Happy Halloween!

Kabuto Mushi MK II: Wave 17

Marty "The Standard" Hansen has just released his 17th (!) assortment of full production Kabuto Mushi MK II figures, just in time to celebrate Halloween!

Continuing with his series of classic MOTU color design homages, Marty has a wild new Modulok inspired edition available, featuring not only a double set of Axis Joints, but also a separate matching "Mod" Crayboth sidekick. Marty and I worked together on a special contained build that you can check out over on his blog, as well as few alternate forms. Modulok was a really unique entry in the original MOTU toy line, and possessed the key element that the foundation of Glyos was built upon, that being its core interchangeability. To make this "Mod" Mushi even more authentic, Marty had new eye spray masks created to better echo those creepy old reptilian peepers that Modulok sported. All in all, a pretty cool entry in the growing Kabuto Mushi MK II MOTU subset.

Another noteworthy part of Marty's new round is the inclusion of the Kabuto Mushi MK II Standard MK II! A bit of a mouthful, I know, but what a killer figure! This edition represents MJ (Marty's son) Hansen's special Kabuto Mushi Comic cover art, and stands as the definitive version of the popular character. Lots of paint and a great combination of brown, green and black land this version as one of my personal favorite KMs yet. The green actually matches up with the "Aka" TMNG green that we just produced, so building between the colors yields some good results. To add a little extra fun to the mix, another color matched "Kabuto" Crayboth was also run, standing at the ready to watch KM's back! Hats off to MJ and his pop for working together to bring this one to life.

Marty's latest selection is topped off by not one, but two Transformers tributes that flesh out the ongoing Insecticon inspired KM subset. If you've been looking for the right opportunity to check out the vinyl Titan Mushi in hand, this October offering is just about the perfect style to start with.

Hard to believe that it's been almost 3 years (come January 2017) since the Kabuto Mushi MK II landed on the scene. Marty has been pushing himself since day one, and I'm looking forward to the next phase of the GodBeast's  evolution. I've even heard some bad guys might be crawling around behind the scenes...

Congratulations to Marty and his boys on another great wave!

The Macrotones - Unknown Outpost

Tomorrow evening, Saturday Oct. 29th, Destroy Babylon has the distinct honor of supporting legendary reggae band The Wailers! The line-up includes a few of the '70s-era players, including co-founder and Bob Marley's bassist, Aston "Family Man" Barrett. If you're near the New England seacoast area, come join us and the whole Onell clan for an epic night at NH's best and largest venue, the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom.

I also wanted to share some news about DB's "brother band", The Macrotones. Our new full-length album is now available from the Culture Pirates shop! I was lucky enough to hit and shake a number of instruments on this record, in addition to creating the artwork alongside resident artist Jesse Moore. It's also available on iTunes, Google, and all major streaming services.

Our descent into Macro-Babylon has been a steady evolution- from fans in '08, to gig mates, then designer, fill-in drummer, and eventually my brother and I became their full time bass & percussion players. Meanwhile, a handful of the Macrotones joined DB (and side projects), forming the tightest union of bands I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

From dark, brassy funk to lush Afro-pop, Unknown Outpost feels right at home with the Music ADD catalog. This is also the first album to feature vocals, including contributions from Rob Carmichael of DB and rising sensation Iyeoka (her single "Simply Falling" has over 40M views!). Our friends bcap and Does Bros of DXA add some hip-hop flavor to the mix as well.

Hope you dig the sounds!

Ninja Zone

We recently had the great David White of Mecha Zone /Mechanauts fame and his equally awesome wife Melissa out for a visit, and spent some long overdue time catching up.

One big subject that David and I really connect on is the world of old school video games from the 80's and early 90's. A prime example of that time frame is Sega's Revenge of Shinobi (though I think my obsession with the game was a little more bananas than David's). After checking out our latest wave while we were in the barn, I asked if David would mind rendering an illustration of our new Shinobi tribute figure, Glyninja Koshiro. Within a day he had sent over the drawing shown above! Not only is he talented, but he's also crazy quick.

Thank you for the amazing image David! 

For those of you who would like to explore more of the Mecha Zone/ Mechanauts universe, click over to David's main site. Also, be sure to check out his current Robot Sketches Kickstarter, which features lots of killer drawings from across the classic sci-fi spectrum that we all love.

Thank You!!!

Thanks to all of you, we've just made it through one of the most intense weeks around here since the Paypocalypse of 2013.

Before I get into the specifics of what occurred last week with the store, I personally want to express how grateful I am for the repeat turnout as we muddled through our mess. The fact that you guys still have the dedication to come back and check out what we're up to is what fuels the main engine, especially during mishaps with our eternal frenemy, PayPal. It can't ever be said enough how much we love doing this with all of you.

The TMNG wave proved to be a good one, and there will definitely be another small visit to their subterranean world in 2017. It was an extra special assortment for Marcus and I in particular, as we bonded originally over our mutual admiration for the old TMNT comics, toys and video games of our youth, back when we first met while working at Beantown Toys. What an incredible and enduring world Eastman and Laird created together all those years ago. The latest round of Glyos stands as Onell's tribute to their inspiring legacy.

Following up on the previous posts about our recent store issues, we can report that the PayPal shopping cart system and inventory control failed not only on the original night of the launch, but also on the relaunch of our store last Friday afternoon. Upon contacting PayPal to check on how we should proceed with the situation, they recommended that we close the store down for at least 48 hours, then reload the entire store (with new buttons) for a third time. This was not going to cut it, so we got out the scratch pad(s) again and went to work old school style, marking each item down that was sold as your orders appeared in real time. This process completely felt like the old days, long before we ever had an online inventory system, with crazy counting going on at a rapid fire pace. The experience was once again humbling to say the least.

Now that the dust has finally settled, we are preparing to finally roll out an all new shopping cart interface through Shopify, so be on the lookout for some changes in the checkout process over the coming week. Marcus has been test running this system with the Bit Figs site, and so far the results have been solid.

Going into the last two months of 2016, we'll be attending Designer Con in November for the 3rd straight year, and we're super excited to catch up with everyone in person again. This is an excellent convention run by exceptional people, and we're honored to participate in the madness that is DCon in sunny Pasadena with our friends. We plan on having some sneak preview stock from our year end early December wave available, as well as a few other little bits.

Well, I've succeeded in making another text tidal wave, so I'll clip my rambling before you all fall asleep on your keyboards. Thanks again for all the worlds that you continue to allow us to explore. Having a place these last 9+ years to share our weirdo ideas has consistently given us hope and happiness, no matter how many virtual stores have exploded along the way.

TMNG Update

All orders placed last night before the PayPal snafu have been processed and are good to go.

We have reopened the store for now, but the entire PayPal system is currently experiencing some "technical difficulties", linked to the crazy DNS service attacks going on today.

Due to the fact that the PayPal inventory is not working correctly, we are tallying everything by hand as each order comes in. This means that we will have to close the store intermittently so we can double check the numbers.We apologize for the frustrating experience, but we should be able to keep things moving by using this old school method.

Thanks to all of you for still participating in this bonkers release.

TMNG

The new store is LIVE!

Refresh: onelldesign.com/store

Many thanks to the Radical Ralph Niese for this totally tubular pin-up!

PayPal Note: In the past, you could load numerous items from the store all in a row, and now it seems you must wait until the cart refreshes with each item before adding more to your order.

Once an item is added to your cart, please wait a few extra moments before adding another. If you're ordering from a desktop browser using tabs, just wait for the title of the cart page to change from "PayPal" to "PayPal Checkout". Please also double check your cart contents before checking out.

Bop and Rock

Evergreen

Glyninja Koshiro

This one is for all the Sega Genesis fans in the System. Based on the sprites from one of my favorite video game characters, circa 1989!

Preparation

We are still on track to launch tonight at 10PM EDT, but please read the following information concerning an update to the PayPal checkout process.

In the past, you could load numerous items from the store all in a row, and now it seems you must wait until the cart refreshes with each item before adding more to your order.

Once an item is added to your cart, please wait a few extra moments before adding another. If you're ordering from a desktop browser using tabs, just wait for the title of the cart page to change from "PayPal" to "PayPal Checkout". Please also double check your cart contents before checking out.

This is a fairly minor issue compared to what we've seen in the past, but we want to make sure that you are well aware of this change, especially due to the rapid pace of how items are purchased during a launch night. We're kindly asking everyone to have extra patience tonight while shopping in our store.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for understanding. A new shopping cart system is in the works for our site, and we hope to roll it out before the end of the year.

Postponed

We hoped that we could stay on track tonight, but after a day of troubleshooting an unforeseen new Paypal issue with the shopping cart system, we are bumping the launch to tomorrow night, Thurs. Oct 20 at 10PM EDT, so we have extra time to test out the changes we've discovered.

We'll reconfirm the new date and time with an update tomorrow. With the heavy traffic we're seeing on the site today, we're not taking any chances, even if this hiccup turns out to be a minor one.

Thank you for being patient with our continued PayPal snafus. We are working towards something new that will hopefully make bumps like this a thing of the past.

Mutant Mania

Kyodai

Dress Up

We have a new wave set to rise from the sewers this Wednesday, October 19th at 9:30PM EDT.

In the classic spirit of Halloween, some of your old friends from the Glyos System will be ready to celebrate in true 1980's style, dressing up for what might be our craziest assortment since we started back in 2007.

Get your bo staffs ready!

Cruel Mountaineer

Battle Tribes: Wave 3

The Weaponlords behind Spy Monkey Creations have added some brand new variations to the growing ranks of their excellent Battle Tribes range! Featured above is my personal favorite from the latest round, the Tribal Wolfpack Hunter! You can see the rest of the assortment over in their store right now.

A truly eclectic and exciting third call to arms, SMC! Looking forward to seeing you guys at DCon next month!

Thank You!!!

The Bit Pheyden Brigade has been divided and are en route to their new homes! Thank you all once again for supporting Bit Figs and checking in at the Culture Pirates shop.

This has been a dream come true for me. Pheyden exists in so many forms, colors, and iterations, and with each release Matt and I will typically say, "this is my favorite yet." And I know we'll say it again on the next round (the Mega size in clear tint is quite a thing to behold..), but this particular shade of blue has a special place in our hearts. The color somehow changes drastically in nearly every light source, and even the 8-bit sprite version has been altered with almost every game cameo, but in a way this is a true reflection of the nature of Pheyden - existing in numerous dimensions, traveling to the farthest reaches of Glyos, and adapting to every environment. A constant that never stops changing. But at the end of the day, in my mind, when the Space Traveler settles back home, he's blue, baby.

Without sounding too much like a busted 45, thank you, thank you, thank you. Tonight I celebrate in Boston with friends and one of my all-time favorite bands, so for those interested I leave you with two great songs- Thank You and Without Love. Cheers!  -marcus

Family Values

The pic shown above was only a dream for Marcus and I not that long ago. From his very first render of "Bit Pheyden", we would discuss what a fully realized PVC version of Marc's pixels would look like, and how in the world we would ever pull it off. Well, thanks to the incredible rise of the 3D printer and some truly brilliant new specialized modelling software, the "Bit"-mension Gate finally cracked open and allowed for something really special to come into our reality.

With a fresh shot of updated vibrant light blue, Mega Bit Pheyden and Bit Pheyden are ready to join the ranks of the Glyos and Bit Fig universes, landing right in place with their SSM-born brethren across both the Ninja and Animal spectrum.

Pheyden's new cousins might be a little square, but they really bring things full circle.

We're so proud of you, Marcus.