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Catching Lightning in a Bottle: An Interview with Ricky from Plunderlings
464 Plays4 years ago
This week, Dave and Erik are joined by Plunderlings founder Ricky from Lone Coconut as they discuss the mega indie hit toy Plunderlings has become, and what's in store for the future!
Follow Plunderlings on Instagram @plunderlings for the latest news on the brand and releases.
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
Introduction and Promotions
00:00:00
Speaker
For too long, we've lived in a world of canceled and delayed. No more. Those plans you've been making, they're on. Thanks to OnGo, the number one ranked at home rapid COVID-19 test. So that vacation where you get to swim with the pigs, it's on. Your friend's wedding that was pushed back four times, it's on. The roar of the stadium, it's on too. OnGo, COVID-19 test results in minutes. OnGo is available at letsongo.com slash radio and Amazon. This product has been authorized by the FDA during the public health emergency only and only for the detection of proteins from SARS-CoV-2, not other viruses. The claim number one ranked is supported by ECRI's usability evaluation conducted in December 2021.
00:00:32
Speaker
Are you ready kids? Get your parents permission, check your mailbox and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the adventures and collecting podcast.
00:00:43
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and hauls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. You didn't say everyone. You went with everybody today. Oh, did I say it? Did I screw up my own thing? Well, no, but it's, you know, I didn't say hi, so.
00:01:12
Speaker
I just did. Throwing everybody for a curveball today. You know what we want? Hello, everyone! That's usually it. It's kind of like when I started doing it in the videos too. Actually, from talking that loudly, I just popped a vocal cord. No, I didn't. I like to think of it as kind of like a gentle, like, engine rev.
00:01:41
Speaker
on the the hello everybody like it kind of like it just kind of comes in on you that's that's the way that it always it always works out in my head but you know what we're not gonna do Dave we're not gonna bury the lead that's right we are back with another guest this week I guess we're super excited to have
00:02:05
Speaker
Launched on Kickstarter in 2019, Plunderlings have been the 112 scale indie toy darling since they started arriving in backers' hands.
Speaking with Ricky of Plunderlings
00:02:15
Speaker
Now that they've rolled out to fan channel retailers and toy stores, they continue to charm collectors, now the world over. With a second Kickstarter on the horizon, ready to introduce us to new characters in the world of Plunderlings, joining us on the pod is Ricky from Plunderlings. Ricky, welcome to Adventures in Collecting.
00:02:34
Speaker
Wow, no, thank you for having me. Thank you for that intro. Again, we're excited to have you. We have experienced Plunderlings, but some of our guests are also huge Plunderlings fans. We've had Jay Hernandez and our buddy Craig. They kind of wow everybody that gets their hands on them. I believe you also got Kaleel into them, Eric.
00:03:01
Speaker
I did, yes, that's right. Khalil, of course, of Caster's Corner. Yeah, I blame Jay for it. Jay and Jared over at Toybro. They posted some initial pictures and Jay, of course, having them balance on everything and showing how they move. They really are wonderful. So we're super excited to have you. Well, thanks. Yeah, I blame Jay for a lot of my purchasing mistakes.
00:03:30
Speaker
He is kind of the ultimate enabler. Right. He is definitely a purchasing enabler, which is why Jay rules. Kind of with everything. It's like anything he decides to buy and pose is immediately like, I think I might need that now. He managed to get so much personality out of his toys. It makes it cooler, like having somebody you trust.
00:03:56
Speaker
The first question that we ask all of our guests before we jump into the main topic here is, what are you currently collecting? I don't really collect any specific lines. I don't know if I should admit that. I just pick and choose interesting designs and characters that I come across. I'm excited that a lot of other toy companies are doing original stuff now, like Super 7 is the worst, Mezco's Rumble Society, Toy Pizza is nice as a slice.
00:04:23
Speaker
Because I get excited about seeing just new stuff and new designs out there But also pick up some like stuff from my childhood like Saint Seiya and Dragon Ball Star Wars Marvel, which a lot of times are by Bandai may fix or Sentinel Yeah, I mean there's there's a lot of really cool original IPs out there that that aren't but it's kind of like a
00:04:46
Speaker
It feels almost like there's really kind of two two rules right now where it's what's old is new again And then you know you have companies like like plunderlings like the some of the ones you mentioned That are producing these kind of new and original characters. It's been it's been a while since you know since we've had that
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think it's really important that we keep supporting new stuff. I also fall into the nostalgia chasing, but I try to catch myself a little bit because I think it's important that we support new ideas because if not, culture gets a little stuck. I think it's important to allow new things to exist as well. How did you get involved in designing toys?
00:05:34
Speaker
I'm not sure if I consider myself a toy designer yet. The sculptor is Sebastian Dominguez. He's a really talented young CG sculptor who's from Argentina that we're really lucky to collaborate with. But with action figures in general, I always grew up loving action figures and buying them. I have a younger brother and I used to use him to justify buying toys until I was like a teenager.
00:06:02
Speaker
And anyway, so the way we would play with them was like world building and storytelling with them and mix different figures from different shows just to like make up new stories. So that's been something I've always done and I've always loved the toy just for the toy. It didn't have to be from
00:06:24
Speaker
I didn't know what it was from. But I usually work in film, in post-production, VFX, animation. Because of the storytelling aspect, then I thought that maybe eventually I'd be part of something animated that would have a toy line secretly. But then I saw what Jason from Spiro did. I don't know if you know Animal Warriors of the Kingdom. He did a Kickstarter before mine, and it was successfully funded.
00:06:52
Speaker
And I was thinking that maybe I could skip the whole part where I needed to find and work on an animation to be able to make a toy and just jump straight to the toy part, which is the part I was really excited about. So we got a 3D printer at the studio, started doing tests, uploading images to Instagram.
00:07:09
Speaker
And one day, Robo saw it. I think someone tagged him and he mentioned on a Fush Weekly. And that was kind of the confidence that we needed to actually try to make it because we got a bunch of backers and we got a lot of support from that that we thought maybe we can get backers out of it. So it's kind of a happy accident, but it was, you know, it's been really fulfilling and I hope that we can keep making toys, you know, forever. And that's why I'm always going to be in debt to the Kickstarter backers for having let it happen.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's been a really fun groundswell of crowdfunding with indie toy projects. Whether it's yours, whether it's the Adam Warriors of the Kingdom that you had mentioned, there's been a bunch. And it's fun to see these new and independent projects
00:08:06
Speaker
take advantage of this groundswell. And I think there's just kind of a real hunger out there for new stuff. Yeah, I hope that we can keep seeing more of it. Again, I like the stuff from my childhood just as much as everyone else, but I like the idea of also having new toys exist.
Inspiration and Design Influences
00:08:27
Speaker
So speaking of new ideas, where did the idea of plunderlings actually come from?
00:08:35
Speaker
Well, I grew up in Venezuela and the studio is currently based in the Dominican Republic. And as I, you know, usually had these figures or, you know, play with them and pose in kind of more tropical environments. And also there's always like these stores that sold like little trinkets and stuff like that. And if they had the right scale, like little wooden jaguars, I would also play with them and add them to the mix. So I always liked science fiction, fantasy through books and comics and TV. So
00:09:06
Speaker
I don't know, I always felt like the fantasy world specifically was always kind of focused on sort of like a Eurocentric kind of background. Kind of like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, Elder Scrolls, more recently Game of Thrones. They're always like castles, woods, mountainous landscapes. So I always thought it'd be cool to have a fancy universe that takes place in a more
00:09:30
Speaker
a different sort of environment, sort of like dense rainforest or tropical beach.
00:09:36
Speaker
So that's kind of where the idea started. I guess the idea was to make a world where everyone was a pirate instead of dragons, we had giant iguanas where exploration discovery was kind of the goal, not kind of this like trope of like defending them, you know, your homeland from an invasion. And yeah, overall, I just like to see more fantasy and science fiction, you know, from Latin America. And I was hoping to, you know, if it can be a small part of that, that'd be awesome. I don't know if that
00:10:04
Speaker
uh explain it comes through on the on the toy but that's kind of where the idea started i mean that that pirate vibe is is like between the between the pirate vibe and then you know with the fawns kind of having that that kind of like mythic creature uh element to it um they definitely look like they they crawled out of the jungle like i i think i think he nailed that aesthetic of it
00:10:28
Speaker
Great, now I'm glad I also want to keep them colorful. And yeah, and also, we're also trying to build like a universe where there's no like humans versus the monsters, which is kind of like everybody's a monster. Yeah, and that's, I think that's really cool too, because it's, you know, it makes it even more, you know, immersive. There's just something about seeing like a pack of them.
00:10:49
Speaker
You know, like a bunch of them all together, especially in some of the animations that you guys have created to kind of support the line as well. Yeah, they're just very fun looking. They look like they're, yes, getting into, quote unquote, trouble, but not in like the fun kind, kind of like, you know, like Saturday morning cartoon trouble, which I think is
00:11:14
Speaker
It's, you know, it's toys. It's ideal, right? Like that's, that's the idea where they came from is like a whole, you know, Saturday morning cartoon thing. So that, you know, this kind of really pulls, pulls up that vibe. Yeah. Fun was definitely the North star of this project. You know, all the decisions that we made were always kind of centered around what would be the funnest solution to whatever problem we were trying to fix.
00:11:40
Speaker
So let's talk about the process. How did the first plunderling go from sketch to physical toy? It went through a ton of iterations. We've been uploading images and different ideas, like I think back in 2016, and the Kickstarter was launched in 2019. But I was really particular about trying to get the joints and the silhouettes right.
00:12:07
Speaker
I think maybe working in the animation industry took some of those lessons and tried to apply it to a toy a little bit, trying to get them looking appealing, have them move in organic ways, be able to have expressive poses. But the whole manufacturing aspect, that was totally new to us. So I was really lucky to meet Chris Galridge from Four Horsemen. He's our production manager, and he sees a lot of the Four Horsemen work. And it was great to be able to troubleshoot things with him. I think we'd be in a really
00:12:37
Speaker
different place right now if we didn't have them involved. Yeah, Four Horsemen Studios is technically like a half hour away from where we live in here in New Jersey. So we're very familiar with their product as well. They make amazing stuff. They're really inspiring, especially talking about original lines. They make a lot of original stuff that's really mind-blowing.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, you can tell like, like it's, it's funny hearing you say that, you know, with the animation background, it's something that kind of didn't dawn on me until you just made that point. But like looking at them and like looking at where the, the joint cuts are and where the, you know, the, the points of articulation are, there are these just kind of like little bits of subtle movement that you can get out of them that almost feel like it's something like I can picture an animator.
00:13:32
Speaker
using one of these as kind of like a a model right like when they're sitting there drawing like using this to kind of get poses and kind of get you know uh natural looking movement it because of all those kind of just subtle little um uh articulation points yeah definitely um the the idea was to just get the
00:13:56
Speaker
the articulation that was necessary for the character to be able to do what you would want that character to do. It's a little hard to explain, but that was kind of one of the ideas about keeping the articulation to a certain
00:14:13
Speaker
to not put too many points of movement either, because I think that can be a problem, to just have the right amount that the character can kind of organically pose and fall into certain expressions without too much work. That's where we're going for, at least. Whether we got there or not is a different question, but we were definitely thinking about what's the least amount of articulation to get him to do everything that you would want him to do.
00:14:43
Speaker
So as our good friend Jay would say, these johns can move. And since we're talking about articulation and talking about that kind of point of whether there's drawing the line between too much articulation and not enough, what were some of the considerations that you took into actually designing the articulation system and making sure that you were towing that line?
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, again, I feel like the character kind of, or like whatever you think that character is, kind of defines the movement a little bit. But I don't know, usually within the first 30 seconds of picking up a toy, I know if I'm gonna kind of like it or not, between like the weight and the way it moves, that it moves in a way that's organic, that doesn't feel like you're fighting it, that they just kind of, you know, fall into their poses.
00:15:41
Speaker
That was something that I really worked on trying to get right with the toy. Again, whether we totally hit that mark is something we talked about. That was definitely something that was being thought about a lot. And I personally really dislike spinning parts. It's a little difficult to explain, but also with the idea of
00:16:03
Speaker
having a figure in your pocket that when you take it out is it going to be like a mess like you're going to have to spend time rotating parts to make everything lined up again or just like maintain a certain level of anatomy um like even like a boot cut like i don't i don't hate a boot cut but at the same time like i have a really hard time pointing my toe in a different direction than my knee
00:16:24
Speaker
You know? And so how much do I really need my toy to do that? And how much, you know, how many options then does it become too much? And does the posing become more of a chore than something fun? And again, everything kind of comes back to the fun aspect.
Innovations and Packaging
00:16:41
Speaker
So one of the things that makes Plunderlings so unique is their presentation and their magnetic elements. So tell us a bit about how you came up with the packaging and the choice to put magnets in their heads.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I wish I could take credit for doing the first magnetic happen. I think Palisades did some with their Muppet figures. Mezco did it with Popeye. But it started off with kind of deciding
00:17:09
Speaker
how to design the hats because putting a peg in the head was definitely a non-starter because of how much it would break the sculpt and make it uglier. So when we started doing tests with Magnus, we kind of discovered how fun it was to kind of swap and stack hats. And it actually opened up a lot of design aspects that we can make hats in totally different shapes. Like they didn't have to be form fitted to the head. Like we have one toy that has like a little crown.
00:17:35
Speaker
as a hat, you know, that would have been really difficult to do if it needed to kind of like fit around the head. So that was, again, that decision was kind of made on the fun aspect. It definitely wasn't a cost cutting factor, but it was worth it because it made it more fun. And then about the boxes, yeah, I'm gonna be redundant, but the idea was that since we kind of thought about
00:18:03
Speaker
it being fun first and foremost, we wanted to make sure the box kind of communicated that and that kind of happy face was the kind of the best way that we could kind of figure out how to do that. We worked with Adir, he's known as the Wanted Rabbit on Instagram and helped us design the boxes. A lot of them are compared to Boglins, which actually I didn't think about until after people started pointing it out.
00:18:27
Speaker
The one original idea I think that maybe we could take credit for, I'd love to be proven wrong, maybe someone did it before, but what was the hatchling bodies? I don't know if you know about those. We sell these little kind of baby bodies that you put your extra hands and heads on them.
00:18:42
Speaker
And again, as a collector, I have drawers full of hands and heads and accessories that I don't know what they're from anymore. And I think I saw a loose head from Perfect Cell Figuarts kind of laying around. I kind of thought how cool it would be to have a little
00:19:00
Speaker
cell junior body. I don't know if you watched Dragon Ball, but yes. And so that just kind of was an idea that I had in the back of my head that all of a sudden working on plunderlings kind of came up again. And Seva did an awesome job figuring out how to make a tiny body that could fit the proportional heads and hands of the figure. So I was really excited about that. I felt like it was really a solution for
00:19:24
Speaker
a very specific collector problem that I was experiencing. And it's more fun to have those bits and pieces on display than getting lost between your collection. In a bag or a tote somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Just somewhere random.
00:19:46
Speaker
We've mentioned a couple times this idea of world building and fun focused play first, mashing worlds together. That being said, Plunderlings, they fit incredibly well into existing 112 scale collections. How did you determine that 112 was the scale that you wanted to create in?
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That's sort of mixing and matching that what kind of happened with my figures from a young age. I was always very scale conscious.
00:20:19
Speaker
I think when I was a little older, the first toys that, more modern toys that really kind of blew my mind were the Toy Biz's model versus Capcom toys and their Ocarina of Time stuff. That all kind of skew around six inch, maybe not exactly, but so once it started, you know, once we started thinking about making the actual figure, the six inch scale was kind of a no brainer since that's kind of what I imagined a figure to look like.
00:20:48
Speaker
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00:20:54
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:21:46
Speaker
Now, one of the things that's cool too about them, I don't know whether it was a happy accident or not, but I love seeing people do like the head swaps, like putting plunderling heads on other 112 scale figures. Was that something that you guys had kind of taken into consideration when you were designing peg size and port size and things? Yeah, I'm not sure if...
00:22:07
Speaker
There's some sort of legal repercussion for making things compatible with lines that aren't mine. But we definitely wanted to make it as standard as possible. For example, the grip sizes and stuff like that, so that it could go into a playset. And we always thought about how they would be really fun to mix and match with your Ninja Turtles or Master of the Universe type fantasy worlds.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah. And, and toy photographers are totally doing that. And it's, it's all, it's so much fun to see it. Like there's times when, when I see it and I didn't, I think like, Oh, I never thought to put, you know, this with that. Right. And, and then, you know, all of a sudden I'm, I'm seeing it pop up in the toy photography feed and it's just unbelievable. Yeah. And I'm really blown away with what people are doing. I never imagined that, uh,
00:22:59
Speaker
the level of creativity people have and the dioramas they build, they've really taken it to a level that I don't think we ever could have gotten to that level.
Kickstarter Reflections and Future Plans
00:23:08
Speaker
So the Kickstarter campaign, extremely successful and it nearly doubled the funding goal. Did you anticipate that level of success going in?
00:23:18
Speaker
No, not even a little bit. I kept thinking, what are those people thinking? I've never made a toy before. They're crazy. No, I'm kidding. But yeah, it was really humbling and the amount of trust that the toy community put in me. I felt that the day Robo talked about the product that I was like, OK, now he put his trust in us. And we got to make sure this toy ends up being
00:23:44
Speaker
as good as we can possibly make it to make good on that promise. So definitely not anticipated and definitely taken on with a heavy burden to make sure that we were delivering a quality product.
00:24:02
Speaker
So with the Kickstarter, I mean, one of the things that's, you know, kind of most known is those stretch goals and everything with it, with the campaign that was that successful, did, were you caught like, were you guys like scrambling to come up with new stretch goals or did you have, you know, kind of a bunch planned? I didn't think that you're going to have to pull them out.
00:24:19
Speaker
There was a lot planned. I think, honestly, the stretch goals were too easily achievable, just in terms of what the tooling ended up costing. It was a little bit unexpected, since baking stretch goals was really exciting, and I saw that people would get excited by them. I think, if anything, maybe we did too many stretch goals. With our first campaign ever, we did 16 different years. It was just like, even logistically, it was really
00:24:48
Speaker
a really interesting challenge. So, yeah, there was a ton of stretch goals planned out, but a lot of stuff were made up during the campaign. For example, even the hatchling idea, that was something that came up during the campaign. That wasn't something that we had already made. With that Kickstarter now, in the rearview mirror, and you guys have been teasing a lot on your Instagram feed, tell us a little bit about what we can expect from this next Kickstarter.
00:25:18
Speaker
Well, the next kick-started is for the plunder long and the plunder strong. I really wish that I could say a launch date. Maybe by the time this airs, I'll already have a launch date published. It just keeps getting pushed back a week and another week. But the good part is that we've really playtested these and put them through the paces, and we should be able to get them to production a lot quicker. So I'm excited about
00:25:47
Speaker
And more than anything, it's to figure out how many different variants to make. That's going to be the real purpose of the Kickstarter, to see how much enthusiasm there is and figure out how many new variants to make of both the Plunder Long and Plunder Strong. So we're excited to kind of share those and see the different characters that we've come up with. So tell us a little bit about the two types of characters. So what are we looking at for a Plunder Strong and what are we looking at for a Plunder Long?
00:26:18
Speaker
The Plunderer Long and Plunderer Strong, we're definitely trying to explain the Plunderer's and kind of build out different types of Plunderer folk, if you will. We hope to keep introducing more of the lore as we go along.
00:26:38
Speaker
So, yeah, basically the Plunder Strong I think is pretty, hopefully you kind of understand what he's about just by looking at him. He's kind of an angry guy, you know, big and hulking some really
00:26:51
Speaker
thick, heavy toy. So, yeah, if plunderlings were happy, I definitely think the plunderstrongs are angry. The plunderlong is a little bit more complicated. Let's see, let's see how people react to him. But the way he's definitely kind of a middle child, you know, he's kind of stuck between this sort of cute and scary looking toy.
00:27:15
Speaker
The idea with him is that maybe he's a little bit more of a tragic character to say it like that. But hopefully people will warm up to him as well. The same people have kind of come around on Waluigi and different kind of weirder characters. Yeah, he's got that kind of like brooding, lanky look to him.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that he uh, he suffers a lot for for kind of being stuck between the the plunderling's mischief and the the plunderling's beatings but plundered plunderstrong's beatings Like like kind of like teenage group in a way. Yeah. Yeah He's definitely working through some stuff, but he's got a happy face sculpt too. So, you know he he he's a little more of a complex character to say it like that he he's he's one of the
00:28:05
Speaker
the characters, I'm kind of more interested to see how well accepted he is. Now you said one of the things that you learned from the first Kickstarter was too many stretch goals. But you also said there were some things that kind of came up maybe on the fly or as you were kind of putting everything together.
00:28:30
Speaker
Is there a happy medium that you've kind of found going into this second crowdfunding experience? Yeah, I think it's definitely a lot more advanced along the lines of being developed. There's stuff still being figured. There are things we didn't know we didn't know with the Plunderlings that had to be figured out at the factory.
Production and Manufacturing Challenges
00:28:55
Speaker
So a lot of the engineering and the tooling is done for the base body.
00:29:00
Speaker
So, I'm confident the turnaround will be quicker, but that's assuming that the supply chain issues don't continue to exasperate.
00:29:13
Speaker
And then another concern that I have is that when the price of petroleum goes up, so does plastic. So it kind of kickstars a little hard because you're pricing for the future. But the idea is that we're always trying to make them as accessible as we can. So we don't make the same quantities as Mattel or Hasbro. So it's really hard to match their price.
00:29:36
Speaker
But again, since kind of a guiding star on this has always been fun. Uh, we know spending money isn't fun. So we want to try to make it as a, as, as obtainable as, as we can. You know, if there's, if there's one thing that we've learned and, and you know, we've kind of understood about the collecting community is there's, there's two types of, of collectibles. There's the mainstream ones and then there's the independent ones. And I think there's kind of this.
00:30:03
Speaker
I guess you could say a perceived notion that, you know, a company like a Mattel, a Jazzwares, a Hasbro, Spin Master, you know, even now to this point like a really like a Super 7 even.
00:30:18
Speaker
There are certain products that those companies put out that are mainstream products, and there's a dollar amount that I think people are used to spending. And I think they're willing to extend the barriers on that dollar amount when it comes to an independent toy, especially if it's something that's delivering on a promise. And I mean, you mentioned Four Horsemen. We mentioned Four Horsemen Studios before with their Mythic Legion's line, the figure Obscura.
00:30:47
Speaker
Krampus that they put out and and plunderlings I you know from you guys. I think there is a willingness to pay a little bit more for something that is a startup that is independent that is you know doesn't have the the Corporate machine behind it that some of the other bigger brands do and I think you know part of that's kind of awesome and
00:31:13
Speaker
One of the things that needs to be taken into account is the tooling. The tooling is hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes. It's really expensive to make these steel tools to mass produce stuff. That cost has to get divided up in the amount of figures that you are making. If you're not making
00:31:33
Speaker
hundreds of thousands of figures. It's really hard to have that cost be divided up in a way that's cost effective. But there are advantages, too, to having a smaller run. We can be more detail-oriented. There's no retailer that's waiting on these things to hit market in time for a Marvel movie.
00:31:58
Speaker
I think that was one of the advantages too, that we really got to troubleshoot things and figure things out and try to make the best decisions we could to make the best toy we could. So yeah, I'm glad that people are understanding. I'm also glad that people were really understanding with the delays that we had with plunderlings. And again, I don't anticipate any more of that, but it's also an advantage that when you're doing a smaller run, you can be a little bit more careful. Covid has also made it difficult because I've
00:32:27
Speaker
going to the factory is basically impossible right now. So hopefully that's something that would be possible in the future that I also think would speed things up. Well, with that, let's kick it over to our Q&A.
00:32:44
Speaker
This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement, searching for them at larger retail stores.
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Speaker
Visit them in person at 106 Main Street in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at ChubsyWubsy.com.
Listener Q&A and Brand Future
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Speaker
That's C-H-U-B-Z-Z-Y-W-U-B-Z-Z-Y.com. And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you.
00:33:17
Speaker
Uh, so our Q and a, uh, we, we did a, uh, did a post, we did an Instagram. Um, we posted, uh, when you first started, I thought there was going to be a Q and a song like, let's kick it over to the Q and a. Uh, that's the, there, there is Dave. That's where our, our, our ad plays. So there is, you'll know that when you hear this.
00:33:43
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Um, so we, we posted on Instagram and, uh, to see if anyone had questions for you. And, uh, and lo and behold, we have, uh, we had a couple of questions. So Dave, why don't I start with the first one? Sounds good. So, uh, at OVA to two Oh nine asks first off. Plunderlings are my favorite toys since I began collecting two years ago.
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Cool. My question is, will the plunder strong eventually have hatchlings like the plunderlings to display the alternate heads and hands?
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, we're trying to keep everything as cross compatible as we can. So the idea is that they will, unfortunately, work with the hatchlings as well. They might look kind of funny because he's a lot less childlike faces on these baby bodies. But yes, they will work. And the idea is that you can use the same correct colored hatchlings with the corresponding plunder long, plunder strong, the plunder lane. That's going to be adorable.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, the little body with those giant plunder strong heads on it. Oh, it's gonna be adorable. I want somebody to fashion a diaper. There you go. It's definitely funny looking. Friend of the Pod and recent guest at Toyfars asks, will the plunder longs and plunder strongs be a part of the same Kickstarter campaign? Or will they be separate?
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We're gonna put them together. I think the plunder alone needs that that plunder strong support to make it happen He's the heavy going into battle is exactly You need to squat up, you know, I Honestly like I I'm so excited for this. I cannot wait. I cannot wait for these giant things. All right
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And the last question for our Q&A segment here is from at Johnny underscore C underscore dagger asks, will the next Kickstarter be specifically for these two new character types or will we also see plunderlings as well?
00:35:56
Speaker
This new Kickstarter is for the plunder long and the plunder strong. Plunderlings had their time to shine and now these are new figures and have their own Kickstarter. We have a couple of surprises along the way, but we won't be featuring any plunderlings per se during this Kickstarter. So to not have that kind of anticipation, yeah, just to clear that up.
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Speaker
So if when, when new plunderlings come to, uh, you know, come out for availability, they're going to, at this point, they would go straight into, you know, the, the storefront that you guys have as well as the other retailers. Yeah, that's likely. But again, right now we're just kind of focused on getting these new, these new toys out there. All right. Well, with that, you have survived, uh, the Q and a segment. It's tough. I broke a sweat.
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So Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this podcast's James Lipton and ask our final question? Yes, I would. Our final question that we ask to all of our guests, what is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? It can be one of each or it can be both. All right. Favorite's kind of hard. I feel like I
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I have like a rotating collection that, you know, there's always a different point in my desk. I think after the Plunder Strong, which is the one I've been messing with lately, the other one I keep picking up this past week has been Sentinel's Cutman. It's like a Mega Man figure from their 4-inch Nell line. I think some of the best Mega Man figures maybe ever made, but that's the one that I've been having a lot of fun posing and moving around.
00:37:48
Speaker
Weirdest, that's maybe even harder because I buy a lot of figures just because I want to study the articulation or I think they look cool and have no context for what they are. I recently got a Reveltec stag beetle. It's just like a giant beetle toy.
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Speaker
I saw the ads for those on their Instagram. Yeah, I had no idea what I'm going to do with it. I was just curious to see what it moved like and what it would pose like. I wanted to get in hand. I mean, it's a great looking figure. I just really don't know where to even put this thing. How big are those?
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It's not the size of your fist or something. It's pretty big. It basically looks like a big cockroach. I'm not really sure if I can put it in the middle of my living room or something. That's big enough for a plunderling to throw a little rope around and ride around. That was definitely part of the reason why I got it, to test that out. Yeah, that's interesting. I did see that they have a couple of different
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Speaker
insects and bugs and stuff. And, uh, coyotes is very, uh, strange with their, their, their selection sometimes. But like, I, I, I saw those pictures come up and at first I thought that their Instagram had been hacked and that they were posting pictures. Somebody was posting just pictures of bugs. And then I realized that they were like these fully articulated insects. No, it's absolutely gorgeous. But kind of talking about, again, it's a personal preference thing.
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But the articulation, all those ball joints, it definitely feels like a little bit of a chore to get them into interesting poses. Well, I mean, that's one of the biggest critiques with the Reveltech and the amazing Yamaguchi figures. I mean, in a lot of those characters, you have articulated hair and shoulder pads and things that you got to move out of the way to get things to move. Otherwise, going back to Jay, I've watched enough of his videos on the Reveltech figures where
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my kind of brain hurts after watching the video. Yeah, but it's kind of like genres. I really think that toys kind of needs to, well, I hope that it'll start to kind of develop as sort of, I mean, I don't know if it sounds pretentious to call it like an art form, but to the point where we can kind of have more words to kind of talk about the different sort of genres and types and ideas that are kind of being put forward with
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with a toy or an action figure. So I don't think it's, you know, there's any ideal amount of articulation. Everything I said before about what's fun to me is definitely a personal preference, but there's a whole genre out there of hyperposable figures that works for that, you know, for what they're going for.
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Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's all subjective. It's, you know, cause there are things even, you know, Dave and I, you know, we've, we've been collecting for a very long time and talking about toys for a very long time. And there are things that like, we still don't see eye to eye on, like, like for me, like a double jointed elbow and some sort of, uh, you know, ankle pivot, um, is, is like necessary. But then like, you know, there are,
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tons of figures out there that don't have double jointed elbows and don't have, you know, ankle pivot that are, are fine. Yeah. And that to me, like, it's nice when it's there, but it doesn't necessarily, you know, it's not something that makes or breaks a figure for me. Yeah. Again, I think there's, um, there's definitely different kind of, again, sort of genres to this
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Speaker
And I think that once we kind of, hopefully eventually we have more terminology in terms to be able to talk about it a little more clearly. But again, I think that not all toys are meant to be actively played with. Some of them are meant for just toy photography or keeping on a shelf and others are meant to be put through the paces.
00:41:59
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buried in sand and put frozen in a block of ice in the freezer. Yeah, we all did that with our GI Joes. Yeah, whatever equates to whatever fun is, you know, like your, your idea of it, if it's to have something on desk and just kind of stay there as you've kind of said it. That's cool. If it's, you know, something you've taken out in the snow and
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taking pictures with, if it's something that you've- I feel like you're calling me out with the razor crest on that one. No, I'm just, that's, or taken into different environments. Like, you know, think of like, you know, into the dirt or into the desert or wherever, you know, your locale is. I just say snow because we have it here. You know, that's, or if you just kind of sit there and, you know,
00:42:52
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use laundry baskets as shelves for them to jump off to attack other figures and have some sort of play element. That's the answer. And that's what they're good at and they're there for. But as long as you're going to have that level, that's the important thing.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yeah, and there's different types of enjoyment you can get from it. For example, sometimes it's really enjoyable to have a figure that looks exactly like the actor or something. And then sometimes it's fun to have a representation of that that's a little bit more, you know, toyetic or something like that sometimes gets used, like what the Ninja Turtles were to the Ninja Turtles show. Like I really liked the fact that those action figures
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Speaker
had a lot more muscle and a lot more aggressive than the show was. I don't think the show would be better if it were more like the toy and I don't think the toy would be better if it was more like the show. So there's kind of different ideas that can also be portrayed through the toy. More than just articulation, there's also
00:43:51
Speaker
you know, heft, you know, like how heavy is it? How solid does it feel? Again, there's a lot of like small decisions that more than anything, I realized that while going through the process, that kind of deciding, you know, making these decisions, a lot of them were based on kind of what is the end goal and the end objective of what, you know, the kind of figures genre is the same way there's, you know, five points articulation is totally valid as well.
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Speaker
Yeah, I love the idea of talking about figures as, as genres and, you know, the idea of kind of developing, you know, a specific set of terminology, the way that we would, you know, uh, ascribe to film or music or, or frankly, even just, just art itself. Right. Like, you know, the different, uh, you know, periods of art and the different, um, uh, you know, types of art, you know, point elism, water, watercolor, you know, oil paintings, all that stuff. The idea of.
00:44:50
Speaker
of developing a terminology for toys and collectibles. I like that. That's really cool. Yeah, but again, I consider this some resistance to it because people think, you know, toys are either for kids or they think it's just something that's fun, so they don't want to like...
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intellectualize it or something. But at the same time, we're walking a line where we're saying toys aren't just for kids, but we also don't want to over-define it. So I think hopefully they'll come eventually, kind of happen with comic books. I think they'll eventually come around with toys, but that's kind of a personal theory. We'll see.
Staying Updated and Closing Remarks
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Speaker
So Ricky, with that, before we let you go for the evening, can you remind everyone where can we find out more about Plunderlings on the internet? The best place to keep up with Plunderlings news is signing up for a mailing list on Plunderlings.com or following us on Instagram. I'm hoping to
00:45:47
Speaker
to be more active on Facebook and Twitter as well. But those are the best places to kind of keep up to date and hopefully we'll have something new soon about the Kickstarter. And you know as soon as that news comes out we'll be sharing it and we'll put links in this episode's description as you're listening to this so that way you can follow Plunderlings on Instagram and we'll put a link to the website.
00:46:11
Speaker
Thank you so much. Ricky, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight. We're super excited for what's next in the world of Plunderlings, and we can't wait for that Kickstarter to launch. Yeah, it's going to be fun. Thank you, Ricky. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.
00:46:28
Speaker
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.
00:46:45
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.
00:47:09
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.
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Speaker
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you