I was recently able to do some deep drawing studies on a full Manglor set, thanks to having access to the extraordinary toy collections of John and Jesse, combined with my own beat up specimens.
One of the things that's a bit hard to see on the original figures due to the sorbathane material is the level of actual detail packed into the sculpts. It's rumored that the great Ken Kelly himself designed the series, but I do wonder who sculpted them. The designs on the packaging are more streamlined, looking like they could double as Creepy magazine covers without missing a beat. Whoever did the sculpting had a more rugged approach, weaving some serious texture into the skin and scales that cover most of the 6 classic Manglor characters, save for the Manglord, who sports a much clearer, albeit puke green, complexion.
Drawing off of the boxes would have been the easiest way to come up with some clean representations of the characters, but I really wanted to get to the heart of actual toys, to see what was hidden behind their oddball mess of stickiness and twisted limbs.
The above line studies show where I landed after staring at the original vintage figures for extended sittings. There is definitely a very cool cohesive aesthetic running across the line, with repeated texture patterns and related proportions culminating in a unique style and delivery.
Stretchy dino monsters battling swampy cavemen on an alien planet in space.
These are a few of my favorite things.
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There's a vaguely Mesoamerican feel to these, almost like they wouldn't be out of place among Aztec hieroglyphs. That'd be a fun tie-in: the cavemen were actually brought through space by the "ancient astronauts" . . . that happened to be the Delphi?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks for sharing!
I love it!
DeleteThe Manglodragon seems to also share some pretty heavy classic Chinese dragon aesthetics as well. The little wings on shoulders, "hair" on the head and long neck/ tail match up to old imagery almost exactly.
Thanks Roy!
Very cool. It's exciting to see the Manglors line getting new-found love. It'll be interesting to see where it goes within the Glyos system.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan!
DeleteIt's been fun reworking the designs a little, yet being mindful of the classic look.
Love 'em Matt. I dig them all & would love to have Glyos versions on my shelf & in my toy box. I wonder if Manglosaurus as a viynl figure would be better, or have them all be the same size?
ReplyDeleteHey Chris!
DeleteThe subject of scale has been discussed like crazy! Currently the plan is to have both PVC and vinyl in the mix, much like we do with our own line. There could be multiple versions of something like Manglosaurus, with raptor (PVC) and rex (vinyl) sized types.