Enchanting

A bit of a shorter post this week (and a day early) as I'm actually away to the States for a couple of weeks from tomorrow.

First up I've seen a few comments asking us how we choose characters and how we choose poses. So here's a little insight:

Characters – When we choose which characters are going into the collection we look at a number of factors. We look at the character's popularity (within the collection as well as the comic world), we look at how many appearances and the importance of these appearances they've made and we look at how the character fits into our collection.

There's no strict set of rules except that a character must have enough appearances/back-story to make a good figurine and magazine. In the past we've gone for the A-listers first and then moved down through the ranks, while trying to keep the collection diverse. It's not the Spider-Man collection or the X-Men/FF/Avengers collection, so I'm always keen to have a healthy variety.

Now that we've got through pretty much all the 'big' characters the choice is a lot more subjective and it's very difficult to choose characters for extensions mostly because I can't decide who not to make. In the past few extensions, I've let you guys decide (on here and the forum) and I've let a few members of staff/contributors choose some.

I understand the need to complete teams and that is definitely something I want to do but if we just go for completing teams we've already started then we'll have pretty much an entire extension filled with one branch/area of Marvel comics. I know Alpha Flight/X-Men/Brotherhood are popular but it's great to have at least one character representing each area. I think there's a strong chance this collection will continue past 140 and each extension gives us the chance to fill/complete some teams and start new ones.

Pose – As for the pose, this greatly varies depending on the character. Some have very obvious, classic stances/poses that have to be done and others have great pieces of artwork that we can base a pose on. However, now that we've got down to some lesser-known characters, the costume and pose artwork can be slim. We'll try to order most of the comics a character is in and choose reference from these, we'll then ask our sculptors/artists to come up with poses and lastly we'll get Marvel's approval. We always try to capture a little something of the character in each pose, whether that's very subtle or a little over-the-top depends on the character.

At the start of the collection we went for more stoic, static poses that aimed to show the heroic (or villainous) nature of the character but without turning them in to action figures. As the collection has been extended and evolved over the years we've tended to make the characters more dynamic while keeping the integrity of the early models.

At the end of the day, it's for you guys to decide if we've done this well but we're definitely not slacking off. You wouldn't believe some of the arguments/debates we have in the office over the sculpt details.

Anyway, there's a little look into how we work (which made it a longer post than I had originally planned) and here's the Enchantress.



Enjoy!

Bob, Blob, Glob?

Hello everyone,

Well I'm glad to see that last week's blog update led to a bit more action in the comments section.

From all the comments I can see that there's a certain character that you guys really want for a special. What was his name? Oh that's right – The Glob.

Well fair play he's confirmed, let's have the Glob in the collection.

So that's the chap below confirmed for 2010.



OK, that was a bit cruel.

So the BLOB it is then. I've enjoyed teasing you guys with this one for a while but I think it's only fair to say (bar any catastrophes) that we'll have him in the collection at some point next year.

Right so that's two slots sorted for next year, begin the comments for another. The Glob anyone?

And lastly today, it looks like Annihilus got the most votes so here he is:




We went for the classic Annihilus not the new Annihilation (more insecty) one and made sure to include the cosmic rod on his chestplate.

Have a good weekend.

Mega Update

So I promised I'd be back this week and here I am with a slightly longer blog update than the last.

First thing I wanted to talk about was the specials for next year, which I know everyone is interested in.

So far I've started planning the first special for 2010 (due out sometime in Feb). We're going for an early Mega Special and one that may surprise you.

Drum roll please...

FIN FANG FOOM.

OK so why have we chosen the dragon lord? Well looking at the possibilities for Mega Specials/larger figures, Fin Fang Foom really stands out. For those of you who don't know, Foom is a character that appeared before the Marvel Universe really began (pre-Fantastic Four, even if it was just one month) and has in some capacity endured for nearly 50 years.

He's a great villain and will make a spectacular figurine. I know he's not the usual Super Hero/Villain spandex but I think Foom will look amazing standing alongside Galactus, Watcher and Sentinel. Other choices for Mega Specials included MODOK, Mojo, Onslaught, High Evolutionary, Celestial and Odin but I think a lot of these figures could be done at a slightly smaller scale to Foom, maybe something similar to the Gorilla Grodd figurine our DC counterpart produced. A character such as Onslaught or Odin (two of my favourite candidates for a special position) could be made at Gorilla Grodd's height and look amazing.

Plus, we really do have plenty of time to put more mega (and normal) specials into the collection.

So the main question to debate will be: 'Should Foom be wearing his trademark purple pants or not?'

In other news, we've been slightly rejigging the magazine format for a few characters. After the comments about removing the centre-page poster and putting back pages of the history article, we've decided to give it a go with Ikaris and Machine Man.

We've also just begun work on the Shang-Chi issue and below is the cover artwork our designer Dan has chosen.



Right, I think that's a little more to talk about this week. Be back here next Friday for another update and a sneak peek of a new figurine. I'll let you guys decide which you see:

Annihilus or The Enchantress

Leave your comment.

Super Quick Update: Madame Hydra

Hello,

As the heading says just a quick update with an image of Madame Hydra (also known as Viper). We went for the classic Jim Steranko look.

Hope you like it and as always please leave your feedback in the comments section.

More next week. I promise.

Cloak and Dagger

Hello,

Sorry for the delay between posts, as always I've been very busy recently.

Last week we said goodbye to the designer on the DC Super Hero Collection, Gary Gilbert, who has decided to leave Eaglemoss and spend some time as a freelance designer. He'll be sorely missed here as he helped develop both the Marvel and DC figurine collections and was a great mate.

Stepping up and taking over from Gary will be the more-than-capable Colin, who has worked as part of Marvel and DC collections since the beginning.

Anyway, with that aside I have a quick update for you with some images of Cloak and Dagger in a near final state. We still have a few tweaks to make to the figure but this is essentially the final product.

As you can see we went for a joint base with Dagger stepping out of Cloak's dark portal. Although they don't always appear together in the comics, my feeling is that a sculpt such as this really shows off the symbiotic nature of the characters. After all, Dagger's light does 'feed' Cloak and they frequently travel/fight using Cloak's powers.

I hope you like it.




Next up I have the rough stage for Ant-Man. We've gone for an early version of Scott Lang's costume. This was chosen because it was the costume he wore from the beginning (inherited from Hank Pym) and also the one that appeared the most.




Right that's your lot, have a good weekend.

Kill, crush, DESTROY

Hi Guys,

Another quick update but this time I will attempt to answer some of the questions from the comments sections:

“What's happened to Onslaught?”

Still on the backburners, we’ve not finalised the number or type of specials for next year but he’ll be on the shortlist. He’s one of my favourite candidates.

“Please please, PLEEEEASE, let the X-Fans know in your next post if you will be or won't be doing the Pyro and Avalanche double pack and the Blob special so we can finally get a rest and move on to other topics!”

Not the news you want to hear but as above (for Onslaught) we’ve not sorted out next year’s specials but once again Blob is one of the characters I don’t think we’ll be able to leave out. As for Pyro and Avalanche – well I know there’s been a lot of support for double packs but we’re still waiting to see just how we can put them together and how frequently we can offer them. At the moment Pyro is on the regular running order but that doesn’t mean he can’t be pulled out and made into a special with Avalanche. The only thing to remember is that double-packs would take the place of other specials making it hard to fit all the oversized characters in.

“Why oh why keep the centre spread, and axe 4 pages of info?”

Initially we decided to keep all features of the magazine intact so that it retained everything it previously had. We also slightly tweaked the format of the History section from 4 columns of text to 3, which actually gives more room for text. Plus we’ve cut down on sidebars unrelated to the character. This means that we didn’t really lose two-pages of history (text) but more like one. However, I must concede that we’re thinking of mixing things up a little and perhaps for characters that deserve more history, we’ll lose the middle pages instead. But I can’t say which (if any) characters this will be for just yet.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know I am listening to feedback.

“Cloak/Dagger 1 base or 2?”

We’ve gone for one base and I hope to have preview shots very soon.

“Any chance of a sneak peak of Destroyer or Cloak and Dagger in the next update?”

Yep checkout the below image and leave your feedback in the comments section.



Have a good weekend.

The times they are a changin...

Hi guys,

Time for another figurine update but before we get to that I have some news regarding the magazine.

As I’m sure everyone is aware, the current economic climate is forcing all businesses to re-evaluate their strategies and products, from car manufacturers to newspaper and magazine publishers. Here at Eaglemoss we’ve been affected by the downturn as much as anyone else and the fall in the UK’s currency has led to a much higher increase in production costs, especially for our figurines. In order to keep to our commitment of providing a quality Marvel figurine and magazine without putting the price above £5.99 (per issue) we’ve deemed it necessary to reduce the page count from 20 to 16 pages.

The new page count will take affect from Issue 101 (War Machine) and will involve a reduction of pages from across the magazine to allow us to keep all the standard features.

As the editor of the collection, I want to assure you that the figurine quality will not be affected by the difficult economic climate.

I know some collector’s are going to be disappointed that we’ve had to make this cut but I hope that you understand the necessity of the change.

I hope you can see from the images I’ve posted in recent weeks, as well as today, that we’re dedicated to maintaining the high standard of figurines.

With your support I strongly believe the collection will weather this economic downturn and continue past our current 140-issue run.

As a side-note I would like to mention that the page count for the special magazines will remain at 20-pages.


With that announcement aside I’d like to post an image of a figurine still in development, I give you a work in progress shot of Blackheart.

I for one was a little worried about this character; with the inconsistent look from the comics I wasn’t sure if we could do him justice. I’m pleased to say that I think we’re heading in the right direction. We may need to shorten or calm down some of the spikes coming off his head (don’t want them breaking in the box) but he’s looking good.