Friday 30 July 2010

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.

Friday 23 July 2010

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