Adult Ollen

 The above 2002 GIF shows Ollen after he evolves a little, looking grown up and exhibiting a tougher hide. In the early days we came very close to making a urethane version of this creature, but some Space Trappers decided to crash the party.

While on the topic of Space Trappers, the cover of the original mini Rechlen and Aves Visual Guide actually shows Rechlen using a Rig to capture Ollen, with Aves hovering just behind the action. I'll have to dig that one up.

Denizens of Alcray 2

Denizens of Alcray

Thank You!!!

Thank you for a truly excellent 7th anniversary release! We continue to survive thanks 100% to your dedication and generosity, and our family could not be more thankful for being allowed to last 7 years in the crazy world that is toy making. 

When I sat down to take the first photos of the production Super Crayboth, an extremely deep feeling of gratitude came over me, one that caused me to pause right before the first click of my ancient camera went off. After working on the little bugger for literally years, and wondering many times whether or not I would ever finish the blasted sculpt, things finally fell into place and delivered the Big Cray just in time for Sunday's special wave. Maybe my little shadow continues to look out for us, now from another place, beyond the things we know. It kind of feels that way to me.

Looking at the next few months, we have some planned waves that should be fun to explore together. Early September is slated to welcome the return of an old team, first released back in late 2010. October will feature a very small release, centered around the Armorvors, as has been the tradition in these parts for the last couple years. We will not be attending NYCC this year, so we can focus on some projects that we currently have in the pipeline. I'll be posting some thoughts regarding the current state of conventions as a whole in the coming weeks, and I would really like to get some feedback on how you each feel about this particular subject. The choice not to attend this year was not an easy one.

As we move into our 8th year, the stakes are higher, the competition is more intense, and the general flow of funds is tighter than ever before. Nothing is a guarantee in any venture, but inspiration and dedication absolutely make a difference in the equation. We love what we do here more each day, and understand completely that it could all fade away with only a few hard turns of circumstance. My instincts tell me that some major bumps are coming to the independent toy companies, and not everyone will emerge from these shifts intact. Moving into this era of change, I'm cautious yet excited, because I still feel that creative fire burning inside.

I hope you feel it too.

Thank you for everything.

Mini Mission Details

We've been working on so many things over here that I just realized a quick list was still in order!

It's a tiny one:


Lost Sincroid Army


Lost Sincroid Army -Standard (Green/ Pale Yellow/ Dark Green painted limbs/detail lines/ painted eyes/ removable belt/ small scarf/ Elder Exellis head/ Dark Traveler Head/ Dark Traveler scarf) $10

Lost Sincroid Army -Granthan Corps (Pale Yellow/ Orange/ Black painted head/detail lines/ painted eyes/ removable belt/ small scarf/ Black painted Elder Exellis head/ Pale Yellow Dark Traveler Head/ Pale Yellow Dark Traveler scarf/ Extra paint accents) $12

???? -$12


This small wave has been something that I've dreamed about for many years. The colors are strange and the characters are odd, but these Sincroids mean a lot to us over here.

I could only ever dream of being able to play with an actual battalion of LSA, back when I was working on Rechlen and Aves almost a decade ago.

The paint work on these new LSA figures is some of the tightest to come out of our factory yet, and we even tried a few new things for these editions. Extra paint has been used in areas that we normally do not paint, such as the Standard LSA arms and thighs as well as the strange black heads on the Granthan Corps LSA. It took quite some time to finish up this order, and multiple revisions and tweaks happened all along the way. We'll delve more into that in the coming weeks.

Thank you for allowing us to finally put in this piece of our weirdo puzzle!

LSA

Standard Lost Sincroid Army

Man, has this little bugger been in the works for a long time!

Full production LSA will hit the store as a mini release this Sunday, June 15th at 9:30PM EST.

For the first time in our history, there is literally an army of Sincroids out in the barn! This figure now ranks up there as one of my all time personal favorite runs, and being able to finally assemble Elder Exellis in these Standard LSA colors has been surreal. The Sincroid/Elder Ex/Dark Traveler mold was created with this specific color scheme in mind.

There will definitely be a surprise on Sunday night as well, one that a few of you old school guys might find kind of interesting (remember the first Passcode?).

I know the timing is tight with all the intense Kickstarter action happening at the moment (who would have ever guessed that 4 action figure campaigns would happen at once!), but this round is more of a "soft" release, designed to directly add to the selection of "Standards" in the Buildstation. The production numbers are higher, as these figures are meant to stick around for a while.

More pics of the LSA and that renegade Skeleden will be popping up as we head into the weekend!

Nobotorian

Shipping is underway! The first batch of orders should hit the post later today, and continue going out into the weekend.

The above pic of the Gliporian Noboto shows a little bit of the Neon Pearlescent finish that is mixed in with the clear orange. Yet another PVC that is tough to completely and accurately capture with the camera.

This hue behaves in a similar way to the recent Mordireus Neon Clear Pink, almost changing color when viewed under different lighting. One moment the surface can look totally nuclear powered, and then suddenly the plastic turns almost frosted as you simply walk into a different room. It's a pretty neat effect. We've been internally referring to these types of production runs as FX Editions.

Noboto and Gobon sometimes use their own Gliporian entity when on Capture Missions, in a very similar way to Rechlen and Aves, when that duo would trap strange creatures.

On occasion, Noboto and his Gliporian will bond, covering Noboto in a powerful bio shell for increased protection, speed and strength. Very much like a living Flexion Suit.

Maxx Works 2

Above are a few pics from the early development of Maxx Zero.

Ron and I sized Maxx's "Core Block" so that it would line up with our old Rechlen and Aves Trapping Rigs (a prototype of one can be seen in the background of the top pic).  That original set of proportions was worked directly into the new Maxx design, and thanks to the Toyfinity team being so open minded about new directions, we incorporated that DNA right into Maxx's code.

Regular Hexagons and Isosceles Trapezoids also factored into Maxx Zero big time, as these basic shapes emerged as the top problem solvers, especially on the tread base (more on that later).

Hidden Histories

Noboto's connection to Pheyden and the rest of the Travelers is a strange one, with heavy ties to our original Rechlen and Aves stories and characters.

A particular group from those old scribblings, called the Lost Sincroid Army, actually set in motion the creation of the first Pheyden, and Noboto played a major role in that event.

Shop Works

While working at the shop last week I uncovered this old prototype for a Renegade Gobon that never made it into full production. The core design was meant to mimic the plated surface that covered the Capture Rigs (and everything else) from Rechlen and Aves. I guess this could be considered another one for the Lost Projects File!

The Kind of Old Days

Man, that was a spell! The last few weeks have been a whirlwind over here. Lots of production related challenges had to get wrangled, as well as a general mopey vibe in the air that was kind of bringing everybody in our little circle down. Maybe the winter blues were to blame, or maybe just regular old stress. Whatever gremlin was messing with the works seems to have taken a break from causing trouble, at least for now (though we did lose one of of our chickens to a raccoon last night).
 
To unwind, I've been going through old project boxes and drawing files, remembering the days when I was really custom building crazy. Being a Microman (Takara) and Micronauts (Mego) nut, many hours were spent building various representations of characters from those worlds, as well as branching off into fan fiction stuff, like the Microshow. Takara still remains one of my all time favorite companies, right up there with Fisher Price.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to put up some images and scans of those old customs and drawings, Micro related and beyond. I warn you that some of the stuff is pretty rough, and at times downright cruddy, but it may at least make you laugh!

In production news, a new wave is planned for the first or second week of April, and if luck is on our side, something new will be in store (and in the store) when everything goes live. The mystery item has been worked on for quite some time, but may not be what you're expecting. Multiple steel tools are currently in the process of being cut, one of them being a complete figure with all new parts. Should be fun to customize with!

I hope you guys are feeling good and staying creative during these winter months!

Lost Projects: Noboto

The character called Noboto has a pretty significant role in our stories Monsters VS Robots (Michelle) and Rechlen and Aves (me).  We created each plot to crossover at certain points, but in our usual strange ways.

In MvR, Noboto is the leader of the Monster hunting Robots, chasing a renegade group of creatures across Glyos, but all told in the form of a comic that Michelle's character Sidrick loves to read. So a comic within a comic -MvR appears inside the Sidrick stories.

In Rechlen and Aves, Noboto is a prototype Sincroid that is dispatched by the Lost Sincroid Army to find a way through the Edge of Space -with the hope of locating their missing leader, Exellis.

The RA version of Noboto sets out on this mission piloting a special Sarvonic Gendrone (Gobon), which helps regulate Noboto's unstable prototype body.  Due to his ability to manifest something called the "Phanost Effect", Noboto is able to reach into the Edge of Space, but only through a tethered phantom version of himself. Believe it or not this weirdness was all laid out back in 2004!

Both Michelle and I have wanted to bring Noboto into the production mix for a pretty long time.

Maybe 2013 will be the little guy's year!

The Granthans

The Granthans first came about back in 2004, while I was working on our old series, Rechlen and Aves. Set up as a space fairing race of feather covered dino-astronauts, the Granthans were actually first called the Grathans. The additional "n" slipped in there as the years passed by. The core design pays homage to the little dinosaurs I played with at my Grandparents' house when I was a kid (they were stored in a red bucket that also had a beaten Colossus Rex in it).

I imagined that these tough customers escaped from another dimension (shades of  the Armorvors), discovered a planet in the Glyos System and then settled there. They named the planet Granthan, after their race.

While working on the Armorvor project, Marty, Jason and I collaborated on a number of head designs. One character that I really wanted to see realized as a sculpt was a Granthan. For the specific look, we went with the non feathered style (there are variations within the Granthan species), representing instead a more classic "dino" aesthetic. The Armorvor body type was a great match (even though the original "Grathans" has tails), and Marty did not hold back on the jumbo sized noggin's dimensions! The final result is one my favorite sculpts that Marty has ever created.

The above sketches detail the conceptual process, showing the direction that we ended up taking for the overall vibe of the final piece.

More Granthan action later today!

From the Monsterforge!

Charles "Monsterforge" Marsh, creator and sculptor of the OMFG!'s Multiskull and all around powerhouse of talent has created the above illustration to add to the OMFG! action this week! It looks like Aves Exellis is about to get his clock cleaned by a much cooler looking and flat out nastier opponent!

From Monsterforge himself:

The story behind Multiskull is that he's an amalgamation of the spirits of warriors slain in battle... he draws his power from all the dead killed throughout the history of armed combat-- both on Earth and beyond (hence the oddly sized skulls that are present in the figure). He uses the skulls of the dead to constitute a physical form.  When a part of his "body" is damaged or destroyed he summons another skull (or skulls) from some forgotten battlefield nearby.  He's a darn hard sucker to kill because there's never a shortage of death and destruction in the universe.  He's neither good nor bad.... he's just this steaming pile of anger and resentment that has taken a physical form.

Seeing a toy represented in some kind of action scene always made me want that figure that much more. Charles has cemented Multiskull's place in my pocket for the immediate future with this illustration.
Thank you Charles! 

Prototype Glyan Sneak #4

This new sculpt represents the Standard Glyan wearing an Advanced Flexion Suit. I imagine these Glyans populating the various planets of Glyos, acting in many different roles as they go about the business of keeping things rolling throughout the System. These guys (and soon girls) can be soldiers, police, explorers, farmers, mariners, astronauts and whatever else your creativity allows. These guys are your average Joes (ha!) who can't warp through time and split the fabric of space, at least not without some serious hardware (maybe Glyaxia Command can help them out). I hope that when these Glyans roll out you guys are inspired to put your own spin on who they are supposed to be, a canvas for you to develop some crazy paintings on. I look forward to that more than anything else, seeing what all of your collective creative brilliance will evolve these small characters into.

On a related note, Rechlen and Aves will still see the light of day, but their scale will be larger to match this new figure. The size issue has made me crazy for years, but when it finally came down to making the average sized Glyan, having more building potential and slightly larger dimensions were the better choices for where we are headed with this whole project. I'm still a huge fan of the 2 inch figure, but after playing with this new guy there was no contest for what to do for full production.

There are still a few surprises concerning this figure which we'll spotlight very soon. Thanks as always for taking the time to check this stuff out.

Glip Tint

Tried to match this orange to the old Gliporian hue from back in the Rechlen and Aves days. Pretty close! This color and the Neo Phase green stand as two of my favorite clear tints from over the years (and the clear smoke as well).

Looks like the end of next week for the new drop!

New Retro

The wild man from Germany strikes again! Check out these "retro" new images of Rechlen and Aves from artistic powerhouse Ralph Niese! Thank you Ralph! The new projects for 2011 are going to be a lot of fun!

Space Walk

These shots were taken in front of a piece of black poster board that I poked about 1000 holes into. Then I set up 4 lights with different filters behind the paper. Two more lights were set up in the front with filters and then the sets and figures.

The Edgeliner Delphi is Rechlen's ship, used by his family for 13 generations. It had a very different purpose in a former life.

On the shipping front, I got a solid batch of stuff out today and will be hustling all week, packing right into the weekend. I'm psyched for this stuff to get to you guys and the building to begin!

Aves VS The LSA

The LSA relentlessly pursue Rechlen and Aves throughout the Glyos System, attempting to kidnap Aves whenever they get the chance. Luckily, Aves is a tough little guy and can take care of himself - even though it saddens him to battle his fellow Sincroids.