specials included MODOK, Mojo, Onslaught, High Evolutionary, Celestial and Odin but I think a lot of these figures could be done at a slightly smaller scale to Foom, maybe something similar to the Gorilla Grodd figurine our DC counterpart produced. A character such as Onslaught or Odin (two of my favourite candidates for a special position) could be made at Gorilla Grodd's height and look amazing.

Plus, we really do have plenty of time to put more mega (and normal) specials into the collection.

So the main question to debate will be: 'Should Foom be wearing his trademark purple pants or not?'

In other news, we've been slightly rejigging the magazine format for a few characters. After the comments about removing the centre-page poster and putting back pages of the history article, we've decided to give it a go with Ikaris and Machine Man.

We've also just begun work on the Shang-Chi issue and below is the cover artwork our designer Dan has chosen.



Right, I think that's a little more to talk about this week. Be back here next Friday for another update and a sneak peek of a new figurine. I'll let you guys decide which you see:

Annihilus or The Enchantress

Leave your comment.

Friday 7 August 2009

Super Quick Update: Madame Hydra


Hello,

As the heading says just a quick update with an image of Madame Hydra (also known as Viper). We went for the classic Jim Steranko look.

Hope you like it and as always please leave your feedback in the comments section.

More next week. I promise.