Axis Heavy Armor

Another big influence on me has been Masamune Shirow, who is best recognized as the man behind Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell.

I first saw his work back in the 1980's (around '85) when I discovered a bootleg copy of the animation Black Magic. The designs were very unique, with an organic quality to the mechanical style that looked unlike anything I had ever seen before. When I eventually saw the manga for Appleseed my brain exploded and I've never looked at a mech the same way since.

This build is a tribute to Masamune Shirow's incredible worlds, without which Glyos would have a lot less round stuff to play with.

Glyoids

Continuing with the classic sci-fi aesthetic, this build is a take on the vintage 1977 Zeroid design. It featured a different look than the first Zeroids, sporting a clear dome and simplified internal construction. The coolest version of the dome head Zeroid was the one that came with the Star Hawk flying saucer. Just an awesome toy with a tried and true, old school theme: Robots piloting U.F.O.s.

The Vintage Vibe

While I was laying in bed last week with a messed up back, it gave me a good chunk of time to think about many subjects. Of course toys pushed to the forefront of my mind, as always. As I churned through plans for the next set of steel tools coming up, I was also busy reading a very special book.

Back in July while I was at SDCC I got to meet a bunch of great guys, one of which was Rain Infinity, a customer from up in Canada who had made the trip down for the show. He surprised me by giving me a great book on sci-fi toys from the 60's called, appropriately enough, Space Toys Of The 60's by James H. Gillam. I have literally looked at it hundreds of times since receiving it. I highly recommend that you guys try to track it down, as it chronicles the great trinity of 60's space themed toys, which are: Major Matt Mason by Mattel, Zeroids by Ideal and The Outer Space Men by Colorforms. I believe that these three toy lines lead directly to another three of the most unique toy lines of the 80's. It would seem that many of the people who went on to design action figures in the 80's played with one or more of the toys from the great trinity of the 60's, creating lines that almost seemed like sequels to the three classics. Here are the comparisons:

Major Matt Mason = Starcom (originally produced by Coleco then ironically Mattel ended up with it)
Zeroids = Roboforce (Ideal produced both lines)
The Outer Space Men = Power Lords (Revell produced)

If you really analyze the similarities of the different series from above, it is pretty cool to see that some very real homages were happening. In paying respect to the toys that continue to inspire all of us, I built a Glyos version of a Robby the Robot type clunker. I guess a little of that Space DNA goes a long way.

CrayVaders

As things have been quiet for most of January around here (thanks to some nasty injuries, sickness and blizzard insanity), I wanted to end the month out with some fun stuff, to salvage a fairly tough few weeks.

The CrayVaders are pretty simple, but very fun to mess around with. The Axis Joints keep twisting and turning into oddball things that seem to build themselves. I love the little Crayboth, and with the new parts added on, they have been given a bit of a second life for me.
The big one has some weight to it with all those pieces combined together. Of course I had to make a Hades Crayboth. Now I have him causing trouble with our cat, hunting the old Mega Feline across the great Carpet Canyons. I think I've been inside too long...

PS- We also restocked some previously sold out Axis Joints: Black, Clear Colorless and GITD Green are back in the store.

Callgrim Commands!

Head over to callgrim.com/shop for an all new assortment of plastic hardware from Jesse Moore! This round features Callgrim in some very unique color schemes, evoking many classic toy lines from the good old 80's. Jesse is a freak with his ability to nail colors from the ultimate era of action figures. If you love old school GI Joe, Micronauts, He Man or even Strawberry Shortcake, chances are you will see something you will recognize. Go check out! Awesome work you Bearded Beast!

Mercenary Alert

Norisar continues at blog.callgrim.com

RXH Clear Sarvos Mini

Clear Sarvos Mini is gonzo!

Wow! You guys are amazing! We actually upped the amount of figures for this release and the sell rate was still very quick. Mori will be very happy to hear about this.

Thank you to everyone who grabbed this clear mini. It's your super dedicated support of these releases that allow them to keep happening. I'll let Mori know to up the numbers on the upcoming Vegi-Brain Pheyaos Mini...

The Cosmic Squadron Project

We wanted to try something a little different and put a sharper spotlight on some of the neat collaborations that we have been doing with our friends - some of which have been a little bit more behind the scenes than usual,

Back in October 2009 Matt Walker (Dead Presidents Designs) was visiting the house and started talking about a new project that he wanted to get rolling. It was a new toy, born from his love of classic Sci-Fi and the old toy line Billy Blastoff in particular. After some back and forth we decided to work on designing this cosmic figure together. Matt supplied some sketches of what he was thinking and I used those drawings as a jumping off point. We both shared a passion for 1950's tin robots with each other , so that era became a very big influence on the early designs (especially the Yonezawa stuff).

The collaboration on the aesthetics was really fun, and Matt and I began to realize just how much we had in common in our taste for classic space toys. The evolution of what would become his Cosmic Squadron took some very interesting turns, with the initial figure nearly being sculpted here at the shop and produced in China, then almost coming out as a RXH mini at one point!

Eventually Matt settled on the design he liked and it was sent over to Sunguts in Japan to be sculpted. After a few rounds with Ichimiya-san and some modifications made, the final wax master was completed and the first Cosmic Squadron figure was created in Japanese vinyl!

Matt got the first test shots in and we then set about making some blasters up at the shop (every Squadron member needs a ray gun after all). One blaster was based off of some Cosmic Squadron art done by Mark Nagata and the other was something I designed paying homage to good old Billy Blastoff's tools of the trade. The weapons were then tweaked to combine together. Both final sculpts were completed by our Fabrication Overlord, Ron Daley, and then molded up in silicone to make some urethane parts. The rest is Dead President's history.

Matt and I thought you guys might like to see some of the early conceptual drawings as well as some of the possible heads that we were thinking about adding to the mix. Some of those heads may actually pop up in smaller form throughout 2011!

I wanted to say thanks again to Matt Walker for letting me play around in his sector of the ship. I had a really great time working on the Cosmic Squadron project and I'm personally psyched to see what Matt decides to do next!

Mercenary Alert

Ambush at blog.callgrim.com

Real Clarity

After spending the last few weeks getting caught up on the everything we are ready to start rolling again! To celebrate 2011, the first new figure out of the gates will be a Sarvos Mini, our latest collaboration with Mori Katsura, master of RealXHead! This will also mark the first official release of the Sarvos mini head sculpt that is not a pack in (only the very first GITD super crossover had this head sculpt available). The Henshin Cyborg vibe continues to get into everything over here right now, with clear plastic popping up in all our recent projects.

Speaking of which, I personally wanted to thank you guys one more time for making the full release out of the Axis Joints turn out so positively for us. I never take it for granted that we have the best group of people out there supporting these strange new entries into the Glyos line. We should have restock before the month is over, maybe even in some all new colors!

Since we are now preparing to deal with another blizzard (and possible power outages), the tentative RXH Sarvos Mini release date will be Friday night, January 14th at 8PM EST. The Sarvos Mini will run $35 USD and is articulated at the neck, shoulders and waist.

On a related note, we have also upped the production schedule for the Pheyaos Mini and Pheyaos Man RXH figures for the next few quarters. The outlook for RXH releases in 2011 is starting to look very good! Huge thanks go out to Mori and to Don "Datadub" Kratzer for continuing to make these little guys a reality!

From the Edge

To kick off the New Year, I wanted to shine the spotlight on ol' Skullface circa his days on Planet Issaris. This little custom was one of about 7 that were created way back in the urethane days of figure making. As discussed before, that cape is made from a dirty old sock. Jesse has many of them.