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An Interview with Star Wars The Black Series Artist, Gregory Titus
396 Plays6 years ago
On this episode, Erik interviews Black Series artist Gregory Titus. Known for his work on the iconic Star Wars toy line, Greg talks his favorite pieces, challenges, and what it's like to work on such a widely collected series.
Follow Greg on Instagram @gregorytitus
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Intro by Joe Azzari
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Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, Dave. Hi, Eric. Hey, Dave. Do we curse on this podcast? Yes, Eric. Yes, we do. Test. Test. One, two. One, two. 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.
00:00:24
Speaker
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.
Interview with Gregory Titus
00:00:38
Speaker
Hi everyone, Eric here. Welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Today, it is going to be another interview. Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with a man whose work you're all probably very familiar with. His name is Gregory Titus, and he is the master artist behind all of the art that you see, or almost all of the art you see.
00:01:02
Speaker
The Star Wars black series figure line. He's been doing it for a very long time And as many of you have posted in the comments on his posts on Instagram He is very integral as to why that line is so collectible on card. So Without further ado, here's the interview with Greg Titus enjoy Greg thank you so much for for joining me today on the adventures in collecting podcast. It's my pleasure, man. It's great to be here
00:01:32
Speaker
Before we jump into everything, we always like to ask our guests, what kind of toys do you collect? And if you don't collect toys, what do you collect? I'm pretty, I used to collect all kinds of toys and then I slimmed it down to just the occasional Black Series toys. And it's more, it has less to do with the toys and more along the lines of like some of the,
00:02:01
Speaker
some of the illustrations that I really enjoyed doing. You know, just things that resonated with me and, you know, just it's hard to describe, like just illustrations that I like doing and sort of like in some way sort of have a personal story and
00:02:26
Speaker
You know, so it's just the ones that I enjoy doing the most, I just grab them at the store when they come out, and those are the ones that are special to me. So for those that haven't picked up on it yet, Greg, you do all of the art. Is it all of the art for literally all of the Black Series figures, or is it just a select few? Because it seems like that art is very unique to you in the way that you create these portraits.
00:02:55
Speaker
I believe it's probably like 98 or 99 percent. I think during The Last Jedi they had someone or a different studio do the single figure porg and I was super upset about it.
00:03:13
Speaker
Oh, man, my brother's gonna be so bummed. That's literally his favorite creature in Star Wars. I got to do I got to do a poor when I did the galaxy's edge montages. And I was like, yes, finally, the goddamn porg. And
00:03:31
Speaker
I don't know who, I don't know who did the port for the normal one, but I, I was, I looked at it and I was like, somebody was like, they tagged me on the internet. Like, Oh, great. Greg Titus artwork. And I was like, don't you dare. That's not mine. So how, how did you, how did you get involved with, with the, uh, with the star Wars IP and, and, and this, you know, now this, this very, very, very collectible toy line.
00:03:59
Speaker
Uh, let's see, in like 2007 or 2008, uh, I was, uh, working freelance and then, uh, I got contacted by this company, uh, called pilot and, uh, who does, uh, they did tons of star Wars work, but there it's like a branding agency and they, uh, you know, they,
00:04:24
Speaker
done tons of G.I. Joe stuff and all kinds of things because the two guys that started it worked at Hasbro before they went off on their own and I started freelancing with them doing some stuff for the first G.I. Joe movie with Channing Tatum and then
00:04:46
Speaker
I just slowly started picking up more work from them, and then they decided to start trying to have an in-house illustrator. So they moved me from Chicago to Boston, and I started over there. And I don't know, maybe two years later, the very first Black Series illustrations came in, and they were the ones that were just the circle in the corner.
00:05:15
Speaker
So that year I didn't do all of them. It was me and a couple other guys. And so I think I probably only did 25 that year. And you know, and then the I think that went on for two years. But then when The Force Awakens happened, I pitched a different style and that got picked up.
00:05:41
Speaker
as more or less what you guys see every day. And then it just snowballed from there, man. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty undeniable that that red and black box around the time of The Force Awakens, when the style of the packaging changed from, I think it was originally, there was blue and then there was orange. But when it changed that black and red box with the almost grayscale artwork on it,
00:06:09
Speaker
instantly
Art Style and Techniques
00:06:10
Speaker
it became...
00:06:12
Speaker
more people were leaving them in the box, or if they were taking them out of the box, you see these collectors that have a collection of boxes alongside of the open figures. It's absolutely iconic to the line, which I'm sure you hear all the time. You would be amazed the amount of work that the company that I worked for at the Time Pilot, they did all the branding and all the box design and everything, and they went through
00:06:42
Speaker
hundreds and hundreds of box designs i mean i can't even tell you you know there was they just you know between them and hasbro and they just went back and forth for months and months so it's it finally ended up there and then you know they approved the illustration style and off it went
00:07:02
Speaker
Now, when it comes to something like Star Wars, did you seem to have an affinity for some of the characters and for kind of the franchise itself? Was it something that you were like, you've always wanted to work on or something that you were super excited to work on, or was it just kind of another job for you?
00:07:19
Speaker
Oh, I was been a Star Wars fan for my whole life. You know, like I have tons of Star Wars toys when I was a kid. I had the I had the Dagobah set when I was a kid with a little styrofoam quicksand in it that you could put Luke in. Very nice. You know, so like I was
00:07:39
Speaker
You know, it was a dream come true to just to get to work on it. You know, before the Black Series started, I got to do like some of the trade dress illustrations, you know, that are across the top of the box. And and that all by itself was super exciting. And then, you know, sort of getting
00:08:00
Speaker
my style of illustrations to be across an entire line was amazing. It's weird because it didn't feel like it at first when we were just doing the little circle illustrations and then when The Force Awakens happened and it just snowballed into this enormous thing and it's a little bit of a life changer.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, I can imagine. You mentioned your specific style of art, and I think that's something that's not only unique to the line, but something that makes kind of those boxes special. You have a very unique style of art, and to me, it's instantly recognizable. How did you develop that style?
00:08:48
Speaker
Um, well, uh, I started off as a, as a comic book artist. And, uh, I mean, and you can see little hints of it in there. I mean, obviously pushed towards the, uh, realistic end of things. Um, when I was in college, I, uh, I tried to do a lot of scratch board work, which is, uh, basically like taking a fully
00:09:17
Speaker
ink surface and then scratching the whites out of it. When I was thinking about pushing this style, it seemed something that would be very natural to something called the Black Series. I kind of researched back into that a little bit.
00:09:40
Speaker
There was an artist named Mark Summers that did a ton of beautiful, beautiful illustrations for Barnes and Noble in the late 90s of famous authors.
00:09:54
Speaker
they're all done in that scratchboard style, which is basically like etching these small, intricate, very delicate lines out of basically a pre-inked surface. And so it was sort of based around that, but with a little bit more thick to thin featherings. And he does it white out of black, and then I do it
00:10:18
Speaker
basically the way that I was taught to do comic books was just to ink it normally. So I just draw it and then ink the whole thing. So it's the same thing just in reverse.
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, it works perfectly. And following you on Instagram, I've seen stuff outside of Star Wars as well. And with the recent passing of Kobe Bryant, I saw that you had posted an image of him in that style. And it's just there's something that's so attractive about the use of the negative space and the way that you frame it up. It's almost a shame sometimes that the box art cuts off pieces of people's heads.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah. You have to work within that constraint. I like to post stuff on Instagram because a lot of times you don't get to see how much illustration there actually is. Sometimes, depending on what it is, I will do a head down to the waist and then it ends up being just like a shoulder and a head and you're like, there's half of the illustration missing.
00:11:27
Speaker
And, you know, like it's it's a weird thing. Like I started doing them so they were very specific to fit just on the box. And then Hasbro started using them for things like banners for cons and stuff like that. And then I would see these big banners done and they see like this character just cut off unceremoniously in the middle.
00:11:56
Speaker
So I started to just try to finish them out in every direction as much as I can, just so they could have a little bit more choices to make when they're doing that sort of thing. Yeah. And the characters, especially in something like Star Wars, they range from, especially now with the deluxe Black Series figures, like the Emperor Palpatine that just came out, where
00:12:21
Speaker
the window on the box almost can change depending on the type of figure. Everything from a Gamorian Guard, which has much more of a head to it than some of the other characters, to a clone trooper. It's so interesting to see some of these characters that have never been
00:12:43
Speaker
You know outside of a cartoon with this kind of like lifelike Negative space drawing. It's just it's I find it mesmerizing. I really do yeah, some of the ones that The characters that have never been in a movie are usually the the hardest to do you know like things things that because you're not allowed to do the
00:13:10
Speaker
cartoon version of things so like when I do in Ezra, you know, like I have to kind of make it up, you know, and So I'll use there's a 3d model that they have for the toy and then sometimes somebody from Lucasfilm has you know, they've got an actor or an actress in mind but a lot of times they don't want you to do that because what if they end up casting them in a movie for something and then
00:13:39
Speaker
and you've already got a black series figure with a chosen actor or actress on that person's character. So it's a strangely complicated thing for something that should be relatively simple.
00:13:54
Speaker
Holy shit, I never thought about that. Now I'm picturing in my head with the older Ahsoka Tano, the one from the way that she looks in the Rebels TV show. I can almost picture a conversation, it's like, yeah, we're kind of like Rosaria Dawson, but definitely not Rosaria Dawson.
00:14:17
Speaker
That's actually funny that you mentioned that one because I have done that work for her for two different companies. We did jobs at Pilot for a company called Konami that did a Star Wars trading card set and Ahsoka was one of those cards. And so they were in contact with Lucasfilm, obviously.
00:14:43
Speaker
So I would do drawings of Ahsoka and then Dave Filoni would draw over the top of my drawing and then send it back. And it was like from Dave Filoni to Japan to our studio. And then they had different actresses that they wanted her to look like, but not exactly like. And then we did the same thing all over again when she obviously for Clone Wars. And it was,
00:15:13
Speaker
equally a nightmare. So do you, you know, working on, on these projects, do you get to interact with, you know, some of the more like notable people from Lucasfilm, you know, like that on a, on a semi-regular basis, or is it kind of just on this, you know, certain special projects? Absolutely not. I am, I am a hidden back in a cave. It seems, it seems like it's so glamorous. It is absolutely not. I am in a desk in a studio.
00:15:41
Speaker
I don't even have emails with those folks like nothing. I have a director that is sort of the outward contact to
00:15:52
Speaker
both Hasbro and Lucasfilm, although Hasbro does come to the studio periodically, and I would, you know, obviously, if they're there, I get to talk to them. But, you know, like it's, I don't, you know, I mentioned like, oh, Dave Filoni drew over my drawings. I never talked to him. I just literally he talked, he emailed somebody else with a drawing over my drawing. It's seriously, it's,
00:16:16
Speaker
Everybody, I'm sure everybody on the internet is like, oh, I love this job. It seems like me and you and McGregor are hanging out like, oh, let me take a snap of you. It's not like that at all. It is eight nerds in a room. We're all just talking Star Wars into video games. And it's not glamorous in any way.
00:16:42
Speaker
So speaking of video games you you you just did Cal Kestis from from Jedi fallen order and for the most recent like force Friday Release it what what's the is that kind of the same process as doing one of the characters that's from you know from one of the cartoon series or is there a little more in terms of like Modeling and like things that you have access to you in order to hit to kind of nail that look that one was a little bit easier because the
00:17:12
Speaker
some of the pre-production on that game was sent to us as reference.
Unique Challenges in Star Wars Art
00:17:20
Speaker
So I saw some of the designs earlier on. So like you could kind of, I don't know, it's nice to have that instead of just working from a 3D model. And because those are the 3D models we get are the ones that are for the figures, obviously. And so, you know, they're not
00:17:43
Speaker
detailed in a way that pre-production photography is. You look at an action figure face, if you take the painting off it, it is hard to figure out who it is. Oh yeah, for sure. For sure.
00:17:59
Speaker
And, you know, so like when you do that kind of stuff, it's, it can be very nebulous on the likeness. And so like, it was, it was nice to, I didn't know who the actor was at the time that was playing Cal Kestis. I only found out afterwards, but I did have a few like digital paintings of him that helped me kind of figure out the likeness a little bit better.
00:18:25
Speaker
So in terms of working on all these characters, there's such a wide array. You mentioned at the top of the show that you kind of go out and collect the ones that have some kind of special meaning to you or something that was important or that you particularly enjoyed. I know today we're recording this episode on what is today, February 6th. You posted a nice little thing about Wedge Antilles today.
00:18:53
Speaker
But that seemed to generate some heat. I mean, I did not think it was a hot take. I thought it was on point. I mean, the guy's the hero, the blue collar hero, or the rebellion, for sure. There was a couple people coming in hot. I was hating on the new trilogy. And I absolutely loved it. Star Wars fans coming in hot? Are you serious? And I was like, man, you got to
00:19:22
Speaker
You gotta cool down a little bit, man. That's not what I was saying, you know, like easy.
00:19:27
Speaker
And they were like, you old timers, you only liked the original trilogy. And I was like, what are you talking about? That's not what I was saying. Man, you got OK boomer'd by Star Wars fans. I absolutely did. I am that age, so it's fine. And I'm a boomer away. I don't give a shit. No, but that brings up a good point, though. What are some of the characters that you've gotten to take a stab at that really means something to you, which are the ones that you've
00:19:57
Speaker
You've either really loved drawing or ones that you've really looked forward to. Let's see. I loved when I started doing solo was basically when I first started relying more on a digital method of doing things.
00:20:26
Speaker
It opened up a lot of options for me as far as being able to do these things, like just having the luxury to zoom in and zoom out and stuff like that, as opposed to just inking on an 11 by sheet of paper where you can only get lines so tight. So starting to dig a link for me was a big deal. And so some of those first ones that came out of solo were some of my favorites just because they
00:20:57
Speaker
They were the first ones where I felt like, this is how I wanted it to look this whole time. There's more precision, there's more exactness. I just wanted to be able to do better the whole time. And when I started doing things digitally,
00:21:14
Speaker
Originally I started to do it because of the speed aspect of things, you know, like I just needed to go faster because there were so many of them and but getting to rely on Photoshop to be able to get very specific and you know get a certain amount of effects like it's
00:21:34
Speaker
It's priceless when you're talking about the quality of an image. And so when I first started doing those, a lot of those ones, like the, I forget what it's called, like the magnet troopers, the guys that walk on the train. Oh, the range troopers. Range troopers, gotcha. I call them magnet troopers because they have magnet boots. Perfect. I mean, that's the most, that's the most, that and the pimp fur collar are like the two recognizable features. What it's weird is like they don't,
00:22:04
Speaker
They're not called range troopers when I get them. You know, you know, they have code names, you know, so like it's, you know, like we just make up names for them. And like, that was all I knew about this dude is he had huge boots. And I was like, that must be walk for a walk on the train. And like that. And we just call them magnet troopers or, you know, like.
00:22:23
Speaker
You know, they don't, you know, a lot of times the code names are like cities or insects and shit. Like you don't, they don't have names like you. Yeah. Makes sense. I mean, they got to keep everything under wraps as much as possible. Yeah. That's becomes a very big deal. And the code names are, uh, you, like you have code names for.
00:22:50
Speaker
uh, the franchise itself, you know, and then you have code names for Lucasfilm. And then you also have code names that don't always coordinate with Hasbro. So sometimes you have two sets of code names going to two different companies filtering through one company and 27 people. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like Star Wars kind of started that back in the day with the whole, you know, the, wasn't the production of empire strikes back. Wasn't it called blue harvest? Yes. Yes. So they just kept it going.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, and it has it has gone. So like you, I mean, it's meant, you know, like, when I worked at pilot, the studio itself was in a huge building full of other offices and stuff like that. So like, when you're just talking to one of your office buddies at the urinal, you can be like, Oh, I was working on
00:23:39
Speaker
you know, Blue Harvest and the Tokyo figure and, you know, it ends up sounding like the last few minutes of a game of Clue. You know, it's just Blue Harvest and with the Wacom tablet, you know, it's just, it's a bad scene, you know, it's just, it gets to be
00:23:59
Speaker
A lot. I can imagine. Well, actually, you know what? I can't imagine. There's just like everything has a codename and then everything has like a product number.
00:24:12
Speaker
So when I would talk to the project manager, he'd be like, how is 0115960? And you're like, well, I don't know. And then he'd be like, oh, Tokyo. And I'm like, I still got nothing. What? Is it the one with the boots or not? Yeah, exactly. That's how you got to be like, oh, it's the guy with the fro and the jacket and, yeah, mag boots. And I'd be like, yes, I got him done on the server. Mag boots, done.
00:24:39
Speaker
So switching over to the digital end of things, that's where you're starting to get into the characters that you feel like you're achieving the level that you want to achieve with them. What are some of the ones that have been particularly challenging? What's her face from Solo? Emilia Clarke? Or Val?
00:25:07
Speaker
the chick with the mask. Oh, Enthusnest. Enthusnest. Enthusnest was probably the most the Enthusnest speeder was probably my most challenging, but in my opinion, maybe my most successful illustration. That was easily one of my favorites to do. But the the mechanisms like within that crazy speeder were
00:25:36
Speaker
I mean, just it's a lot. And the whole thing is like in deep proportion. You know, it was crazy. So it was it was it was a fun one to do. And but I was super happy with how it came out. And I got to be involved a little bit in like the how it sits on the box and stuff like that. And what exactly, you know, like the her little staff like over goes, you know, it kind of floats over the window panel and stuff like that. And, you know,
00:26:07
Speaker
It's fun when you get a pose approved. And if the pose is so good that they're going to pay for a window die cut, you're like, man, that's awesome. I did my job good. Somebody's going to pay an extra $0.03 a box for that awesome pose. Yeah, and she has incredible detail, too. She almost has a tribal African vibe to a lot of things going on her mask and the feathers.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, she's got a big coat and then like her gauntlets sort of feather out almost like turkey feathers. And she's got like teeth or bones and a necklace. And I don't know, it's a it's a great fun design. And that was one of my favorites.
00:26:50
Speaker
Awesome. And it turned out gorgeous. That's, you know, that was one of the ones. So, so full disclosure, I marvel at the black series figures. Every time I see them, I'm a three and three quarter collector that like original Kenner scale only because I know if I buy a single one of those black series figures, two things are going to happen. I'm going to have no money and I'm probably going to get divorced. So
00:27:15
Speaker
Um, you know, I, I already have like 300 plus of the, the original, you know, going back to like the, the early nineties that, that when Hasbro first obtained the license and started producing them under, uh, initially under that counter name, that's when I started collecting them. And, um, yeah, I, I just can't go back now. I can't start a new scale. So I, I, every time I see one in the store, I'm like, these are so fucking cool looking, but I just, I can't commit.
00:27:44
Speaker
Um, honestly, it's, it's an amazing commitment and every, every movie that comes out. You know, like I, I get amazed that you're like, how did you guys come up with a hundred figures? You know, like I, uh, you know, I think for the force awakens, I ended up doing like 125 illustrations in that year. And, uh,
00:28:13
Speaker
And like that's, you know, there's only 160 business days in a year. You know, and like, so you're just basically doing one, like, every, every day and a half or two days or something like that. And like, you're, you know, it's.
00:28:31
Speaker
And it's a crazy amount of work. And then like, you think of that from the collector's end, like, Ed, you know, the six inches or what? 18 bucks a figure or something like that. I can't remember. If you're paying, if you're paying retail, you're paying 20 bucks a figure for a regular one and anywhere between 25 and 30 for a deluxe. You're talking about, you know, thousands of bills. You're talking about rent payments, you know, car, car payments down the drain. And, uh, you know, like I.
00:29:00
Speaker
I am a collector only in the most modest of terms. You go down that road and it gets to be an addiction and then you're being an artist.
00:29:15
Speaker
You can't throw that money away like that. It's a good end at any time. And believe it or not, people are buying sometimes two of each because they like to keep one on card and then they like to open one to pose it. So like there are some people that are double dipping for each figure, which is, I just, I can't wrap my head around it. It is wild.
00:29:37
Speaker
god bless those guys they are literally keeping you know like they would stop making star wars movies if the action figures cease to sell and literally i think those guys pay for like the last 30 minutes of a movie well you're talking right to them so thank you fellow collectors you know thank you thank you guys everyone go and thank those guys because
00:30:04
Speaker
They're paying for the, you know, the last 20 minutes of special effects in any movie. Yeah. So, all right. So we have your, your favorite. We have your, um, you know, the, the change over to digital.
00:30:20
Speaker
I know talking about future and like potential future figures is dangerous territory. So we're not going to go into the realm of like, what character do you wish you could draw from Star Wars? Because I know that that can be a very, very slippery slope. Um, so if there, I can, I can do pass pass ones that I've never gotten to do. Okay. Yeah, let's do that. Is there, is there a character that already exists that is not in any sort of danger territory that you would love to take a stab at?
00:30:50
Speaker
Honestly man, there was, when I saw Rogue One, I was so pumped to, you know, like, uh, Sagarara's like, whole squad is like, crazy aliens. Yeah, Adrio, two tubes, all those guys.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, you know like that big white Yeti dude with a Gatling gun and I was like these guys are gonna be awesome I can't wait till they get to my list and they never showed you know, like I was like fuck. Yeah, and I I at least expected for someone to hit me with You know like give me a San Diego Saw Gerrera, you know something like that like I I really thought like how do you not do saw and
00:31:32
Speaker
Yeah, one of the rare instances in Disney era Star Wars, where there are figures for Sagarera, Moroff, who is the big white Yeti guy, and Adrio Tutubes, who is one of the henchmen. Those actually exist in the three and three quarters scale, but not the black series, which is usually in, you know, in the Disney era, it's the other way around. You know, the black series gets those figures and the little ones don't. So yeah, they got the shaft.
00:32:02
Speaker
I was, I'm a little pissed, you know, like, yeah, so I think Sagarara, I'd love to, I'd love to get a crack at him.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's a few guys here and there, but I mean, most of the ones that are really cool, I've gotten to take a crack at, you know, like most of the bounty hunters and stuff, those are some of my favorite guys to do. You know, guys like Bossk and, you know, Foilom and stuff like that, you know, anybody that's cool and weird looking, you know, like just the humans and stuff are fun, but, you know, you're just,
00:32:43
Speaker
you're just trying to match up to a photo for the most part. You're just trying to hit that likeness and that's the game. But when you're dealing with an alien or a robot assassin or something like that,
00:32:58
Speaker
you, you know, people are going to know who it is just because of the shapes, you know, like it's, you know, you're not mistaking forlam for Han Solo, you know, like it's, you know, so like when you get to do stuff like that, that's when you get to like, I'm going to make this guy, you know, I don't have to make people recognize him because they're gonna, you know, I just I just have to make this thing as cool as I can. And that's, that's when it's the most fun is when you get to stop worrying about the likeness and
00:33:26
Speaker
The only thing you have to worry about is making it awesome.
00:33:37
Speaker
you know, in today's day and age with the internet being the cruel creature that it is, you know, these a lot of times with, especially with the movies and like, you know, there are subreddits out there that are dedicated specifically to leaks and like data mining and trying to find like what's coming on the horizon before, you know, the powers that be are, are ready to, you know, let everyone see. And unfortunately, you know, that's how we met.
00:34:06
Speaker
I hate to say it like, oh, it looks, it hurts. Cause like we had just started our Instagram account and we, you know, we follow, you know, we're following the other accounts that are out there and you know, I've been a collector for a long time. So like, I know the guys who post stuff.
00:34:19
Speaker
And ma'am, my heart sank. It absolutely sank. So for context, there was a series of figures. I'm not going to name them, because some of them still have not been announced. And your wonderful art. I can mention one of them, actually, because it is officially announced, the Jedi Revan, with that flash of purple on the art that was among them.
00:34:49
Speaker
And I saw, you know, a fellow blogger had, had sent it out and I shared the post and it was like, Oh, this is, this is cool. And then went to bed, um, only to wake up in the morning to find that they had posted like, you know, the artists, you know, behind these had requests that would take them down. They're not ready to be seen yet. And Instagram buried your message in the like request, like put you in request jail.
00:35:16
Speaker
And granted, you know, I saw the, I saw the post from the original blog who posted it and you know, we went right into our account, took the post down everywhere that we had posted it and posted the same thing, you know, just saying like, Hey, you know, you may have seen something, you know, it's coming, you know, sorry, we had to take it down. And, you know,
00:35:36
Speaker
Thankfully, I'm very thankful that you had reached out because it's true. In this day and age, these leaks have an impact. They impact more than just the plans of Hasbro. They impact the people who are involved in the creation, and that's got to be extremely difficult. I can't imagine working under that kind of pressure.
00:35:58
Speaker
Yeah, it can be a little stressful and, you know, and I don't think, you know, as a fan, it's tough to
00:36:08
Speaker
be objective, I think, to that point.
Industry Insights and Personal Stories
00:36:12
Speaker
Everybody wants to know more. And as a person that runs a action figure driven blog or something like that, you want to be a person that can disseminate
00:36:29
Speaker
that information. You want to be a person that's in the know. And so I understand the attraction to that. And it's no small thing, because that in itself has good consequences for those people. You get more followers, you get more business, and that's how the game is played. But the other end of that is there's a person who
00:36:56
Speaker
whose livelihood could very well possibly be on the line and not even mind. People that are in charge of the social media of Star Wars and Hasbro and stuff like that, those people are going to get your feet held to the fire.
00:37:20
Speaker
And, you know, like sometimes it's not a big deal. And, you know, like, you know, but in I've I've been involved, you know, and fortunately, that one did not go any farther than that. Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully. But yeah, but, you know, I've I've had situations before that have I've actually done been not in the wrong at all, go completely wrong and go all the way up the legal chain.
00:37:52
Speaker
you know, to where it gets it gets to be a crazy thing. I don't know if you remember this or not, but like, maybe a year or two ago, I put up a process video on how to draw black series and it was hammerhead. Yeah, someone had someone had done a
00:38:14
Speaker
had a personal commission asked for me to do a Black Series hammerhead drawing and I was like, fucking I love hammerhead, let's do it. And I wanted to be able to show people how I do it. So I did the pencil on Procreate because it logs all your pencil strokes. And so I did the whole thing there and showed the process and then
00:38:39
Speaker
put it up on my Instagram. And a few guys took it as gospel and lit the internet on fire. That hammerhead was good. That hammerhead was the new thing. And, you know, like, I was like, there's no way this can come back on me. It is not a thing. And I was like, it is flagrantly not I'm not leaking anything.
00:39:09
Speaker
I said it in my post, it's a commission. There's no way it can come back on me. And literally it went on fire. And then some Hasbro guys got it. Some Lucasfilm lawyers called it and they called my boss who was on vacation on the beach. And literally called the studio.
00:39:36
Speaker
You know, while at dinner with his wife or something like that, furious. Take it down. And I'm like, you know, and it's, you know, no one was at fault there. But like,
00:39:49
Speaker
you know, somebody was like, Hey, here's a, here's a leak from Gregory Titus. And I'm like, it's not a leak. It's not a leak. And, you know, but even, even just saying it sometimes can, you know, like, that's the, that's the power of the internet. You know, it's the power of, you know, like mob rule, you know, like you, you know, like it's, you put that information out there and everybody swarms it and then it goes even further. And then all of a sudden you're like,
00:40:18
Speaker
you're making a problem out of nothing. And that sucks too, because I mean, that's also, and that was actually gonna be one of my questions, is do you ever do commission work based on the style of art that you do for the Black series? And like, you know, it's gotta be like, I'd imagine you'd get nervous now about something like that. They don't, to my knowledge, they don't care about the,
00:40:49
Speaker
Original art, you know, you're just doing like private seller to private buyer kind of thing. Yeah, I think it's when people push beyond that where you're like making prints and stuff like that and then selling those prints in mass, you know, then you're You know, there's a potential there for you to take money out of pocket, you know, like yeah when I when I do a personal commission that someone's gonna hang in their house for 500 bucks, you know, like
00:41:16
Speaker
Nobody gives a shit about $500. It's Disney. Yeah. You know, but somebody sells $25,000 worth of, you know, Grand Moff Tarkin prints. It's another story. You know, like, that's you got a, you know, there's a fine line. It is a fine line. I'm honestly, I
00:41:37
Speaker
have a friend who is a lawyer, and he was like, I'm not sure exactly how art law goes. He's like, there's something in there about the First Amendment. And I was like, all right, fine. He's a lawyer. He makes a lot of money. I'm assuming he knows what he's talking about. Maybe he doesn't. And there could be lawyers out in my yard. I don't know.
00:42:01
Speaker
Well, again, with this situation, thank you for teaching us a very valuable lesson. That's something that we care about. Part of being a podcast and a blog when it comes to this stuff is, I think it's important to maintain journalistic integrity. That's something that I studied when I was in school was journalism, and I try to apply that to what we do.
00:42:25
Speaker
And, you know, that was one of those moments where I let, you know, the fandom kind of rise above the journalistic integrity part of it. So again, thank you for, for that reminder to, to keep that in mind. And, you know, we absolutely have, cause there's been other stuff that has since then that has crossed my plate. And I've been like, nope, absolutely not. Not posting that. You know what? Like the, in most.
00:42:50
Speaker
My only thing is it's like, hey, if you have a question about posting it to hit me up, you can email me, you can Instagram me, whatever. You got something you want to talk about or send out to your followers. I will be happy to let you know if it's okay. And like, seriously, like if it's.
00:43:09
Speaker
You know, and sometimes I don't even know. Honestly, I do a little bit of correspondence with the guy that runs the Star Wars, the Black Series, Instagram. And he, of course, is very, very aware of when things release and mobile. And he has actually come to my aid quite a few times when I have posted something that wasn't quite released yet.
00:43:38
Speaker
It's difficult to know sometimes when things are out and when things are not because sometimes things get leaked and then they disseminate so fast that you just assume that it's common knowledge.
00:43:52
Speaker
You know, that is, can cause problems. There's actually a situation right now, like as of today, that's happening where there's stuff hitting shelves and Walmart in the middle of the country. I think, oh, I saw stuff on shelves in Ohio where it's out there. People are buying it and bringing it home and they have not been officially announced yet. Is that the probe droid? The probe droid and the 40th anniversary of the Empire Strikes Back series of figures.
00:44:19
Speaker
They bought the whole wave and the probe droid. Oh, Walmart. And it's like, thanks, Ohio. Toy fair isn't for another two weeks. Right? You're blowing it. Not really, though. In the end, it doesn't really matter. No one's really getting hurt.
00:44:43
Speaker
Are you really affecting the Disney bottom line? It's pretty doubtful. If anything, I think sometimes, at least with stuff like that, like, like leaked art is one thing, but like when a toy hits shelves before it's supposed to, two things are happening. One, you know, you're generating more hype because like one guy's got it and he's like, look at all these cool pictures I'm taking of this toy. And two, they're still buying the toy. So, I mean.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't know. I think that there's I think there's an art to things nowadays as far as that sort of thing goes. And, you know, I think all of us are pretty aware of sort of controlled leaks and stuff like that, you know, and, you know, to the point where, you know, the trailers for movies often have false information for them for them. And, you know, those are basically
00:45:35
Speaker
you know, controlled leaks to lead you in the wrong direction, you know, and, uh, you know, so those kinds of things, you know, they, they, uh, they can often make tons of money, you know, like it's, that's just how, how it goes. And you don't, you know, you're, you know, I, I think they did something like that for the force awakens where, uh,
00:46:00
Speaker
What is the character with the big disc on his head? Oh, uh, Zuvio. Zuvio. Constable Zuvio. And I remember, you know, I was pumped about Constable Zuvio. That was one of my first illustrations of like a crazier guy, and I was like, amazing.
00:46:20
Speaker
And then I forget what it was, maybe Entertainment Weekly or something. And they had pictures up and down of Constable's video. And I was like, this is amazing. He is going to be like a main character. And literally, they released Constable's video and people bought it like crazy. And I don't even know if he was in the movie. Not in the movie.
00:46:43
Speaker
I think there's one of those scenes where they're on Jakku. I think when the TIE fighters start bombing Rey and Finn, I think he's in the background. Yeah, he's like buying a milkshake at the store when everybody's running by.
00:47:00
Speaker
And, you know, and that's one of those things. And I don't know, and maybe it was an accident, but, you know, you basically advertise something, you know, and sort of, you know, put a certain amount of media behind it. And, you know, it gave it a, you know, a massive propellant in sales. And then, you know, everybody was like, fucking Constable Zuvio. Yeah. And then that was a meme.
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You know, and that sort of thing is, you know, it's more prevalent now because of the the power of that kind of stuff. You know, those things that get leaked, you know, like that is more powerful than a commercial on TV, you know, because of the the viral nature of things.
Personal Tidbits and Social Media
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I feel like so we have we have talked a lot about Star Wars. We have talked about a lot about the Black series.
00:47:59
Speaker
And especially your Instagram account has kind of been like the, the linchpin, you know, for all of this, you know, like the, like you said, putting out the, the extra, you know, the, the exercise art and everything. But I feel like I would be terribly remiss if I did not ask you about your 22 pound cat that was blocking you from, from black series prints. Because we, uh, very large, that is a very large cat and he, he, she, she.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's a boy. His name is Jackson. My wife calls him Sir Jackson Fluffington. He also has his own Instagram account. Oh, no shit. I got to follow that. Yes. At Jackson and Samantha, you can often see them running around my studio. Yeah, he's a lot. And when a couple of years ago, you know, when I first
00:48:55
Speaker
When my wife and I had first moved in together, she had a much older cat. And when we lost her, we ended up getting this new cat. And I have experience with house cats, but I didn't know really even what the fuck a Maine Coon cat was. And so she was like, look at what they look like. And they get big. And I was like, cool, let's get one. It's the cat.
00:49:21
Speaker
Yeah, he's uh, we got him as a kitten And uh, he is as a kitten he was eight or nine pounds, which is basically the size of a full-grown cat normally and uh, so it was just It's just a very strange thing because it looks like a kitten But it's the size of a cat
00:49:41
Speaker
Fucking huge and then, uh, you know, and then over the course, of course of a year or two and a half now, something like that. And, uh, so he's 22 pounds right now, maybe 23, but he's still got another two years to go of growth time. He's going to get another couple of pounds on him, I think.
00:50:06
Speaker
So they grow really fast, I guess for the first year or two, and then it kind of slows down, but keeps going for like five years. So, you know, you get instances of some of these cats. I think they average out around 25, but you know, you can get a 30 pound fucking Maine Coon. Well, there definitely adds some, some, some character to your, your Instagram feed. That's for sure.
00:50:27
Speaker
I mean, it's hard to tell you, man. He screams at night.
00:50:38
Speaker
He wants to get fed at four o'clock, maybe 10 after four every morning. And I tried to train him out of it and like outlast him. And I can't, I can't. He literally, he will just sit there and scream like he just doesn't give up. And then, so this cat, like I just do whatever it says. He wants to get fed and cause he just will, it's like an alarm clock that you can't shut off.
00:51:06
Speaker
at four in the morning and he like, you could chase him around and he'll just outrun you and keep screaming. And so I just get up 10 after four, quarter after four every morning, feed that little fucker and then.
00:51:19
Speaker
Go back to bed. Well, when you posted that video again, it was either today or yesterday of him laying on the, you kept moving the papers higher and higher. And when you posted the video of him like swatting at you while you were trying to get the papers, I was walking around my office today going, look at the size of this fucking cat. And my one friend was like, oh, he's not getting those papers back.
00:51:43
Speaker
Like you, you legit, like if you want something, you have to, you have to wait until he's sick of it or goes to bed. And, uh, you know, like I, he likes to be on my drawing desk because it's right in front of a window and we moved out.
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, like he we moved out to like this kind of sub rural section of Massachusetts a couple of months ago. And so there's tons of like wildlife outside, you know, there's just birds and just giant hawks everywhere and, you know, squirrels and chipmunks and raccoons and they just fucking run around. And he goes,
00:52:21
Speaker
crazy crazy like he makes the weirdest alien noises like these chatters he'll you know he he will literally bang his face against the window if you ever get a good look at him on instagram you can see one of his front canines is broken because he has smashed himself into the window so many times uh yeah he's a lot man
00:52:43
Speaker
Yeah, what a character you should I think I actually suggested it in one of the comments one time when you were asking like What do you what do you want to see me draw and I got to draw the cat at some point? We need a Jackson. We need Jack. Yeah, I do little sketches of them in my in my notebook all the time I'll post one good good good and and speaking of Posting where where can we find you on on Instagram?
00:53:10
Speaker
Uh, shit, it's just at Gregory Titus and, uh, my, you know, you can, you can go and hang out with my, my cats and dogs and they're at Jackson and Samantha. And, uh, you know, I have normal stuff like a website. It's literally just Gregory Titus.com stuff like that.
00:53:35
Speaker
I haven't done huge things like join Twitter yet. I'm a little scared of it. You know what? Without getting into the politics of things, I think you're better off. Instagram is the better platform for you, to be honest. I feel like there's just a lot of erupting fires on Twitter sometimes, and things get out of hand. And I think with Star Wars, I think it's like a landslide. I don't want to be in front of it. No.
00:54:05
Speaker
You don't want to be in front of it. You don't want to be adjacent to it. I have a slightly precarious situation where you're in a great spot with a job and a career and stuff like that.
00:54:22
Speaker
do the wrong thing and it's like getting hit by a truck. Shit, man. You posted an innocuous image of Wedge today, who is like a beloved Star Wars character and you somehow managed to catch shit for it. Just think of what would have happened on Twitter. It's not worth it. I was pretty fired up about Wedge getting overlooked, but people ran into that.
00:54:48
Speaker
Like it was a house on fire, and yeah, it went awry. Yeah. I still can't get over that. I was reading through the comments. I was like, is this real life? Is this actually happening? Yeah, man, there's just a few guys on there that, man, they just look for that opportunity to jump in. And they're just rabid tigers. They're just like, here's the information that I know. Scratch. Oh, Jesus.
00:55:19
Speaker
But man, you got to love those guys because they're passionate about stuff. Those are the folks that keep this thing running. You just got to be careful not to get out of their bad track. Well, Greg, listen, thank you so much for joining me tonight and for getting on here and talking about the amazing stuff that you do. Seriously, I know I mentioned it to you several times, but
00:55:44
Speaker
your artwork is part of what makes the Black Series line as iconic as it is. I mean, it's without question. The figures are great, and Hasbro does an incredible job with the sculpts, and they keep getting better and better. But for the people that like to collect on card, and even for the people that don't, because the boxes can be opened, and the figure can be taken out, and the box can be saved, the art is just incredible. So thank you so much for what you do for the line, and for us, the fans, really.
00:56:15
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.
00:56:32
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.
00:56:56
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.