delta chameleon

YB, For your route, it would be $5 for a single ride on the Blue Line from O'hare, and the transfer to the Red Line at Jackson is free. (Not all line transfers are free, many of them require a $0.25 transfer fee). And if you need to get on the Blue Line or Red Line from another other station except O'hare, it's only $2.25 for a single ride. There are also day passes. ! day is $10 and 3 days is $20. A pass allows you to ride the CTA for as much as you want for the number of days that you purchase.

I'll be going on Saturday! I should be there all day, but I will definitely be there for the panel.

I should be going

I agree, and to expand on the Clint reference, it looks as if he's smoking two cigars/old cigs! I love just about everything you show, will you be bringing samples of your customs to C2E2? I didn't think about that, but yeah, I definitely can bring along some of my work.

Hey guys, It's been a little bit of time since I have last posted some custom Battle Beasts. However, that doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work with them. Whenever I have had some free time, I have been working on a handful of figures. I just finished up two of them, and wanted to post them to see what you thought about them. The first one that I did is of Vorin's father. Ever since I read the ashcan comic 2 years ago after C2E2, I was fascinated by the mythology of Vorin's father when Vorin is talking about their training when he was younger. I had decided that I wanted to make a custom of Vorin's father, however at the time, I was just thinking about making a slightly older Vorin with slight modifications to the armor. Then, I read the full comic, with the reveal of Vorin's father on the last page, and I knew I had to make him. It took a little bit of time to get the all the right parts that would work, and he also needed quite a bit of sculpting to make him look less like Vorin or a kitbash, and more like Vorin's father. I sculpted the fur on the cape, the extra fur and hair, and armor faceplate for his head. (I do know that he is supposed to also have a unicorn horn in his dread weapon armor. I sculpted the unicorn horn on, but once his head was finished, I hated the horn. So I cut it off. At that point, I exercised a bit of artistic license. ) I don't remember ever seeing a name for him. A lot of times, it helps me paint a figure if I create a name for him. Makes the character a bit more personal. So I named him Asvid. I don't know what his official name is, maybe Zach knows. I also continued my theme of Western inspired Battle Beast customs. This time, I did a gun wielding western take on the Scorpion, which I have named Brocius. Anyways, here are the figures. Let me know what you think. Original image of Vorin's Father from the comic: Asvid: Brocius:

Hey guys, It's been a little bit of time since I have last posted some custom Battle Beasts. However, that doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work with them. Whenever I have had some free time, I have been working on a handful of figures. I just finished up two of them, and wanted to post them to see what you thought about them. The first one that I did is of Vorin's father. Ever since I read the ashcan comic 2 years ago after C2E2, I was fascinated by the mythology of Vorin's father when Vorin is talking about their training when he was younger. I had decided that I wanted to make a custom of Vorin's father, however at the time, I was just thinking about making a slightly older Vorin with slight modifications to the armor. Then, I read the full comic, with the reveal of Vorin's father on the last page, and I knew I had to make him. It took a little bit of time to get the all the right parts that would work, and he also needed quite a bit of sculpting to make him look less like Vorin or a kitbash, and more like Vorin's father. I sculpted the fur on the cape, the extra fur and hair, and armor faceplate for his head. (I do know that he is supposed to also have a unicorn horn in his dread weapon armor. I sculpted the unicorn horn on, but once his head was finished, I hated the horn. So I cut it off. At that point, I exercised a bit of artistic license. ) I don't remember ever seeing a name for him. A lot of times, it helps me paint a figure if I create a name for him. Makes the character a bit more personal. So I named him Asvid. I don't know what his official name is, maybe Zach knows. I also continued my theme of Western inspired Battle Beast customs. This time, I did a gun wielding western take on the Scorpion, which I have named Brocius. Anyways, here are the figures. Let me know what you think. Original image of Vorin's Father from the comic: Asvid: Brocius:

Yeah, I plan to meet up for longer than a few minutes. Last year I was a bit shy, and busy, and had to run out pretty quickly after the panel. This year, I am dedicating the entire day to the convention. And of course, it was great to meet you guys as well last year.

I don't know exactly what is happening yet once the con is done on Saturday, but I may be able to join you guys.

Is that going to be his official backstory? I like it. I planned on him taking command of my rattle snakes, and perhaps this was his motivation for fighting to gain that control over the other snakes.

What sort of stream are you looking for? I am guessing that DST won't allow video cameras, but what about audio? Can it be text only? Well, I thought the same thing, but after speaking with a DST rep, the idea of streaming video was not ruled out. I also wondered if the C2E2 organization would care, but figured I would let sleeping dogs lie. I suppose I could bring a laptop with a small camera or even hook up my GoPro, but this type of thing is really not my area of expertise. I build database architectures, not video presentations... Having Chat open during the panel and taking questions, was something else I put on the table with DST. Again, it was not ruled out, but the logistics were left up to us. I think rules would have to be put into place to keep things civil and maintain a common courtesy with those other panel attendees who do not care for our multitude of Minimate questions. Plus, they paid their money to attend and IMO that means their questions get priority over chat room questions. I type every day, but that does not mean I am a fast typist. Trying to type answers in real time could likely make me an unhappy camper and create a situation where my laptop soars over the heads on those sitting on the panel. I think audio might be a lot easier, but again, I don't have the equipment to capture audio in any kind of great quality. Basically, I am open to suggestions and/or offers of help, but there are limits to what I can do and what I am willing to do. you are clueless Media presentations, both audio and video, is one of my primary jobs as the lead media tech at Columbia College Film school. I could get whatever equipment we would need in regards to camera and sound equipment. And I could run a live video or audio stream off of my computer to a live Youtube channel or some other similar host, which could be linked here on the board. From the tech side, I have no problems bringing what we need and helping out. For something like this, I could honestly back everything into a small book bag that I would keep with me that day. (The day of the panel is the day I go to C2E2). The one thing I need is to know what our permissions are from DST and C2E2. I wouldn't want to be setting anything up if DST or C2E2 weren't okay with it.

What sort of stream are you looking for? I am guessing that DST won't allow video cameras, but what about audio? Can it be text only?

It's all about accuracy. Out of every cobra human warrior hybrid I have ever seen here in Chicago, none have had a rattle tail. I'm just kidding. I could see how it might bother others, but I think it's fine. Heck, anytime you are making a snake into a humanoid warrior, there are going to be compromises. The original Battle Beast snake is actually quite odd. He has legs, with feet and toes, but he doesn't actually have "arms." Instead, his arms are just two more snake heads. So are there brains in each snake head arm? Do the arms compete with the main head for dominance over the body? Why does he have feet but not hands? How does he actually handle weapons? Now that guy was weirder than this Cobra warrior with a rattle on his tail, and I still loved him. I have over a 150 of the original snake. Cappy, I didn't notice at first that the rattle is painted to match his armor. Now that I see it, I certainly get a brass knuckles feel to it. That's the way I am going to think of the Cobra now, he gave himself a club tail. Awesome.

Sculpting a piece isn't too terribly cost prohibitive. However, making a mold is pretty expensive. And you can't really make a changes to a mold, instead you would make a new mold. Even though you may just want to make one small modification, such as removing the rattle on the snake's tail, while that may not be much in the way of sculpting, that is going to be an entirely new mold, which would cost DST a lot of money. From the looks of it, they are trying to extend the use of a lot of different tooling from series 1 to help recoup costs form the mold making process, which toy companies do all the time, by reusing parts in different arrangements, along with a small number of new parts, to create a new character. If they had to make a completely new mold of a rattle-less snake tail, then my guess is we would have just seen a different animal all together rather than a new mold of a piece that incredibly similar to another mold they already have paid for. I did notice the rattle on the tail, and that may bug some people, but I'm fine with it. I already know I am getting two full sets of these guys, so I may just have to remove the rattle and sculpt a new snake tail tip on the second Cobra.

I agree. I was a little worried, but honestly, after seeing him, I think he works just fine. You can't tell from the photo whether or not his arms are poseable, but regardless, I actually think the figure looks pretty nice.

Toyark put up some great photos of series 2 Battle Beasts, with their weapons. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Giraffe's accessories. I love the spear and shield. Between that and the neck armor on him, I am getting a very African/Zulu feel to him, which is really working for his character design. The more I see of the wave, the more the Giraffe has unexpectedly become my absolute favorite. He may be becoming one of my favorite BB minimate right behind the original Gator. http://news.toyark.com/2014/02/17/toy-fair-2014-diamond-select-toys-minimates-117816

I think the parts reused here were clevely done. No complaints here. I am really hoping these sell well enough to get us more waves of battle beasts. I like what i am seeing here, and now i want to see more takes on different animals. I'd love to see a lizard/chameleon battle beast down the line. As soon as we can put some preorders in, i know ill be getting atleast 2 sets.

Wow! I am so excited! This is the news I was waiting for. I was holding out hope that we would see these guys released. Here's what I see thus far: Very, very pleasantly surprised to see the Giraffe in series 2. We saw control art for him back at C2E2 last year, and while giraffes are not my favorite animal, he was one of my favorite beasts shown. He had such a great feel and charm to him that I really liked. I am loving that Cobra. Really nice, clean design that builds quite nicely off of the rattlesnake we got in series 1. The sculpting on the face has a great, evil cobra look to it. And that chest plate armor has a fantastic, serpent/organic styling to it. The cow, oh man the cow. I think he looks great. Much better than I was expecting out of a Cow action figure. The color scheme and paint job on him are really nicely done. He doesn't have a weapon pictured in this article, but I really hope that he still has the pitchfork weapon that we saw in the control art. There's just that bit of charm and whimsy that was always present in the original battle beasts, and I like how the cow and the giraffe have started to capture a bit of that charm. My only little complaint, as someone already mentioned, I wish the strap/buckle on the chest piece was a sculpted piece instead of an entirely printed piece. I could be wrong, but I thought I remember from the control art that it was originally going to be just a standard minimate body with a tampo, not even a bulked up chest piece. But maybe I am wrong. But the bulked up chest piece is better than just the standard torso. Also, I will be getting two of these. One to sculpt on a bell around his neck. He won't seem complete without it. The bear is really nicely done. I like the resemblance you were able to get to his comic book appearance. The figure has some nice girth to him that matches a larger animal. The hammerhead shark is great. He's thicker than I was imagining, but now getting clearer pictures of him, I think it works well. The face has tons of personality sculpted in. The Anubis figure is looking really nice, although for my tastes, I will have to have a second copy of him to armor up fully to fit my personal tastes. The bat is a nice figure. The bat is a nice re-release of a great figure from series 1. And I really like the new black and grey color scheme on him. The robin is the only figure in this series that I am not completely sold on. I get the references to Robin from Batman, however I am not sure if it translates well to a battle beast minimate. I am certainly excited to see splashes of color on the figure, but the green claws and feet feel a bit odd, and the chest armor feels a bit too smooth and basic compared to all the incredible detail found in the other battle beast armors. Personally, I would rather have seen the Cheetah stay, and the robin get cut. For me, that would have made this series 2 near perfection. That brings up the two figures that are now missing that we saw at SDCC last year. I am really sad to see that the Cheetah was removed from this series. Granted the only pictures I saw of the figure were control art and blurring pics form SDCC, but from what I could see of him, he had a really design to him. The other figure we lost was the human. I forget what his name was, but he was Bliss's boss that wields the dread weapons. Honestly, I am really glad they removed him. I could understand why Bliss and Tate were made for the LCS series 1, but moving forward, I really think that the line needs to be animal warriors through and through. Any humans would detract from the appeal of the line in my opinion. I think DST has done a really nice job utilizing previous pieces from series 1 and combining it with new sculpted pieces to come up with a great variety of characters here. I can spot of lot of pieces from gruntos, vorin, merk, the snake, etc... But at the same time, they all tie in very nicely with the new pieces, that you really have to look for them to notice them. I liked series 1 quite a bit, but I am liking this series much more. As someone said, they may have over-reached a touch with series 1, but this series is starting to strike a nice balance between the simplicity of a minimate form, and the nice sculpting of the animal warrior pieces. I think that this series is much more cohesive and successful in creating a line of animal warrior minimates. If there is one critique that I would have for the series, it's that I feel like the color schemes of the Battle Beast armors are relying too much of metallics/golds and neutral colors. I think a line like this, with so much sculpted detail, needs to pop when displayed in package to catch potential customers. Bring in more colors. Blues, reds, yellows, greens, purples, all have great potential for armor colors. Right away, visually, the cow is the most successful figure in this series, and a major part of that is the nice, baby blue armor his has. When you look at that blue armor contrasting against the golds/browns/greys, he just really stands out and leaps forward at you. That's probably the reason why he was positioned front and center for the promo shot. I would love to see more color schemes with great color contrast to really help these figures stand out. Zach, you guys over at DST have me very excited. I was holding out hope that we would eventually get to see these series 2 figures. Now, I have to wait for the summer time to purchase these. Where ever I can preorder these, as soon as I can, I will. I hope these are at C2E2 so that I can see them in person in a couple of months. Eric

I am sure this has been talked about somewhere else on the board, but on the most recent DST Q&A, there was a question about Battle Beasts. Chuck said that wave 2 of Battle Beasts will be coming out this summer! So at least we have more of a solid time period, and confirmation that they will be releasing in some form. From the Q&A, it also didn't seem like TRU was definitely out. It seems like they still might be trying to work that out. I wonder if that is one of the things that has delayed wave 2 a bit, that they are trying to get it back into TRU. Anyways, great to see some sort of word about the future of Battle Beasts. I'm sure that Zach can't answer anything definitively, but I wonder if there is going to be anything about wave 2 Battle Beasts at C2E2. If they are releasing in summer, that would be the big convention that would make the most sense to drum up excitement and support for the line. Maybe they will have the wave on display. Either way, I'm happy to hear some positive news.

Here's an Iron Patriot minimate that I painted up. I tried to add a few more details to make him even more movie accurate, as well as add some weathering to his armor, and battle damage to match him with the Iron man minimate that I have painted.

Yeah, there are cosplayers at C2E2. Quite a bit from what i have seen.

Thank you! I think I've completed the variants but still making sure. From what I can tell, the Jetpack comics variant is the same as the #comicsmarket one Yes, that is correct. The variants for 2-4 form a triptych that's pretty sweet. Shooting Series 2 now for the 2014 catalog... You're teasing me! I want to see more pics. I couldn't see anything close up from the SDCC stuff.

That's great to hear! I am really looking forward to some new Battle Beasts. You guys had some really great sculpts for wave 2. And some nice concepts saved for wave 3. I would hate for those to go to unused.

We haven't heard anything, nor are we expecting any annoucements soon. But Zach did say that they still have something planned for the line. So hopefully we hear something. We already saw Wave 2 back at SDCC. I would love to hear about when and where we could purchase some wave two. I want that bear and shark.

I did for the 4 years I went to school in Chicago and when I first started working there. Now, I have an apartment that's about half way between Sandwich and Chicago. It's still an 1 1/2 - 2 hour commute each way, but much better than the 3 hour commute I used to deal with. I don't go to the TRU's in downtown Chicago really. I typically go to two different TRUs. One in Aurora and one in Schaumburg. Both are like 30 miles outside of the city. The Aurora one is closer for me, and the one I go to regularly. They are pretty decent with minimates stuff. Usually, if there is something I really want to get from a TRU wave, I can typically find it there. The Schaumburg one is a bit more hit or miss with what I find there, but I don't go there as regularly either. But there's a comic shop near the Schaumburg TRU that is GREAT at getting new minimates stuff in. The comic stores around my apartment are pretty bad at minimates stuff.

I am from a small farming town about 65 miles west of Chicago, but I work in downtown Chicago, not too far from where the convention is being held, so I consider myself a Chicagoan.