Runaway winner...

Hello,

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

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



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

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

Take it easy.

Competition has ended

Hello and welcome back to another blog update.

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

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

Bishop:


Hobgoblin:


Kraven the Hunter:


So thanks to everyone that entered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







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

Take it easy.

Competition Time

Hello and welcome back.

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

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

Here are some interesting stats from the last competition:

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

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

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


THE ACTUAL COMP
So competition rules are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sneak Peeks

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

So without further to do here are two new figurines:

Silver Sable and Radioactive Man.





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

One place left.

Welcome back.

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

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

Domino

Avalanche

Arachne


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take it easy.

Last few days...

Hello,

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

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





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

Forum Poll Details

Hello,

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

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

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

http://www.superherofigurineforum.com

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

The top three characters will make the extension.

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

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

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

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

Right, on to today's peeks.

Below are Toad and Balder.






Have a good weekend.