More on Toy Fair
Yesterday I was talking about Toy Fair, and how the potential, with any particular Toy Fair, San Diego Comic Convention, or this year and hopefully never again, New York Comic Con, exists for companies to come out with a professional figure that wrecks the plans of a customizer. There might suddenly be a factory-made version of the character you did, or perhaps the perfect base might be released.
I’ve been customizing for a while, and the one thing I’ve learned is that the Perfect Base is always bested as our hobby develops, as articulation and sculpt evolve. I horded ToyBiz Wrestlers riding motorcycles because they were 6 inches tall, had ball-jointed hips, and were clearanced at $3… it was an amazing convergence! But only amazing for 2001, it turned out, because a year later Marvel Legends hit. All that said, I don’t see anything at Toy Fair that makes my bases obsolete. Wasp, Psylocke, Captain Marvel, and Luke Cage were released in 2006, and make a great set of utility bases.
Which leads to an interesting situation. 2007 is a continuation of well-established trends, as super-articulated lines continue or blossom (like Mattel’s DCSH and the Indie line), so the pool of compatible bases grows and grows. I’ve recently started customizing again, and I’ve found I’m more productive than I ever was in past attempts. A large part of this is because I have such a full selection of bases to choose from, all in the right scale and style.
For instance, I just finished a late-nineties Phoenix, from a ML15 Spider-Woman base. The work went really fast, because Spider-Woman has nearly all the right colors for the custom, and the costume only has one engineering bit.
Phoenix, the, uh, 6 month gap costume? I'll show this in greater detail once it's finalized, but it came together at a dizzying pace that kind of surprised me.
To contrast, my last major customizing burst happened in 2003 something? Electra, the first Marvel Legends female, had just been released as the shortpack in her assortment. At the same time, Doubledealer did this Frank Quietly Emma Frost from a Spider-Man figure. A plastic sex change! Think of the possibilities! I went out and got a bunch of, uh some kind of Spider-Man, he had light-up eyes, and a really femmy build. I cut off the torso just above the ab crunch (difficult proposition) and grafted on a female upper torso and shoulders… I used a few ToyBiz Bride of Venom figures that had been clearanced once. Rejoin the arms, add a ball-joint head, and I had a passable female. But all that work to get to a vanilla body! I get the same results today by ripping off Psylocke’s sash.
Anyway, the trend in figures seems to be sliding back from 6 inches to 5 inches. Maybe the three lines of 6-inch articulated superheroes will stay, and maybe Hasbro is looking for an excuse to kill it. But right now is an incredible time to customize. I'm used to having to grind off all this detail, and swap parts all over the place. Now that I'm working again, I’m really amazed at the speed at which my ideas take form!
I’ve been customizing for a while, and the one thing I’ve learned is that the Perfect Base is always bested as our hobby develops, as articulation and sculpt evolve. I horded ToyBiz Wrestlers riding motorcycles because they were 6 inches tall, had ball-jointed hips, and were clearanced at $3… it was an amazing convergence! But only amazing for 2001, it turned out, because a year later Marvel Legends hit. All that said, I don’t see anything at Toy Fair that makes my bases obsolete. Wasp, Psylocke, Captain Marvel, and Luke Cage were released in 2006, and make a great set of utility bases.
Which leads to an interesting situation. 2007 is a continuation of well-established trends, as super-articulated lines continue or blossom (like Mattel’s DCSH and the Indie line), so the pool of compatible bases grows and grows. I’ve recently started customizing again, and I’ve found I’m more productive than I ever was in past attempts. A large part of this is because I have such a full selection of bases to choose from, all in the right scale and style.
For instance, I just finished a late-nineties Phoenix, from a ML15 Spider-Woman base. The work went really fast, because Spider-Woman has nearly all the right colors for the custom, and the costume only has one engineering bit.
Phoenix, the, uh, 6 month gap costume? I'll show this in greater detail once it's finalized, but it came together at a dizzying pace that kind of surprised me.
To contrast, my last major customizing burst happened in 2003 something? Electra, the first Marvel Legends female, had just been released as the shortpack in her assortment. At the same time, Doubledealer did this Frank Quietly Emma Frost from a Spider-Man figure. A plastic sex change! Think of the possibilities! I went out and got a bunch of, uh some kind of Spider-Man, he had light-up eyes, and a really femmy build. I cut off the torso just above the ab crunch (difficult proposition) and grafted on a female upper torso and shoulders… I used a few ToyBiz Bride of Venom figures that had been clearanced once. Rejoin the arms, add a ball-joint head, and I had a passable female. But all that work to get to a vanilla body! I get the same results today by ripping off Psylocke’s sash.
Anyway, the trend in figures seems to be sliding back from 6 inches to 5 inches. Maybe the three lines of 6-inch articulated superheroes will stay, and maybe Hasbro is looking for an excuse to kill it. But right now is an incredible time to customize. I'm used to having to grind off all this detail, and swap parts all over the place. Now that I'm working again, I’m really amazed at the speed at which my ideas take form!
posted by Brian at
7:09 PM
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