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An Interview with Hasbro Master Model Artist Tony Collela
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On this episode, Dave and Erik are joined by Hasbro Master Model Artist Tony Collela! Hear what it's like to work on lines such as Marvel Legends, GI Joe Classified, Power Rangers Lightning Collection, Ghostbusters, and Fortnite, as well as about Tony's 16 years of industry experience!
Follow Tony on Instagram @thegreattonino.
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
Hosts' Banter and Episode Direction
00:00:32
Speaker
Hi. Wow. We're back. I love it. Dave, always bringing the energy. Dave, I mean, it's I don't even know if it's a joke at this point because I don't think we have episodes where it's just the two of us anymore. I don't think they exist. I mean, if there if there was a lead to bury, this would be the location in which we would bury it.
00:01:00
Speaker
But there isn't one, so we're not going to. Yeah, there's an empty graveyard of leads waiting to be buried these days. I'm still reeling from the energy that Dave just put out. Like, I don't know. I think this interview's over. That was the peak. Thank you, Dave.
00:01:21
Speaker
I don't know if we're ever going to get to live show status, but I like I'm going to do that in person. And that'll be your and that'll be your pop one day. Yeah. One day we'll earn it. You'll earn that pop. I just went like kind of overboard with the dreams and aspirations right there. What is coming back? You know, I'm picturing like a moment where you hold up like a one, two, three and everyone all at once just all monotone goes high.
00:01:52
Speaker
Oh man. One day, when we can all be around people again.
Interview with Tony Colella: Hasbro's Master Model Artist
00:01:57
Speaker
Well, joining us today on the podcast is Tony Colella, the master model artist behind overseeing model generation for Marvel, GI Joe, Fortnite, Ghostbusters, and Power Rangers over at Hasbro. This has been a long time coming. Tony,
00:02:30
Speaker
And I just keep buying toys. So thank you guys. Thank you for making them. Yeah, no problem. I collect numerous, numerous toy lines as well as many other things. So thank you guys for sponsoring my bad habit or encouraging my bad habit.
00:02:37
Speaker
Welcome to Adventures in Collecting.
00:02:52
Speaker
I think in our community, we call people like us hashtag enablers, right? Oh, God. Yeah, I have a few people that have blamed me and my addictive personality for getting them into things that they really didn't want or need. So yeah, it's good that other people are out there doing the same.
00:03:14
Speaker
Well, speaking of getting into things and all of the things that you collect, we start off every episode when we have a guest by asking them, what are you currently collecting right now? Okay. This show's an hour, right? Roughly, roughly. Okay, we might want to put it in two, but literally everything, but number one collectible right now.
00:03:39
Speaker
Is the 1995 mcdonald's batman forever drinking glasses. I don't know if you remember those wonderful promotional Glasses, but i'm obsessed. Um That of course I bought that and then my friends are like, whoa, where are those and then they start looking into it? And then they're like, well, wait a minute. It was flintstones the movie collector cups
00:04:04
Speaker
Then now I'm like, all right, well, I gotta get those. But mostly comics still go, you know, I'd like to go weekly, but I've got my, my poll box over at the comic shops, Chris's comics up in Seabroof, New Hampshire. So a little plug there, but lots of toys, lots of toys. So
00:04:25
Speaker
Mostly tons of stuff from Hasbro obviously Marvel legends is what got me in the game I'm still obsessed with that that line ever since toy biz GI Joe classified, of course a lot of stuff I work on or and with Lenny on And the team so tons of that stuff Mattel all the email origins I'm super big on and WB
00:04:53
Speaker
Massively W universe is what this is fantastic Super 7 of course neko with the ninja turtle stuff all their horror stuff And anything nostalgic like 80s toys Madballs Cowboys and Mumeysa in humans like I'll get the cops like everything and anything that
00:05:18
Speaker
Uh, I can find for a good price. We should have asked you what don't you collect? Should have. That's a more appropriate question. Yeah, I could keep going, but I'll stop it there. McFarland. I do like some of the stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's, it sounds kind of kind of like us. Like you, you cover.
00:05:42
Speaker
you being one person cover collectively what we both here collect. Oh, WWE, of course, all of the elite stuff from super into I can keep it's really like I can't stop myself. That's good stuff.
00:05:58
Speaker
I mean, we've said it multiple times since we've been doing this pod, but it's quite a time to be alive as a toy collector because there's so much good stuff. I think historically, we're going to look back at this time period and be like, wow, what a time. I don't know if this is it, but I see it as
00:06:23
Speaker
Everyone, like our generation, kind of that 80s, 90s toy boom is able to kind of come back and everything's exploding from that era. And just that, you know, we call it action brands. It has bro.
00:06:39
Speaker
All those toys like Marvel and GI Joe and Transformers are just performing so well. He man's back, obviously. So it's crazy. People from that 80s, 90s toy era are getting a...
00:06:54
Speaker
Resurgence and and for myself I have a son four years old so when I see that stuff on shelf Especially like a massive universe origins or he has the he is like the second biggest Marvel Legends collection in the world probably behind me so like being able to provide him with like a
00:07:16
Speaker
He-Man and like Murman and he's a big Roboto guy. It's, it's crazy to see that happen, you know, in 2021. So does like He-Man fight Spider-Man? Oh yeah. Oh, awesome. All day. Yeah. And riding a Jurassic Park Velociraptor, you know, we, we get into it. That's amazing.
Tony's Career Journey at Hasbro
00:07:39
Speaker
So getting into Hasbro itself, you've been with Hasbro since 2006. Tell us a little bit about your role there and how you wound up at Hasbro. Sure. Yeah. Right now, I'm the master model artist, but basically a manager across all those brands that you
00:08:04
Speaker
Listed at the top of the show. So Marvel, Fortnite, GI Joe, Power Rangers, Ghostbusters And then I kind of help out on other brands just because I'm you know I've been there for so long I help out all the kind of younger talent in the building on how to how to make toys essentially So when I growing up I've been a huge obviously collector you guys know Anytime fan so I wanted to do something
00:08:34
Speaker
with comic books uh and uh went to RISD uh got a major in um illustration but i kind of like i dabbled in sculpting and by the time by the end of my journey i'd sculpted a bunch i painted a lot of marvel and i didn't like quite know what i wanted to do i found this position at um asbro uh for a model artist which was awesome it was super interesting we and it was it had just
00:09:04
Speaker
So happened that Hasbro got the Marvel license. I'm like, okay. It's local. I grew up in Massachusetts. It's down in Rhode Island. It's local. They have Marvel. This is like the perfect position. So I got in. They didn't have anybody on Marvel at the time because they had just gotten the license and it was like...
00:09:23
Speaker
Spider-Man 3, you know, I think your guy's favorite movie, right? Am I right? Don't put words in our mouth, please. Like the Norton Incredible Hulk kind of Iron Man movies had just kind of hit. But Marvel Legends had just gotten turned over there and I was a huge Marvel Legends fan. That's that's what got me in the game. I'd always wanted to work on Legends.
00:09:51
Speaker
dream job so kind of started working on that and luckily they they hired me full-time and Yeah, I just been working In the mall shop for I don't know 12 12 years or so kind of dabbling in design Doing a paint masters creating all the all the paint masters for multiple brands like Marvel GI Joe Indiana Jones way back and
00:10:19
Speaker
I love those 2008 Indiana Jones figures, those three and three quarter ones. Pretty sweet, right? Literally permanent staples on my desk display. Oh, that's amazing. The Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy, and the Sean Connery from Last Crusade. Permanent staples on my desk. Yeah, and that's where I met Dwight, was we were working on Marvel.
00:10:48
Speaker
We worked on indie together. And then GI Joe was working with John Warden. So met a lot of incredible designers at this company. Just a lot of inspiration around. The best part of the Hasbro for me is the
00:11:08
Speaker
There's artists then there's you know kind of the marketing and there's the engineering and it's like the social aspect to it so it's it's this weird combination of.
00:11:21
Speaker
all these different kind of brain types, all these different thinkings. But somehow it works. So it's awesome to have been there. Across the board, it's like, and we've talked about this with people countless times, but the team that you guys have there across all the brands, whether it is GI Joe and Lenny or Transformers and Lenny and Mark,
00:11:48
Speaker
Like you said, John on now, you know, kind of heading up the Power Rangers stuff, you know, Stevie and Ryan and Dan and Dwight and, you know, and when Laura was there, I mean, you guys have it's like insane. Like you have like the the 90s NBA dream team of toy people. Oh, my God. Yeah. And the fact that the company is allowing, you know, kind of more social media engagement, you know, I thought
00:12:16
Speaker
opportunity to talk to a lot of people at senior comic-ons and You know toy fairs and things like that But it's awesome to be able to talk to you guys obviously since I'm a big fan of your page, too But yeah, there's this some incredible artists and marketers and people that just have such passion for toys in that which is great, you know at a corporation you can definitely find people that are
00:12:41
Speaker
don't have the passion but want to do the job and do the job well. But we're lucky enough to have these people that do that job and love doing it. So
00:12:49
Speaker
It's amazing and you really have to worry about or kind of look out for putting too much passion into it because you can get caught up in the details, especially for artists. We're getting in there and we're noodling and we want to make something better, but you got to hit deadlines to hit maximum capacity at stores. I could be on a project for a year noodling things, but you just don't have that kind of timeframe.
00:13:15
Speaker
Well, speaking of the creative process, as you mentioned, you work with a lot of different IPs at Hasbro.
Complexities of Working with Multiple IPs
00:13:25
Speaker
What are some of the challenges jumping between such different creative environments? Because you have stuff that's with the Marvel Legends. It's coming from comics and film. And then you have GI Do, which is effectively brand new character designs. And then now with Fortnite coming in and video game renderings.
00:13:44
Speaker
What's what's it like jumping from from all of those different creative environments? Sure The this a huge difference between a licensed property and a property owned by Hasbro There's a lot more not more more
00:14:03
Speaker
Scrutiny on license, but you have more eyes on it, right? Like because there's still just as much scrutiny on Hasbro owned IPs like Power Rangers and Transformers that certainly has a ton of love a ton of eyes and A ton of people just kind of like is this the right choice is the right choice? But you know when you're working with partners Like a Marvel or Lucasfilm or fortnight epic and fortnight, you know, you obviously have to appease
00:14:32
Speaker
them as well so there's like a little bit more. Just not pressure but you know you wanna you wanna please them just as much you wanna please your own internal partners. So that's like that's a huge huge difference in just like the process right so there's.
00:14:51
Speaker
um, different gates and different, um, approvals that you need to kind of get through to get to your, your end goal. Uh, and you know, we, to an extent in internally, you have those, but it's not like an external partner and like, you know, keeping that external partner happy, you know, we want to be partners for life. Right. So it's, it's an interesting dynamic and then internally.
00:15:19
Speaker
There's different teams, right? So for me, you know, with all the different brands that I'm on, you know, a Lenny works differently than a Dwight. I'm just kind of naming people that you've kind of, you know, are on Fan First Fridays. And there's so many more, like Earl Loretta on Power Rangers or John Warden. And there's so many more people I could name, but dealing with them and dealing with
00:15:41
Speaker
how they work is, you know, it's kind of in the same system, but works a little bit different. Like some, some designers like to have a little more control, some marketers like to have a little bit more control. So kind of like me being there for 15 years has helped me
00:15:59
Speaker
know what, uh, you know, what John important likes or know what a Ryan thing is going to like. So I can kind of help and guide my team to kind of appease those different, um, you know, kind of gatekeepers. Um, so it's an interesting, that dynamic alone is, is, is, uh, is awesome. Cause I just, I just like dealing with people. So, and engineering is of course, as different across the board, uh, and is one of the most crucial.
00:16:27
Speaker
crucial departments at Hasbro is the engineering department, just as much as design and marketing and mall shop and brand teams. It's like they're really, they work so hard. Did that answer the question? I think that was a lot. No, absolutely. I mean, it's one of those things that it's always fun to hear this process because I think a lot of people, you know,
00:16:52
Speaker
at the consumer level, right? You're used to seeing a toy either show up for pre-order online or you see it in store and you see the finished product, right? You see the painted, articulated figure with all of the deco and the paint hits and everything in place ready to be posed and played with and enjoyed. But the fact that there are so many
00:17:17
Speaker
like little pieces that you don't think about, you know, in terms of just kind of like, whether it's an actor's likeness that needs to be cleared and then, you know, like the model gets created and then the engineers, you know, have to figure out how the joint system works and to make sure that the figure can move the way that the character does and like all, all of those little intricacies that, that get you to that final product. That's, that's.
00:17:41
Speaker
the stuff we love to hear about. Oh, yeah. And it's funny because each department slaps the other department's hands. So, you know, design will go buck wild and engineering is like, no, you can't do that. What are you doing? And then I'll come in and I'm like, oh, what if we put 5,000 paint ops on something and like, no, you can't do that. It's like, you know, how about we do the mutated version of Tiger Shark? And then like people are like, no, no, that'll never sell. It will sell.
00:18:13
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, stuff like that. It's like, it's kind of funny, especially like character assorting and stuff. Uh, just like, you know, obviously people have favorites, but then there's people that there's stuff that sells well. And then you're like the, the, the ratio and like how you build them and like, what's going to be cost-effective. What's all new. What's not all new is like such a ridiculous balancing act, uh, that, you know,
00:18:43
Speaker
some of these brands just do so well.
00:18:47
Speaker
It's difficult. It's just really difficult. There's so much work that gets into giving you the Wolverine that you've had. You've had like 20 Wolverines, but there's a reason behind it and also who doesn't want another Wolverine. I personally, I do. There's always got to be a Wolverine. There's always got to be a Spider-Man. You need the A tier. When you're thinking about on shelf, you really need some of those heavy hitters and you look across the board.
00:19:14
Speaker
from every toy company ever. Someone's got to anchor the line, and someone's always got to anchor the wave. Yeah, and that balancing act is just super difficult, but somehow all that hand-slapping works.
Developing Fortnite Figures at Hasbro
00:19:30
Speaker
So you played a major role in the announcement of Hasbro's first victory royale series figure when Snake Eyes dropped earlier this year.
00:19:39
Speaker
What's it like helping to develop a new line from the ground up, especially on the heels of a rather successful product from another brand? Uh, sure. Yeah. Uh, luckily I have, uh, incredible people that work with me and, um, I have a, a very talented moral artist, uh, Shanae, who just came on to my team and, uh, she was brand new, uh, just like Fortnite was brand new. And, you know, we put her on, um, some Fortnite stuff.
00:20:09
Speaker
And she's been working with the design teams to develop that asset. And it was an awesome experience helping out A, growing her as an employee and B, growing that brand to what it needs to be to kind of go up against a brand that's already well established on shelf.
00:20:33
Speaker
And then working with design and then the brand teams were awesome. I love working with the brand teams because they're the guys, they're the keepers of kind of the line look, consumer facing line look for packaging, social media experience. So working super close with them, working with designers like Edgar and Kevin,
00:21:01
Speaker
and just like coming up with that cool pose and just kind of delivering that new deco scheme for a character like that was awesome and you know you guys have seen where that that was like
00:21:17
Speaker
That was super cool, obviously, doing Snake Eyes for Fortnite. But then, already knowing what was in the works before that was like, oh, this is awesome, but I can't wait for them to see all the next guys, the Chaos Agent Midas. I apologize if I'm butchering his name, but, and Lynx for that wave one, it's just, and Ripley, like Ripley.
00:21:49
Speaker
So knowing those were there and showing that Snake Eyes was like, yeah, this is awesome. The branding is awesome. The images that we're showing is awesome. The pre-order went really well. And then knowing that that next wave one was going to showcase it. I think it was at a fan first.
00:22:11
Speaker
the first Pulse, or not PulseCon, the Fanfest, Hasbro Fanfest. Thank you, thank you, yeah. There's so many events at Hasbro that I get tongue-tied. Keep them coming, man. Keep those events coming, for sure. Yeah, so definitely having that first look was super cool, especially seeing that on Instagram on Hasbro Pulse, and seeing the positive response to it was awesome, and just knowing what was coming.
00:22:41
Speaker
It was also super well-timed because it was right around when the skin dropped. Admittedly, I clock a lot of hours in Fortnite myself. That's amazing. So it was right around when the skin dropped. And I was super stoked because the classified line has gotten me back into GI Joe. It's the first time I've cared about GI Joe since I was like 12. Since you were playing with my old GI Joe. Accurate. Accurate.
00:23:09
Speaker
And, you know, when it dropped, it was just kind of like this weird social media moment. We were like, wait a second, Hasbro's making Fortnite figures? Or is this just kind of like a fun little GI Joe spinoff thing? And there was literally crickets, like no information about anything. And then all of a sudden it was like, you know, the teaser came out for the Fortnite figures and everyone was just like, oh, boy, here we go.
00:23:36
Speaker
That was, that was what was so funny about it was it was that kind of mysterious, you know, almost like video game drop, right? We're just like, yeah, drop it there and just like, see what happens. So yeah, partnering with Epic to time that was oh my god, shaved years off of my life. And many people on the team where it was just, you know, it's amazing. It didn't leak. Oh, in today's day and age. It's amazing. Well, I wish I could go into
00:24:06
Speaker
everything on that but the time frame that it took for us to like get that go and then it's up on the internet and pre-order was insane. It was absolutely insane so like it's awesome to have a partner like Epic and they trust us to like put this kind of product out but one of the things that Hasbro is kind of
00:24:32
Speaker
excelling at is kind of speed to market and just, um, you know, is there something new? All right, let's go. And then like, it's like an all, all hands on deck. And then like, everyone's just as passionate and it's like, you know, might be a late night, a couple late nights, but, uh, we're going to get it done and we're going to get it done effectively. So. The other thing too is like, you know, there are, like we were just saying, there's so many events that, um,
00:25:01
Speaker
you know, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of time in between announcements. So there's that level of transparency is there. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. And for you, for the company to be able to put, you know, it's kind of silly to have a face, you know, even myself coming on your podcast, it there's like,
00:25:26
Speaker
hundreds of employees behind me when I talk, right? I'm not, I'm not being a representative Hasbro as I talk to you, but you know, just, uh, that's where I spent my professional career in the toy industry. Um, but you know, just having people represent the product. There's so many people behind that process. And like, like you said, that, that pre-order for, um, snake eyes was tons of people at Hasbro marketing, design, engineering,
00:25:55
Speaker
Model shop and then people at epic to of course our awesome partner over there is just like giving us all this information So it's it's there's so many people involved with this It's incredible that we're able to wrangle it and then get it out effectively
00:26:11
Speaker
So you talked about some of the challenges that come with working on a project like that, especially something under a tight deadline. I feel like one of the cliche, but it's always an interesting answer, is asking an artist, what's the most difficult thing they've
Challenges in Toy Design: From Transformers to Face-Printing
00:26:31
Speaker
worked on? So what would you say is the most difficult product you've worked on at Hasbro that you can speak about?
00:26:38
Speaker
That I can speak about I have like 50 different answers I'm gonna start with One of the things that made me sweat the most was going to a show an event and I had I ain't grown up like liking Transformers But the mall shop would go to a toy an event like a toy fair saying of comic-con and we were affectionately called the toy doctors because the mall shop creates prototypes we create and
00:27:05
Speaker
Not just the aesthetic on an actual physical toy, but also kind of like the function We have some guys that have been there forever That are just like master craftsmen, you know, I I have the title master in my department But it's pale in comparison into some of the guys that have been there for 23 years but going to an event and then
00:27:30
Speaker
someone be like, Hey, can you make this combiner? And they just like ripping it out of the pack and then on the showroom floor, transforming a transformer and then like putting it together like I'm pretty good. But it was like sweating bullets because the show is about to open and I'm like, trying to put verticals together. I've never never
00:27:51
Speaker
played with the transformer like this before. And they're looking at me at the toy doctor at the show, the resident toy doctor at the show, and was like, oh, God. See if we can figure this out. But one of the biggest things for me was kind of developing the, we kind of call it photo real. Some other companies use like, you know, this is basically the face printing technology.
00:28:19
Speaker
that kind of came in. And we're doing it across our theatrical figures for Marvel and just developing those files. And it was definitely trial and error on a lot of those. So coming up with that process, how we get that information to our vendors, sometimes it would kind of come in super dark. And they're like, how do you counteract that? How are you doing the scaling?
00:28:46
Speaker
So being a part of that was in the troubleshooting and that was crazy.
00:28:51
Speaker
That whole concept is still you know we're now like a few years into you know The bigger toy companies using that technology to you know to create more lifelike You know figures especially in like the 112 and even Hasbro in the Star Wars line in the three and three quarter inch scale which is mind-blowing but um that entire process I think is is fascinating because it's like effectively a
00:29:17
Speaker
like a printer, right? Like it's actually printing the face on the figure. Yeah, I can't go into the details of how it's made. I can't unlock the magic to use Oreo in the demo. It's a quick Oreo plug there. Love a good Oreo. Right. But yeah, essentially using the different layers, opacities,
00:29:45
Speaker
and just kind of dialing in what kind of information needs to go to the vendor for that to be an effective file. It was a challenge because we weren't doing it much on any of our products. I think Marvel had started it. It's been a while since we first started that. And that kind of leads into our current
00:30:12
Speaker
product because you're seeing we talked about the snake eyes drop right where that in you guys saw that it was a digital render, right? So the transition from you know, I'm a little I'm like old school enough to have seen
00:30:28
Speaker
Our sculpting department go from wax toys like wax toy sculpting And then transition to the digital realm, which is incredible And I can't imagine that I came in at that and been I've been there long enough to seen that transition Because there's something magical about you know seeing that old wax sculpting kind of method and then now this digital
00:30:53
Speaker
kind of age has kind of hit Hasbro. And we were, when I first got there, and up until a few years ago, we were still making physical prototypes. And we still make physical prototypes too. We still make a ton of that. But the digital renders and like getting in like, I'm old school. So I was like,
00:31:15
Speaker
you know, acrylic paints and airbrushes and like just how you would make a custom figure is kind of like how we're making prototypes, essentially. Yeah, we saw a bit of that on the the the 616 documentary, actually with with Laura on the cyborg Spiderman. Yes. Yeah. And she she's incredible. Incredible artist. But yeah, yeah, just that switch from that prototyping process
00:31:43
Speaker
to kind of digital reveals and digital prototyping and all that stuff. Hasbro is really good at getting ahead of the curve a little bit, so they're always looking for that new, faster way or a better way to work.
00:32:05
Speaker
So digital is kind of like that next step for prototyping. So sculpting went to digital and like kind of the more model artist is kind of turning digital. And you're seeing that in the renders. You saw it for a ton of pre-orders, Ghostbusters and Fortnite and Marvel, Age of Apocalypse, stuff like that. So.
00:32:29
Speaker
We're going to keep growing. We're going to keep getting better. It's just awesome to kind of foster that talent. But it's weird to go from airbrush to a Cintiq. That's for sure. So we started to talk a little bit about the process right there. But when designing a model for a figure, how does a character go from a panel on a comic, a scene in a film, or render in a video game to that physical model?
Bringing Comic and Film References to Life in 3D
00:32:55
Speaker
To that model? Oh, sure. Yeah.
00:32:59
Speaker
It's crazy how slow and how quick it goes. In terms of a theatrical release, it takes a while for that.
00:33:12
Speaker
a company get up and running and give us assets. And then once we get assets, we're up and running. We're grabbing as much as our partners can give us and just taking all that, in terms of theatrical, all that reference, all that concept art and cobbling something together and constantly getting updates from our partners and just
00:33:40
Speaker
you know, sculpting, painting, and then all of a sudden, oh, we gotta go back to sculpt on this, this thing changed. So it's like two steps forward, three steps back, or whatever Paula Abdul said two years ago. I don't know, something with an animated cat. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it's an interesting process, but never has it been easier
00:34:08
Speaker
With for at least I'm gonna speak just from Marvel just because that's my wheelhouse and I've known that for years, but Having like Marvel unlimited and being able to go back And go through panel by panel because the one of the biggest things one of the biggest Hang-ups for doing some of these figures is the back view and
00:34:33
Speaker
Because like if you're on google, no one's putting up the back view of any of these characters, right? And there's not always like a library of turn art for these characters But marvel limited has changed the game because before I would have to like go back into my long boxes And that's not easy. I don't want to go back into my long boxes and flip through comics. So marvel limited Go back in there flip through how many issues of infinity gauntlet to get that perfect? Uh
00:35:02
Speaker
Back view of a character Same thing with Disney Plus like having all these movies at your fingertips to like pause so when I had worked on The Children of Thanos five pack for Amazon Being able to go back to Disney Plus and then go through the Avengers movies and like find those
00:35:32
Speaker
Snippets of those characters to get all those details to really get in there because when we first originally Developed those figures, you know, it was concept art and it was kind of a couple maquette Images but to like go back and then go through the movie and that's kind of like an important thing in toy making is that's how people know that character they don't know about the
00:35:58
Speaker
you know, Scarlet Witch costume on set in that lighting. It's kind of translating what you see on film rather than what that actual costume looks like in regular light, if that makes sense. So that's kind of like a big
00:36:17
Speaker
Challenges like looking at the scenes compiling what that costume looks like when it's on that You know the red planet with Thanos where everyone's first saw Thanos and he looked like Homer Simpson think Yeah, he doesn't remember that first teaser
Concept Art-Based Toys: Capturing Cinematic History
00:36:31
Speaker
image. Yep You know if we made him that color would be in trouble I mean, that's a that's a great example though because I mean personally I I I completed the the children of Thanos, you know figure by figure and then the the colob city and build a figure and
00:36:47
Speaker
And to me, there's...
00:36:49
Speaker
There's two things, right? So like, yeah, like a film accurate, you know, a true, truly film accurate, Cull Obsidian is awesome. You know, completely different than the one based off of the concept art. Yes. Yes. But there's still, to me, there's like this certain level of charm. I mean, maybe it's because, you know, we're, we're toy, we're, we're toy bloggers and like, we love the process. But like, I think there's something infinitely charming about
00:37:17
Speaker
Like, why the original Cull Obsidian looks the way he does. And it's like, no, he doesn't look like that in the film. Still a badass figure. But like, ultimately that figure was made because you guys wanted to get it out in a timely manner. So that way it was out when the, you know, cause these toys are ultimately also for children to play with and kids to, you know, build. So like, you know, you want to have the big bad guys out, you know, in a,
00:37:46
Speaker
a timeframe that makes sense for when the movie is in theaters and that's why we have what ends up being a concept art, you know, called Obsidian, but I still think that's cool. It's like a cool story behind why he's dressed that way or why Proxima Midnight's painted the way that she's painted. It's because of concept art and you kind of have a piece of Marvel Cinematic Universe history in toy form.
00:38:12
Speaker
100% and it's funny because you think about it on the flip side like we could easily just do a concept series Concept art series, right? And now we're you know, you've got your film accurate called obsidian. Here's the You know concept art version of that character and for me that's desirable too. Yeah some of the concept art for for Marvel has been really crazy and and
00:38:43
Speaker
It's just funny to kind of think of it on that flip side. We would totally do a concept series. You've seen it time and time again, a concept art series coming out. Yeah, like when the Star Wars team produced the McCarrie figures. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. Back in the day. And I think Funko's doing it now with Pops. But it's a part of that. I'm air quoting heavily. It's not canon. I can see them.
00:39:13
Speaker
Um, you know, it's, but it's still, it's still a part of, of that story's history. And I think, I think understanding that process is cool. Yeah. And we're almost, uh, ahead of our time before the movie comes out. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. We're even, you know, thinking about like the gaming greats or any other stuff that's not Ken and you know, you get to really kind of see
00:39:39
Speaker
more of what these characters are than what you're used to. Oh, definitely. And some of the concept art, if you look through the concept art, Marvel books, I just keep going back to Marvel. But if you look at those concepts, some of those concepts look closer to what it looks like in the comic than what shows up on screen, too. So it's pretty crazy to go back and hit those characters.
00:40:09
Speaker
And the comics is, again, sticking with Marvel, but I'm totally obsessed. I can't wait to actually see it in person. But the 1990s modular Iron Man, that's a figure and a form of Iron Man that is so near and dear to many of us because of how he was featured on Spider-Man the Animated Series, and of course the cartoon and the comics during that time, obviously.
00:40:35
Speaker
This is like really the first time that that figure is being translated into like a true physical form of that character. What's it like taking something that's really strictly 2D and turning it into a 3D model, 3D rendering? Oh, it's so rewarding. As a fan, that's what I'm here for.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I'm gonna go Super obscure, but I love love love love getting into The obscure characters, but you know, I joked about mutated tiger shark But even just getting tiger shark in the line is ridiculous that we're able to get those characters out so Typically if you see any like super deep cuts You know
00:41:26
Speaker
Design and engineering and myself would kind of meet and come up with some assortments. But if it's a deep cut villain, it's definitely my influence. Like Tiger Shark or Whirlwind. I can't help myself when it comes to that stuff. So seeing that and letting a company trust us to put it out on the shelves is amazing.
00:41:45
Speaker
Our next wave Elvis Modoc. Oh, no one saw that one coming. No. So so full disclosure, another friend, friend of the pod, Kahlil over at Caster's Corner, we recorded with him by the time this airs, I think it'll be a few weeks out still. But we we had a a brief spoiler alert. Yeah. So when the
00:42:11
Speaker
Agent M posted that he was, uh, he was going to be revealing what that box was. We, we had like a 15, 20 minute long conversation about what we thought was going to be in that box. Yeah. And when it was revealed, I actually texted Dave cause he was, he was at work. I was like, we, we could have guessed until we were out of, until we were out of oxygen and dead. And we would have never, never guessed it in a million years. Absolutely. Absolutely. No way. Uh, yeah, that's. Yeah.
00:42:41
Speaker
It was awesome. I'm super stoked for that one just because of how ridiculous it is. And I think the thinking behind a lot of that was kind of you're looking at kind of what we'd done. And there wasn't as many surprises, I think, you know, just kind of like thinking design theory just kind of like, what can we shock people with? And what do you think? Do we shock people with that one?
00:43:09
Speaker
I think coming off the heels of giving everybody almost entirely every MCU figure that they've been asking for for quite literally 12 years, well just about 12 years with like maybe the exception of like Surtur who was, I mean awesome, but like we didn't have to wait 12 years for him.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah, but like the other ones like so coming off of that I think I think everyone was kind of assuming like that There's got to be this other like and I mean we still haven't had all of There might be more reveals. So I might be putting my foot in my mouth But I think everyone assumed that it was gonna be like another MCU reveal. So I think that first and foremost you had everybody Convinced that like yeah, I mean that's what we we thought it what we thought it was gonna be. Yes. Yeah
00:43:59
Speaker
Or a what-if, you know with the with the upcoming what-if Show on Disney Plus. Yeah, but you know I think we all thought it was gonna be MC related so you had us fooled there and then to go so like so obscure and
00:44:14
Speaker
And at the same time, figure out a way to reuse some of that amazing modok figure that you guys already put out. Because that's one of those ones where you make that and you're like, okay, unless we put out a different painted modok, this is a mold that's never going to get used again. There's nothing else that uses this. So to find a way to
00:44:35
Speaker
to reuse a majority of that mold and make something absolutely insane. Yeah, is I mean, it's absolutely insane. Yeah, you fooled everybody. Congratulations. It's it's just the shark as an accessory. Good. Oh, my God. The shark was so good. Yeah. And just to, you know, a peek behind the curtain was that kind of rock and roll modok was thought
00:45:01
Speaker
of as we were developing standard MODOK. So we had that in the plans this whole time. And it was just, like you said, how do you reuse this tooling, but also make it super special, super weird. So as you're saying this, Dwight just posted a picture of World Domination MODOK at Disney World.
00:45:30
Speaker
with him. It's so good. Taking out a set of Pirates of the Caribbean. That's amazing. Good for him, you know, carrying around. This is like Kylie Sodd after early model. It's a big toy too. It's a big thing to carry around with Disney World. I would have loved to have been on the bag check line when that... What is this? Imagine if it got detained.
00:45:55
Speaker
Sir, we can't let you in with that small Elvis thing. Yeah, I love that it shoots cheeseburgers. So the microphone controller. Yeah, yes. Yeah, that was that was awesome to be a part of that project because of how ridiculous it was. And then, of course, one of my really good friends, Anthony Petri, he does a lot of packaging and branding at Zombie Bacons. He did the packaging for
00:46:25
Speaker
illustration for the original modoc or the mainline modoc. And then he also worked on this whole kind of experience. The gear case and everything so so good. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's extremely talented. So it's awesome. And I worked with our I went to school with him at RISD. So we both graduated together. And it's just we
00:46:48
Speaker
you know, really good friends. And again, like I had no, no connection, uh, to that team using him. Um, and all of a sudden I found out he was on the project and like, Oh, this is, this is awesome to the people to, you know, work with a, work with a friend and have something on shelf. And like, we can say that we worked on this together.
00:47:08
Speaker
So speaking again about all the different things that you get to work on and all of the brands and IPs that you've worked with throughout your career, if you could snap your fingers and make any toy or collectible tomorrow, anything, like world is your oyster, absolute blue sky,
Tony's Dream Projects and 80s Toy Nostalgia
00:47:29
Speaker
what figure would you make? What model, what figure, what toy? Oh, I would.
00:47:35
Speaker
I'm such a fan of the 80s toys and that toy boom.
00:47:42
Speaker
I would make a mad ball of literally everything you've ever thought of. Like NECA scratched the surface. Scratch the surface with horror toys like the Freddy Krueger mad ball and like the alien mad ball. But I just keep going. I would just wouldn't stop. I do like sharp tooth from Land Before Time mad balls. Yeah. Right. Like just really get it. Like Ludo from Labyrinth.
00:48:09
Speaker
Madball. I don't know. I just wouldn't stop. I just keep making madballs. But besides that, I would definitely bring back street sharks. Oh, yes. Because they're so awesome. Just the idea of sharks just ripping up pavement and then like that road just being completely undrivable. But but they kind of stop this like piranha dude from doing something weird in a pond. Like it's awesome. But they just completely destroyed the streets.
00:48:40
Speaker
New York is now undrivable. I mean, it is. Yeah, I was going to say that they don't need any any shark help to. It's not as bad as New Jersey, but it's it's it's it's it's rough. But yeah, Street Sharks is number one, man. I would love to. It's already out there, but I would love it. Love to work on WBE, anything wrestling, anything key, man, because that's my OG. That's like.
00:49:08
Speaker
where it all began for me was Master the Universe. So I'd love to work on some of that stuff, obviously owned by a competitor. So probably not gonna scratch that itch anytime soon. And then Dragon Ball Z, I think would be awesome. I dip a little bit into anime just because you guys know I collect everything. But yeah, some of DBZ would be awesome to get into.
00:49:38
Speaker
There's so many toys that need to be made, but there's so many toys being made. It's crazy. If gargoyles can make a comeback in 2021, street sharks, it's got to be right behind it. It's got to be on its heels.
00:49:49
Speaker
Thank you. I love that they ate cheeseburgers instead of pizza. Ninja Turtles had pizza, but Street Sharks were like cheeseburger guys, right? Yep. That was the whole thing. They were shark versions of the Turtles. And they all had the same... There was one that was like... I think it was the Hammerhead Shark. It was like the bad attitude one like Raphael. He had blades on his roller blades. That was like the goofy Michelangelo type. They were archetyply...
00:50:17
Speaker
Yeah, archetypally the the ninja turtles put sharks There's a theme going on throughout this conversation And it's tiger sharks, right? So the sharks and then like the underdogs, right? Like ninja turtles was sweet But come on street sharks, you know what I mean?
00:50:35
Speaker
So we have a friend of the pod, and Dave is going to ask you a wrestling question next, because you kind of queued up a fun segue there. But before he asks that question, I have to say this just because I found it one of the most fascinating things ever. So we have a friend who's a pro wrestler out on the West Coast, Yuma.
00:50:58
Speaker
He took his son to an local arcade out there and they had like a whack-a-mole type of thing But instead of whack-a-moles They actually used the molds for the street sharks hand puppets Good God as as like the pop-up things that you had to hit and he when he posted it I nearly
00:51:21
Speaker
I nearly fell out of my chair because I was like, how did you leave that arcade without ripping one of those out of the machine? And he was like, I thought about it. Because they absolutely were straight up, they were just the Street Sharks' pampuppet molds. Okay, that's definitely something I'm watching on eBay right now. It's the Street Sharks' pampuppets. But to have a Wackenhole game,
00:51:47
Speaker
the street shark puppets. Yeah. And they and obviously like it wasn't like a street sharks branded thing like that. They just got them mold from somewhere and just, you know, cranked it out. But so that's send me that poster. Was it a picture? Find it. Find it. You'll make my night. Well, you've already made my night by inviting me to the podcast, but it'll be the cherry on the side. Well, thank you.
00:52:15
Speaker
Um, so while Eric looks for that, um, we could talk about your profile image, which is, um, a scary, good road warrior Hawk cosplay.
A Wrestling Fan's Tale: Road Warrior Hawk Cosplay
00:52:27
Speaker
Um, so, uh, the world wants to know, are you a big wrestling fan? Yes, world. I am a big wrestling fan. Uh, you heard it here first.
00:52:41
Speaker
On the pod. Yeah, no, I've been lifelong fan since Hogan Savage years the rockin wrestling Connection all the way up until now. So like huge huge wrestling fan Funny thing is that's obviously half of an incredible costume. You can't have hawk without animal and designer Lenny it was actually the animal to my hawk and
00:53:11
Speaker
Uh, really funny story and fairly embarrassing. We also won best couple at our Halloween party party that night. So my wife was just sitting in the corner. Upset, not upset, but she knew it was going to happen that me and Lenny were going to win best couple. So his wife and my wife were kind of, uh, just watching us take the title that night. Can you, can you give us an old water rush?
00:53:38
Speaker
Oh, what a rush. That was probably terrible, but. You're trying to be quiet. I understand. It's 10 45 at night. My kids sleeping upstairs. At nearly 11 o'clock at night. That is as good, I think, as we're going to get. You guys are so positive. Thank you. I love the positive reinforcement.
00:53:57
Speaker
We're proud of you. It's great. You did great. You did great. Thank you. So this next section is, before we wrap things up with you, this is our audience Q&A. So we posted a story on Instagram, as we do when we have guests. And we invited people to ask questions. Some of these will be from specific people, and others will be kind of an amalgam of a few questions that came from.
00:54:27
Speaker
from like a bunch of people that all ask something similar. So, um, Dave, do you want to start out? Oh, amalgam. Well, you asked me about what IP I want to work on. What figures amalgam comics is. You brought up amalgam. Imagine that dark claw, spider boy, super soldier. That would be amazing if we could just get. Marvel DC rights to that now amalgam. It's almost like joint between
00:54:54
Speaker
Right? And it's like, but that would be, that's the dream project. But very, very far from happening. You know what? With the way that people are absorbing other people's licenses and companies or anything could happen. Yeah. I mean, anything could happen. Sorry I interrupted, but that sparked that excitement. The excitement that only Dave can really bring to the table with that awesome opener.
00:55:27
Speaker
Well, Dave, why don't you keep us going with the first question from our Q&A? The energy only gets better as the show goes on. So the first question from the Q&A, what is your favorite model that you've ever worked on and why? OK, definitely MODOK, just because of the challenge. Also because I was in the designer's seat on that bad boy, so having that kind of
00:55:56
Speaker
Control over like the end product was, was awesome. Like, and, and then not only that, but trying to match that and just come up to the challenge of like, can I match the toy biz in quality? Um, because for me, toy biz is, it is just an incredible and what let me back in the toy. Uh, so it was, it was an awesome challenge and I loved working with the sculptors.
00:56:25
Speaker
uh, the mall artists, Laura, um, uh, on that figure and just, you know, trying to match with what, uh, Toy Biz had done and Jesse had built with legends is just like a weird kind of nerve racking challenge. But that's, I consider that my second child, you know, my own water rush was very muted because of my child's living upstairs. But, um, the second child, he would have liked me to scream that from the top of my lungs.
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah, that, uh, I think the two like kind of gold standard toy biz figures, even to this day, like as, as old as they are are modoc. And, um, Oh my God, his name literally just left my head. The guy who controls like the TV universe in mojo, mojo. Thank you. Yeah.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah, those those two build a figures to this day are are still incredible and and, you know, for for what it's worth from the from the opinion of one guy or two, two people. I mean, that that the new modoc I think you you lived up to expectations on that figure for for sure. Awesome. No, it's fantastic. Thank you, guys. Again, it was like being a
00:57:40
Speaker
toy fan and a Marvel Legends fan, that was super nerve wracking. So I'm glad people are digging as much, if not more. So that figure makes me happy. Next question is from friend of the pod and fellow Hasbro designer, Mark at Overspray Studios asks,
00:58:03
Speaker
And I, he told me to ask this very specifically. So what, what is the best food combination you've ever eaten? Food combination every year. Weirdest or best? He said best. Oh, okay. Well, I thought we were going to get weird with it, but best food. Like I'm no, I love a good ribeye.
00:58:26
Speaker
Ribeye cooked I got medium because I like the fat to render a little bit With a risotto on the side, maybe like an asparagus risotto nice and cheesy creamy That's the best food combo. I don't have I've eaten some weird stuff So I figured mark was gonna go into the weird well now well now that you've kind of queued yourself up for that I feel like you have to give a weird answer to okay weirdest Peanut butter Twix
00:58:56
Speaker
dipped in nacho cheese straight from the can and tasted like cheesecake what yeah so a peanut butter so you're talking like you're talking like like when you go to like a sporting event you get that little cup of cheese
00:59:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, essentially. It was in college, obviously. And I had nothing to work with. Oh, you mean this wasn't yesterday? I'm eating it right now. Yeah, yeah, it was like this gross cheese that you would get in the calf and period of tweaks from the vending machine. I was like, I'm gonna dip this in this and see what happens. And boom, cheesecake.
00:59:46
Speaker
Now, I haven't had it in, you know, 20 years or so, but I bet it still tastes like cheesecake. All right, so here's what we're gonna do. One of these days, we're gonna do an Instagram live. Yep. We'll do it together. And we'll dunk and eat and either vomit or celebrate or whatever. Only, I agree to this 100%, only if we get Marc Maha to join us.
01:00:15
Speaker
I don't know if he listens to the show. I know he follows us on Instagram, so we'll post this clip. We'll post this clip, we'll propose the challenge. Instagram does that thing where three of us can all be live together. And Dave, since I'm the one volunteering to do this, I'm not going to make you eat a Twix in cheese. I'm really interested to see what this tastes like after
01:00:41
Speaker
So long, you know, my taste buds have matured a bit or maybe died off. I don't know. I'll watch. See, that's the kind of energy we're talking about. Yeah, you're such a good brother. I love you so much. Such a good brother. Thank you. Dave, next question.
01:01:00
Speaker
Um Oh friend of the pod um dave at creepy nj um asks Do you have a favorite line to sculpt for in general? Oh Okay, um, well, so I don't sculpt Uh, unfortunately, I used to sculpt way back in the day Uh back at risier still on sculpting. I did some freelance sculpting before I got to hasbro, but
01:01:31
Speaker
I don't actually sculpt anymore but my two favorite lines right now to work on and I do the paint masses more decorating with a color and all that it would be Marvel and GI Joe. Those are just two things that I've
01:01:53
Speaker
kind of worked or loved since childhood. So being able to contribute and hopefully represent these characters in the way that everyone else holds near and dear. That's my favorite part of the job is kind of taking what I held
01:02:15
Speaker
and cherished as a child and like kind of hoping everyone from my generation, younger, older, appreciate them the way that I do. And then hopefully I'm representing it in the way that they like best. And you know, I have to say one of the earliest things that we did with Hasbro professionally was we attended a round table that was a GI Joe one and Lenny and the team were on that call.
01:02:45
Speaker
And I got to tell you the people that are, it was like us as like a general toy blog. And then literally everyone else that was on there was a GI Joe specific blog. And they had questions about the PMS colors and they had, they wanted to know why certain colors were used where they were. They.
01:03:05
Speaker
they just wanted to know what went behind the decision making to use this green instead of that green. We are learning so much about the ins and outs of the GI Joe community through the classified line. You guys have to know.
01:03:23
Speaker
Like they're really like holding you guys accountable for decisions. And there's thought process of like, if we go here, we can get here later on, you know, there's a few steps ahead that we're thinking to. So it's not always, you know, a bungle or kind of just, this isn't the, not a bungle, but this isn't my version, right? Maybe it was someone else's version.
01:03:53
Speaker
And the cool thing is I've seen some archives where you actually have the PMS colors on the old, uh, archived, um, you know, designer inputs on some of these old Joes. Um, so it's kind of awesome to see these PMS and I work in that world all day, every day. I have these like, you know, six different, uh, PMS books is, uh, books, excuse me, uh, books that, you know, I'm in all day. So.
01:04:22
Speaker
it's definitely something that people don't take for granted. So and it's a lot of planning too. But also that it's awesome to work on new brands to new new to me, but I've known it for a while, like Power Rangers and Ghostbusters and having model artists that work on those brands for me in like
01:04:44
Speaker
to do their best to kind of work with design and come up with these awesome oddball characters. There's so much work that I'm, you know, I keep going back to G.I. Joe and Marvel, but that's like been most of my wheelhouse at Hasbro. But there's a lot of tons, there's a ton of artists that are working really hard to represent these characters the way fans envision them and collectors envision them too.
01:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, after the Ghostbusters Afterlife movie comes out and we can actually ask questions about it, we're gonna have to revisit Ghostbusters. We haven't ignored that you do work on Ghostbusters, it's just we know it's kind of like a... Why bother at this point? We gotta wait to see the thing first. Yeah, the mini puffs are really all we're aware of at this point. And they look adorable.
01:05:40
Speaker
They're incredible. And the retro line, I had seen some stuff. Obviously, the fright feature. Yup. Retro guys are fun. Toilet terror, right? Yeah. God, yeah. Here's some flush. Here's some flush. That's what it is. I'm sorry. Oh, man. They're going to revoke my card. That's it. There it goes. But yeah, the design team is hard at work on those brands as well. So yeah. You know what? You guys know I like the weird. Yeah.
01:06:06
Speaker
Well, the last question that I have from our followers is another one of those combination ones. You mentioned Power Rangers. This is actually a Power Rangers based question.
Strategic Character Selection for Toy Lines
01:06:18
Speaker
With so many different iterations of the Power Rangers and different villains to cover, how does the team determine which to make next? There are a lot of requests for the new Netflix Dino Fury
01:06:31
Speaker
Rangers and more civilian characters like the Rangers in plain clothes and characters like Bulk and Skull. Sure. Yeah, just a look at the process. I don't have a direct correlation with kind of what the lineup looks like. That's more marketing and design. But they're constantly meeting about what is next, what's now, what's next.
01:07:01
Speaker
Uh, so, uh, I can't answer it as much as I'd, I'd like to. Um, but you know, they're always looking at what can we put out there? Um, dino fury, actually my son just started watching it, uh, full time. So I'm very, I'm very well versed. It's a dino fury. Uh, no. Um, but yeah, it's kind of like.
01:07:29
Speaker
The way they kind of look at it, just the way kind of Marvel looks at it, what's happening right now? What's our legacy? Like Mighty Morphin in space and stuff like that. And just like, what's that magic ratio? What's that mix?
01:07:46
Speaker
of characters. So I don't have anything specific. I'm kind of generally talking about it just because I'm not part of that process. But that's kind of like the idea is pulling from this and what's going to be a while for this and how do we troop build this and how do you finish off this team here? So it's kind of like the thinking across all brands really is maximizing on shelf. Yeah.
01:08:16
Speaker
Which makes sense. I mean, the other thing too, that like we're always, you know, especially now, you know, when, when questions like this come up, um, at least to us, like it comes up in conversation, you know, with, with, you know, people on Instagram, you know, in the comments section and everything with so many different like virtual events and con exclusives and the idea of like store real estate space, you know, on the shelf with no, you know, with no more toys or us out there, you know, in the U S.
01:08:44
Speaker
You have to think, too, in terms of what's going to actually fit on the pegs in the section you're used to seeing Power Rangers figures in, right? Or anything, really. And it's always, again, it's always interesting to hear that consideration and that process and how you're planning ahead, but also thinking behind. Because you have all of new and old. Oh, yeah. That one Mighty Martian fan
01:09:12
Speaker
is saying, oh, why can't I finish my Mighty Morphin collection? But then at the same time, that Dino Fury fan is, why can't I finish my Dino Fury collection, right? So you're trying to hit every aspect of this brand and Dino Charge. There's so many different segments of that brand that's incredibly and equally as weird and wonderful. Like Eye Guy. Oh my god, Eye Guy is out of control. Yeah.
01:09:41
Speaker
That was one of my favorite ones as a kid going back, like the Bandai, right? Yeah, the Bandai figure. Oh, yeah. No, Goldar. Goldar was my dude. Goldar and Zed. And we got them out pretty quick. But those guys were... I just love the designs on that. But iGuy is awesome. And there's so many more monsters, too, that the company's looking at.
01:10:01
Speaker
Um, so yeah, yeah, it's just like it's just a mix and like trying to appease This fan segment this fan segment this fan segment and you know when you watch these fan first fridays and pulse con and all those awesome fans and listening to the designers talk like you can you can hear it you can hear the passion you can hear All the research they're doing and like trying to get in there and trying to get everybody it's it's a never-ending workload
Tony's Favorite and Strangest Collection Pieces
01:10:29
Speaker
too. So
01:10:30
Speaker
So Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this shows James Lipton and close us out? Yes, of course. Our final question to all of our guests. What is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? It can be one of each. It can be both. All right, you guys got another hour.
01:10:55
Speaker
for you all the time in the world. Our longest episode was almost two and a half hours, so. That's awesome. That's amazing. I'll try and keep it pretty brief, but one of my favorite things, and it's up on my Instagram, was I have a full costume of the Mohawk Mogwai from Kremlins 2 that I created for one of those famed Hasbro Halloween parties.
01:11:24
Speaker
And that thing is absolutely huge because the the wingspan on the ears So you think about it? Have you guys seen the movie Gremlins? Oh, oh, yes Yeah, yeah obsessed obscure and and awesome stuff, but the the ears on like a Mogwai are super Looking at it now. I've never I didn't scroll this far back on your Instagram. This is insane
01:11:52
Speaker
I think I started following you around when you posted the legend sculpture that you were restoring. I'm sending this to Dave right now so he can see it. Oh yeah, check it out. Just that head is sitting in my garage. And the ear wingspan is like three feet, four feet across. And I was just entombed in that costume at the Hasbro party, where I just stood in the corner of the party.
01:12:22
Speaker
That's amazing. Oh, thanks. Yeah, it was, uh, that's my favorite, like weirdest, my weirdest thing in the garage. It was just like, every time you open the garage, there's like this weird Mogwai with a four foot wingspan of ears staring at you with a, so that, that's one of my favorite things.
01:12:46
Speaker
And just at my desk at work, there's some just awesome odds and ends of kind of history. One of the coolest things I own is I actually got, because of the history in that building in Rhode Island, for manufacturing and all that stuff, I had worked with, as I kind of said at the top of the show, a lot of the guys that have been there for 30, you know, 25, 30, 40 years on assembly lines and stuff, you know, and creating
01:13:16
Speaker
actual product. But one of my friends gifted me just a box of, hey, all the O-rings broke on my old GI Joes and I don't know how to fix it and I don't want it. And it's just like a mess. And I went to the cube next to me, this guy, Paul, who's been there forever and has been a mentor to me and just like, again, a master craftsman.
01:13:42
Speaker
He's a master model maker over there But he worked on Joe forever and like he had the toolkit that he got from somebody else but it was like a toolkit that worked on original Joe O rings with like all the Rubber bands and all like the it's like a tea bar kind of thing that was in the crotch the help so like that To me is like super special and like gives me I get goosebumps thinking about that being bestowed upon me like a like a badge of honor and
01:14:24
Speaker
It's, it's one of the most iconic toy brands in the world. So yeah. Yeah. And then like some of the oddball like, uh, customs I had done, uh, for, you know, comic cons and, and, and different pitches. So I kind of have some of that, like the like giant Galactus we had in one of the display cases that was monstrous. Um, the orange fang fang film that we displayed, you know,
01:14:27
Speaker
being at that company.
01:14:51
Speaker
And then actually we had done a bunch, me and Dwight had been pitching six inch GI Joes for a while. So I have some like OG customs that I made of GI Joes to try and sell in to the company where the company wasn't ready yet at that time. And I'd seen a couple other iterations of six inch Joes since then.
01:15:15
Speaker
Just awesome to kind of be in the time period where that's a reality, but it's kind of cool to have Those Joe's that we pitched, you know Ten years ago twelve years ago. I was hoping you were gonna bring up Randy Savage Deadpool The ultimate crossover
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah. And that was a shot across the bow, uh, because of that competitor, uh, product that, you know, kind of stole the show. Uh, but, uh, really good friends over there, Bill and, um, Steve and, um, Robert over at those guys have, they're really good friends of mine. And.
01:16:00
Speaker
I've known them for a while just from Comic-Cons. I had to kind of throw a little jab at them because of how cool their exclusive was. So they came over and looked at the case and like, oh, how dare you? But in a good way, I hope. If there's one character that's going to break the fourth wall, be it on comic and a film and in a display case, it should be Deadpool. Makes sense. Yeah. And those little moments are like,
01:16:30
Speaker
are to let people and collectors and the fandom know that like, we all love each other. And like, this is this should be celebrated and kind of like, kind of joked about and, you know, there's other people out there, not just this one central company. And it's just fun to give fans that kind of moment. If they get it, you know,
01:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, we can't wait until, I mean the only event we've ever been to as Adventures in Collecting was New York Toy Fair and we didn't know anybody. Like we knew absolutely nobody from the
01:17:10
Speaker
other toy bloggers, to people in the industry. We knew absolutely nothing. We were flying by the seat of our pants. I was blissfully unaware that Hasbro was in a separate building. I'm walking around New York to our firm, like, where's the Hasbro booth? You just have no idea. And then all of a sudden, people are reporting stuff coming out of the off-site you guys had. And I was like, oh, I guess they're not in here.
01:17:35
Speaker
But like, you know, since then, I mean, like, you know, we're in New Jersey. So like, hopefully, you know, if if New York Comic Con happens this fall, maybe knock on wood. You know, like it's we're excited to be back in person and finally get to like meet some of the people we've been spending the last two years talking to. So, yeah, I got that's. Sorry, that's some of my favorite.
01:18:03
Speaker
Just some of my favorite moments of my career is meeting fans at Comic-Cons, but I'm not even fans, just like-minded people. You know, just because I work on it doesn't mean I don't love it as much as everyone else, right? And have the same passion. So it's awesome to just talk to people in the community and like say, Oh, do you see this figure over there? Oh my God, this is incredible. And like be able to talk some process of what we do. But yeah, just like,
01:18:34
Speaker
Making connections not only throughout the industry at those shows and events, you know, me and the guys at NECA and Mattel and all these other companies, but more importantly, like the people on the floor, because that's like an awesome gauge of diehard fans, right? They're paying the money to go to a show to come and literally talk to you as a representative. So being able to listen to their feedback, which is something I miss because, you know, social media, you get
01:19:04
Speaker
Almost too much feedback, right? You listen to it and you take in constructive criticism, and that's my biggest thing. You can't hurt my feelings if you're giving me constructive criticism. And that's what a lot of the company kind of takes away in a lot of people that I work with in the industry.
01:19:23
Speaker
love constructive criticism because you're doing our job for us, right? Market research. Yeah, exactly. And it's usually stuff that we've already kind of thought of, honestly, and things that we wanted to do, and things that we hope to do later. So that kind of stuff I really miss. And I've made a lot of great friends, and I'm sure we would, you know, Dave with his excitement at Comic Con would probably blow the roof off the place.
01:19:55
Speaker
But I would love to talk to you guys at the previous show and look forward to hopefully meeting you guys at a in person at another show upcoming Hopefully when we get back to normal. Yeah knock on wood knock on all of the wooden surfaces So so lastly before we let you go, I Tell us where can we find? Where can they find you on social media? Where can where can we see your your latest work? Sure. Yeah, it's just at the great Tony no
01:20:25
Speaker
on Instagram. I'm super new to the social media game. But just kind of saw the community growing there. And I just love the idea of kind of just images. So I was kind of skulking around like watching everybody. And I said, I might as well just kind of contribute and see if people find this interesting. So at The Great Tonino is where you can find my Instagram. That's pretty much my only
01:20:54
Speaker
social media outlet right now. And of course, you know, catch the latest projects and products from Hasbro on Pulse, right? Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, Hasbro Pulse. I figured everyone's already going over there. But yeah, Hasbro Pulse is definitely all the ridiculous drops to the insane amount of work that everybody at that company is doing and trying to put out a product that
01:21:25
Speaker
Hopefully, people want to buy. Coming soon, the Hasbro Pulse direct deposit. Believe me, they've got as much money as they've given me over the years. The pre-orders are strong. Listen, Tony, thank you so much for joining us this evening on Adventures in Collecting. This has been an awesome opportunity to hear more about a lot of the products that we love, and thank you for answering.
01:21:52
Speaker
Our questions, thank you for answering the audience questions, but we're gonna let you go and let you get back to your evening and probably working on more products, right? More awesomeness. Yeah, I will be wrapping something, another project up tonight, so. You guys haven't kept me up, I would've been up. So thank you guys so much for having me on the show. Again, like I said, follow your page and
01:22:20
Speaker
use all of your links for pre-orders. So thank you guys for having me. It's been awesome talking to both of you. Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:22:47
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:23:10
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.