Thursday 25 December 2014

ShoguNasty, and Day of the Slug

Flip, am I behind with the blog!

2014 has been great. I don't think many of my customers check this blog but if you are one, or even someone who "likes" my stuff on social media, thanks for letting me know my work's worth something to someone.

I've got two big projects happening in January. 

ShoguNasty! and "Day of the Slug".

 

SHOGUNASTY


This is going to be... VINYL!!!

Unbox industries asked myself, Zectron, Ironhauspro, and Tru:tek to come up with a kaiju-based minifigure for them to produce in affordable vinyl. This is basically as close as a designer toy company  has gotten to producing those fun Bandai sofubi that you can get of Ultraman and Godzilla, in terms of price. The colorways etc, are going to be experimental and insane!

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I sculpted the original with apoxy, a little sculpey, and some real rocks for the castle's "teeth" to keep the sculpt organic and irregular. I personally love the idea that the little rocks I picked up from Brighton beach are going to be immortalised in vinyl for all eternity.

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Unbox's experts in Hong Kong took a wax copy and made some minor changes to the sculpt for mold-ability etc.

Here's the backstory!


Hatano Hideharu, 1541 – June 25, 1579, was head of the Hatano clan, and successfully maintained independance against the impossible Might of Oda Nobunaga. For three years he and his clan hindered Nobunaga's march to Kyoto at Yagami Castle until he offered Nobunaga surrender, and was dishonorably executed.

His enraged spirit maintained itself in the stones of Yagami Castle, causing it to trmor, and deteriorate at a rapid speed. A thick, horrible electricity filled the halls of the castle, making it inhabitable. A proud caretaker remained for several decades alone, until the sound of breathing, living flesh in the walls became too terrible to take.

A year later, the castle was almost complete gone. Vanished. Old wives said they'd seen it slowly thundering through the forset, to the sea. No one believed them until now.

Hatano has returned.

Stone, flesh, muscle, monster, and cannons are destroying the best forces of the East Asian Experimental Mutagen Defence Force. Cannonballs rip through our cities and our best giantified martial artists are unable to offer any notable resistance.

What we can offer him to make him stop, we do not know. We must defeat him.

Japan besseches you, DIE! SHOGUNASTY!!!




DAY OF THE SLUG!

 

DROPPING JAN 5TH 2015! (store link at top!)

For the first time in so long with this one, I just had so much pure fun making these, I was almost loathe to do any "pimping", lest I stop enjoying it so much. But the way I'm releasing them is important I think, so here it is!




I want to make a minifigure that even though I'm making it by hand, I can sell at a price that makes it collectable enough to be a line, and with enough of a basic general concept that I can make infinite variants.
Day of the Slug will have 16 different sculpts coming out in year one - GUARANTEED! Unless I lose a hand or go to jail or something, I'll be releasing a set of 4 new figures every three months. If I get 1 person buying them or 100, whoever buys set one can be certain that 3 more sets are coming out in 2015. If it goes ok, I'll do the same every year thereafter! :)

I will make random batches of each sculpt in one-off and experimental colorways, these if you like, will be the "rare" figures. I will not be casting to order. If you see a weirdo in my store that hasn't been released in a standard run, you got a rare variant, at the cost of a normal.

The standard colors will be neon pink, yellow, black, clear yellow, green, white, blue, red, and purple. These are the colors you can order anytime in a value 4-pack. If I can find a reliable flesh pigment someday, that'll be an option too!

What's more, There's gonna be professionally produced glossy trading cards as an option with each figure! I want this to be as satisfying a collecting experience as I can pull off. Sculpting's part of it, casting's another, but making that moment someone opens the box genuinely exciting is what it's all about!

Intelligent slugs are not new to Earth. They're just small enough for us to not know about them. From the telekinetic deep sea nudibranch elders, to the hard-mantled terrestrial gastropod mollusc, their secrets are finally revealed - forcing them out into the open to live alongside, or battle mankind!!