Barry

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these options but I always run into problems. I want to be clear that none of what I've written below is meant to belittle any of the ideas, this is just my thought process in the last few months (actually, a year now...) and why I'm stuck. If anyone has suggestions or insights, I would genuinely love to hear them. Print on demand - The artwork I’ve already created was commissioned by another party. While I retain the right to use it for portfolio and archival purposes, selling it in another format becomes complicated. I could create new artwork, I already have a few ideas for prints or products, but I’ve struggled to find reputable print services that allow / overlook licenced content. It seems that most artists who sell unlicenced art of licenced characters have their own private printing sources and sell directly through their own websites without listing the printer. Any time I have found an Instagram artist selling prints this is the case. On demand is really the only option for me, I don’t have the time to pack and ship myself, and it honestly stresses me out, so I’m unsure how to move forward. (I'm thinking of eBaying a number of statues right now as well, and the thought gives me anxiety). Commissions - The problem here is in the way my art is done. A regular artist can draw Crystal again for another client, changing the pose, but in my case the result would be nearly identical. I can’t sell the same piece twice. I do realize that in the past I’ve created countless Spider-Man figures in the same red and blue outfit and sold them again and again as new products. So maybe there’s a way to think about it that way. Still, there are core design elements that wouldn’t change, like hair or costume structure. Once I've solved how a costume is done, it rarely changes. At that point, the face and torso elements would change only. That's OK for a retail product, but it feels like a cheat for private commissions. I could redraw Crystal from the ground up each time, keeping the same design but changing the line art so it doesn’t perfectly match the previous one. Or, maybe keep a list where certain characters become unavailable once they’ve been commissioned. That could create a sense of limited availability which might increase requests up front, but it could also turn people away. If someone wants an Inhumans set and Crystal is already taken, they may not want any of them at all then. Patreon - I’m not sure what the ongoing content would realistically be. One idea is to have a tier for my own concepts, another for audience polls where the winner becomes the next set of designs, and another that functions like a commission tier where the supporter receives the file. But again, this circles back to the same commission issues above. I’m also unsure whether I could generate enough consistent interest to justify monthly content. So that’s where I’m at. I feel like something needs to happen in one of these areas, but I’m currently at an impasse. If anyone has thoughts, advice, or ideas, I’m very open to hearing them. I really just want to draw, (and y'know, earn some money, too!)

Yeah, I always wondered why there were two Spideys. Not sure if that was an oversight or what. It was 4 years before my time though.* They had Phoenix and Dark Phoenix drawn, and didn't draw a Human Torch despite having the other 3 of the Four represented. *(which is weird to think about, because I consider that line having gone on for so long, I forget that it was only four years prior to my involvement that it began.)

Found it in my files! It took some searching. It was developed in Sept 2002, so I'm thinking this was for NYCC 2002. The Toy Fair 2003 elements I found look more like the final products. Click on the image and open it, it's huge compared to how it shows here.

Here are the scans I made at the time I received the original art. It doesn't have everyone on the poster, and has a couple that weren't on it. The Gambit and Wolverine pics are from a file I found that appeared to be a close up digital photo of the actual poster, but it wasn't the whole poster, so Sue Storm is unfortunately missing in action.

Thanks, I hope so to! I do work digitally, so I know that takes some of the interest out of commissioning work. Although, people do do it, but it seems a bit difficult on the rules of it, what exactly the buyer gets to own, and how they use it. You'd think after NFTs, the idea of owning digital art would be easier, but people still want something they can hold in their hands when they're paying that much for it. I've been exploring ideas though. I've thought about Patreon too, but I don't know what that would truly entail, and then there's commitment to producing content too. Right now, I have the time, but if I do get work, suddenly it might have to stop. (As a side note, John actually did a lot of work for Gentle Giant too!) Yes, that's the one! I couldn't find it online. Those are the proto designs, which I have a number of the original art of. (At least it's the original colour versions, I don't actually recall if it's photocopied lines or actual pencils, I'd have to check). It's very likely this was a one-off if it was at a Toy Fair. Those posters were often just printed at Staples or the like, so they only printed what they needed. I have a few later ones from trade shows and they're sometimes just paper mounted on foam core board, and often they were garbaged or given to people at the booth during tear-down. I have one Iron Man 2 one though, because of the size they printed it on some kind of vinyl. It's about 6 feet tall, but the vinyl stinks.

So, I should start by saying BTAS is like the be-all-end-all for me. I have drawn my whole life, but that show made me want to do it professionally. I spent so much time with that show, I don't even know how to explain my fandom for it. I guess one key point to explain it would be that if you've ever been to "The World's Finest Online" website, I was one of the two founders of it. My BTAS fan site from the early days of the graphical Internet merged with a Superman TAS forum to make World's Finest. But... I'm struggling at the moment with creating new art and putting it out there online. I've tried a number of pieces on my Instagram and website to get me noticed and find new work, like post-work portfolio items, but none of it has found traction or great interest. I went viral with a Black Canary action figure design briefly, but 'few stayed to bowl' (to cite a Simpsons quote). I created a number of MM designs late last year as well, with teasers put out there, but the reaction was less than I'd hoped for. If people are interested, (which is extremely kind of you), I'd be interested too, but I have to consider how to handle my new work going forward. I really do appreciate that interest though. It's been a tough year.

It was just a personal project, not for product. It's common place now for people to draw series for characters from a specific property, but I feel with the traction my BTAS project got at the time I might've started that trend! Some had over 60K in likes on certain sites. (I really should have kept that following...) Looking at them now, most are not as bad as I remember them to be, but I'm still not 100% happy with some of them. Oddly, some here look more on model than my bust designs. I deleted them from my site a long time ago, and as many social media art platforms as I could remember the passwords for to try and stop all of the theft. For the longest time, the individual character images first pics that would pop up if you Googled that specific character, which probably caused a lot of the nonsense. Here's the whole lot of them in one 'wallpaper' piece, which I ended up putting ugly watermarks on. Didn't stop people from removing them though, even before you could just do it with AI.

Yeah, I might put them on Instagram or here, but maybe with some kind of disclaimer. You can still find some floating around on the web, along with other old non-work at I did. That's the problem, the Internet doesn't forget anything! I did a Batman TAS art series of 50 characters in maybe 2009 or so and those linger around. I see them everywhere still, and a good majority of them are off model and I cringe when I see them. Teletoon, the Cartoon Network of Canada, even used the Joker I drew for that series in a TV ad once. I even see people use them as the basis for official art, there's more than one Bottleneck gallery artist who's traced those drawings, which is different levels of cringe, but I digress. Even some of the official MM designs I did I look back at now and cringe a bit. Really though, they're not bad, not bad for the time for sure, but I just grew and now I draw differently than I did 20 years ago. There's a lot I would draw differently if I drew them now. Not that I would make different design decisions, they would just be my updated style. I'm sure in another 5 to 10 years I won't like how I draw currently either! This was always the pain with creating art for a job. At least with personal art you can tweak and poke at it over a long period of time, but when it becomes a product there's a point where it needs to be locked down and 'complete', whether you like it or not. It wasn't even the case of deadlines, because they were actually pretty non existent. (Toy Fair prep really being the only exception). It was more the idea that when they got submitted, they were going to approvals, then that was it, it was out of your hands. There were many times that I would look at something post-approval and think that it needed fixing, or another idea would pop up, but it was too late. Sometimes, you could contact the licensor approval person and just ask and they'd be OK with the update, but getting that to happen was sometimes pulling teeth. At least between approvals and creating the tampo files I could make minor tweaks and adjustments that didn't need to be resubmitted. But that was only micro-millimeter changes that weren't noticed. Nothing that I would try to sneak in, just a better drawn eye here, a dropped line that was making something look muddy there.

The designs on the mural / poster were actually the original concepts for the line, front views only, and before the base body was set in stone. The Toad design was one of those. I actually have those original drawings. Some designs ended up pretty close to what was released, but others were far off. Others still didn't make it out for years and were completely designed from the ground up without comparing them to the originals. I imagine those would have been used as a proof of concept to show Marvel and buyers. I remember an infamous blurry photo of the poster that someone happened to snap, off center and partially blocked, (it wasn't the main subject of the photo, if I recall) that the AA forums were using as a checklist at the time, as if once the poster was complete then their collections would be. Finally, it ended up just coming down to Angel and Toad and some people got pretty upset that we weren't 'finishing the line'. Everyone thought we were using that as an in-house design document, which was far from the truth. We honestly just never looked at it. I'm kind of surprised too, although it might be because he was so simple. He's pretty much a quick custom, but that didn't stop us with other characters. He was once on the table for Wave 72, but I don't recall why we swapped him out. He easily could have been an alternate look for a tuxedo Patch update. (Please tell me I'm not thinking of that idea for the first time now...) It is strange. I'm pretty sure that was the original variant for Wave 16. I think he would have been a better variant than bearded Thor, but I started on Wave 17, so I don't have any knowledge as to what happened there. Starting as a freelancer, I didn't get much behind the scenes info until I started a more 'full-time freelancer' position the following year.

Just a reminder, I didn't work on these, they were before my time. I found them in the old files I have. These would have been released somewhere in the Waves 1 through 10 range. Pink shirt, white lab coat is Betty Banner. Black ninja woman is Yukio. I think the rest are pretty self-explanatory.

Most likely, but there was no artwork for it. Yeah, I probably would have added the nose. Yes, there was a Jim Lee one from those waves. What's odd is I never saw these designs until much later on, after we'd done our versions of them. They were never used as a starting point for the later versions. Maybe that was by intent...? Probably not though. I appreciate your positive thinking.

Here's those two, but for everything else I would have to go through the files. They're kind of a mess, which is how I received them. I kept my OWN files a lot more organized! There's a lot of variations on faces and such, but that was the case with a lot of designs even later on. I don't think I could post every design variant, but would try to find the unique ones. Just taking a quick look, there's designs for characters never made, and also ones not made at the time but revisited later -- Betty Banner, Chameleon in housecoat, General Ross, Jim Lee Jean Grey, Logan in black / red outfit, Mr Fix-It, Sabretooth, Scorpion, Mohawk Storm, Ultimate Colossus, Ultimate Doc Ock, Wonder Man (Powered up), and Yukio. These would have all been in the Waves 1-10-ish era. Not sure how they would have done Beast's glasses, tampo, sculpting into hair, sculpted on their own. They're just floating there. The old sheets were a lot less information-detailed than we ended up at.

No apology needed, I don't find them short or sharp. I'm glad you're enjoying the thread! That's crazy! That was ages ago, those designs are definitely dated! It's a bit difficult to wrap my head around the fact that those are what got me noticed by Art Asylum. I guess it was seeing potential more than anything. I looked at the first faces I did after I was hired (Spider-Man 3 Peter and Flint Marko) and it's embarrassing that I submitted them. (FYI - they are NOT the faces on the final figures...) I thought about posting these old drawings in some kind of design graveyard part of my website, but pulled out of content in a Google image search, I don't know if I want people to think that's how I draw now. Maybe a before and after look would be needed. I suggested going back to them a few times, even in recent years, but that era just seems to be one that's not as remembered for the costume design as much as others. I think though, if we had gone back, I would have started from scratch on them, redoing the ones we got already, and maybe base them a bit more on Phil Jimenez's take on the characters since I love his art. Also, I sometimes suggested X-Treme X-Men, but that got less interest than New X-Men did. I think people remember how Rogue and Storm looked the most, and it kind of dropped off from there. I actually have designs for a Beast and Xorn from prior to my time at AA. I don't know what the release intent was, but from what I gather, early waves were basically picked from a huge brainstorm of pre-designed characters. It's very likely that they were designed then and just never found a home. (There's a number of designs that were never made from that era). This design was pretty traditional - hair cap, jacket chest cap, standard body otherwise. My initial thoughts for a modern take on Beast would be to do something with the chest in the way that I did Strong Guy, where the arm sockets are spread out a bit more. He's have bulky arms and the (strange) horse legs too. For the head, I would try a larger head cylinder, maybe even slightly shorter, with a separate hair cap and see if it worked. That's just my initial thought. Sometimes when designing them, I'd get a sense something's not working and change it on the fly. Approvals didn't happen in stages where I'd have to check in with someone with a rough sketch first. I kind of did that myself since I was the Manager and the Designer. If I didn't like it as I was going, I would just change it until I got the final design that I did like. The vast majority of the time that's the first time anyone else would see it, when it was completed. I say all this only to say about Beast that I *think* that's how I'd do it, but by the end it might be a different beast altogether. (Pun intended)

Right, gotcha! So, in addition to what I wrote above, there's two types of non-holed head. One with a completely flat top surface, and one with a very small dimple with a very tiny point sticking up. From what I gather, these are two separate versions of the flat top, no-hole head. From what I gather, the dimple/point version might be the attach point to the sprue and where it was cut off. I believe the all-flat version had a dot a sprue connection under the 'chin'. The variation could be from when the base body was refined and digitally sculpted to remove the initial release's lack of true symmetry, or possibly a later version when the body was simply retooled. Either way, both heads do show up. The TMNT one would have been a new head, because it was the head top, the bandana, and the head bottom. I tried to find a picture of that separated but I don't seem to have one. Because of this, the two halves of the head were new tooling, so the traditional hole was not used as the turtles are bald. As for the holes in general, they were added by the manager at the time when I was just starting out. He'd asked me about things I didn't like about Minimates prior to my involvement, and the first thing I listed was hair pieces that swiveled around or fell off any time you touched the figure. (Specifically referencing the Astonishing X-Men, and the DC C3 characters). He agreed that he didn't like that either. A figure shouldn't fall apart when you pick it up, even if some kind of customizability was part of the play pattern. Removable, yes, but not annoyingly so. The peg was then added to give the headcaps / hair pieces a little extra something to grab onto and hold in place. We had troubles with the full-head caps though because it created far too much grab than what was needed, so some headcaps along the way removed them as they were snug enough. Another option would have been to put a hole in the top of the cap so the air would release when the cap was put on the head, but that would create the hole problem I wrote about the other day. When digital sculpting came in though, we were able to add them back because the fitting was able to be micro-managed properly. It was also discussed at the beginning of head pegs whether or not bald or hairless characters should have the whole. At first we left it because of customizability but we thought it was a bit ugly. It sometimes crept in from the factory when we didn't ask for it though, but over time they understood which one to use without requesting it. Somewhat related, I just remembered in talking about all this, that at that time too wee discussed if all bald characters should have semi-rounded heads with sculpted ears. The amount of roundness would have been the equivilent of the 'Civil War Spider-Man' head cap, (as it was known since that's where it first appeared). It almost happened starting with Star Trek Wave 4's Picard, but we sculpted it and didn't like the difference. In hindsight though, sculpted ears would have helped a lot. You'd be surprised at how much trouble a pair of tampo ears could cause.

Just to clarify, are you asking if the non-holed heads were just holed heads with a plug or filler, or if they were separate molds? If so, I believe they were separate, only because if you look on the underside of the head (the chin, for lack of a better term) you can sometimes make out what looks like a number. The flat heads have a 6 or 9, sometimes an 11, and the holed heads have... a mark? It might be a mangled 13. At any rate, I believe they were separate, and not just one head with the hole plugged. The plants in Plants vs Zombies was a challenge at first, but it clicked when I realized they could just be slightly stylized versions with the head cylinder incorporated somewhere. Every plant is based around that shape, whether it be larger or smaller. I felt that, along with tampo faces on some of them, it made them enough of a Minimate and less of a PVC that way. I tried to incorporate other body elements at first, like non-functioning arm joints in the 'arms', but I felt it was overdone. I had never played the game, but I really liked how the plants turned out. I think they're a lot of fun, and I remember the licensor being pleased that they weren't just PVCs as those could be done by anyone.