Forum Poll Details

Hello,

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

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

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

http://www.superherofigurineforum.com

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

The top three characters will make the extension.

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

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

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

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

Right, on to today's peeks.

Below are Toad and Balder.






Have a good weekend.

Size matters...

Hi guys,

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

Just one sneak peek this week – Triton.



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

I'm Back...

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

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

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

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

Dracula.



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

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







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

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

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

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

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

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


http://www.superherofigurineforum.com

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

That is your lot for this week

We're nearly there...

Hi guys.

Welcome back for another (late) update.

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



The second is….

J. Jonah Jameson.



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

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

Right that is your lot. Have a good weekend.

A Tale of Two Captains...

Hi Guys,

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

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

Mar-Vell



Photon (Monica Rambeau)



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

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



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




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



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

Have a good one.

Thunderbird is go...

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



Have a good weekend.

Eaglemoss Investigates

Hey guys,

Another Friday and another update.

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

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

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

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

Lady Sif



Tigershark



On to a few questions:

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

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

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

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



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








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