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Kabuto Mushi MK II: Wave Seven

Marty "Loctite" Hansen rolls into 2015 with three brand new colors showcasing his popular Kabuto Mushi MK II production figure!

Continuing his recent theme of famous Japanese character homages, Marty has put together some very clever combinations utilizing an assortment of all new spray applications. My personal favorite is the Cyborg Mushi, which is shown above surveying the Frozen Zone that has taken over most of New England.

Cyborg Mushi also makes a good rival for Redlaw Argen, as they both pay tribute to the excellent classic Henshin Cyborg series by Takara (thank you Paul L. for maintaining the best link).

Head over to Mushi Central to check out the rest of TGB's latest offerings.

Congratulations on another unique and exciting wave, Marty! 

My Friend the Micronaut

A little late with this, but just last week our friends Bryan "Microbry" Wilkinson and Bwana Spoons hosted a special Micro-themed custom show at the Grass Hut Art Market out in Portland, Oregon called My Friend the Micronaut.

The contributors to the show really sent in some incredible work, ranging from classic customs, paintings, drawings, plush and even completely home grown 3D printed ABS masterpieces.

As I thought about what to send during the past few months, I kept looking at the old Micronauts builds I had made over the years. In the end I decided to make some updated versions of a few classic Micronaut and Microman characters, using only clear Buildstation parts (minus a few clear Noboto chests) and zero paint. The idea was to concentrate on the pure build aspect, and whether or not I could push just the raw parts into something half interesting.

Clocking in as the biggest build is Mega Membros, an updated version of the last two Membros inspired builds I tried some years ago. I lost count of the amount of parts used to make this beast, but it was a lot! It's one heavy alien beefball.

I've loved the Acroyear designs for such a long time, that creating another homage set was probably my favorite part of this self imposed challenge. A new Commander and Soldier were the result of many hours tinkering with piles of parts. Their individual piece counts are not super high, and mostly utilize the accessory sets. It was a lot of fun working the Swing Joints into some older ideas.

To round out the assortment of Micro geeks, I tried to create a President Acroyear homage, pushing the spindly look of the old Microman toys and going for a kind of lanky vibe. This tall goon was designed to battle the last entry into this batch, something I thought long and hard about sending at all.

For the last 3 years I've been working steadily on a "human" head for the Glyan, with the idea being that it would allow for some new roads to be traveled as far as creative avenues go. This side project actually went into steel tooling three separate times, each result not quite hitting the target I've been aiming for. I've wanted to share these trials with you guys for years, but have never been too psyched about showing things that I felt were not on point. That being said, I could not miss the opportunity to send some of these production heads from the second trial run out to the show, as the original Micronauts/Microman were the primary inspiration for the original head sculpt I've been battling with over the past few years.

For the first time, some of these heads are out there. The pics above are of actual production heads, not resin. The right ear is a little sunken, the nose is tiny bit flat, and there is the slightest loss of detail on the mouth from the original, but in clear PVC it doesn't look too bad. Not great, but I wanted to show you what's been cooking with this mischievous little head after a number of years. Bry and Bwana's Micronaut custom show seemed like the perfect place to sneak the Micro Glyan out for a mission.

Sorry for another text tundra, but Micronauts apparently cause me to ramble even more than usual.

Special thanks to Bry and Bwana for putting on such a cool event, it was an honor to be part of it all.

Long live Microman!

Thank You!!!

Thank you to everyone who was part of the drop this past Friday night! It was a wild release for us, in that we had never run all our molds in one launch before. This was fun and also slightly horrifying! My apologies for the fast burn rate on the Deep Space Glyans. I thought that because the configuration could be made from the other stuff available that it would just kind of be a fun extra thing on the menu. That was definitely not the case! Running all the new Hub Sets with the dome area painted seemed like it would limit some potential builds, so the DSGs were set up as more of an experiment. Next time there will be more of of them available.

The numbers in general worked out pretty well (aside from the DSG) and most of the items stayed active for longer than usual. The limits on a few things were put in place to try to ensure that everyone got a chance at some of the more busy items (based on past launches). The traffic was our highest yet, and the site seemed to hold up much better than last time, with very few reported problems with the store's performance. Overall the night was fun.

The next wave of stuff will bring back a few colors that might be a bit unexpected for some of you old timers. A few shades that have not rolled out in a while. The vinyl side of things will take a different route as well, with a "less is more" approach in the paint department. Hopefully you guys will like what's on deck when it shows up!

In the near future, keep your eyes on the Callgrim blog. Jesse has some absolutely wild projects coming together that will push things to a whole new level on the full production side of things. I think that his next release will be something to measure all other projects by. If you are into heavily painted deluxe battle machines, you will be extremely happy come late April.

Thank you again from all of us over here at Onell. It will forever amaze me that we are allowed to make these little toys, and that somewhere out there they each have a place to call home.
That's 100% thanks to you.


EDIT: Thanks for the sharp eyes Papioca!

Mercenary Alert

The Madman from Beverly unleashes an all new mini wave of Callgrim, tonight, at 9PM EST! Be on the lookout for some high clarity action!

Henshin Wave is Live!

REFRESH THE STORE!
onelldesign.com/store

In honor of the amazing creations from the past that have continued to inspire us over here time after time, we have dubbed this release the "Henshin Wave".

It was Takara after all, that really opened up the craziness of clear plastic aliens and heroes for many old time collectors out there today. We also have to give props to Mel Birnkrant and his always impressive Outer Space Men, which he served up with Colorforms back in 1968! This lineage of creativity is enriched by each generation, and watching the Four Horsemen (the masters) add to it all with their revival of the OSM this year has brought a lot of things full circle. In a time where there are no Microman or Micronauts figures on the market, it's awesome to see that their collective influence has not been lost.

I truly owe so much to the incredible toy lines that have come before us, that I really wanted to put together a simple, fun release that brings us back to the days of finding a brand new figure on the shelves. Before Action Figure Digest, before Lee's, before the glory of the Internet. Just walking into a store and discovering something that made you feel excited as hell to get it. Hopefully we at least got close. This wave is dedicated to the creative people who are part of this cycle.

The most important part of course, being all of you. We hope you guys have fun with the new stuff and we want to thank each and every one of you for an incredibly awesome year. Personally, I could never give enough thanks for being allowed to do this every day with such excellent people.

Note from Marcus: In the spirit of keeping things simple, we have streamlined the the shopping aisles of Glyos- the Buildstation and Founders are now located in the main (and only) store. No more getting Lost in the Supermarket! Also- new Gendrone Chronicles will be posted once the dust settles a bit...

Henshin Cyborg + Tron = Inspiration

I love Henshin Cyborg. I love Tron. This is the result of those issues. It rolls like a bastard! Also, the Tron: Legacy soundtrack by Daft Punk is awesome.

Henshin Force

In honor of the glory that is Takara's Henshin Cyborg! The all new clear stuff is lined up to match the last few Outer Space Men translucent editions as well as the old Takara SF Land greatness.

Pyros and Redlaw

As we start to ramp up for SDCC, all new colorways for Exellis and Pheyden will continue to be released leading up to the big show. The latest additions to the Exellis color ranks are Pyros Version and Redlaw Version. Fans of Henshin Cyborg and the Micronauts will hopefully get a kick out of these clear Sincroids in particular. They are both available in the store now.

Wardrobe Change

Also making their first appearance are some brand new color versions of Pheyden and Exellis. Each version has some kind of connection to things we loved as children. Influences range from tiny metallic plastic Star Raiders figures, Big Daddy Roth, Rat Fink, Antron, Membros, Henshin Cyborg and Saturday mornings in front of the tube (Galaxy High anyone?). This selection is a direct homage to the things that keep us smiling; a tiny representation of very big memories that are always fun to recall.