Mighty Maniax: Dark Earth

The powerhouse that is Rocom Toys has been running another great Kickstarter called Mighty Maniax: Dark Earth, over the last month and it comes to a close late tonight! Everything from hulking barbarians, bio-plated snakemen, spaced invaders, cycloptic armored despots, horned overlords and possessed skeletons await you! Rocom worked like a madman to cover all the details for his new Dark Earth project, with an impressive new catalog of Glyos compatible characters and parts to explore as the result! Who knows, maybe Dethro was even trained in the same Pit of Despair as Slaeyr from the new Dreadvalken Bit Figs line ...

Head over to the Mighty Maniax: Dark Earth campaign and join in on the expansion of another fully independent action figure line.

From Rocom:

Mighty Maniax: Dark Earth from Rocom Toys Launching on Kickstarter

Rocom Toys is adding Barbarian and Fantasy characters to their expansive line of Glyos compatible action figures starting April 16th on Kickstarter. Inspired by Conan, Golden Axe, D&D, and Jurassic Park, the new campaign ushers in Axe Wielding Gladiators, Mystical Mages, and Fearsome Beasts. The project features some Exclusive items ranging from enamel pins designed by Tom Whalen and Toy Galaxy's Dan Larson, to a set of Artist Edition Trading Cards with some of the industry's top illustrators including Jonathan Way$hak, Brad Walker, Jeffrey Brown, Greg Hinkle, Justin Greenwood, Toy Shiz, and more.

  

The Jagged Age

The exciting and ever-expanding Toy Pizza universe once again returns to the Jagged Age, with just the right amount of madness and a brand new Card Slicer expansion deck! 

Prolific as always, our brother and creative architect of all things Knights of the Slice and Toy Pizza, Jesse DeStasio, began his foray into the world of Card Slicers last year and has steadily constructed yet another fresh new way to enjoy the unpredictably magnetic worlds of his now classic characters. With his new Kickstarter project, The Jagged Age: Fantasy Card Combat, Jesse shifts gears to travel back to the land of Nosvera and the latest adventures of relic hunter, Crae Drake. 

Though I've never personally been much of card "player" outside of UNO (thanks to many visits with my maternal grandmother growing up), I still always liked the imagery that was the foundation of any major card system. Starting with old Star Wars and Pac Man card sets back in the late 70s and early 80s, the genre reached its true crescendo for me with Digimon in the early aughts. Even though I never played the Digimon card "game", I was crazy about hunting down the different characters simply to see the artwork. It was a quick, cheap and easy way to explore a pretty vast range of exotic designs with the hope of discovering a hidden treasure buried within any given pull. The original "blind bag" DNA, dating all the way back to the baseball card packs that our fathers would stick in their bike tires while riding down dirt roads to go pick off metal army men with their BB guns. In many ways, the collectible card is a true American classic that went on to influence creators from around the world. 

Fast forward to Jesse D's Card Slicers. Partially due to the pandemic born difficulties that the last few years of action figure manufacturing overseas has brought on, Jesse decided to pivot and not let fate alone decide the future of his ventures. To this end, he constructed, through an ongoing process of trial and error, his own tabletop card game system called Card Slicers. Quite the endeavor to see through, but one that Jesse has proven more than capable of pulling off.   

In support of his Jagged Age expansion, Marcus (who is a legit tabletop gamer and enthusiast) and I have created a few special cards to add to Jesse's campaign, featuring our resident Dungeon Traveler, Skeleden. Of note, Skeleden was actually born through the old Skeleton Warriors Kickstarter campaign, so this marks his second appearance on the platform (with another one coming later this year). We thought it appropriate to send Skeleden into the Jagged Age to assist Crae Drake and maybe finally give Hob a hand. 

Even if you're not into playing the game itself, you can still catch some really amazing artwork that Jesse has assembled for the card set. It's like an entire figure assortment that you can fit right into your pocket, packed with great art, imagination and originality. 

The Jagged Age Kickstarter
(ends tonight!)

Mighty Maniax!

In a very strange year, at least good old spooky October hasn't let us down, delivering forth something wickedly special in the form of an all new cool and creepy Kickstarter campaign called Mighty Maniax! Created by the multi-talented Rocom Toys, Mighty Maniax features a wide array of classic monster and horror movie inspired Glyos compatible figures, but with a style all their own. This new series is packed with tons of options for character swapping not only within its own range, but also across the different Glyos lines currently in production. 

I've been extremely lucky to have watched Rocom build the Mighty Maniax line from its original inception, as he rendered drawing after drawing in search of just the right aesthetic style and dimensions. The final result is a cohesive and completely customizable cast of characters that pays tribute to all the great monsters, mutants and maniacs that flashed across the television screens of the glorious 70s, 80s and 90s.

In celebration of this new addition to the Glyos family, the super skilled Ian Ameling (a frequent Toy Pizza / KOTS collaborator) was tasked with putting together a couple trading cards for the Mighty Maniax campaign's trading card set, with one of them featuring a familiar Space Traveler mixing it up Rocom's favorite big bad, the vicious Fire Face!

Currently, the momentum is continuing to ramp up, and a 4th and entirely new figure mold has been unlocked that Rocom calls the Brawler! If you love Kenshiro, Street Fighter II and Double Dragon, then you will not be disappointed. A perfect rough and tumble hero type to mix it up with the bad beasts. Check out the original illustration below by Rocom himself!

The Kickstarter is set to end on Halloween night, perfectly timed to coincide with the inevitable stealing of your favorite candy from whatever sleeping child's stash you are lucky enough to have access to. Personally, it's Reese's for me, any Reese's.

Huge congratulations to Rocom Toys and welcome to the family!

Pix Brix Kickstarter

Our partners over at SSM Vending have a Kickstarter campaign for their patented building system, Pix Brix!

For those that have attended DCon the past couple years, you may have met Josh Dumphy, lead artist and creative force behind many of the vending items offered by SSM, including Pix Brix. Josh and his family are also responsible for helping get Bit Figs distributed in capsules nationwide. We've been lucky to see the development of Pix Brix since the beginning, and this campaign will hopefully provide creators with a lot more colors to utilize.

If you are unfamiliar with this unique building toy, check out the video and consider grabbing a few bulk packs. The ability to create not just 3D models, but to build horizontal, pixel art pieces really sets these apart. Matt and I have put together some fun pieces, and I'll be highlighting more builds and post templates over at the Bit Figs blog in the coming weeks.

Good luck with the campaign, Josh & co!

Thank You!!!

Thank you and a late Happy Halloween! We've been hustling triple time over the last week to keep up with the flow from this new wave and we're very grateful for that!

Right out of the gates, an extra special thanks on this release goes to our longtime collaborator and brojack, Ralph Niese. The German genius brought everything to another level with his latest batch of drawings, truly delivering some outstanding work. Ralpho, you really detonated the megastick of dynamite and blew us all away!

Our collective love for the holiday made it a real blast to work on the Halkenn arc. With the intense pace of things around here (over the last few years in particular), finding quality time to actually write down some of the stories drifting in between my ears can be tough. However, the stars aligned this time and I feel like we were able to present Halkenn properly.

Moving from spooky to sneaky, our next wave is set to land right near the end of this month, and will see the return of the Satraku Clan. We've had ninjas of all kinds on the mind lately, and so have some of our other Glyos-making friends.

Toy Pizza's great and free thinking Jesse DeStasio, chief architect of the KOTS and upstate New York's municipal menace, has a fun new Kickstarter running right now. Funding has already been met, but there are a bunch of wild stretch goals that are just beginning to open up. One of the first of these goals is perhaps the most horrifying sculpt in all of Glyos to date, that being a tiny version of my head. For reasons beyond understanding, Jesse D had Ant create a mini-me. I suppose folks can use it as a stand in for a variety of vagrants or extended coma patients.

Beyond the small Beardlord, there are a slew of awesome unlocks, my favorite being the Device Ninja. I've been watching the development of this figure and it's loaded with cool parts. Depending on where things land, there could also end up being an upgrade kit available with even more optional limbs and heads. The Device Ninja has some neat connections to the Satraku Clan that we hope to explore in 2019.

As of this writing all packages have been shipped out, including all international orders. Michelle and Pj both hammered through a larger than normal stack of invoices and never missed a beat.

Barn tunes revolved around the soundtrack from Interstellar, some Little Dragon and early Eagles (sorry Marcus).

Wrapping up the latest wordwall, we hope to see some of you this month at DCon. We'll be at booth 2629! More details to come.

Massive thanks from the whole crew for an awesome Halloween release!

KBB Kaikeshi on Kickstarter!

We consider Rand Borden, the creator of Kaiju Big Battel, extended family over here. My sister Megan (AKA the ravenous dimwit space bug known as Sky Deviler) introduced me to Rand over 15 years ago, in an early effort to put together a "Kaikeshi" series of minifigures in the spirit of the legendary Kinnikuman/ M.U.S.C.L.E. toys.

Upon our first meeting, we spent the entire day sketching and analyzing the incredible array of characters Rand had summoned forth from his monster filled brain. It was a great visit and I was honored to be allowed to contribute to the KBB madness in even a small way.

After about a week, I'd completed the basic control art shown above, based on Rand's initial selections for the proposed first lineup. Though we both really wanted to get the Kaikeshi project into full production, it never came into focus due to about a million things.

That is until now!

If you get a chance, click over to Rand's new Kaikeshi Kickstarter and witness the resurrection of a nearly forgotten project! The character lineup is much larger than before, and a certain Traveler even managed to phase into the mix as well!

The whole Onell family wishes Rand the very best!

Skeleton Warriors Grimskull

For those that may have missed it, just a quick reminder that October Toys has a brand new Skeleton Warriors Grimskull Kickstarter currently active with just 10 days left to go!

George and Ayleen are keeping this new campaign streamlined and primarily centered around Grimskull himself, with an all new sculpt that features a healthy array of hybrid Glyos joints that once again allow for traditional articulation as well as full interchangeability.

Grimskull was one of my favorite characters from the original Skeleton Warriors toy line (next to Ursak -who would make for a great troop builder), so seeing this new interpretation of the classic design is really satisfying. This new sculpt has some excellent proportions and captures the anti-hero vibe very well.

On a related note, I would love to see George sculpt an Ursak that could also double as a "tribute" to Captain Power! I swear that Ursak looks like he's sporting a slightly medieval version of a Power Suit. Just imagine all the futuristic armored soldiers that could run across the different toy lines.

Or, I could be 100% alone in my fondness for Grimskull's crafty uncle.

If you want to see October Toys continue producing new Skeleton Warriors figures, maybe take a trip over to their Kickstarter page and check it out.


Good luck George and Ayleen!

Thank You!!!

Thank you for the great response to Monday night's mini wave! This being a smaller round, we tried to adjust the numbers a bit so that folks would be able to pick up what they wanted without too much trouble. As always, we'll keep pushing to improve the experience of checking out the new stuff when it pops up. 

As we approach our 8th anniversary this July, I keep thinking about how incredibly lucky we are to continue operating, and the genuine life force that all of you have given to this small thing we call Glyos. I could put up a thank you post a dozen times a day for the rest of my life and it wouldn't come close to conveying how deeply our entire family appreciates what your collective support keeps alive.

Over the years the landscape of independent manufacturing has changed dramatically, with design trends and delivery methods shifting at a rapid rate. These days it seems bananas to think about funding a new project without a stacked Kickstarter, a social media blitz, and some serious financial commitment from supporters and makers alike. I've seen the pros and cons debated on both sides, but when you take a look at the current state of collecting, the KS  "preorder" structure may well prove to be the only viable way for a new project to ever see the light of day for many companies and individuals.

I bring this stuff up because I want to share a little bit about why we roll things out the way we do. For the most part, I believe our system of "releases" or "drops" keeps things moving at an exciting clip, and still holds a bit of mystery in regards to what will appear, especially in a presale universe that basically eliminates the experience of discovering even the simplest of surprises. Our way is far from an exact science, and absolutely has its downsides, so we are constantly tweaking things behind the scenes to help improve our performance. But what is the right balance? When is something too abundant and something else too scarce? Do folks like to receive their goods within a week of ordering from a stocked launch? Or is waiting months to possibly even a year after a crowdfunding campaign ends acceptable to guarantee a certain item? The answers literally shift with each collector's personal philosophy. 

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Thank you once again for keeping the doors on this bus, and for navigating another oddball mind maze of words!

Swirling Influences

The above pics are of Test Shot Number Five, which sealed the deal after repeatedly striking out on four earlier versions of the Skeleden armor.

The major changes that occurred to the sculpt for Number Five focused mainly on the following:

-Revised size and shape of the torso armor, with newly added sculpting around the front and back edges to achieve a tighter grip on the base body. I tried to hide a bunch of strange visual elements across the back area, with some Lovecraftian inspired creepiness in the form of a little Cthulhu half face hanging onto Skeleden's upper left side. The "back" area is patterned after old school gladiator armor design concepts, fused with a little Bio-Boosted punch.

-Revised size and shape of both leg armors. Skeleden's right leg armor was extended downwards and the skeletal creature on the knee area was tweaked, as well as some redefining of the "ribbing" that curves around to the back. The left leg armor was also extended downwards and given some extra detail and a tighter fit.

-Revised interface of the two part head connection. After George completed his killer master sculpt of Skeleden's noggin, I sent a copy to our team in China to create the first tooling pattern. They then sent back the tooling pattern with our requested 2 part separation, which not only allowed for more interchangeability, but eliminated the need for glue that would have compromised production runs with clear PVC. Since the head was originally sculpted as one part, I went in and added details to the areas that previously would have remained unseen. If you flip Skeleden's head upside down and reverse it, then replug the skullcap on, you can create a "Skeledrone" head configuration, to do Skeleden's dirty work.

When the fifth test shot finally hit the mark (and completely passed my "shake" test) I had to scream for a little bit.

The good kind of scream.

Some pics of the "Battle Skeleden" configuration are on deck for tomorrow!

Tests of Patience

Skeleden currently holds the record over here for the most revisions and rounds of test shots (five total) of any project in our almost 8 years of production. The major challenges surfaced in the form of the actual armor fittings. Originally, the torso armor was smaller and more compact (shown above), but the fit kept coming in on the loose side, which was unacceptable. The two leg armor parts also had too much play, and eventually had to have some pretty major changes made to achieve the optimal fit.

Due to the hidden functions of the leg armor parts in particular, nailing their precise dimensions was critical to more than just holding them correctly in place on Pheyden's lower legs. These parts also had to work with the hands, shoulders and thighs, representing a multipurpose angle design that could operate across most of our other molds as well.

Skeleden's armor is compatible with all the Travelers, Buildman, Noboto, the Glyan and Jesse's Callgrim. The torso armor is reversible, with a "bio-gladiator" type cuirass vibe on one side and the Phanosty looking skull sculpt on the other. Consideration was also put into making the torso piece effectively seat upside down on the head, to create a heavy armored look (pretty strange in concept but sort of neat when in place).

The extra time and slightly maddening process of tweaking the armor were both definitely worth pushing through!

More details about the development of Skeleden coming up soon.

Also, shipping starts tomorrow morning!

Toy Pizza

Our old friend Jesse DeStasio and his two partners in crime, Nicky Fung and Cade Hiser, have been steadily cranking out episodes of their popular web program Toy Pizza since February 2014. I personally met Jesse D well over a decade ago, and have watched him maneuver through the world of professional like a fox.

After all these years, Jesse D and Onell are finally working on an actual project together, that being Toy Pizza's brand new Knights of the Slice Glyos compatible figures, with their campaign currently running over on Kickstarter.

The Toy Pizza crew recently popped up a new episode that covers a little bit about Glyos in general, including some alternate reality factoids about the early days of our existence (ha!).

It's been a lot of fun assisting Toy Pizza with their Knights of the Slice project, and we're really excited to welcome an all new addition to the Glyos family!

Action Figures Not included

Our great friend and multitasking genius, Phil Reed, is in the final hours of his latest Kickstarter book project Action Figures Not Included, which serves as the companion piece to his recent Each Sold Separately.

Phil's latest endeavors are extremely relevant to the current position of the toy industry, and delve into the core concepts that resulted in our present state of plastic affairs.

Perhaps in a rare moment of insanity, Phil has asked me to write the foreword to his new book, so maybe just squint your eyes when you read that part.

Thank you Phil!

Thank You!!!

Thank you for making Sunday's release a successful one!

With the ever changing trends in the independent toy world, we are more grateful than ever for your interest and support of Glyos. Without the connections that we share together, this whole adventure would be meaningless, and the fact that we've survived for all this time is a testament to those bonds.

It's been a year of many strange turns, and I believe more than ever that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the way that we interface with our collecting habits. The rise of the independent action figure has been elevated to even greater heights by groups like the Four Horsemen and Boss Fight Studio, with powerful (and well publicized) Kickstarter campaigns that proved both inspirational and eye opening. Fresh companies that also emerged through Kickstarter were Warpo and IAmElemental, both of whom established themselves quickly with exciting and comprehensive campaigns. When you begin to analyze just how small the amount of people that truly make up the independent toy fan base is in comparison to the mainstream toy world, you really start to understand how incredibly risky all these unique and smaller projects actually are.

The pre-order model is quickly becoming the only way for anything to remotely stand a chance of getting produced, targeting the core audience and asking for a commitment up front (where you essentially purchase multiple waves of a toy line at one time) that in nearly all cases becomes a better deal with the more you spend. This is an excellent method for those of us who choose to go "all in", but if someone only wants a taste, the single unit cost usually falls a bit on the high side. This system seems to be the major draw of the Kickstarter model, and I'm extremely interested to see how it evolves as more companies have no choice but to use it. Personally, I'm thankful that Kickstarter exists, even if it has forced certain older models closer to their commercial graves. In many ways, the emergence of the crowd funded model has equalized and rationalized the basic viability of any given project proposal.

Moving forward, we will continue to keep the releases on the smaller side for the majority of 2015 (with only a few slightly larger waves planned), as well as placing additional focus on a few other projects that delve into the mythos of the Glyos System, reminiscent of our older booklets. Some new partner companies will begin to emerge next year, and some older partnerships will separate and travel in different directions. I'm fairly certain that 2015 will continue the roller coaster ride that has been in full effect since 2013, keeping things moving through thick and thin. That being said, no matter what occurs, we'll stay present and focused on bringing you our very best.

Thank you for reading and for inspiring us to keep pushing into the unknown!

Congratulation!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

The October Toys Skeleton Warriors Kickstarter has funded! Massive thanks to all of you that supported the project, and a sincere congratulations to George and Ayleen on the great news! It was really exciting to be part of the whole process, and we truly did learn a lot about what goes into running a Kickstarter campaign from the ground up.

We are definitely entering into a new dimension with how action figures are planned and produced, and this seems to be only the beginning. I imagine some extremely innovative spins on the Kickstarter model are going to spring up very soon, with entire toy lines featuring media content, playable games/apps and even vehicles on the horizon. It will be very interesting to see how the cycles between these KS produced figures change the way we all collect our stuff. Just imagine receiving in the mail an entire year's worth of a toy range, possibly even playsets -all at once! I have a feeling we're close, as a community, to experiencing something like this first hand.

Thanks again for bringing Skeleton Warriors back to life!  -Matt


YES!! Thanks to everyone that supported, promoted, and helped make this project a success. We're so thankful to October Toys for getting us involved and allowing us to cross-pollinate our worlds, both physical and digital.

As an extra bonus, a new player has been unlocked for The Duel in Dungeon Traveler! Good luck and have fun. Cheers!  -Marc

Head Games

Dungeon Traveler Skeleden

Full Fusion

Picking Bones

A few clear views of the Titan Skeleton.

All the small indents where you see a pin going through to secure a joint will be insert molded in full production, which means that those holes will not be visible. This is the same process that is used on the Four Horsemen's Power Lords, and yields a solid combination of functionality and finish.

I can't help thinking about the days of my youth when I look at this figure, playing Sega's Golden Axe at the Acton Bowladrome in between my blasted summer school classes. The face in particular reminds me of the massive skeleton on the Character Select Screen. The skeletons in the actual game were real mean enemies that drove me nuts, but man did I love playing round after round on that glorious cabinet.

So, in my weirdo mind, this Titan Skeleton is also kind of a neat little homage to one of my favorite games of all time.

Silhouette Studies 2

Silhouette Studies

Pushing the lighting around truly reveals the excellent silhouette on this slender menace.