'Twas the update before Christmas...

Hello everybody,

Just time for one quick update before the Christmas/New Year break.

I have some images of new figures:

First, Spiral Painted:



Second, Songbird painted:




This is now our third 'shouty' character and we wanted to create a different pose to Banshee and Siryn. We decided to go with Songbird just about to bellow – a more subtle use of her powers.

SPECIAL TIME

I can also (re)confirm which specials we're currently working on for next year. I don't have any pictures yet but I can let you know that Odin and Sauron are currently at the sculptors. Not sure the order or onsale date yet but they will be making an appearance in 2011 alongside some others.

After a lot of debate on the Sauron figure, we decided that we just couldn't get him in the collection as a regular issue unless we greatly cheated the scale and wing-size. Hopefully everyone will be happy to know that I'm working with the sculptors to make sure the wings are not sticking out too much (ie the pose isn't too crazy) and that he's a normal special.

Just time to quickly answer one question:

Q. How involved are Marvel in the sculpting process?

A. When choosing characters for extensions we internally finalise the running order and then send to Marvel for confirmation. This allows Marvel to check the characters are not 3rd party characters and that no licensing problems exist. It also gives them the chance to suggest characters that may be about to be relaunched or feature in an upcoming storyline – although this latter point has never actually occured.

In general, Marvel let us include any character we want.

Moving on to individual characters, the next stage Marvel will see are concepts for the figurine's pose and costume. To get these concepts ready, I spend time making a list of all the character's appearances, buying most (if not all) the comics we don't have and then looking through each one for pose images and overall reference. I also use a number of websites for reference.

Often a pose can be found in the comics but if not we can have approved Marvel artists produce sketches for us.

Marvel then check the pose and costume and pass any comments back to us – this can be a change in pose or costume.

From this point all the approved reference goes to our sculptor who begins work. The sculptor will then send work-in-progress pictures to myself, these are also approved by Marvel to make sure we're keeping to the reference and everyone is satisfied with the sculpt.

Once finished, a cast of the sculpt is sent to Marvel for final sculpt approval before the sculpt is painted. First images and then a physical paint sample are supplied to Marvel. At each stage Marvel can ask for changes and often tweak poses/colours.

And lastly, pre-production and production samples are sent to Marvel for comments.

All-in-all Marvel get to see every stage of development and can supply comments/make changes at any point. The number of changes/comments varies from figure to figure.

Right I think that's enough for now.

Everyone have a great Christmas and Happy New Year.

Rich

Prowler & Firestar

Hello everyone,

We’re extremely busy here at Eaglemoss, trying to meet all our pre-Christmas and pre-Chinese New Year deadlines, so I’ll have to make this quick.

First up a couple of sneak peeks that I don’t think you’ve seen:

Prowler

Firestar

That should allay fears that we’re gearing up to change the running order.

Also, we should have an update going on the main site very soon showing the figures up to #145. Sorry for the delay,

Quick update on the ebay figures: First, thanks to everyone here and on the forum for pointing them out and not bidding because you thought they were stolen. We’ve contacted the seller and have worked out how he got hold of the figures. To cut a long story short, it’s not the seller’s fault; he picked up the figures from a local charity shop after they were accidentally given away. So no theft involved.

Apologies, but that is your lot this week.

Have a good weekend.

Behold I return with answers...

Hello everyone, apologies for the frankly abysmal lack of updates, I don’t know what happened, I went away to NY comic con and next thing I know it’s nearly bloomin’ Christmas. Is that a sign of getting old – losing track of time?

Oh well, time for me to answer some reader mail:

Q1) Where have you been???

A1) Where haven’t I been! It’s been a crazy couple of months but I’m back now.

Q2) With the themed packs already talked about, could the CMFC finally redo some characters and give us alternate versions of classic, A-list characters?

A2) This is definitely a possibility. However, at the moment we have not agreed with Marvel or internally if we’ll do Marvel subsets. Despite there being a few different groups that could be done, it’s not sure whether Marvel will have any spinoffs at this point. If we did, the idea of alternate costumes (say classic X-Men) would certainly be on the list.

Q3) Why have EM decided against producing multiple versions of characters unlike every other marvel product out there?

A3) Simply put, we’ve listened to a lot of feedback and in general it has seemed that new characters are favored over redos. This does not mean characters are ruled out, only that the general consensus is that there are still enough characters wanted by collectors to not need redos. If you’re after alternate versions of characters (such as Age of Apocalypse Wolverine) then this also has been discussed, but more support – in the office and online – seems to be for new characters.

Q4) Do the forum members reflect the figures of subscribers and collectors that you know are selling? Why cant subscribers, who must give details with address and email, get something in the post to decide on how the collection should go? As inexpensive as printing our bills.

A4) It is very difficult to know if the forum (and here) truly reflects the numbers of collectors we have. Obviously not everyone that collects the series (especially non-English speaking collectors) is on the forum. In general, I think the forum (and blogs etc…) represent a significantly wide variety and number of people to reflect our collectors. Clearly not everything can be taken at face value; however, the forums are certainly more representative than the 8 or so guys (myself included) who sit at Eaglemoss making the decisions.

To answer the second point, we’ve run a number of web-based surveys in the past asking about the collection, and did initially send out questionnaires in magazines. It’s not a prohibitively expensive act (except possibly offering a freepost service) and is in general something us ‘creatives’ leave to marketing. I will pass on the request for this and see if we can make it happen.

Q5) I would love to see an 'Art of' book or magazine feature that collected all production pictures of sculpts, WIPs, paint tests, different sculpts, the design process etc. Will something like this ever happen? Art books seem to be hugely popular now. I would gladly lay down £25-£40 for a book.

A5) A while back I looked into this and although it did seem possible it looked like it would be a lot of work. We use many different sculptors/painters for the collection and their input would be vital. We’d need to take a lot of time collecting more images from. It was debated in the office whether this type of book would actually sell. Plus it’s not something we at Eaglemoss tend to do, so there’s a little resistance to different ideas. I’ll bring it up in our next meeting.

Q6) I love specials, I really do, but can we not have forced megas and large characters just for the sake of filling up the gap and making us pay a fortune. I really don’t know how many more giant characters I would be genuinely interested in purchasing and would prefer more double packs or to move onto theme packs instead.

A6) Despite some of the comments I’ve seen, I guarantee that we don’t simply do big specials to charge you guys more. We look at all the characters that could be specials and try to balance the sizes. We’re bound by our licensors to make sure our figures are a good representation of the character and often that means Marvel or DC recommending a height. I’m working hard with our marketing team and sculptors to try and get the best value-for-money I can for you guys. If a figure can be sold out a lower price, I’ll argue for this.

Double-packs are tricky because despite the size of the characters some costs are simply doubled – these could be the fact we need two separate molds, two separate production lines for painting etc…

I’m keen to have double-packs so I’ll be looking at our 2011-2012 special line-up.

Q7) How about a competition to tour the CMFC studio?

A7) I guess this is possible but the winner may be a bit disappointed. We’re currently just an office in London working on a number of magazines. The actual sculpts are made elsewhere but perhaps I could talk to one of the sculpting companies about touring their facilities.

Q8) What costume was chosen for the Beetle figurine? (Hopefully the second choice he displayed).

A8) Yes, you are correct the second choice. Pics will hopefully follow in the next few weeks.

Q9) A while back, Rich, someone suggested occasional guest-slots on the blog by other members of the Eaglemoss staff as a way of ensuring more regular contact without loading more work onto you. Have you considered doing this?

A9) I’m happy to let my co-workers take over this blog anytime they want. Unfortunately, we’re all in the same boat and snowed under with work. I’ll see if anyone is interested.

Q10) Rich, the comments on here regarding a second character with Lockjaw were not exactly wildly enthusiastic. Are you any closer to deciding whether or not to release Lockjaw individually or with either Maximus or Luna?

A10) Umm no is the short answer. I’m not really any closer to a final decision. Essentially you guys have confirmed what I thought: Lockjaw could (and perhaps should) be offered as a separate special. We’ll see if/when he can fit into the run and then try and work out his size/cost. I’d like to believe we could do him justice and make him £10.99 but only time will tell.

Q11) In regards to an earlier post by Robert, who's sidekick would YOU like to be and why? (Well we know so much about each other, how about you share some of your views Rich?)

A11) That is a tricky one, I mean first-up I’d clearly like to be the star rather than the sidekick. But then if I have to be a sidekick I guess it’s a tough choice:

Spider-Man- Not sure I could put up with the ‘witty remarks’. Plus I’d probably get written out of continuity when Mephisto reverses another wedding/relationship.

Wolverine- NO WAY. Just look at the number of partners that end up dead or hideously scarred.

Hulk- I tend to wind people up a little, not a good idea with Hulk – I’d end-up smashed.

Batman- Couldn’t deal with the ‘Robin must wear tights rule’.

Captain America- See Wolverine. Bucky’s tend not to last too long.

Sooo many characters just don’t do sidekicks, hmm, I guess if we’re talking about Marvel I’d go for She-Hulk’s sidekick. Let’s face it she’s a total babe, very protective of her mates and has some zany adventures.

If DC I think I’d probably just go for being a Red Lantern – I can be a bit of a stress head and the rage can build-up. Does that count?

Right, that’s enough questions for now (sorry if I didn’t answer yours).

On to sneak peeks, check out Spiral, Wrecker, and Quasar. Please note Spiral is not on base in final position.







Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Will Rich be back Friday???

...No I'm here Thursday.

Hey guys, so I’m back from my extended holiday to New York and knowing how my Fridays usually end up, thought I’d update a day early.

The All-Father!
First up, I’d like to mention the Odin special. Having looked through a vast number of Odin’s appearances, from Kirby to Coipel, I can officially say that the All-father has had more costumes than any other character. Clearly a design choice by Kirby, Odin literally changes his outfit every single appearance. At first, I thought that there would be elements that remain the same (after all I seem to remember Odin looking a certain way) but when comparing images I found that the entire costume changes; he has a cape (with or without collar) as often as not, he goes from horned helmets to large ornamental hats, his look frequently goes from Cosmic to Viking, chainmail to modular armour… the list goes on.

What this means is that we’ve not fully picked the costume for Odin yet but essentially want to have him with the eyepatch, horned helmet and a cloak/cape. The image below is one of the images that stands out but I’m not sure we’ll be matching this exactly.



Anyway, while the sculptor and I work through these issues, I am happy to confirm that we’re aiming for an April-May 2011 release to coincide with the Thor film. I’m also aiming to have Odin no bigger/more expensive than the mid-special price point – £15.99. (He may be £10.99 but no promises) He won’t be as tall as Galactus/Watcher etc… The reason for this is very simple: in the comics Odin is generally drawn quite big and bulky but not super-sized, in fact he’s listed as 6’ 9”.

The Mutt
Right enough Odin-speak, let’s move on to Lockjaw.
The debate kicked up by the suggestion that he may come with another figure has been really interesting and has certainly provided food for thought. At the moment we’re not ruling out producing Lockjaw on his own (if he does indeed get made). The only reason to suggest having another figure was that I thought it would be nice to try and give you guys a little extra. The suggestion that Lockjaw should be accompanied by another character didn’t come from management or marketing, and was simply an idea I had. Looking at the size of Lockjaw, I imagined that he’d be priced between £15.99 and £18.99. If the figure was going to be priced at £18.99, I thought it would be good to give you all an extra – possibly smaller – (in the case of Luna) figure. There should be no suggestions that we are adding Luna or Maximus to make this special more expensive, if anything I imagine other departments at Eaglemoss would prefer not to include an extra figure.

But the debate has been really good and I agree with many of the comments that a solo Lockjaw would be a good special. We’ll just need to get the size/material and costs right at our end and I’ll certainly be listening to all your feedback.

Height: Does it matter?
The last subject I’d like to tackle is the height guide for specials. In the past I have stated that characters should be under 6’ 5” to be a regular and those above are likely to be specials. Now this is a general rule but is by no means binding. Of course, the character’s bulk and additions to costume play a large role in the decision process. If a character existed that was 7’ but had the bulk of Flatman, he could be a regular.

While 6’ 5” generally works, we do need to make the decision on a case-by-case basis, looking at height, bulk, costume details, accessories and pose.

The debate seems to have been opened up again with talk of a Sauron figure. Personally, I think it would just be possible to get the character in the regular running order BUT it would require cheating the scale a little, we simply couldn’t have him standing tall at 7’ and not having a very dynamic pose. We wouldn’t be able to have a lot of wingspan on display. If we did the character as a special, we could have him at full height and with his wings open.

Which would you guys prefer? (Neither is definite at the moment).

Right that leaves me with just a sneak peek to post: check out Ares.


Enjoy!

Runaway winner...

Hello,

A very quick update today just to officially announce the competition winner's chosen character.

Taking the last spot of this extension is Nico Minoru from the Runaways.



Certainly an interesting choice, I think the figure will look great and we've started a new team.

Right, I'm off to New York tomorrow so no more updates until I'm back.

Take it easy.

Competition has ended

Hello and welcome back to another blog update.

First things first, the competition is now closed and the winner has been contacted. I'll update the blog with his choice once I hear back.

The competition was a huge success with more entrants than last time, over 250, and surprisingly more incorrect answers. Only 32% of people that entered got the three correct answers, which were:

Bishop:


Hobgoblin:


Kraven the Hunter:


So thanks to everyone that entered.

On to the next hot topic at the moment – resin in figurines.

I’ve seen some of the debate on this topic and thought it best to explain things from my point of view.

The most important things to note are that we are NOT moving to an all-resin collection and that the quality of resin is not inferior to lead. Resin actually retains more detail than lead in the manufacturing process.
The decision to add resin to the collection is due to two reasons:

1. Cost of manufacturing figurines, and shipping them from the factories, has greatly increased over the last 4 years. In addition to the manufacturing costs, large-lead figurines are a lot more expensive to post to subscribes and deliver to shops. The extra costs involved make it very hard to produce large-sized figurines completely in lead. We have to make a choice of either scrapping large characters altogether, making a compromise or raising the price of mega-specials.

In the case of Sasquatch and Puck, a lead Sasquatch would have been priced at £18.99 on his own. One of the reasons double-packs are a problem for us is that no matter the size of the figurine, there is a large cost involved with having an additional mould (one per character). The additional cost means that we simply couldn’t offer an all-lead Sasquatch and Puck for £18.99.

I personally don’t think that we should scrap large-figurines, and would be against raising the cost of specials above £18.99.

2. The second reason for using resin is that it can add details and features unachievable in lead. One of the properties that resin adds is the ability to produce thinner (but strong) sheets of material for extra features on characters.

I personally apologise to anyone who is disappointed with Sasquatch, I think the figure looks fantastic and don’t think it being produced in resin should put off anyone who likes the sculpt.

On a side note, I’m moving house soon and after lugging over 300 lead figurines around, I’m starting to wish the collection was all resin. ☺

Right, on to a sneak peek. Please welcome the paints of Cannonball and Quasar and an early sculpt for Photon.







I’m off on holiday for two weeks from Monday, so there may be a delay before the next update. I will be heading to the New York comic-con next weekend, Eaglemoss don’t have a stand but if you’re there, I may bump into you.

Take it easy.

Competition Time

Hello and welcome back.

This week’s blog kicks off with news about the competition.
But before I go into the details, I just want to talk about the last comp. First of all, the reason that I asked for character choices to be included was that it speeds things up, gives me another source of information on what characters people are after and lastly it makes sure that people stick to their first choice.

No preferential picking or treatment was given and the winner was randomly chosen. But to assure you of this, you don’t need to put your character in the e-mail this time.

Here are some interesting stats from the last competition:

128 people entered the competition.
77 unique characters were requested.
Death’s Head and Howard the Duck were the most requested with 5 ‘votes’ each.

Now on to this extension’s competition. I once again wanted this to be something that a lot of collectors could enter but would give those that have collected the most figures a better chance of getting the right answer. I also didn’t want to make this a subjective competition – you know, something along the lines of 20 words on why your character is the best – it needs a system where you are either right or wrong.

I thought the magazine images turned out to be a little easy (if you had the entire collection and enough time to go through each issue). So using a similar system I’ve decided that you need to identify the three figurines in the below images. Obviously, we’ve not made this easy (well I hope we haven’t) and we’ve zoomed all the way into a detail on the figurine.


THE ACTUAL COMP
So competition rules are:

Identify the three figurines shown in the below images. They can be from issues 1-120 and the all released specials.

Send me an e-mail to eaglemosscomp@gmail.com with the three names in the e-mail title.

Please put your name and address in the e-mail. (These will not be passed on to anyone).

The comp will close AT MIDNIGHT GMT, 30th September 2010 and I will choose a winner at random from correct answers.

I’ll then contact the winner to let them know and ask who they want in the collection.

One entry per e-mail address only.
One entry per household only.
(Duplications will be deleted and each address needs to genuine, as the winner will receive a model of his/her chosen character, which may need to be signed for at the address provided.)
Characters chosen must be regular-sized figures (under 6’ 8”) with enough background/appearances to fill a magazine.
The character chosen should also be an original character that’s not been in the collection already, so no redos.

Sneak Peeks

To make things a bit easier I’ve decided to keep the competition details on a separate strand to this week’s sneak peeks.

So without further to do here are two new figurines:

Silver Sable and Radioactive Man.





I can also let you know that Radioactive Man has been given a special paint that makes him fluorescent/glow-in-the-dark.

One place left.

Welcome back.

This week I have the pleasure of announcing three new characters to the current extension.

Chosen by the collectors on the forum (in a blind poll) the three winners in order of popularity are:

Domino

Avalanche

Arachne


A big thanks to everyone who voted and an even bigger thanks to the guys that helped make the poll possible. The superherofigurineforum.com worked very hard to weed out cheats and make sure the results were as fair as humanly possible. Simply put, the polls wouldn’t be able to happen without the forum’s dedicated staff and the hard work they put in. Well-done guys.

Of course, the ability to spot cheats isn’t the only reason the forum holds these polls. Having been with us since day one, and provided a torrent of useful information and feedback, the forum is chosen to host these polls as my way of saying thanks.

Obviously, I’d very much like to run extra polls, in addition to those on the forum, but alas a number of logistical reasons prevent this.

Right, the line-up is nearly complete now, just one slot remaining. Check out the list below:

Arachne
Avalanche
Beetle
Captain Mar-Vell
Domino
Dracula
Forge
Hydro-Man
J. Jonah Jameson
Karnak
Lady Sif
Magik
Mockingbird
Photon
Puppet Master
Shanna She-Devil
Thunderbird
Tigershark
Wizard

A competition will be run for the last spot. I’m discussing ideas for competitions with the current magazine editor John and I plan to kick-start it next week.

That’s your lot for this week, sneak peeks and competition details next Friday.

Take it easy.

Last few days...

Hello,

So the poll on the superherofigurineforum.com is nearly over, it'll run until 31st August so if you haven't voted yet there is still time.

Here are this week's sneak peeks: Karnak and Forge. Hope you like them.





I'll have a longer update and the winners of the polls next week.

Forum Poll Details

Hello,

As you all know we're almost ready to start the forum poll, which will help us choose 3 characters for the recent extension.

The poll will start on 9th August and will last until midnight BST on August 31st.

To vote you must go on to the forum, register and actually make a post:

http://www.superherofigurineforum.com

The vote will be a free vote, no lists or categories.
Each member will list 5 characters in their vote.
It will be a Blind Vote. (members will not see who or what has been voted
for until poll closes).

The top three characters will make the extension.

When voting it's important to remember to vote for characters not costumes (this can be sorted out later). And to remember that characters over about 6' 6" or really bulky can not be made regular figures and would be specials.

One of the reason the forum runs these polls is that are very good at stopping cheats and will make sure that everyone casts just one vote. Something I can not do on here.

To make sure there are no complaints about mods tipping results at the end with their votes, the mods and admins will cast their votes before the start of the poll and send me.

All the rules for the poll can be found on the forum and the guys there are willing to help out.

Right, on to today's peeks.

Below are Toad and Balder.






Have a good weekend.

Size matters...

Hi guys,

Things have got a little quieter around here so I’ve actually found the time to update again.

First up I’d like to address comments about the Blob’s size and really the size of specials in general. I know a few people are not happy that Blob (and Sasquatch) is bigger than our Hulk figurine. According to Marvel’s handbook’s Blob is 8’ while the Hulk ranges from 6’ 7” to 7’-8’ to well over 15’.

Despite the fact that the Hulk’s size has frequently changed throughout the comics, I think the general consensus is that Hulk should be one of the biggest (normal) specials and I tend to agree. The main problem we have is that in all honesty, the Hulk should have been bigger from the start. I really like the sculpt we produced but at the time we had only just started the collection and were unsure what size and price we could produce specials at. We chose to keep in scale as much as we could and produce a smaller Hulk (similar to his first appearances and 70s comics) so that we could get the Hulk in as early as possible. As the collection has progressed, we’ve learnt a lot about producing the characters and meeting the demands the collectors. At one point we were unsure if we could make and sell figures bigger than the Hulk.

So with the Hulk setting the standard (being the first special) we’re left with two options for all specials after:

1. Restrict all specials to about the Hulk’s height (except those that are genuinely much bigger). In my eyes this would lead to characters such as Blob and Sasquatch just not looking right. Check out my rescaled figures below. Spider-Man and Hulk are at correct height, Sasquatch and Blob have been scaled down and the purple/grey areas are figure’s actual height.

2. Take each special on a case-by-case basis, while making sure the whole collection fits together. This means the Blob is bigger than the Hulk but not by a huge amount. If the Hulk from his first appearance met the 8’ Blob it’d probably be quite similar to our figures.



Unfortunately this does mean our Hulk special looks a little small compared to some of the other specials. What’s the solution? I don’t think we should restrict other specials’ heights, perhaps we can produce a new Hulk special. Is that something you guys would like? Say a bigger Hulk, in a different pose for £15.99? Let me know.

As for the height of some of the mega specials such as Galactus, Sentinel, Fin Fang Foom and the Watcher, of course these are not in perfect scale with the regular figurines or some of the other specials. The reason for this is that we have a maximum height we can produce the figurines at and so these figures all sit at that maximum. In reality, an in scale Galactus would be approximately 420mm tall! Simply put, we couldn’t afford to post the figure let alone make it.

Below I’ve rescaled Galactus and Fin Fang Foom to actual height for the collection.



Please understand that I’m not trying to make excuses, I’m just trying to explain why/how we make decisions.

Just one sneak peek this week – Triton.



And finally…
I hope to speak to the chaps on the forum and get the polls running on 9th August. These will be for three characters in the extension. Once these are chosen I’ll start a new competition. I will have more details on all of this next week.

I'm Back...

Wow, it has been a while hasn’t it? Sorry about that, I’ve been busy helping with a number of projects at Eaglemoss and time has flown by.

Which leads into the first announcement of today. Due to spending a lot of time on other projects, I’m passing the baton of magazine editorial duties to a colleague here at Eaglemoss named John Tomlinson. John will be taking over the editing and writing elements of the magazine, while I’ll still be around to sort out the figurines – and of course this blog.

John is an exceptionally talented editor and writer who has worked at 2000AD, Marvel UK, BBC Worldwide as well as Eaglemoss.

So with John officially on board, I’ve given him the final Eaglemoss choice and he’s gone for…

Dracula.



The lord of the undead has been an important Marvel character for many years and it looks like he’ll making appearances in the upcoming Death of Dracula and Curse of Mutants so a great choice in my eyes.

Now straight on to the sneak peeks, below we have paint masters for Blob, Hydro Man and the Puppet Master. Hope you like them.







Talking of the Blob, I have some news about the specials. Our releases for this year have changed slightly, the running order is:

Ronan The Accuser (£10.99) – 29th July
Sasquatch and Puck (£18.99) – 23rd September
Omega Red (£10.99) – November
Blob (£18.99) – January

Now the reason for this is that to do Sasquatch any justice he needed to be nearer to the mega special size. He’s actually as big (bulk, not just height) as Lobo, Kilowog (DC Specials) and Galactus. So with Puck included as well we had to make them a mega special.

Now with DC Super Hero Collection releasing Kilowog (£18.99) followed by Trigon (£18.99), I thought it best that we didn’t follow suit and gave collectors a cheaper Special after Sasquatch and Puck.

I hope you guys can understand this and just remember, Blob’s not been dropped just pushed back one slot.

And the last bit of news is that the super hero figurine forum (our dedicated un-official messageboard) has undergone a few changes and due to their web-hosts, you'll need to Re-register at


http://www.superherofigurineforum.com

Polls for three of the four remaining slots in the extension will go up there soon. (I'll let you know here first)

That is your lot for this week

We're nearly there...

Hi guys.

Welcome back for another (late) update.

First off, I’d like to address the Pyro figure. A lot of helpful comments, even if they are mostly negative. I’m going to try and answer some of the questions regarding this sculpt:

I think the image I placed on here didn’t do the character much justice but I appreciate you may just not like it. Here’s a better pic.



First up is the size difference, in the photo I placed up Pyro was at the painted sculpt stage, which means he’s made of another material and not lead. When the figures are made in lead they shrink a little. Having got a lead version of Pyro in the office, I can confirm that he’s the same size as Spidey.

Marvel’s changes involved the paint job. We initially had the character in a different orange costume; Marvel requested the colour scheme you see now.

Unfortunately, as someone suggested in the comments, we’ve moved to the point where the pose is pretty much decided. Please bear in mind that when the Pyro sculpt was shown on this blog, the feedback was positive, as always a couple of collectors weren’t thrilled with the character but there wasn’t an outcry for the figure to be changed at the time. I promise you we do take your comments seriously and are willing to look at figures again but it may be too late for this one. I really do think that a lot of people are going to like the figure when they see it in the shops.

Other questions that popped up in the comments were regarding double packs and Northstar. I’m sorry to say I can’t confirm one yet but I do believe we’ll have Northstar and Aurora as a double pack as part of next year’s specials.

Someone also asked why competitions and polls are on the forums and not on the blog. The simple answer is that I don’t have the ability (or time) to make sure people don’t cheat on polls/comps on this blog. We have tried running a few polls in the past but it quickly became obvious that someone was cheating. When the forum chose three figures for this extension I will announce the details on this blog, giving most a chance to join and vote. Sorry but there just isn’t another way.

Anyway, that aside I’ve got two more figures to announce for the extension.

The first is Forge – a simple choice that has been requested many times and is a very popular X-Men character.



The second is….

J. Jonah Jameson.



Now I know there’s going to be a lot of debate on this one but let me say straight away that Jameson being in the collection does not mean we’ve ‘opened the floodgates for civilians’. As far as I’m concerned, Jameson is one of the most important characters in Spidey’s history and despite being a ‘normal’, is as recognizable and unique-looking (hell, probably a lot more) than the other characters in the extension.

Right, that leaves just one slot for Eaglemoss to choose before we start the polls and comp. We’ve talked about it in the office non-stop over the last few days and still can’t quite decide, so now’s your chance to give me your suggestions for the ONE character. Make your voice known in the comments section and you never know, we may be influenced and pick it.

Right that is your lot. Have a good weekend.

A Tale of Two Captains...

Hi Guys,

My apologies for the lack of recent updates, I’ve been extremely busy and despite my best intentions, 7pm Friday arrives and the working week’s gone.

I’d like to start this update by announcing a further two figures for the extension:

Mar-Vell



Photon (Monica Rambeau)



Two very popular characters strangely enough both have gone under the codename Captain Marvel. Mar-Vell’s costume is pretty much obvious but what do you think about Monica’s? She’s had a few different costumes – I’m not going to list them all here, but if you know what you’d prefer let me know in the comments.

A very early sneak peek of Cannonball. As you can see we went for something a little special with this sculpt. We wanted to capture him taking off and were inspired by some of the rocket man style posters from the 50s.



This week I have the painted versions of Sasquatch and Puck, as you can see they are on separate bases.




And also an update to the paint stage of Pyro – we had to change this for Marvel.



I know, just a short update but life isn’t getting any quieter around the office. I’ll do my best for another longer update next week, if there’s any burning questions put them in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer.

Have a good one.

Thunderbird is go...

Sorry for the lack of update last week, I was away in Hamburg on Wednesday cheering on Fulham FC and so had a lot of catching up to do on Friday.

A number of us (including Alan Cowsill) are heading down to the Bristol comic con this weekend (hence slightly early update today) so if you’re down there we might bump into you.

Anyway, to kick this week’s update off, I’d like to put show you guys Drax the Destroyer and explain the choice of costume because I know it’s a little controversial.



We looked at all the options for Drax and after a lot of debate and a few e-mails back and forward to Marvel we went for the modern look. Essentially we decided that there were three looks to Drax: the original, the Infinity Watch and the modern. Straight away the Infinity Watch look had to be ruled out, as the character is over 7 feet tall in this incarnation – he looks a lot like the Hulk in a purple cape.

This left us with the classic and modern looks, each of which seemed to have a lot of support. After going through a lot of comics we noticed that the modern version of Drax appeared in more issues and had a lot more (and often better) artwork than the classic version. We also took in to consideration the comments we’ve had about putting more modern (and hence relevant to today’s readers) characters in to the collection. As Drax had a mini-series in this form, starred in a few major crossovers (Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest) as well as Guardians of the Galaxy, and is likely to be back in Thanos Imperative, we thought this costume would be easily recognised.

We definitely considered the original costume. I thought it looked a little like Adam Warlock’s and personally I wasn’t too happy with the way the costume or figurine of Warlock turned out in our collection. I just also want to say that Dan’s comments about capes and saving money is out of context and at no point did we decide to go with the modern version because it might cost less. There are a number of factors that we must take into account to do with manufacturing cost (as I’m sure you expect) however Drax’s cape was not a big factor. Yes caped characters cost more to make but in the end it all balances out.
And as a side note, Dan himself actually championed the modern version in the office.

Anyway, with that aside I’d like to announce another character for the extension: Thunderbird.



This is a character we’ve wanted to include for a while and one that finishes the Giant-Size X-Men roster, which is one of the most important issues in the history of the X-Men. The reason he’s not been included so far is due to his height and also the fact he dies shortly after his debut. After looking through Marvel Handbooks and his first appearance we believe the character is just over 6’. According to numerous sources he’s 6’ 1 ½”. There has been some confusion in the past as in some modern handbooks he’s listed as 6’ 10”, which would make him too big. When it comes to the magazine we’ve decided to also include details on Warpath (the second Thunderbird). I know there were suggestions of doing them as a double pack but at the moment we have more important double packs to try and get through.

Lastly, here’s another sneak peek, an early stage sculpt of Hydroman.



Have a good weekend.

Eaglemoss Investigates

Hey guys,

Another Friday and another update.

I love all the comments about new vs old vs 'classic' vs z-listers. In essence it is a similar conversation to the one we have in the office when we choose figures for each extension. I think the key is balance and to quote one of you guys our mission statement should pretty much be:

1. Coverage of famous characters
2. Less known characters based on awe-inspiring concepts and design
3. Completion of top/famous teams
4. Expansions into new emerging teams and Marvel realities
5. Coverage of unmissable, classic characters that are testament to the House Of The Idea.

I couldn't put it better myself. I think the one thing everyone should take away from the lists and polls, here and on the forum, is that at this stage in the collection everyone has a different idea of who NEEDS to be in. I try my best to be a little impartial and maintain a balance.

So without further to do here are this week's inclusions into the collection:

Lady Sif



Tigershark



On to a few questions:

Other limited run collections.
Someone asked about limited runs of figurines from different sources (similar to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer figures we made). I love this idea and have been talking to our bosses about some new spin-off/mini-collections but nothing has been decided. I've always stated my love for all things Street Fighter so would love to do some figures of the World Warriors. The major problem with these little collections is the high price we have to pay for licences. If we only do a small run of figures it means the cost of the licence is spread over less magazines. Not a huge problem to contend with but one that always needs addressing.

DC Blog
Not sure if we can set up a DC blog, apart from the time it takes to read/discuss all your comments and then write these articles, I'm not sure we've been given permission from DC to set one up.

Backdrops
Nice idea and one that was originally considered as part of the collection. One of the reasons it was dropped is that we were looking at the collection being presented as a diorama. When this changed and we went for more individual poses the backdrop idea went. It was also thought it might make the collection look a little young (as in for kids). I'll speak to the marketing chaps and see if it's something we want to look at. Maybe we could include with specials – so Ronan would come with an FF backdrop, Blob an X-Men related one etc... No promises though.

Just time for one sneak preview, this week we have early shots of Marvel Girl.



As you can see we went for the mini skirt costume (which was the most popular in our office and on the various forums). The hands to the head pose came straight from a comic and represents her using her powers. When painted we'll have the phoenix symbol over the eye. Oh and she's not quite facing the right way on the base, this will be corrected.








P.S. Read Mad Thinker's comments about us investigating multiple blog profiles and now love the idea of Dan and I running a detective agency similar to Madrox's in X-Factor. (Hence the title).

Wiz-bang and the FF are gone...

Hi guys, welcome back to the Friday update.

This week I can announce one more characters in to the extension: The Wizard.



I know you guys are keen on modern characters and especially it would seem the Young Avengers, so I'm very tempted to confirm that a Young Avenger will make it in this extension. But before I do I'd like to know which one you guys prefer? Have a sound off in the comments section and if you're totally against their inclusion let me know why and maybe there place will go to someone else...



(You're not restricted to the members in image)

Next up is a figurine update, check out the paint stage of Typhoid Mary. The sculptor has done an amazing job on this figure and I'm truly impressed that he managed to get the fishnets looking so good. The pose is based on a classic Marvel handbook image and I think sums up the character perfectly.



Right, Dan thought it might be good to show you guys some of the ads we've been placing in Diamond's Preview Catalogue. For those of you that don't know what this is, it's a large catalogue that goes to all comic shops and allows retailers as well as costumers to see what's coming out and place an order. If you're a comic shop costumer the idea is you can get the shop to order you the product through the catalogue. This is the ideal way to order for American collectors.

The first image is our Fin Fang Foom ad that featured on the second page of Previews. The second is our calendar page from the Diamond retailers'calendar.





That's it from this update, have a good Bank Holiday Weekend.