Thank You!!!

Huge thanks go out to all of you for a super release! The different elements that came together for this 11th anniversary wave truly represented a little bit of our past, present and future. It's always fun to see old friends again, and opening new boxes of Hades, Argen and Pheyden in their familiar colors definitely made us smile around here when they arrived. Then welcoming the new Zetonian/Mechabon mold into the family really sealed the deal for this round to be something extra special.

Over the last few weeks, between the Toyfinity debut of the Zetonian form and our follow up reveal of the Mechabon form, we've been internally celebrating the completion of a project that Toyfinity's John Kent and I started over a year ago (with some of it actually dating back all the way to the first new Maxx Zero concepts). As always, working with John and the Toyfinity team was great, and we were able to create another new character together, through the study and reimagining of the classic robots we grew up loving. There's a lot of hidden stuff within this beefy little 'bot, but we know that the coolest discoveries will come from what each of you finds within the parts.

Looking towards the next couple months, our next wave is set for early September, and will feature the return of the Mechabon, and maybe even a Miniborg for good measure. Also, keep your eyes peeled for a new Toyfinity assortment in August that spotlights the Zetonian and delves deeper into its origin story.

As of this writing, all orders have been shipped out, so be on the lookout for those packages! Yet again, Michelle and Pj kept the boat afloat and moved with precision and speed through a pretty big stack of orders. Those new Mechabons are heavy little buggers! Barn tunes included another round of TBS with a follow up mix of new MGMT and much to Michelle's chagrin, Winger. I waited until Pj went home to turn that selection on.

The last 11 years have been the best. Thank you so much for the opportunity to squeak out a few more. New projects are rounding the corner, and as long as we can, we'll keep at it.

In closing, I also want to personally express my deep gratitude to Ron Daley, who has been building figures with me since the beginning. We worked side by side throughout the entire process of prototyping the new Zetonian/Mechabon, and hopefully the end result brings you as much happiness as we had while making it.

Thanks Ronny!

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).

Friday Roll Out

We are on track to release a new round of stuff this Friday, February 18th at 9PM EST. This is a follow up to the Henshin Wave, featuring some clear color styles that fill in a few more spaces of the rainbow! Here is the list of what's dropping:

-Clear Red Buildman Gendrone
-Clear Red Echo Morph w/Phase Arm and Gobon Blaster
-Clear Red Axis Joints
-Clear Blue Exellis w/Govurom head
-Clear Blue Axis Joints
-Clear Orange Pheyden w/Govurom head
-Clear Orange Axis Joints
-GITD Green Pheyden w/Govurom head
-Argen MK II
-Silver Axis Joints
-Silver Phase Arm Set SINGLES (one Phase Arm and one Gobon Blaster per package instead of two -trying something new with the method of release)
-GITD Green Rig

This is the whole assortment for Henshin Wave 2!

On the horizon we have 3 upcoming releases for the RXH crossover series with Mori, featuring some new Pheyaos action and a very special triple joint project that has some bite (ha!).

Some brand new parts are also being made that should open up even more building potential. I can safely say that my eyes have nearly fallen out from sculpting this new batch of stuff. Without Ron to keep the balance I would literally be running around the frozen woods in pure madness! Thank you Yoda! I hope you guys are ready to meet the all new Glyanauts around April...

On one last note, The Beanbot will be returning to its roots here at Onell and will be renamed in the process. Next assortment will see the debut of the Phaseon Gendrones! It's good to have the little guy back where he belongs.

The Cosmic Squadron Project

We wanted to try something a little different and put a sharper spotlight on some of the neat collaborations that we have been doing with our friends - some of which have been a little bit more behind the scenes than usual,

Back in October 2009 Matt Walker (Dead Presidents Designs) was visiting the house and started talking about a new project that he wanted to get rolling. It was a new toy, born from his love of classic Sci-Fi and the old toy line Billy Blastoff in particular. After some back and forth we decided to work on designing this cosmic figure together. Matt supplied some sketches of what he was thinking and I used those drawings as a jumping off point. We both shared a passion for 1950's tin robots with each other , so that era became a very big influence on the early designs (especially the Yonezawa stuff).

The collaboration on the aesthetics was really fun, and Matt and I began to realize just how much we had in common in our taste for classic space toys. The evolution of what would become his Cosmic Squadron took some very interesting turns, with the initial figure nearly being sculpted here at the shop and produced in China, then almost coming out as a RXH mini at one point!

Eventually Matt settled on the design he liked and it was sent over to Sunguts in Japan to be sculpted. After a few rounds with Ichimiya-san and some modifications made, the final wax master was completed and the first Cosmic Squadron figure was created in Japanese vinyl!

Matt got the first test shots in and we then set about making some blasters up at the shop (every Squadron member needs a ray gun after all). One blaster was based off of some Cosmic Squadron art done by Mark Nagata and the other was something I designed paying homage to good old Billy Blastoff's tools of the trade. The weapons were then tweaked to combine together. Both final sculpts were completed by our Fabrication Overlord, Ron Daley, and then molded up in silicone to make some urethane parts. The rest is Dead President's history.

Matt and I thought you guys might like to see some of the early conceptual drawings as well as some of the possible heads that we were thinking about adding to the mix. Some of those heads may actually pop up in smaller form throughout 2011!

I wanted to say thanks again to Matt Walker for letting me play around in his sector of the ship. I had a really great time working on the Cosmic Squadron project and I'm personally psyched to see what Matt decides to do next!

Custom Corps 3: Chaos Invasion

After finally overcoming a technological rebellion perpetrated by our computer and camera, Custom Corps 3 finally rolls out! This is a very special edition, bringing together two worlds that have pretty strange characters running around. Mori Katsura's central creature from his Real X Head brand is the ever changing hero Chaos. With the ability to "sample" living organisms, Chaos has been presented in many different forms. For this Custom Corps Mori and I wanted to continue our crossover which began with the creation of Pheyaos. With the assistance of the artistic powerhouse known as Lamour Supreme, the Chaos Trooper was born. Lamour and I sculpted the first version of the Chaos Trooper head and Probe Arm together, both of us infusing our admiration for Mori into those little parts. After getting approval from the main man in Japan we set to creating the molds. Huge thanks go out to master mold maker Ron Daley for building some killer molds to unleash the Chaos Troopers. With the molds ready to go, I went nuts at the shop and cast parts like crazy over a few weeks. To spice things up I also ran some older molds to round out the assortment, even resurrecting some sidelined head designs (Michelle's original design for Noboto).

The first wave of images are a portion of the clear stuff; pictures of the painted stuff will start popping up overnight and into tomorrow. This is due to having to take all the pictures again (bad bad camera). One last shout out to Don "Datadub" Kratzer for making sure that we covered all the bases and for keeping the lines of communication completely clear.

To Mori, Joel, Don, Michelle, Ron, Marc, Jesse, Megan and to all of you, thanks so much for making this Custom Corps a reality.

PS- Make sure to check the Build Station!

Reinforced and Ready Again

The new wave is finally ready to go! Refresh every page! Thanks so much to all you guys for yet another display of incredible patience. I will always truly appreciate everything that all of you have done for us over here. As we roll out each new release the level of intensity continues to get higher, and sometimes we get behind (all the time). It's our collective goal to make each project we do something that can be enjoyed and then taken into the unknown of the imagination- creating something brand new that can be shared and appreciated by kindred spirits. We hope that the new stuff inspires your creativity and continues to bring us all together as we navigate this strange and incredible journey. And now some very important things. I want to raise a glass to Marc for taking the Passcode to another level. This dedicated machine put in an unbelievable amount of creativity, time and effort into what is our best animated tale of the Glyos System to date. Not to mention dealing with my insanity for far too long. Thanks Marcus, you've accomplished something glorious. I want to say congratulations to my wife and partner in multiple crimes, Michelle, who can finally see her long overdue creation Gobon roll off the assembly line and into the world. Sorry it took me so long Noni, he was a hard bugger to get to cooperate. Though he's not popping up over here (yet), get ready for the amazing Callgrim to make his online debut at www.callgrim.com very soon. Jesse continues to show us all how it's done with his powerful painting skills and killer toy design work. Thanks to my bearded brother, Glyos will be getting some anti heroes with extra bite, knees, elbows... and guns! Jesse, seeing you hold Callgrim in your hand after all this time makes me happier than when I first held Pheyden, you deserve all the great things coming your way. Massive thanks to Rich Vreeland, aka Disasterpeace, for his amazing musical contributions to the Passcode and letting us pillage his entire catalog. Rich, you are an original and brilliant composer. One last shout out- to the master, Ron Daley. Everything I've ever done that even remotely came out good was done side by side with this genius. Ron, I'm looking forward to our next round of building madness, King Crayboth is ready to surface! Thanks again to all of you for sticking with us- we're still alive because of your continued encouragement, understanding and support.

Returned and Recovered

We had a great time out in San Diego this year. Saw all our old friends and made a lot of new ones. Some incredible little toy companies out there, we were all very honored to be around all those great creative minds (and crazy hard workers). It's taken us a little longer than normal to get back on our schedule this year, post con. Thanks to everyone who put in orders for the new stuff while we were out there, we are finally finished up with shipping all that plastic! The Lamour/Triclops heads landed on Saturday at the con and craziness ensued. Thanks to Master Mold Maker and all around workhorse, Ron Daley, for cranking all those heads out. To everyone who still wants a set, we are cobbling something together that should be cool. Speaking of those heads, check out the new pictures and let us know what you guys think. We call this version the Shadow Set, and it has a darker feel to it. Joel, Rob and Luc -you guys are amazing designers and all around human beings, thanks for being part of this mash up. Thanks again to everyone who came by the booth and spent time talking with us, we all had a great time meeting up and look forward to doing it again next year.

More Buildman Ranic

Buildman Ranic continues to move along. These are a few colorways we are playing around with that were cast in urethane by our resident mold making master, Ron Daley. Ron has been responsible for making every silicone mold for our sculptures that we have ever used in the prototyping process, as well as bringing an incredible skill set that includes just about anything you could want in a toy designer and mechanical engineer. Buildman Ranic is the product of a true collaboration between some really dedicated toy maniacs. Thanks Ron, for the truly amazing work you do.