Friday, 3 June 2011

Weekly fix...

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.

Friday, 27 May 2011

A Bold New Direction...

...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

Friday, 20 May 2011

Good news, bad news

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.

Friday, 8 April 2011

Avalanche

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.

Friday, 1 April 2011

Q & A

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.

Friday, 25 March 2011

Brief update

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.

Friday, 11 March 2011

All-father!

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.