THE CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLLECTION

NO SHOW SPECIAL!

2012-01-27T17:22:00.001Z

Sorry, ran out of time today - will address your comments and questions on monday, also I have early stages Moonstone to preview.

Have a great weekend.

Better late than never!

2012-01-23T12:02:00.029Z

Sorry for no-show on friday, I've got a rather nasty flu/chest infection, so things have been slow going. Never fear I will struggle on with my duties like a trooper.

Let's see now what have we got ready to preview... (back in a second)....

...Oh yeah I've got a painted Giant-Man for you:

I'm really pleased with the final outcome - Still a shame about the building rubble :( but I went with the overall consensus and I'm happy with the result. As you can see next to Spidey his height is not super-massive (I think he's a bit smaller than our usual mega-specials), He's a size changer and we didn't feel he was in the same league as Galactus and Sentinel so we made him a tad smaller to keep the human element of his character. Not sure how he will cost up, will have to wait and see.

Constrictor stages:

more refined:

We went with the strong classic pose here - think the sculptor nailed it - I feel the eyes are not quite right and have asked for changes.

The story of Firelord (Part one):

The basic frame stage by Joni Higgins

Joni had followed Andi Tong's drawing closely and we were happy to proceed to the next stage

We were pretty happy with it at this stage, although we were unsure about the head/neck shape and position, also we wanted some of the muscle definition to be smoothed out.

Joni took in our 'criticisms' and presented a very nicely finished piece. As with any amporphous shape rendered in solid form - the fire was always going to be a challenge, I think the flames are excellent, particularly on the flames wrapping around the base of the staff are especially well done. My only criticism remaining is the neck looks a bit thin compared to rest of body - so hopefully we can make an amend there.
Part Two coming soon!

The next two figurines we are focusing on are Moonstone and Moonstar (Danielle, aka Mirage), Andi Tong is quickly becoming our go to guy when we struggle to find the ideal existing drawings and he hasn't let us down this time:

We had long decided on the her modern look, but found it really hard to nail a solid pose for her - I think we've got it now thanks to Andi.

Going with the majority (forum poll and blog) we went for latest costume with bow-in-motion look. there were plenty available but we needed to hone them into one workable image - again I think we have it here. Ideally she'd have a wide stance - but as you can see base restrictions have to be considered and her gait was reduced accordingly.

Anyway, I'm off to cough up my lungs now. bye-------------

CMFC BLOG Vol.3 #2

2012-01-13T16:42:00.015Z

Hello to one and all!

A quick-fire update this week...

Werewolf By Night physical paint:

Tiger Shark final painted cover:

Shaman painted:

Wolfsbane sculpt stage:

Stingray sculpt stage:

Have a good weekend (Sorry Firelord next week)....

CMFC BLOG Vol.3 #1 (2012)

2012-01-06T16:46:00.013Z

Welcome back!

It's the new year, so let's get cracking with some new eye candy for you...

First up, Gamora. A controversial costume choice for most, but I think the sculpt speaks for itself. (NB ignore the lean, as it's not attached properly to the base, as the painters need to take off for obvious reasons).

Tiger Shark cover rough:
(John Royle pencil layout - looking forward to the Joe Rubinstein inks!)

Avalanche final cover:
(Courtesy of Kev Hopgood)

On Sale soon:

NEXT WEEK in issue #2: Firelord & Wolfsbane (The early stages!)

'Twas The Blog Before Christmas...

2011-12-12T11:07:00.028Z

Ho! Ho! Ho! A Merry Marvel Christmas to one and all!

This will be the last blog update before the new year. I've Been extremely busy in the run up to the 'Holiday season' - those lovely people in production have kindly only cut 10 days(!!!!) from the schedule to 'help us' over the new year. God bless 'em!

So I've been cranking out the magazines and figurines and unfortunately the blog has been the victim (although I haven't really had much to preview - as we're commissioning the final 10 figurines pretty much in one big batch, so won't be getting any new sculpt images until the new year).

Here's the 1st Terrax paint (we feel the blues and reds aren't sinister enough, so have sent back to the painters for a darker hue)...

Vance Astro (pretty much finished)...

Final covers for 168-172...

Eagle-eyed viewers may notice that I've dropped the issue number lozenge from #169 as it was really starting to get in the way of the beautiful artwork - so the issue number will now go with the price gumpf.

Upcoming figurine commissions:

Thanks to the forum, who ran a poll for the Wiccan/Asgardian dilemma
and I think most will be happy with the result:
Asguardian 32% [ 29 ]
Wiccan 68% [ 61 ]

I think it best if he doesn't have a stick/wand/cane as he pretty much dropped it when he became Wiccan.
The only thing left is to decide on an actual pose - I think something with him casting a hex would suit.

My memory isn't what it was, but I remember some debate about what costume/pose for Mirage - and as I remember the majority wanted the new New Mutants costume holding a bow and arrow (this image seems to fit the purpose)...

Stingray:
He's usually seen artfully swimming, diving or flying in all manner of physical contortions - not good for a lead figurine - so these 2 images I found trawling cyberspace seemed to fit what we need for our figurine.

Oh, and one final great bit of news for you - we've hastily got a special slot just before Christmas for one very special Marvel fan favourite.....

Because YOU DEMANDED IT...

He's gonna be delivered on Christmas morning to every subscriber who's been a good little collector.

I've seen the future...

2011-11-25T16:11:00.022Z

...and it's Spider-man 2099!

Here are some preliminary sketches done by sculptor Dene Mason (yesterday and today!), so we are still working through them to achieve the best result - we want him to be different to the existing Spidey figurines we've done - with more action and spideryness! which is difficult when he has to be attached to a base and not to spread out or crouching!!! but, I have faith in Dene.

Again these are just ideas from which to bounce off and see what works and what doesn't..

Giant-Man head changes: Much more handsome and slicker antennae:

Firelord cover sketches from Andie Tong:
Can you guess which one we went for?

The de-volution of a cover:
Here's a little look at the stages of the Dracula cover.

We always wanted to use Gene Colan, so we searched through the reference at our disposal and found two sketches we thought could work...

I then made a mock up of the cover combining the two sketches which we could present to the inker Cam Smith - he did an amazing re-creation from Gene's sketch.

We then sent to Chris Blythe for an amazing colour job. we were happy.
Disney were not. They didn't like the Cross!

...so we went all the way back to the ink stage and gave him a stake instead - not as strong as the cross but still pretty good.

Final colour version coming any day now.

Question time:
We are 'thinking' of our next commission 'Wiccan', as he's quite detailed I was thinking about a nice simple standing pose with cane.
I'm not well versed in the fella, so I wanted ask would anyone be against him in this costume and pose? (maybe have his arm up a bit in a fist?)

All the best. Dan

The Towers That Be...

2011-11-18T16:24:00.006Z

Good news, I've pestered the online people and they have finally fixed the debit card problem. (although, not heard directly about the complaints/customer services side of things, but I would imagine they are sorting that out too. ?)

In regards to the UK and overseas subscription services - This is run by outsourced companies, and I have no idea how any of the problems mentioned can be sorted - Needs more investigation...

Please keep us informed of any problems and at least we know about them, and may be able to help in future.

Re: paint jobs and breakages - again this is another frustrating part of the job for us and you guys! We preview the nice shiny masters and production samples - then they go off the China and come back less than perfect - Obviously there will be degradation from the master sculpts as they go through the production process - But I agree sometimes the paint jobs are not up to scratch. This is extremely hard to control, and something we can only work on to improve. (Question: Would you be as critical of the paint jobs if you hadn't seen the paint masters on this blog?)

Anyway here are some works in progress...

Giant-Man stage 2:

We agree with some of your comments that the antennae need improving, and we feel the face could be improved (less angry, more handsome) - horns and face like this...

These changes are in the process. Apart from that I'm really happy with the rest of him.

Vance Astro Early stage:

Shaman:

Work still needed on both these sculpts, but good starts.

Andie Tong's pose sketches for Wolfsbane and Firelord:

Rahne's stance may need taming and Firelord's flames may need calming down, but I'm excited about these two.

Interested to hear all your comments on the above.

Tales From The Vaults: Another random image from the Eaglemoss archives...

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Have a Marvelous weekend.

It's a special time!

2011-11-11T14:50:00.007Z

Wow, don't the weeks fly by!

I only skim read your comments this week, so sorry no direct answers to any queries.

The problems with the main site and subscriptions/customer services etc etc that some of you are having will have to wait for another update as I still have no informed answers to give you.

All I can say for now is I'm very sorry to all of you who are having any problems with collecting this series. I feel very annoyed and embarassed that all the effort we put in at the creative end is not put in all the way along the line.

In a perfect world I could wave a magic wand and make everything work properly, but alas I am only a small cog in a big cockoo clock - so I have no power or expertise to fix these issues. I have e-mailed someone who may have some answers, but we will have to wait and see.

Anyway enough of that stuff, here's some cool stuff...

I was in shock when I saw this - it is absolutely jaw droppingly amazing!
So much fine detail!

Nuff said.

Terrax is comig along pretty good too...

Seemed most of you like him last week - Deadpool had some good constructive criticism that I also initially had myself - but now it looks a lot more finished - I am really happy with it. We often shy away from action poses as it's safer to go for the simple poses - but in this case I'm glad we went down that route. so I think this is a great success.

Very early Giant-Man.....

Again another 'actiony' pose, but I think the character asks for it. The slow stride forward gives him a real stoic presence that hasn't been done in any of the other GM figurines. The views were mixed on the building rubble, so we removed it for the safer option. Still very early but it definitely has the makings of a CLASSIC Mega special.

Paint ammend to Trapster... (now with 20% more purple!)

I did promise the final coloured Dracula cover this week - well, bit of a problem Disney didn't like the crucifix - so it's gone back to the artists for modification - we're gonna change the cross for a stake instead. I know it's blasphemy, but Disney has the last word. I may show the original crucifix version at some point anyway - at least it will be published online!

Here's Toby Whitings colour guide for WBN - As some of you noted the weight distribution wasn't right, so Toby is having to straighted him up slightly to avoid him falling over (and smashing your collection to pieces!) shouldn't effect his dynamism too much. infact it may give him more height presence when displayed with other figurines.

Bye for now.

November Nights!

2011-11-04T16:30:00.004Z

Good Evening chaps (and chapettes?) on this chilly November evening,

Sorry no news on the website issues as the person in charge is away.

some recent painted images just in...

LONGSHOT. I'm very pleased with this one - very simple clean paint job.

Trapster. Not so pleased with this one - too pink me think! We will get this amended to a more purple hue. In the ref we have the gun is mainly presented as a gold metal colour so that's correct.

SPECIALS UPDATE

Sneak peak early stage TERRAX...

The confirmed dates for next specials are
MODOK - 17th Nov
N&A – around 12th Jan.

Ideally we’d then put something out end of March but really I have no idea which would be first – Terrax or Mojo. ?

I'll end this weeks blog update with Cam Smith's amazing inking job on the late great Gene Colan - I'll show you the Chris Blythe colur job next week...

Feeling a bit sketchy

2011-10-28T16:54:00.007+01:00

Only a few sketches to share this friday.

Andie Tong kindly drew up a possible pose for Shaman. A lot of you asked for him to be dipping into his bag of tricks. I think it works, may have him standing straight on though, see pic below...

Kev Walker's sketch for the Werewolf By Night (WBN) figure - this was done way before Toby Whiting took it to a whole nother level with his digital skills.

And Editor John Tomlinson did a great job of tracking down Mike Ploog who did a great cover for WBN. These are his 'rough' pencils. Mike's a true Marvel legend who did a lot of work on Marvel's horror titles in the 70s. He's still got his chops!

Final inked piece.

That's all for now - I'm off to have sleep the whole weekend!

Got my Mojo workin'

2011-10-21T15:13:00.018+01:00

Wow. just wow.

Amazing digital 'sculpt' from Toby whiting, perfectly captures the Marvel Werewolf as Ploog intended. had a slight concern you guys wouldn't like it because he leaves the front of the base quite a bit, but I thought it was so brilliantly dynamic it'd only spoil it to stand him up straighter.
Talking of Mike Ploog we've got him to do the cover! - and if what I've seen from the sketch he did us (coming soon) it's gonna be a classic.

Trapster final stage

I think the final detail really brings it alive. Very close to the reference we provided the sculptor. A good paint job should complete a great figurine.

Mojo early design stage

Still needs all the little detail etc, but I was really delighted with it to be honest.
As a first draft I think they nailed him pretty good.

Have a fine weekend.

Tell me why, I DO like mondays!

2011-10-17T10:38:00.010+01:00

To make up for the no-show on friday, thought I'd update with a quick preview of the early stage Trapster - he still has a way to go (all those little cannisters need adding!), but I think we have the makings of quite a groovy figurine - nice sense of action without going OTT.

And after discussions with the marketing dept. we have decided to have a three-pronged attack and add TERRAX to the mix of specials we are considering (Giant-Man and Mojo being the other two). Depending on the production side of things, we are hoping for one of the larger figurines followed by the cheaper Terrax - then the other more expensive one. (this is our goal, but we may miss the target on production so we'll have to keep fluid on our expectations).

These are the kind of poses we are thinking about. Very powerful, angry violent, aggressive... you get the picture...

He's got a fairly consistant costume so the Ed McGuiness one (last one) would be perfect.

and before I go....

A RANDOM IMAGE FROM THE VAULTS

Probably one of my favourite sculpts. Toby Whiting (Imagika), captures the essence of the Thing - A human in monster's clothing!

Geek moment: We commissioned/scheduled the Thing as issue 3 before any talk of specials was ever mentioned - and in doing so made a lot of bean counters wet their knickers. HE SHOULD OF BEEN A SPECIAL FROM THE GET GO. (and I believe subsequently has been dropped from some foreign territory editions!

On a side note we have recently started to published the collection in resin only versions in Brazil and Quebec? So keep a look out on EBay!

MAKE MINE...

Special feelings

2011-10-07T17:57:00.009+01:00

Hi guys, ran out of time today, so here's a quickie...

The specials we are currently considering are -

MOJO

He's top of the polls and has a detail and uniqueness all of his own. Yes we understand there could be breakage problems, but hopefully we can improve the packaging somehow. We would have to use the biggest base size and cleverly attach a join between the base and his undercarriage (to achieve stability etc). Also his legs may have to curl around the sides of the base (because of his huge surface area). If done correctly this could be an awesome figurine.

GIANT-MAN

This is Kev Hopgood's sketch of how we could do him - The added Wall detail allows for his stance to be more dynamic. I think this choice would do well with non-CMFC collector's, yet still please the fanbase.

Both these figurines would be in the £18-20 range (don't quote me on that!). If our marketing department want a cheaper alternative then we might consider someone like Terrax (although popular with the fanbase, not so with the wider world.)

All these specials are still in the planning stage and I have previewed them much earlier than usual, just because I love you guys! (and we value your opinions!)

THESE ARE NOT THE OFFICIAL EM CHOICES FOR THE NEXT SPECIALS, JUST IDEAS AT THE MOMENT.

COMPETITION CHOICE...

CONSTRICTOR

Should make a fine addition.

One last thing. Trying to come up with a pose for Shaman that hasn't been done before and isn't boring, is proving pretty tricky - we did consider doing him crossed legs levitating in meditation (but he would have to have a clear peg up his bottom, so we ruled that out), so I came up with an image (badly drawn I know!) of him summoning up the ancient gods of Canada type thing - I'm sure the sculptors can give him more presence and bring it to life. Any haters?

Anyway must dash. Have a smashing weekend.

aaaaaaand the winner iiiiiiiis......

2011-10-04T17:29:00.004+01:00

The winner has been selected at random, and was contacted. We are waiting for a reply, so if you're reading this Angel from Spain check your e-mail!!!!

Commiserations to all those who entered but were unsuccessful. We had well over 300 entries. We used a random number generator to select the winner.

The CMFC Warrior was composed of 14 figurines:

Bon soir.

Paint The Town Redish/Brown

2011-09-30T15:47:00.011+01:00

Hi, True Believers and welcome to another mind-boggling blog update!

It's friday and the clock is counting down on the competition - WHO WILL WIN? WHO WILL THEY CHOOSE? WILL ROCKET RACOON BE ALLOWED? WILL BLOODSTONE EVER MAKE THE COLLECTION?

These and other quintessential questions will probably not get answered this week, but don't let that hold you back from raving and ranting about your favourite lead based Marvel figurine collection! Let the CMFC war of words begin anew...

And after that big build-up I've only got a couple of paint jobs for you this week. It's slowed down on the commissioning recently as we are ahead of schedule, so we are having a breather while we can - I'm sure it will move up a gear in the coming weeks.

THE OWL

HAMMERHEAD

LADY SIF

I think they're all pretty punchy and vibrant.

RE: Domino paint. There were some comments last update about the redish/brown colour on Domino not being part of her costume - I went back and had a look at our reference. (We went with her recent appearances in X-Force), and although it's hard to see with the modern 'dirty' colouring I am happy with what we achieved - her face is not always white these days, but we felt she had to have a white face.
You can clearly see the redish/brown patches...

So, come back on monday (or maybe tuesday?) and we'll announce the winner of the competition. Good luck whomever you shall be!

Manic monday!

2011-09-26T15:09:00.012+01:00

Sorry for the no-show on friday, had a sneaky day off (and completely forgot about you guys hanging around in cyber-space!)

Trust you've all had a go at the competition? deadline is the 30th. We probably won't be able to turn it around in a day, so we may not have a winner announced by friday, But I'll confer with Rich on that. Good luck anyway!

Domino paint:

Longshot Sculpt:

Forge Cover art:

Photon Cover story:

That's all for now.

See you friday!

The amazing Marvel blog competition...

2011-09-16T15:15:00.007+01:00

Hello everyone,

Richard here this week with pictures of Lady Sif and details about the competition, which begins today and ends on 30th September.

So, first things first, here are the images of the Lady Sif sculpt. As you can see we've gone for quite a dynamic pose – she has her sword but it is in a position we've not done before. (It's amazing how many of these little figures actually have swords.) I think this is a fantastic figure and will look stunning next to the Enchantress.

Right now on to the competition.

Competition Details:

Last Monday I came into the office and caught Art Editor Dan Rachael with a miniature hacksaw, a tube of glue and a crazy look in his eyes. As I approached his desk, all I could hear was muttering about ‘the ultimate competition’ and ‘the bloggers will take me seriously now’. Before I could make it to the door – in a desperate bid to call security – he produced the below monstrosity from under his desk.

This my fellow bloggers is the hideous jigsaw man/woman-thing that Dan created, rather than going home for the weekend. Nicknamed the CMFC Warrior, the figure is made from 14 sculpts and your task is to name them all!

That’s right name all 14 characters that were brutalised to create the above image.

Then send me your answers to eaglemosscomp@gmail.com

Put the answers in the email, along with your name and address.

The comp will close AT MIDNIGHT GMT, 30th SEPTEMBER 2011 and I will choose a winner at random from correct answers.

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

Rules:
One entry per email address only.
One entry per household only.

It is vital you send your name and address as winners will receive a model of their chosen character.

The character chosen must be regular-sized (a general rule is under 6’ 8”) with enough background/appearances to fill a magazine.

The character chosen should also be an original Marvel character that has not been in the collection already, so no redos.

And lastly, please remember that Marvel have the final say on all characters and costumes.

Right, that's your lot.

We're Back!

2011-09-09T15:27:00.012+01:00

Took a week off, but I bring good news (for those who don't know already) - We have the final results from the Forum Choice polls!

Top 20 went like this:

Shaman 61
Stingray 56
Wolfsbane 54
Silver Samurai 51
Sage 37
White Tiger (Hector Alaya) 36
Grey Gargoyle 31
Star-Lord 26
Warlock 26
Sunspot 24
Whirlwind 24
US Agent 23
Baron Mordo 22
Constrictor 20
Count Nefaria 20
High Evolutionary 20
Selene 20
Corsair 19
Mantis 19
Dust 18

So Wolfsbane, Shaman and Stingray go through (I'm very pleased about that).

Stingray and Shaman I would assume would be in these costumes... (unless anyone has any major objections?)

Wolfsbane on the other hand has lots of possible looks (Forum guys if you haven't done it already you're welcome to do a poll - I'll try my best to go with the majority!)

Here are just a few of her 'looks'. I would imagine a mid-change look would suite her (hirsute -geddit?).

There's also some interesting runners up to consider if we get another extension.

IN OTHER NEWS...

Owl revised (with fatter face and more defined hair)

Hammerhead (further along, still needs a few tweaks and refinements, especially to the gun)

Final coloured MODOK wraparound cover

Andi Tong's rough sketch for Photon (we'll add lightning type energy emanating from the energy globe to create the background - plus I've asked Andi for more boobage - as she seems quite flat-chested at the moment!)

COMPETITION UPDATE

Was going to run the competition today, but still need to iron out a few technical details - will definately have it for next friday, if not sooner! Sorry for the delay.

Have a grand weekend! Dan

Meat Feast pizza - hold the meat!

2011-08-26T16:51:00.008+01:00

Hi chaps, not a great deal to offer you today. Will have Lady Sif coming in next week so I'll do a mid-week update with shots of her for you.

Marvel want some changes to Sebastian Shaw - so we are having to do some work on beefing him up a bit. hopefully have shots next week.

Nick Abadzis' wierd and wacky wraparound design for the MODOK special (should be stunning when it's fully rendered... (love the little AIM men scampering around makes me wanna do an AIM figurine!

Owl first look...

Myself and Rich think overall the body/pose is good, but his face/hair isn't quite doing it, so it's gone back for amendments. Needs to look slightly bulkier in the face with more defined 'owl-like' hair. (he's had lots of facial looks over the years and it's been hard to get a good composite.

I'd be happier if he looked a little more like this...

With hair maybe like this...

We await the sculptors changes.

Still awaiting the Forum polls (yes I will honour the top 3 choices!)

Competition will have to wait just that li'l bit longer :)

Have a weekend. Dan

2011-08-22T12:05:00.003+01:00

Just a quickie

2011-08-19T15:09:00.013+01:00

Been super-busy this week - haven't had much time to read your comments.

The forum choice is still running, so won't get confirmation until next week.

Hopefully I can run the competition next week.

The Golden Age poll will still be running for a while longer - Although Namora seems to be running away with it. I've not done a lot of research on her, but would assume her costume would be either her original or latest?

SEBASTIAN SHAW PAINT

SWORDSMAN PAINT

Dene Mason's sketches for Longshot ... (went with E - best not to go down the all-out action look that could go badly wrong).

...and Gamora.... (yes I went with my gut feeling and went with her original cossie, after consulting with the sculptor we decided it could be done if we didn't do the netting too small/close together and were clever with the paint job. Went with A (it's got that no-nonsense 'come and have a go if you think your hard enough' attitude, yet still feminine and sexy).

That's all folks!

Have a great weekend. Dan

The Blog Vol.2 #12

2011-08-12T14:09:00.010+01:00

Good afternoon,

Nico Minoru painted:

Domino unpainted sculpt:

This weeks costume forum poll result:
Which outfit for Trapster ?

7% [ 12 ] first costume design - Paste Pot Pete

8% [ 13 ] modified 1st costume design

60% [ 103 ] redesign - masters of evil

8% [ 14 ] ninja

9% [ 16 ] current outfit

I don't mind, any of them ! 9% [ 15 ]

“One of the things a lot of people stated when they picked option #3 was that they would want him with his glue gun and it was also mentioned as one of the reasons a few people defered from that option and chose another that had him weilding the gun. A few members even found instances in comics where he used the gun with that costume design.”

I’m totally satisfied with this result, I think it’s his best look (I’ll even agree that he can have the glue gun in that cossie too).

SPECIALS UPDATE:

Odin Special on sale 22nd September 2011. Priced £15.99 (subject to change of course).

ALSO:
Good news, the production problems have been sorted on the Northstar/Aurora (the clear pegs were not fixing into the feet securely enough). So I would hope they will be our next special – Will have to wait for the go ahead from Top Floor EM Towers. But things are looking positive.

The next 2 characters to be confirmed will be:

Captain Off-Cuts

and ‘Limbs’ Lieberman

That’s a clue on the upcoming competiton!? ;) (Thanks to Ted Sallis for the idea - and see the end of previous comments for LAWAY's pre-emptive attempt.

Oh Blog it!

2011-08-05T15:22:00.025+01:00

Good afternoon fellow Marvelites,

Some new photography just in...

Thanks to the Forum folks for running the vote on Gamora...

Which costume for Gamora ?

37% [69] Classic
63% [120] Modern

“Modern won the poll convincingly though in the early going it was 50/50. Many arguments were made that there were concerns about quality and how EM would be able to mass produce the original costume. Many who voted classic stated they would not be overly concerned if the modern was made (and some vice versa). For the modern, the overall comments suggested her having a blade/sword.”

My original thoughts when I announced Gamora were to have her in her original outfit, but with the fears that the fishnet effect may look awful I was stearing towards the modern costume – what with this poll I think the scales are tipped firmly towards the modern look. (although the complexity of the modern look may be a stumbling block in production – we’ll have to wait and see).

Andie Tong’s Final Karnak cover (a real knockout!)

Plus thanks to a eagle-eyed blogger (stand up and take a bow), who spotted the Beetle should have wings when flying!!!!! Duh!
Mr. Tong has kindly added some buzzing wings...

The final 2 from EM Towers are....

Drum roll please.....

TRAPSTER
(I’ve heeded the calls for more villains, also I feel we needed an FF character in there (plus he rounds out the Frightful Four). So unfortunately Shaman has been knocked over until the next extension – hopefully though we’ll still get 2 Alpha Flight members early next year). Really sorry for getting the hopes up for Shaman (but he will return!)

I kinda like the last one best - it's his most polished costume, improving on the previous ones. (I think we can assume the Paste-Pot Pete look is out). The glue gun would be cool (although he didn't have it in the 3rd costume - they are built into the cossie).

And...

DEATHBIRD
I considered your request for a female and she was the highest on the poll after Wolfsbane (whom I won’t put through because I already have Mirage, but if the she goes through on the polls then that’s fine by me!). Ok she’s an X-Men related character, but she’s also a cosmic/female/villain, who’s been about in many MU areas since the late 70s

although very lovely, I think the sheer complexity of her newer 'regal' outfits rule them out, I think at the size they'd just look messy, so I think the original costume works perfectly for our needs. Clean and stylish.

So I can hand over the next 3 to the Forum Choice Poll...

The poll will start on the 10th and it will run until 31st (gives plenty of time to get a really good result).

The guys over on the Figurine Forum will handle the finer detail – rules and regulations etc. So get over there and exercise you civil rights!

Happy voting!

So I’ll hold off on the Competition for a couple of weeks until we have the forum results.

See you next week. Dan

------ End of Message ------

The perfect 10?

2011-07-29T12:53:00.016+01:00

My tenth blog update! Hurrah! It's been a bumpy ride, but I think I've done ok.

Not much to celebrate though, as we haven’t had any new sculpt stages in this week! Sorry about that, Hopefully I’ll have something for ya next week.

All we got was the final coloured Hydro-Man cover....

Very nice indeed.

The guys on the forum kindly ran a poll for Vance Astro and I think the results speak for themselves...

Vance Astro/Major Victory: With or Without the shield ?
Without the shield 22% [ 25 ]
With the shield 78% [ 90 ]

So as we near the last 2 weeks of extension confirmations (4 left from EM and me, Plus the 4 from you guys!) I can confirm the horror character is...

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT
A well deserving character IMO, he’s in over 200 comics and has mixed it up with the super-types on many occasions.

I would prefer to present him in his original ‘small head’ version than some of the modern takes, I feel they just make him look like any other generic lycanthrope...

And now for the final female in the extension....

GAMORA
Another cosmic I know, but she’s pretty hot and really needs to be made! I’m on the fence with the costume on this one! I like the original look, but can see the love for the newer look – there’s only one way to find out FIGHT!.....

Will definitely have the competiton ironed out for next week – and the polls can start running aswell.

See you in the Funny papers* (*comments section) – Dan

Blog 9 from Outer Space

2011-07-22T17:14:00.003+01:00

Controversy Explained (well, an attempt at it)...
Last week I mentioned I was hopeful of putting through a rather controversial character, that character as many of you guessed was indeed Howard the Duck.
The reason I called him controversial (as well as the “Marmite” effect) was that we had a sticky situation with the Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite figurine over on the DC collection: Sven the editor chose to commission the sculpt, but it was decided at a senior level that the characters’ style didn’t fit with the rest of the collection. So to cut a long story short we eventually got the go ahead to make them a special. (I actually think it does make a rather nice special in the end - see pic.)

That leads us rather clumsily to the Duck! After Mr. Mixedpickles and Mar-Mite set a precedent at EM on these type of ‘cartoony’ characters, we felt we should check with our superiors before announcing/commissioning the Duck – we were correct in our assumptions, and we were indeed told that the duck would not ‘fit in’ with the collection.

As much as I disagree with the decision, we all have to accept the fact that Howard won’t be appearing in the regular running order any time soon, but we can make him a special! If this can be done remains to be seen, but at least there is a slight chance we can get him in the collection (although at the loss of another special) – but for now he’s going back in the drawer filed under ‘Cancelled Canard’.

The good news is that opens up another place for someone else! So get canvassing now.

Not much alse to show this week accept an almost final Swordsman (Didn’t notice his moustache was incorrect, so we’ll be changing it to a more french-style thin one).

So on that bombshell the next 2 confirmed players will be:

The cosmic Guardian of the Galaxy: Vance Astro

(I await your opinions on what costume he should wear and if he should have the shield or not?)

And the futuristic Spider-Man 2099

(I suppose with the loss of Howard we can assume this fella is the curveball of the extension - as he will be that rarity in our collection of an alternative reality character (although he is supposed to be of Earth 616 albeit in the future.), obviously he also fits into the Spidey category aswell.

PS, I have been summoned by the guys who did the Spirit of Hope book (The Comic Book Alliance) to a signing tomorrow at Forbidden Planet Shaftesbury Ave. at 1pm (I had a small part to play in the design and some colouring), so feel free to stop by and say hello (or buy a book - we'll even reduce its value and sign it!)

Th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

Marvel SUPER-VILLAIN Two-In-One!

2011-07-15T15:52:00.018+01:00

Firstly, have only quickly browsed through the comments section from last week, so sorry if there aren't any questions answered this week! Thanks for all the input and I will hopefully get a chance to sift through with a fine-tooth comb.

The guys on the Forum have kindly run a costume poll for Moonstone and Moonstar and and here are the results...

Which costume do you want Moonstone made in?
Masters of Evil look
36% [ 53 ]
Original Thunderbolts look 4% [ 6 ]
00's Thunderbolt costume
4% [ 6 ]
Modern Thunderbolts look 56% [ 84 ]

"One of the interesting suggestions about this poll was doing Moonstone in her current costume but holding the helment of her original costume as this is a character that seems to be caught inbetween herself."

(I like the idea that she could be standing on her old helmet (battle-damaged/cracked) in a similar way to the DC Lobo figure - Dan).

Which Mirage/Moonstar costume choice would you like Dani to sport in the CMFC?
Her Original New Mutants Costume 11% [ 16 ]
Her graduation uniform 0% [ 0 ]
Her New Mutants early X-Force look 1% [ 1 ]
Her XLE look 13% [ 18 ]
Her X-Force rejoined costume 6% [ 8 ]
Her Academy X - New X-Men look 1% [ 2 ]
Her Young X-Men uniform 21% [ 30 ]
Her Dark Reign kick-ass Valkyrie look 6% [ 9 ]
Her modern X-Men "New Mutants" uniform 41% [ 59 ]

"With Danielle - having the bow and arrow seemed to be an overall consensus for the character."

(Yes I would love her to have the Bow, and I am happy to bow to the greater good of her new New Mutants look - Dan).

I'm actually very happy about the results, but I'll discuss with the EM team nearer the commissioning date on what actual costumes and poses the figurines will take.

Next up we have for your delictation a rather spiffing Swordsman (early rough stage sculpt).

As always there are changes afoot already with this chap - chiefly his sword and scabbard look a tad too long. I did want him running, but there are difficulties in going down that road so I think the stoic standing pose really works in this case.

Here are the latest stages in the covers production line...

First the Wizard stages from John McCrea:

I think the final colours look really groovy!

Final colours for Blackheart and Beetle:

Winners I'm sure you'll all agree!

Andy Tong's Karnak sketches in today...

We went for the super dynamic second one (showing what Karnak does best - hitting things very hard!)

For Puppet Master's cover I went with this Kirby classic re-coloured by the legendary Alan Craddock (see last pic):

And now because you demanded it - 2 of the greatest villains yet to be included in the CMFC....

Hammerhead:

The Owl:

Have a great weekend.
Dan

The Early Bird Special

2011-07-08T13:26:00.027+01:00

Earlier post this week as we're having a lovely (rainy?) EM summer party starting at 2pm-ish.

Some requested shots of previously unseen fully painted figurines

A more finished Sebastian Shaw (although we are having his shoes changed from 1980s gym shoes to 18th century buckled ones!)

It's official - the next Special will be MODOK - in your shops November! price TBC.
Hopefully we're still on for a Northstar & Aurora double-pack in January (production issues aside!).

Here's John McCrea's 'splash page' cover sketches for Hydro-Man - (quite liked the drowning Spidey one - but pipped for the stand alone full figure we usually go for)...

aaaaaaaaaaaand finally, the two females who made it in this extension are...

Danielle Moonstar (aka Mirage)

I think we should keep her consistant with Magik and go for the original NM costume, I do like the idea of a bow and arrow though, will have to see if this would be too expensive.

the other loverlee laydee is....

Moonstone...

A lass with lots of looks over the years! Although her first costume is very unique and original - I think her recent costume is more sexy and would make a better figurine - although I haven't made my mind up and I'm interested in your views on this!

I-- CAN-- HEAR--- THE-- BEER--- CALL-- ING-- ME......

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"

2011-07-01T17:51:00.010+01:00

MODOK paint change - as well as some of you guys on the blog, both Marvel and ourselves agreed a more metallic paint job would be an improvement. Hmmm shiny....

Nico Minoru - Improved rough stage (Setting aside the controversy over this young lady ;) - I think the sculpt is actually one of the best we've done in a while). Rich, myself and comp winner (sorry mate forgot your name!) did a lot of work to get this right – I think we achieved it! (we were going to do her in her schoolgirl/punk look, but the comp winner chose her first costume, which is fair enough - check out the pretty awful mock-up drawing I did!)

Sebastian Shaw - Wow! I was stunned by the dynamism when the shots of this fella came in on wednesday. Well done Rich for injecting some fresh ideas into the poses even after 180 issues!

Mockingbird Paint - really nice clean paint job - I was really happy with the way the blue came out. BTW the hair in ponytail works for me, I also think the pose looks amazing from all angles - not something easily achieved, especially with the female sculpts.

COVER roughs – This is where John Tomlinson earns his stripes as he was Editor of 2000AD and has a good rapport with the industries finest – dealing with the commissioning of covers takes some time and effort and I’m more than happy for John to continue this – with the odd comment from me here and there of course. We wanted to get The great Gene Colan to do our Dracula cover but alas he’s gone to the great art gallery in the sky. Rest in peace Gene Colan.

Blackheart - (great looking baddie but he's only in about 32 comics so bit worried about doing his mag!) Great cover from Gary Erskine though... We’re gonna try a very atmospheric uplighting effect with the colouring on this one.

Beetle cover sketches - Wow we got up and coming star Andy Tong from Panini's Eagle award wining Spider-Man comic to draw this one! I reckon he'll be doing American books before too long - he did a few roughs first, we chose pose 3, then we got him to adjust the head so it looks out at the reader. The colouring should really bring this one alive.

Wizard cover sketch – Nice powerful image from John Mcrea.

NEWS ON SPECIALS!!!???? Rich can we confirm the next special already?!!!

As marketing want us to the finalise the next 20 asap for various reasons, I've decided to announce 2 at a time from now on (this may increase if necessary) I will also discuss with Rich what we can do for a comp this time, and get the ball rolling on that - also the polls can't be done until all 16 EM choices are final. so we need to make haste!

So the next one confirmed is....

Longshot (I believe he has hollow bones - so considering doing him in the lightest material possible! :) Rice paper?

Swordsman (not someone I was originally planning to put through, but he seems to be much wanted by the fans - he was only around for a brief time (in Marvel time at least!) - so maybe we can do something in the magazine with the other Guys who took up the mantle after Jacques DuQuesne (Javert & Von Strucker). He made a comeback in the Recent (ish) Captain Marvel revival, so we should have a enough the build a magazine around.

Next week 2 females will be announced! Let the guessing games begin...

------ End of Forwarded Message --------

I can't believe it's not better!

2011-06-24T17:46:00.006+01:00

So sorry, things have got busy this week and what with a lack of things to show you guys, this will be a short ‘n’ sweet one... (there goes the bettering of last week’s update!)

Here’s the painted fully MODOK... (photos not great as these shots are done by the sculptors to give us a quick look at how it's progressing).

A first look at Nico Minoru (there are quite a few changes being implemented so please view this as a early sneak-peek...)

PS. I think the news has leaked already, but big congrats to the DC Figurine Collection for getting the 20 extension! Thanks to all those involved with making this happen, big thanks goes out from the team (Sven and Colin) to those who have actively supported the collection thus far. Pics of the guys...

Rich had a great idea how to do the pose for Sebastian Shaw, basically we were going to do the hands behind the back pose (see below)...

but we thought why not show off his physical nature with a more action pose... (using an old Uncle Sam pic for reference)...

We’ll still do him in the costume from the Cassaday pic of course. I think this could be a really different pose, hopefully it will be dynamic and powerful just like the man!

Oh yeah the next confirmed character will hopefully please all the modernists out there.

Wiccan.

‘Nuff said. Excelsior!

‘This is another fine blog you got me into...’

2011-06-17T16:12:00.016+01:00

Just a quick one this week folks...

Next special is MODOK!

Looking good eh?, I think this fits the weird and wonderful side of Marvel don'cha thunk?!

Here's a preview of N&A, would love to tell you guys some solid news about whether they will be a special or not, but it's not 100% decided yet, so I'll say no more ;}

Here’s Dene Mason’s final pose/costume design for Domino, we went for pose 4 (remember the original sketches?), we thought it played on the deadly/vulnerable juxtaposition quite well. We also decided on the latest X-Force Black Ops costume as it’s one of her most consistant looks. The other 90s costumes look a bit dated and her 00s Deadpool look wasn’t quite good enough either.

Not sure if you’ve seen the fully painted final version of Odin yet? (the photo does not do this sculpt justice - it's a real wowza in the flesh (or should that be lead?)! and the size issue is definately blown away when you see his true awsomeness!

One last nugget for ya, the next confirmed character is Hela.

I think she’ll make an amazing figurine and an /Asgardian/female/villain to-boot!
Rich has some reservations about her size and complexity being an issue (so we may not be able to go totally wild with her), plus he reckons no one wants her! stuff that nonsense she's in...

Caio for now.

"Parrrker! where's my cigarrr?!"

2011-06-10T17:05:00.027+01:00

Hi guys,

Before I preview JJJ digital image and announce the next figurine, I just wanted to recommend a forthcoming book that Alan Cowsill has been working on (even features my own handiwork colouring a strip called Tempation by Glenn Dakin). It's all going to charity so please pre-order and help out those folks in Japan who are still reeling from the disaster.

'The Spirit of Hope is a unique anthology of short stories from the world’s greatest creators dealing with the impact of disasters on people’s everyday lives. Creators include Liam Sharp, Henry Flint, Nick Abadzis, Glenn Dakin, Mark Buckingham, Al Davison and Peter Hogan with stories covering all aspects of human life in the face of catastrophe. The collection comes in two editions – one with a beautiful Jimmy Broxton cover and a second with a cool Michael Allred cover. All profit from the title will go to help disaster victims via Second Harvest and the New Zealand Red Cross.'

There's also a digital edition available with alternate Mike Allred cover

Release date: 18th June 2011, Price £14.99 + £3.00 postage (UK), £5.00 postage (Rest of World). Books will be dispatched after the release date.

Ordering:
UK: Spirit of Hope – £14.99 + £3.00 postage

http://www.comicbook.org.uk/spirit-of-hope/

Here are just a few of the beautiful illustrations that grabbed my attention...

Anyway, onto the reason you all came here: The Jameson preview!

We're over the moon with it here at EM, it's by Toby at Imagika (who did most of the original 10 figurines - although his style has changed somewhat, especially with his mastery of the 3D digital illustration software he now uses. I think it really sums up JJJ's personality and you don't even notice the cigar (yes it would never have got approved with it!). Hope you guys like it as much as us.

Oh, one last thing the next character to be confirmed is...

for all you Cosmic fans out there...

A Herald of Galactus...

FIRELORD!

Weekly fix...

2011-06-03T16:40:00.005+01:00

Nothing particulary mind-blowing to say this week. Very interesting reading your comments. I'll try to answer randomly some of your questions...

Brood drone? Hydra Goon? - I love the idea of generic characters in the Classic(?) Marvel Figurine Collection, but I think there are other individuals that we need to get in first. Such as Sebastian Shaw who I can confirm* will be in the next X-tension! (*EM reserve the right to withdraw this statement). Hope you guys are happy with his inclusion, and not just because he's a major character in the new X-film!

Remakes? Not at this stage, I agree a spin-off subset of characters would be cool - if only we could convince the boss!

Rocket Raccoon/Groot. Richard has advised me that Groot has recently become small, so in reality we could do both of them on a single base as a regular. Probably the only way we'll get Groot in. or RR on his own?

Sorry Robert I can't Have your babies I've been neutered.

Ted Sallis - it'll take a lot more than a crisp Scottish pound to get Ulysses Bloodstone in the collection ;}

If we were considering White Tiger - male or female version?

KirlianEyes - Love the virtual CMFC gallery - I don't want to know how long that must have taken! Very impressive. Want a job?

Rulk or Ross? As Rulk would be a special I'd go for Ross.

'Classic' in the title. It's just a word our managing director wanted to use, we weren't ever entirely convinced with it but, ours is not to reason why.

Here's the latest stage in Mockingbird's development:

Still some detailing to be improved upon.

Here's the the cover for Spiral by Jack Lawrence, he does a lot of our girlie covers when we are caught short for good hi-res images. (not fully approved by Marvel yet, but I doubt there will be any major problems with it).

here's the rough aswell. We have recently been ordered not to cover the Marvel logo on the cover, so we have been trying to be good! It's difficult though as I love covering up the logo with nice big artwork.

That's all for now, If any new figurine pics come in I will upload them asap.

A Bold New Direction...

2011-05-27T16:25:00.007+01:00

...Well, not exactly - this is my first attempt at a proper update. As some of you may have noticed in Richard's absence I've been snooping around the blog this week commenting, answering questions and generally making a nuisance of myself. It has helped me to get into the spirit of things as previously I've kept a healthy distance. Hopefully I can continue the good work of Rich, but only time will tell if I can maintain the level of availability I've shown this week. Hopefully Rich can pop up from time to time with his two-penneth. I think John will probably not be blogging, but that may change in the future.

Anyway here are some images that we had in last week...

Firstly the Mockingbird sketch Kev Hopgood did for us.

and the rough sculpt from the guys at Banjo.

I really like it - pretty much captures the character in her best costume. Hope you guys like it too. Banjo did a great job turning the sketch into reality!

Here's the paint job on Spider-Woman II (Arachne).

Simple but effective. Not sure if you guys have seen this figurine before? but I really like the elegant pose and the wind blown hair.

One more thing, here are the sketches that Dene Mason did for his own sculpt of Domino.

I really like all of them, I'll leave you to guess which one we chose.

Have a great weekend. Dan

Good news, bad news

2011-05-20T15:55:00.005+01:00

Hello,

As always, my apologies for no posts recently. In my defence I did try to post last Friday but received a message from Google saying the blogs were being updated.

Anyway, I have a lot of good news and a little bit of bad news.

First a bit of good news: The Classic Marvel Figurine Collection has been extended to 200 issues, so another 20 figures are coming your way. Thanks to everyone who collects the magazine, these extensions wouldn't happen without you.

And now for the bad news: Unfortunately, I'm going to have to pass on the blog duties to my colleagues John and Dan. At the moment I'm just too busy with some new developments and overseeing some of the other comic related products. I'm not going to completely abandon the blog and will attempt to make posts whenever I can, but more regular updates will come from the other members on our team. Hopefully this means we'll be able to put out more updates, but please understand that both John and Dan are also extremely busy.

Right, that aside, here's a couple of pics.

First up Magik. We decided to go for her New Mutants costume with the soul sword and soul armour. The demon girl look she had recently just didn't sit right with us.

Next I have paint images of Avalanche.

And finally I have some images that a few people have waited along time to see. Please understand that I can not guarantee these will be a double pack, but if not, they will be in 181-200. I give you Northstar and Aurora sculpts. I really hope you guys like what we've gone for. The blocks under their feet will eventually be small clear pegs to give the illusion they are flying/floating.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Avalanche

2011-04-08T16:19:00.003+01:00

Just time for a quick update this week, I have a new painted Odin for you and an early stage of the Avalanche sculpt.

Have a great weekend everyone, and if you're heading to Kapow Comic Con, drop by the Comic Book Alliance booth as former CMFC editor Alan Cowsill should be making an appearance. Alan is currently editing a charity book to raise funds for disaster victims across the world.

Q & A

2011-04-01T18:17:00.004+01:00

So, I promised I'd answer some questions, here goes:

Q: What reference are you using for Odin's colour, because everything I have seen he is more gold than blue.

A: Please see below for that answer.

Q: Question, any chance of a Warriors Three Triple Special

A: Highly unlikely considering the problems we’ve had with the double packs.

Q: (i) is Eaglemoss considering the cancellation of our collection?

A: Eaglemoss always states the current end point of a collection and then considers giving the series extensions. At this point it looks promising for another Marvel extension.

Q: (ii) if not, when can we expect the next extension to be confirmed?

A: Soon hopefully, it’s not up to me but those higher up than myself, I’ll let you know, when I know.

 Q: (iii) assuming an extension is green-lit, can you persuade the powers to give the go-ahead to another 50 or 60 issues, rather than a measly 20 issues?

A: Unfortunately not. All our collections work on a 20-issue extension; this is how we cost our projects.

Q: can we marvel collectors get any surprises like a sub set or some other kind of marvel related collection in the near future?

A: At the moment we are not planning any more subsets, DC or Marvel. This could quickly change though. My personal opinion is that we should not produce too many subsets at the same time otherwise we may quickly find collectors buying none.

Q: Are you considering doing any other figurine collections in the near future?  some interesting ideas have been listed on this blog by fans / collectors in the past and present. tell us what you think rich , and are any of them achievable ?

A: We’re always considering other figurine collections – after all, we produced LOTR and tried a New Line Horror collection. I love the ideas that you guys have, they are very similar to the ones we’ve talked about in the office. Personally I’d love Street Fighter, Doctor Who, Star Trek, 2000AD, Hellboy, Sandman, the list goes on, I’m a big geek.

Q: are we going to get anymore specials this year ? are we going to get anymore double packs ? they seem to be very popular in demand , especially northstar and aurora.

A: Our specials this year are Blob, Sauron, Odin, TBC, and hopefully we’ll be able to put some more out. Double packs are not out of the question and I really want TBC to become Northstar and Aurora. But even if this happens it doesn’t guarantee we’ll do anymore double packs.

Q: would you consider producing a few triple pack specials to complete teams ?

A: Highly unlikely.

Q: The only question I ask at the moment is can we pretty pretty please see a sneak peak of a painted Blackheart soon please Rich?

A: Yep, here it is:

Q: Have you a personal favourite sculpt? Ages ago you said you liked Gladiator but with so many amazing sculpts like Spiral, Cannonball and Blob have your favourites changed?

A: It’s a little unfair for me to call favourites, as I work with all the sculptors on this project and appreciate all their work. However, I have a soft spot for Blink, as she was my personal choice for the collection.

Q: Have you considered slipping generic units into the collection. Grunts like AIM agents, Hydra agents, Hellfire Club drones and Hand Assassins are just as important as individual villains

A: We have but I’m not convinced this is what the majority of collectors want. I’m sure this has been debated before but let me know how you feel about generics in the comments section.

Q: what's the prognosis on two packs in general? We the collectors think they're a fine idea and want Colleen & Misty Knight, Cypher & Warlock, Darkstar & Vanguard among others to make the collection - what can we do as collectors to convince the bean counters it's a viable idea?

A: Simple answer to this is that they are something I like but are not that easy to implement. Please try to understand that since the collection started our costs have gone up and this makes it difficult to ship two figurines in one special. Remember double the figures is double the costs of sculpting, tooling, painting etc… It is a fine balance as not everyone that collects the regular issues buys the special issues.

Q: Hopefully sales of the CMFC continue to be strong and the announcement is imminent. Has the use of resin actually had any impact on your bottom line? Has it increased the viability of the collection continuing?

A: As mentioned in the previous answer, costs have gone up but the collection has stayed at £5.99 for 6 years so you can imagine the ‘bottom line’ has decreased. The most important thing though is to keep fans like yourself on the series.

Q: If there is an extension, will we see another contest to choose the final character of the extension? While the final choices always inspire debate - it is still very exciting and I'm always stoked for the winner!   Q: Would you ever consider a contest for a Special Slot? There are SO many incredible special sized characters out there - it would be awesome to choose who might come next!

A: I like the idea of the competition so would choose to do it again for an extension but not for a special I’m afraid.

Q: Is there a chance we will see some of Marvel's more esoteric creations in the next extension? Rawhide Kid, Two Gun Kid, Night Nurse, Werewolf by Night, Squirrel Girl, Killraven or Howard the Duck? Or will we be sticking to the more mainstream super-powered community?

A: All are welcome in my eyes but really I think it’s up to you guys and there is some strong debate on these characters – especially the Duck.

Q: I look forward to seeing it (Odin) as an exclusive preview at the Kapow Comic Con in April. Which is kind of my question too, will you be there?

A: I will be at Kapow but I don’t think Eaglemoss will be doing a stand so if a preview of Odin is there, it will be on a Diamond Previews stand.

Q: It seems like a gamble to release a huge resin/lead dog, but can we please get confirmation on Lockjaw.

A: Not ruling him out but he’s not planned for this year.

Q: What are your thoughts on classic characters versus popular modern characters? I ask because we don't see a lot of modern characters, but some like the Hood or Wiccan are highly recognizable to any Marvel fan and I think should have a place. Is it more of a gamble with newer characters?

A: As you all know from the debate here and on the messageboards, there’s a mix of collectors, so I think it is important to make sure we cover all the bases and have a good mix of both.

General Blurp about other Collections:

I’ve seen some of the comments about new collections and thought it best to make a quick comment. I think the fact that we are in a position to offer more DC and Marvel products is great, and if we don’t work on these projects one of our competitors will and personally I think our collections are of higher quality to some others I’ve seen.

Brief update

2011-03-25T16:12:00.006Z

Hello everyone,

It has been a crazy couple of weeks here at Eaglemoss. First, I want to say congratulations to the DC Super Hero Collection for winning a Diamond Gem award for 'Best Magazine' 2010. That's the second year in a row and our third here at Eaglemoss.

So first preview of the day is an early pic of Odin painted. The All-father is nearly there but we're going to make the blue a little darker, to match Thor's trousers.

The next preview I have for you is early Wizard sculpt. We went for a sort of evil thinking man sculpt – hope you like.

Moving swifly, I have the initial sketch for the Avalanche figurine. For this character we're trying to get a feel of him using his powers.

Sorry if there are loads of questions I should be answering, I will do my best to put a Q&A together for next update. If you have a question please put in the comments. I can't promise I'll answer all but will do my best.

Catch you all later.

All-father!

2011-03-11T16:14:00.003Z

Hi guys,

Sorry for the wait for an update but hopefully this will be worth it.

First, I have the sculpt images of Odin. The good news is that he looks amazing, the bad news is that you'll have to wait a little while for him to come out. Due to a few problems, the all-father won't be making an appearance until August-September time.

That aside, I thought I'd explain our costume choice. As I may have mentioned in the past, Odin is a complete and utter nightmare for costume choice. If you read through his comic appearances you'll see that literally every issue he changes costume – and I'm not talking about small changes, quite often he'll go from wearing a horned helmet with a viking look to futuristic armour with a giant crown. I guess when you're the lord of Asgard you get a little bored with wearing the same clothes.

Obviously there were some story arcs where he kept the same costume (Simonson's run on Thor) but in the end we chose a costume that was reminiscent of Kirby's style, had aspects of Simonson and had appeared in a number of '90s comics. We were also careful to make sure Odin has his eyepatch and one (yes, I know he had more) of the crows.

Personally, I think this is one of our best specials, the sculptor did a fantastic job.

Moving swiftly on, the next topic is the subsets.

Thank you all so much for the great ideas and support for various types of subsets. All I can say at the moment is that we have no plans to do Marvel subsets but I will pass on all your comments to our marketing department and my boss. Hopefully, if the Blackest Night series does well and we feel confident we're not over saturating the market, we'll try a subset before the series ends (whenever that will be).

I just wanted to add one quick note on the subsets: The main reason we tried a Blackest night collection was to try and tie-in with the hype of the Green Lantern movie and the mega-event that is Blackest Night/Brightest Day. Perhaps an Avengers subset would be good for the movie next year but then we have done most of the Avengers already. I guess only time will tell.

Last thing I'd like to show you is the Shanna She Devil paint.

Have a great weekend.

Whipped into shape???

2011-02-18T16:45:00.006Z

Hi guys,

I thought I wouldn't be in the office today (and so would have to update yesterday) however, thanks to the 'great' guys at BT (yeah, right) I'm sitting at my desk ploughing through my work.

So anywho, here's this week's slightly quick update.

Dan our designer mentioned we tried a different pose for Captain Marvel, well below is how this turned out. While I don't really agree with Dan about the 'fetish' look, I do think it doesn't work. The pose was too rigid and not natural enough. The legs are also too close together, we considered putting him on a larger base but then the figure had too much dead space in front and behind.

Hopefully you will agree we made the right decision.

Your sneak peeks for this week are Forge and Thunderbird painted.

One final comment from me, thanks for all the debate about subsets. I've only had time to skim read them but some of the suggestions are great. As I mentioned we're not planning to make any for Marvel just yet but you never know. Personally I'd like a 20 issue extension over a subset but that's just me.

Have a great one everybody and enjoy your President's Day holiday on Monday, you lucky Americans.

An update, at last...

2011-02-11T16:32:00.002Z

Hi everyone,

First update I have for you this week is the current running order for figures #150-180.

150 TRITON
151 ARES
152 DESTINY
153 BALDER
154 WRECKER
155 SONGBIRD
156 TOAD
157 MOONDRAGON
158 SPIRAL
159 SIRYN
160 BLACK HEART
161 PUPPET MASTER
162 KARNAK
163 HYDRO-MAN
164 CAPTAIN MARVEL
165 PHOTON
166 MAGIK
167 BEETLE
168 SHANNA SHE DEVIL
169 FORGE
170 WIZARD
171 ARACHNE
172 LADY SIF
173 TIGERSHARK
174 MOCKINGBIRD
175 THUNDERBIRD
176 DRACULA
177 AVALANCHE
178 DOMINO
179 NICO MINORU
180 J. JONAH JAMESON

There are a couple of figures that I’m running a little behind on so I can’t guarantee this order will stay but I will let you know if anything change.

Next up is a preview of Destiny and Captain Marvel.

Also, just wanted to pick up on some of the comments made about the DC subset. I would like nothing more than for us to do a Marvel subset but the opportunity hasn’t really come about yet. We need to look at licensing issues and choose a subset that is popular. With the upcoming Green Lantern movie and Blackest Night being recognized as one of last year’s greatest comic events, it was decided to test the waters with this subset. I can’t promise we’ll put out a Marvel one, but if the demand is there, we will definitely consider it.

By the way love all the suggestions for different subsets, here’s a random thought: would you guys go for an original X-Men (Jean, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Angel) subset? This would have the characters all in their original costumes.

I also love the idea of a Marvel Zombies subset but that’s probably just me and my unhealthy obsession with the walking dead.

And lastly, while I’m here, I’d like to get your opinions on the pose and costume for Lady Sif. What do you reckon? I’ve not commissioned the sculpt yet so any images or ideas you have put them in the comments section. I can’t promise we’ll definitely use them but who knows.

Right that’s it, I’m out of the office next Friday (waiting for BT to sort my home phone line out) so I will do my best to have an update of some sort for Thursday.

Dracula, Blob and Sauron

2011-01-14T16:18:00.003Z

Hello everyone,

Once again, sorry for the lack of recent updates.

First news I have for you today is about the Blob special. Due to be released on 10th Feb, we’ve now finalised the material to be used for the figurine.

We looked at a number of possibilities including:

• Solid lead, which produced figurines that were too heavy and costly. We also found that our bags that hold the magazines broke easily with these figures in.

• A hollowed-out lead figurine, which was a bit of a disaster with the figurine easily snapping in the middle during safety testing.

• Pure polyresin, which solved all the problems, but mindful of wanting the product to have a little more weight we decided against this.

• A polyresin figure with a lead powder injection/core. This produced a brilliant figure with more detail than the lead could manage and still had a nice weight to it.

As you can guess, we went with the last option and have a mix of material.

This has by no means cheapened the product and in fact the production cost for Blob is the same as all our mega specials. My reason for mentioning this is that I know a few people question the motives for producing these figures and I want to say that as far as I’m concerned, we have not taken this step to make more money but to guarantee the Blob, in all his glory, could be part of this collection. A solid lead Blob, even at a slightly reduced size would not have been feasible.

Right, moving on to some previews, I have some early shots of the Dracula and Sauron sculpts.

With Sauron we’ve gone for a pose from his first ever appearance, while Dracula is in a classic vampire pose.

Hope you like both.

Have a great weekend.

'Twas the update before Christmas...

2010-12-22T12:57:00.003Z

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

2010-12-10T16:19:00.004Z

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...

2010-11-19T12:42:00.004Z

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???

2010-10-21T16:04:00.002+01:00

...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...

2010-10-05T16:54:00.004+01:00

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

2010-10-01T16:52:00.005+01:00

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

2010-09-10T16:53:00.006+01:00

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

2010-09-10T16:52:00.002+01:00

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.

2010-09-03T15:10:00.004+01:00

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...

2010-08-27T13:58:00.005+01:00

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

2010-08-06T12:44:00.004+01:00

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...

2010-07-30T16:07:00.003+01:00

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...

2010-07-23T15:38:00.004+01:00

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...

2010-06-25T16:36:00.005+01:00

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...

2010-06-11T14:40:00.004+01:00

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...

2010-05-21T12:46:00.002+01:00

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

2010-05-07T15:44:00.004+01:00

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...

2010-04-30T12:08:00.006+01:00

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.

Better late than never...

2010-04-27T11:18:00.007+01:00

Ok first sorry for lack of update yesterday, as Dan said I was a little busy and then we were lucky enough to see Iron Man 2 – which by the way is really good, if you liked the first one I recommend the sequel.

Anyway, there's a lot going down in the comments section and I thought I'd start with some answers.

This Year's Special order:

Fin Fang Foom – out
Cloak and Dagger – out on 20th May
Ronan the Accuser – 29th July
Sasquatch and Puck – Sept
Blob – Nov

Subscriber Specials

Definitely an interesting idea but at this stage it's nothing more. I do agree that it's good to reward the subscribers for their loyalty but I also understand that it would be slightly unfair to collectors who can not subscribe directly from us (some foreign markets) and collectors who've been with us from day one but gone through their newsagent. At the moment I believe that subscribers get a little bit of money off each special but it would be nice to reward them in other ways that don't mean non-collectors miss out and ebay sellers rub there hands. Perhaps additional gifts of plinths or binders could be done but this is something we'll have to discuss in detail here at Eaglemoss.

Frequency of Specials

I've noticed that a number of people have asked that we increase the frequency of specials. At the moment we're going to be keeping to 5-6 a year.

The reason for this can best be summed up by a phone call I received yesterday. I spoke to a collector who was considering/in the process of canceling his subscription because it was costing him too much each month. He collected Marvel and DC and basically pointed out that every month his package arrives with 4 normal figures and at least one special. With everyone tightening their belts, he simply couldn't afford this anymore. Now I know that he could cut down on specials or drop just one collection but (and I think the response to green Quicksilver backs this up) many collectors want all figures and are not happy to miss out.

The collector in question even suggested that if we kept to just 3 specials a year he'd probably keep collecting. Now I'm not suggesting we're going to drop the number of specials, but we certainly don't want to increase their numbers so that they are no longer 'special'. There's definitely arguments on both sides for specials so it's important we balance this well.

Multi-Packs

As I've said before we're still uncertain about double and multi packs. It's not entirely correct to say that Prof X. & Lilandra or Ka-Zar & Zabu were failures and that's the reason we're not doing more. One of the main problems is the increase in the cost of manufacturing since the project began. The DC collection costs £6.99 per issue compared to Marvel's £5.99, so when looking at double packs, it's not just as simple as doubling the standard price, it may need to be double the DC price. Would you be happy to pay £13.99?

The other thing is the type of double pack. A lot of great ideas have been posted in the comments section for double packs. Some people have suggested that Prof. X and Ka-Zar did poorly because of the character choice. The problem is that one of the most requested double packs is Pyro and Avalanche and personally I wouldn't consider these anymore appealing to the casual buyer. I'm not saying they are a bad choice but as one commenter was suggesting that double packs (and specials in general) need to wow people walking into Forbidden Planet, then are Pyro and Avalanche or Northstar and Aurora going to do that? Not saying they won't but maybe a Young Avengers or modern double pack would do a better job. If I announced that the next double pack was Iron Lad and Patriot I think there would be a huge uproar amongst a lot of collectors – I'd love to see the comments ;)

We need to keep a good balance to the entire collection to try and get casual buyers involved but also give the long term collectors what they want.

Over the course of this collection we've tried a number of different types of special. We've had the classic Hulk/Kingpin/Juggernaut type special, the mega specials, a movie special and the Abomination special. Each special seems to appeal to a different part of the community more and we really need to keep a good balance.

If we have a look at the DC collection we can see they've tried a few other specials such as the Batman on Bike and Superman Statue. These two specials have split the collectors right down the middle.

In short, I think it's important to try new things with the specials but not go too far away from how the collection started. Double packs are certainly a prospect for this collection and we're looking at putting more in.

New vs Old Characters

The debate on including the popular characters again in different poses or costumes is an interesting one. Of course, releasing a new Spider-Man figure and mag would ensure more sales in comic shops but from previous comments I think a lot of current subscribers would feel cheated. At the moment it's a very mixed message on this subject. It seems to me that a lot of current collectors are more interested in adding new characters than redoing old (but more popular) ones. Maybe I'm wrong (and that's what the comment section and forum is for) but it seems the majority are against repeating characters with the exception of some figures that people want redone – original Beast.

From our point of view it's important to keep a good mix of modern and old characters to ensure we get the best out of the Marvel Universe and don't alienate any collector. Just remember that the guys on the forum get to choose at least 3 characters for each extension. Last time the top four were: Spiral, Moondragon, Toad and Tigershark, so no really modern characters.

Anyway, I think that's enough ranting from my point of view, let me know what you think on the subjects, a friendly debate is always healthy.

Before I do go I'd like to leave you with the work in progress shots of Siryn (the comp winner's pick). I'll let the images do the talking.

P.S. Games workshop paints are best for the figures.

It is official

2010-04-23T17:09:00.005+01:00

The Blob has made the collection.

And here's a better image of Sasquath and Puck, not yet final I'm thinking of two bases, we'll see what people prefer.

Bigger, better update due by Monday lunchtime.

Have a good one.

Mock me at your peril...

2010-04-16T14:58:00.003+01:00

Hello again…

First up this week I have the duty to announce the next figure in the extension – Mockingbird.

An interesting character, Bobbi first appeared in Ka-Zar’s comics (in 1971) before joining SHIELD and later becoming the hero Mockingbird. To say she’s had an interesting history would be an understatement. After supposedly sacrificing her life to save Hawkeye and being sent to Mephisto’s realm, Bobbi resurfaced in the events of Secret Invasion. She’s a classic Avenger and helps build up the West Coast Avengers team.

PREVIEW
Our sneak peek for this update is a look at a Sasquatch figure. The image is from an early stage model of the character, focusing on the upper body. We’re working on Puck but have yet to decide if he’ll be included as a double pack (on a separate base or on the same base), or as a separate figurine.

The pose for Sasquatch was chosen after looking through virtually all Alpha Flight Vol.1 comics. We wanted to keep John Byrne’s original feel for the character and capture him in action. The character needs to show his animal side but not look too savage (after all Walter Langkowsk is a scientist). Obviously you can’t see the whole thing but I’ll aim to update again next week.

MINOR CHARACTERS...
I noticed a few mentions of Jameson and civilians in the comments section as well as the discussion on characters having enough history to fill a mag. First I’d like to say that Jonah Jameson has not been ruled out of the collection and is actually one of the characters that I think would be good for this extension. He’s not confirmed however, as there are just so many characters that deserve to be in this collection. As a huge Marvel Comics fan I want every character to get a spot. Of course, there are a few characters that I like more than others but when choosing who makes the extension I look to your comments as much or more than the team’s personal choices.

As far as filling the magazine goes, yes some of you are right that a mag can fit around a character and that the figurines are clearly the focal point of this collection. However, we do need to make sure a magazine is viable and that we don’t drastically change the format every issue. As a Marvel licensee, it is our duty to maintain the magazine and not stray too far from our original series concept. Of course this doesn’t mean we can’t adapt, we just need to make sure we don’t go too far off message.

Anyway, what this all means is that no character is truly impossible, but we need to make sure you and Marvel (they can veto a character) are happy with our choices. The general rule has been that a character needs about 30 decent comic appearances to definitely make the collection but as the collection has continued to grow we’ve made this about 20 comics. It really comes down to whether the character will make a good figure and is popular. Just bare with us, there are 1000s of Marvel characters to go through and every collector has slightly different tastes.

Keeping on this theme and playing a purely hypothetical game, which would you prefer in the collection at this point, a Runaways Character or a Guardians of the Galaxy character?

I’m not guaranteeing either but just how popular are the two groups?

Have a good weekend.

It's Magik you know, never believe it's not so...

2010-04-09T16:02:00.005+01:00

I'm back again this week with another update. The combination of Easter bank holidays and a short break to Berlin means that although we missed an update last week, this one is going to be a little brief.

First up we have one new character for the extension – Magik.

She's a great character who has found herself at the center of some great moments in the history of the X-Men. I was so close to including her in the last extension but decided against her at the last moment. I'm sure there's going to be huge debate on the costume choice but for me it should be similar to the one shown in the image below (but without the battle damage).

On to a sneak peek and we have Klaw.

He's only really had one costume worth talking about so that was a no-brainer and the pose seems to be a classic one of his used in many handbooks.

Have a good weekend, longer update promised for next week.

Two New Figures

2010-03-26T15:50:00.003Z

Hey guys I’m back with another update this week and as I missed last Friday I thought it only fair to announce two characters.

Into the extension:
First we have The Puppet Master. Classic Fantastic Four villain and alongside his step-daughter Alicia has contributed hugely to the FF Universe.

Right our second entry today is Shanna The She-Devil.

Figurine Preview:
This week’s figurine preview is Omega Red. We’ve worked hard on this figure trying to catch the energy he has and make sure the tendrils look good. We’ve missed our cut-off point for the character as the next special so that goes to Ronan, but it does mean that Omega Red will feature at some point in the not too distant future.

A few points:
Multi and double packs: I personally love the idea of getting as many figurines out as possible as I would love to get every member of the Marvel Universe. The problem we have with multi packs is finding an ideal price point and making sure we’re not flooding the market with too many figurines. A lot of people are looking at their budgets now and making cuts, I’d hate to lose collectors due to them not being able to afford all the multi-packs and so stopping their collection – there are a lot of collectors who want to collect the whole series but at an affordable price. I am still talking to my marketing department about double packs and at the moment the conclusion seems to be that two normal sized figures may not be as successful as one normal and one special sized character. What do you guys think?

I also wanted to address the issue of Fin Fang Foom breakages. First off, I can only apologise if you’ve received a broken figurine. When we first start the sculpting process we do consider if a figurine is going to have problems later down the line. We often check with the sculptor to make sure we can package the figure effectively, while retaining the pose and detail we want. Obviously some figures are going to be more problematic than others, but once we’ve sent the figure to the factory we do get it back in the packaging. Often we’ll throw the box around and put pressure on it, if we think it can be better or needs ties to hold the figure in place we make the changes.

There’s always the chance that something will get broken in the mail, but I am dismayed that after all we go through some figures end up with a high breakage rate. I’ve passed comments on to our production team and I’m hopeful that we can limit the numbers of broken figures you guys get. At the very least I will be testing the boxes more vigorously in the future.

Complete the Inhuman line-up...

2010-03-12T15:00:00.004Z

Just a quick update this week to let you know that the next character in the extension is Karnak.

This probably shouldn't come as a surprise as he's pretty much the last Inhuman we need to complete the Royal Family (excluding Lockjaw).

Also just wanted to clarify the Northstar situation. If we don't get a double pack of the Alpha Flight twins, then Northstar will definitely be in this extension. So I guess that's two confirmed this week. Well at the moment...

More news next week.

Next up is...

2010-03-05T15:59:00.002Z

Another Friday, another update – welcome back.

I really like the idea of announcing one character a week for the extension, so here’s this week’s inclusion – Hydroman.

And as far as I’m concerned there is really only one costume for this guy – check out below.

I know a lot of people are waiting for news on the double pack specials and especially the Northstar and Aurora pack. Unfortunately, all I can say is that at the moment this double pack is struggling to get off the starting line. We’re having difficulty sorting out certain elements, which I can’t really discuss. I haven’t given up hope but I want to make sure we get the best Beaubier twin-pack we can. I know it’s a bit vague and not the best news but be assured that the characters are not being overlooked. By the time the full list (up to 180) is announced we’ll have made a decision.

To answer some of the enquiries from French collectors, I’d just like to say that as far as I’m aware the collection is doing very well in France and should be following the UK all the way to 180 – including specials. I’ve asked my French counterparts to confirm this and I’m waiting for a definitive response. It’s true that the Specials are a little behind the English releases, but Kingpin should be out soon and I expect Fin Fang Foom to follow. Obviously I’ll update this blog if I hear different.

So on to this week’s figurine preview. I present the Scarlet Spider for your consideration.

Despite being a product of the Clone Saga (which had its critics) he was technically introduced to the Spidey-verse back in Amazing Spider-Man #149 (1975). I think he adds an interesting element to the Spidey mythos, and is one of only a few costumed allies of Peter Parker’s that are exclusive to his universe and well recognized. As far as the sculpt goes, we quickly decided that it was important to make sure he matched our original Spider-Man in terms of size (well duh! He is his clone, I hear you say) so we got the sculptor who produced the original to make Scarlet Spider as well.

We also decided that as a clone of Spidey, Scarlet’s pose needed to reflect the first Spider-Man sculpt but be a little different as well. It’s always hard to sculpt Spider-Man standing-up – in comics he’s always jumping around, clinging to walls or web-swinging. Our first Spider-Man sculpt was supposed to emphasise the power and responsibility of Spidey. I like to think that the subtle differences in the Scarlet Spider’s sculpt show the character differences between Ben Reilly and Peter Parker. Ben was more reckless (at least at first) and lacked Peter’s experience, he also has a less-polished fighting style and enjoyed brawling more than Peter (hence the raised fist).

Right, have a good weekend everyone.

Beetle Mania

2010-02-25T17:09:00.003Z

I’ve got a bit of an early update for you this week.

First, I’m very happy to say that we have indeed been given the green light for another extension – the collection will now ‘end’ at 180 issues.

Speaking to the head-honchos, it would appear that at the last extension we were nearly given the go-ahead to go to 180. Apparently a few logistical issues needed to be sorted before we could 100% confirm the series would go to 180 – hence the move to 160 first.

Of course this means the usual lists of wants are going to appear again as well as the debate here and on the forums. For this extension I (Eaglemoss) will once again be choosing the majority, however, I am happy to try and run a competition or two as well as give a couple of slots to a vote on the superherofigurineforum.

At the moment I have not finalized all our picks or decided how many figures to let you guys choose but I think a good balance would be Eaglemoss to choose 15 and the fans (one way or another) to choose 5.

More info will be coming shortly but to get the ball rolling I’m going to confirm one figure this week. That character is… the Beetle.

The character first appeared in Strange Tales #123 fighting the Human Torch. Although he’s not the most famous of Marvel Super Villains, the Beetle is a classic villain who has turned up fighting pretty much all Marvel’s stars. He’s tangled with the FF, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man and the Avengers. He’s also been a member of the Thunderbolts.

Personally, I think his costume looks great and he’ll make an awesome figurine. I like the original costume as well as the second one (both are below). The character nearly made it into the first 160 issues but was just pipped to the post by Balder.

On to specials news.
As most of you know we’ve been looking at either Omega Red or Ronan the Accuser as the next regular sized special. I’ve been working hard with our sculptors to produce both these figurines, but a few issues with Omega Red have put him behind schedule, making Ronan more likely. Nothing is confirmed yet but I thought you’d appreciate the update. Below is the rough sculpt for Ronan, it’s a classic pose I’m sure most are familiar with but let me know what you think.

Hopefully we’ll have some Omega Red shots in soon and you guys can compare the two.

Right, that’s your lot, enjoy!

Too hot to handle...

2010-02-12T14:55:00.002Z

Welcome back after a slight break last week, my apologies for the lack of update.

First I just wanted to address some of the comments about the Wasp.

We chose the haircut shown from the beginning of the recent Mighty Avengers comics. We decided to go with this hairstyle for two reasons: First, we looked at the shorter ‘rough’ cut hairstyle that Jan had prior to our one and it wasn’t working very well in production. The hair would have made the figure look very tomboy and had a lot more potential to go horribly wrong in final production. Second, we thought the one we choose was unique and really separated Jan from all the other female characters.

As far as the wings go, we’re only looking into the possibility of adding clear polyresin wings (not cheap plastic) to see if we can make the wings thin and insect-like. The polyresin substance has the potential to look good and be a little stronger than thin lead. I’ve yet to get samples in but I’ll pop some pics comparing the two on here when we do.

On to this week’s sneak peek. I give you Pyro at an early stage in his development.

Have a good weekend.

Winging it...

2010-01-29T16:55:00.002Z

Welcome back to the Friday update.

Lots of great ideas in Monday’s comments section. I really like all the ideas of other collections and additions to the current Marvel Collection.

I personally would love an Indy comics figurine collection. I’d want to get as much Dark Horse and Image characters in as possible. My favourites would be: Hellboy, Savage Dragon, Spawn, Witchblade, Ash (from Evil Dead), Invincible, Rick Grimes from Walking Dead… the list would never end.

At the moment it’s not something we’re planning to do (it’s a little tricky with all the individual character rights) but hey never say never.

I would also love to do at least one Amalgam Comics character but as the comics were a joint Marvel/DC publication the logistics of getting the licence and producing the figures make it highly unlikely.

Unfortunately, the same licence issues raise their ugly heads when looking at other Marvel published work. Micronauts, Rom, Dr. Who, Star Trek and Star Wars were all properties that were licensed by Marvel. Once their agreement came to an end Marvel could no longer use the characters and certainly couldn’t let us use them. This is why some old Marvel comics cannot be easily reprinted.

We had a similar issue with our Shang-Chi magazine. As was pointed out in the magazine, we couldn’t show or even mention that Shang’s father was supposed to be Fu Manchu. This is because Stan Lee licensed Fu from Sax Rohmer’s estate. It also explains why there has never been a collected addition of Master of Kung Fu – Marvel would either have to pay for a licence or remove images and references of Fu Manchu from the comics!

Anyway, just wanted to explain why at the moment certain things can’t be done. This of course doesn’t stop you guys from letting us know what you want added to the collection or what new collections you’d like. If you really want a Shi or Hellboy or Street Fighter figurine collection let us know.

Right so on to this week’s figure update, I present to you the Wasp. We’ve not completely finished this character yet and are actually investigating the use of clear (possibly plastic) wings instead of the ones in this image. What do you think?

Batroc the Leaper

2010-01-25T16:33:00.001Z

So from the comments over the last couple of weeks I can see that the announcement of Omega Red as potentially the next special is a little controversial.

As I tried to explain on Friday we’re looking at doing a normal sized special after Cloak and Dagger. We’ve done this to keep a balance to the specials coming out this year. So from that standpoint, I looked over the list of specials both here and on the forum and Omega Red seemed to be very high on your agenda. Granted Sasquatch is more often the most requested, I belief we should put the Canadian hairball out as a slightly larger special. He won’t be a mega special but would be significantly bigger (in height and bulk) than the regular specials – akin to the Gorilla Grodd figure from the DC Collection.

I understand that some people are worried that we’re putting out too many X-Men related specials (with the Blob looking to appear at the end of the year) but I am also considering Ronan the Accuser as a normal special for this year.

Neither is guaranteed at the moment but it will definitely be one of the two – perhaps we’ll get both sculpted up and see which you guys prefer. Just an idea at this stage.

As for double packs, we’re still looking at doing them but I’m currently working with the marketing and production sides of our company to make sure they really are viable alternatives to our usual specials. I still love the idea of Aurora and Northstar and I’ll be pushing for that pack. I really also like the idea of Sasquatch and Puck, what do you guys think?

Other good news is that I’ve been told we’re highly likely to get another extension and go up to 180 issues. Nothing is confirmed yet but it is looking good, so get those lists ready again.

There were a few questions about Marvel Girl and Cannonball’s costumes. At the moment we’ve decided to go with the green and yellow modern look for Marvel Girl (without the mask). We’ve not quite decided Cannonball’s, my art editor really wanted to have him in the classic New Mutants costume but I don’t think it’s really popular enough (plus it’s a little boring). Personally I think the most recent costume could look nice.

And lastly here’s a figure update for this week: Batroc the Leaper.

Although it is not completely finished, I think the pose says it all.

Back on Monday

2010-01-22T17:03:00.002Z

Just a quick note to say sorry, I've been super busy today so won't get the chance to do a proper update until Monday.

Just wanted to let you know Omega Red is not 100% confirmed and that the reason Sasquatch wasn't chosen over Omega is that he's a little too big for a regular special, he's more Gorilla Grodd sized (DC collection special).

I'll explain more and update about the specials on Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Crimson Dynamo

2010-01-15T16:51:00.002Z

First up is some news on the specials:

Fin Fang Foom is due to go on sale on 25th Feb.

Our special after that will be Cloak and Dagger due sometime in May.

We’re currently looking at who should come after Cloak and Dagger. We want to do a normal priced/sized special so have ruled out a double pack or mega special. At the moment we’re considering doing an Omega Red special.

The reason for this is that he’s always one of (if not) the most popular specials requested. The other option could be to do Odin but with a Thor movie due out next year, it might make sense to wait until then. We’ll definitely not be going for a movie version but at that point I might be able to keep Odin a normal special but convince higher-ups to make him a little more impressive. Don’t worry that doesn’t mean changing the base (we’ll have no repeat of Abomination) it just means we might get his magical spear Gungnir as well as the ravens and make the figure a little bigger.

On to the figurine preview:
As you demanded it (well some of you anyway) here’s the Crimson Dynamo figurine.

We had a number of difficult choices with this figure.

First we needed to decide which armour to go with. As you can see we went for what is technically the Mark III armour but sometimes known as Mark IV. Our reasons for choosing this were that the original armour was a little too bulky to be a normal figure and was only worn for a short period. What is sometimes known as the Mark II armour (and this is what confuses the naming convention) was essentially the same as the first and once again only worn for one issue.

What that really left us with was either the next armour seen in the comics (Mark II) or the one after (Mark III). Most of the costumes after III were very short lived, not very iconic and in some cases not really even crimson.

In the end I decided to go for the Mark III as this armour not only has history, but is also very similar to the armour being used at the moment. I personally think the armour looks modern enough to be standing around our Iron Man and War Machine figures but also retains a classic Soviet Crimson Dynamo look.

The actual pose for the figurine was chosen to emphasise the qualities of the character. We wanted to have him standing in a very hostile/protective pose. The outstretched arm isn’t firing a repulsor beam but is there to say ‘come no further’. I really wanted to get the whole People’s Protectorate feel to the character and have him looking a little anti-West/American. Basically he’s warning (Iron Man) to stay away and backing this up with a clenched fist behind his body.

I hope this makes sense. The character’s motivations have always been a little inconsistent. Most of the time he’s anti-American and frequently in the employment of the Russian government. But sometimes the man under the armour has been anti-communism, fought against Russia or just fought Iron Man for the sake of it. We wanted to keep with the Russian hero/anti-Iron Man feel of the character. Hopefully we’ve succeeded.

That’s your lot for this week, enjoy!