Poe Ghostal, the Minimate

April 18, 2011 | Poe

Waaaaaay back in early February I teased you with this photo, which then went long unexplained. Well, the time has come to reveal just what that was!

Meet Poe the Minimate!

Forged in the fires of Minimatefactory.com, this incredibly handsome action figure is the work of toysmith Luke Porter. Here’s what Luke had to say about the process of creating this masterpiece:

The figure was made with a standard Minimate base figure with decals for the face, chest, shins, and forearm bands. The staff is a combination of a Lego antenna and the Stargirl Minimate’s cosmic staff. The hat is from The Spirit Minimate with the hair removed and the brim widened using Fixit Sculpt. The shoulder piece was also sculpted using Fixit Sculpt, and the cape is modified from an existing cape using a big sharp hobby knife. Fixit Sculpt is my favorite sculpting clay – it is a two part epoxy that is very workable, and yet very strong. You get about an hour of working time with it, and 12 hours later is it hard enough to be sanded and painted. For paint I used Citadel paints because they have the best consistency and color mixing. I water down my paints with a little bit of water and use multiple coats in order to get a smoother surface that is free of brush strokes. After coating the figure with clear coat, I add the final details with an ultra fine sharpie permanent marker.

I have several tutorials on Minimate decal design, painting, and sculpting here at the Minimate Factory: http://minimatefactory.com/blog/?page_id=285

Thanks to Luke for this amazing custom! Be sure to visit Luke’s site for all your Minimate needs.

Ask Mattel > Answers for mid-April

April 16, 2011 | Poe

1.) Zach asks: Over the past three years, the DCU figures have seen a 50-80% price increase, with little to no increase in quality or value. This is almost to the point of MOTUC prices, minus the shipping, and those figures arguably have better quality and more accessories. Going forward, will there be anything added to these figures, besides a little useless pin, to justify this massive increase?

At this point we are fighting to keep the figures at $14.99.  Highly articulated collector figures are very expensive to make and the cost of labor and raw goods continues to rise. We will do all we can to maintain the price point without sacrificing quality, but there are no plans to plus them up further at this point.

2.) Valo487 asks: I’m glad to see the Horde getting fleshed out a bit, but it seems like the rest of the Horde as well as the Snake Men are more unique sculpts. Can you give us a rough idea of when we’ll see the next Snake Man or Horde member? (more…)

It’s Sy-Klone Day!

April 15, 2011 | Poe

Sy-Klone Masters of the Universe Classics

It’s that time again! There hasn’t been a major non-sub item since the Eternian Guards pack in January, so it will be interesting to see how today’s sale tests Mattycollector.com.

I think it was probably a bad idea to have three very high-demand items–the Weapons Rack, Panthor and the reissued Moss Man on the same day–but the fact that it’s happening hardly surprises me.

Here’s the link to the all-in-one page.

On sale today:

Good luck to all, and may CAPTCHA not be your downfall.

How to Assemble an Action Figure

April 13, 2011 | Poe

In a follow-up to his insider’s perspective on the King Hsss-shoulder issue, Jazwares Director of Product Development and all-around toy fan Joe Amaro sent these images from the Jazwares factory in China. It provides an interesting look into how action figures are assembled, and why fixing an error like the shoulders can be so expensive.

Writes Joe:

Attached are pictures of some insert molded parts. This is how MOTUC shoulders are made.

Basically it is taking the joint part, putting it into the tool (mold) and injecting the plastic around it. So when the worker pulls them out of the tool the joints are already assembled.

You can see the different parts in the pictures by color, the lighter parts are the joints.

The parts come out of the tools just like models cars come from the box. They are all attached together and have to be cut out. So you can’t just flip a part, they are all attached.

This is why you can’t interchange joints and why it requires a retool.

And to the issue of mixing parts, again, we [collectors] only think of one figure. They look at thousands and thousands of individual parts.

Look at the pictures of bags and bags of pieces. If they are not careful, it is easy to mix up parts.