Ivan

In the comments of the OAFE panel rundown article Rustin Parr, the author, clarifies:

The Tampo-vs-Sculpting thing is a bit surprising but the point he was driving home was that each color is a separate Tampo and each Tampo is done by hand. So, and this is me talking, imagine the labor cost with one paint wash on sculpted Thing, versus having to line up the the Tampo rock paint on each body piece by hand for each figure.

(emphasis mine)

That really surprised me. I'd have thought the tampo process could be mechanized on most vanilla Minimate body parts, but I guess not. There was a video some time ago that showed that showed Lego Stormtrooper helmets being printed and it was all automated. (

I've always heard the tooling for a sculpted part is the most expensive part of the process. But if you can reuse a tool and tampo labor costs go up... maybe it tips the scales?

Good news for those who missed the first run of TRU Deloreans... err, uh, Mini-Time Machines. While out hunting for the Thor Wave (great success), I came across two full pegs of Deloreans. Eight in total, probably two solid cases worth. No MAX Jets or Terminator Tanks to be found.

The figure and vehicle look to be identical to the previous release apart from the manufacturer date stamps. Marty changed from 100611KK to 101210KK and the Delorean went from 100618KK to 101224KK.

Well, according to Chuck on Twitter, wave 9 has just left the warehouse. I'm hoping that he meant 10, but if he really meant 9 that'd explain a lot.

I wonder... My local TRU just restocked with full compliments of wave 9 actually. Picked up a second set of both the exclusives actually at first to make a Douglock seperate from Warlock...but decided against it just recently so I have second sets of Magik, Warlock, Shatterstar, and Cannonball loose here...

I also noticed interestingly enough, there were some changes from the first wave 9 sets I have and the ones I picked up. One version of Cannonball for example has black legs with white paint while the newer one I got has white legs with black paint on them. The new Warlock's details are much brighter yellow then the older one. Otherwise, I see no changes with Magik and Shatterstar.

*Ahem* Er..back on wave 10... I recall on ebay someone had the 2-pack with Holo--Nemesis for sale for the low, low price of $30.

Crappity crap crap crap!

This line from the OAFE summary made me sad:

Turned licenses down because they wanted Minimates in different scales

Of course I can understand it from a tooling or strategic line planning point-of-view. But I still rather see new Minimates in sizes other than 2". I'm also really curious as to what those licenses were.

I'm pretty sure it's the good plastic. I didn't notice any flotsam in Strickland's head and they didn't seem to glow like the Universal Monsters ladies.

My 'official' photoshoot will happen this weekend so I can't open the set until then. But I can give it a good look-see right now.

The black thing at the top is Marty's Walkman with attached headphones under the flap.

The soapbox and the skateboard are two separate pieces.

Skateboard wheels do not roll.

There is no extra Doc head under the radiation mask.

The two flame trails are underneath the bottom flap. They are a lot more translucent than the prototype pics.

Everybody but Doc has the new crotch piece.

No hole in Strickland's head.

Doc's tool belt is new.

Doc's gun looks to be a reuse of this one, but the detail is cleaner. (And it's only one color of course.)

That covers all the basic questions I could think of. I'll try to answer any thing else I can.

This tournament idea is great. I'm calling dibs on a steampunk ninja character.

* In Ivan's Database I have only ever seen packaging pictures which show a crease or blemish on one or two of the thousands of pictures ......Minimate vehicles . Nobody here is more in awe of the MMDB than I & my comment is purely for emphasis & not a criticism of Ivan .

Heh, not only that, but those are the hardest smeggin' packages to get clean pictures of.

Weirder and weirder.

Sorry 'bout the necro...

But are people still seeing this, or is it just me? I'm on the latest Firefox, 3.6.13.

I started poking around with the embedded css and found this nugget that I think might be the problem.

.codetop,

.sqltop,

.htmltop

{

background: #FDDBCC url(d #000;

color: #000;

font-weight: bold;

margin: 0 auto 0 auto;

padding: 3px;

border-bottom: 0;

(style_images/Jet/css_img_code.gif) no-repeat right: ;

(style_images/mmmv2007/css_img_code.gif) no-repeat right: ;

}

If I pull out the 'background:' line, everything looks nice and clean again. (Those last two lines look a little odd to me too, but I'm no CSS guru.) And of course I don't know if this causes other layout problems in other browsers or anything. But I thought I'd share in hopes of helping.

You sure these are the army builders?

Good point, maybe they're not. I might have jumped to that conclusion based on the style of the image. Five is a weird number for non-counter dumps though. Maybe we're seeing a return to five-figure box sets? Shame it's not a trend likely to carry over to Marvel.

Hey look Army Builders! Looks like they're following the Marvel model pretty closely.

I don't understand why they can't show these, they've shown so many already. I wonder what makes these so special. Plot points, perhaps? Can anyone with a deeper knowledge of the Green Lantern universe figure out who they are supposed to be?

Another Minimate animated short. Well, it has a Minimate in it, but it doesn't do much.

There were two types of boots in the Western sets. Here's a image from the Good/Bad/Ugly set without spurs. Is this what Knight's looked like?

Was KITT painted or was it like the test shots on the AA gallery? Glossy, matte? I'd love any info you could provide.

Also, thanks for the excellent photos, ASMDaniel. They're always sharp with no ugly flash burn. They are appreciated.

Sad to see the lack of enthusiasm for Knight Rider. I'll just chalk that up to to the lack of Hasselhoff. You'll all come around when the Michael Knight Minimate shows up. No one will be able to resist. I'm looking forward to display KITT with my classic Cylons.

If you jump into page 2, it looks like they are doing a 1:18 scale KITT and Munster Coach as well. At least prototyping it...

I dont know if this has been posted yet but, packaged pic are up...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?f...43.166601910677

Interesting the package say Thor The Mighty Avenger

Cap is The First Avenger

I'm guessing Iron Man 3 with be The Golden Avenger?

Yep, about six posts up. Whole wave and everythin'.

That was great MINI_MYTE, thanks.

Weird seeing the King of Kong talk show up here. I just pulled that out of my 'Too Watch' pile on Wednesday. (Saw it when originally released to theaters too.) My opinion of Billy Mitchell didn't really change over the course of the film. He seemed like a smarmy git from the beginning. What did change my mind were the additional footage and extended interviews on the DVD. He's still a smarmy git, but just not as much as I originally thought.

There's more than an hour and a half of extra material and it's worth watching. Well, listening to anyway, it's almost all talking heads. However, there's a feature where they show portions of both players' million point games synchronized side-by-side. I've never been a fan of watching other people play video games, but I was disappointed when this feature ended.

Haven't listened to either of the two commentary tracks yet. They'll be good background material while I'm editing photos.

Donkey Kong kill screen coming up if you're interested...

It's ridiculous that some decision maker at DC hasn't seen wave 40 of Marvel mates being solicited, seen them on wave 10 at TRU, looked at BTTF, Ghostbusters, and Halo selling like gangbusters, and said "okay, can somebody just frakking call DST back."

I must say I love this visual. Maybe with the DC reorganization it can happen without any execs admitting they had made a mistake. Easier to blame those no longer with the company.

Yeah, they've got some up for preorder at BBTS. (Surprise, surprise.) Two packs and a Batmobile. They're also two inches tall, so I doubt we'll see Minimates while these are in active release. Although I'd love to be proven wrong.

You guys aren't thinking BIG enough. Star Wars? Pshaw.

Obviously all Chuck's hints point at Silver Spoons Minimates. This world needs a Ricky Schroeder Minimate now more than ever. Of course there will be an Alfonso Ribeiro Minimate. Which will lead to Fresh Prince of Bel Air Minimates. Which of course means Will Smith. Once we have Will Smith we have to have his kids. So there will be Minimates for the upcoming Annie musical remake and the smash blockbuster Karate Kid remake. Can't have a modern Karate Kid without the classic Karate Kid. Not only will we get the long awaited Ralph Macchio but the inimitable Pat F'in Morita! Then I will know all is right with the world.

The heavens will open and we will all be witnesses to the Second Renaissance, where truth, justice and Way Of The Minimate will be a path to enlightenment. No more shall men wallow in the morass of license restrictions. Ecto-1s shall flow like Jell-O from a firehose. No more shall we be confined by artificial height limitations. No more shall we envy the licenses of others. All Minimates shall be as one!

And in the midst of all of this, one website shall lead the Minimate revolution. One website shall guide those who do not know any better. One website shall grow beyond the need for shared hosting. One website shall eclipse all others. It shall grow so large as to overthrow the Grand Inquisitor Zuckerberg. Casting him into a pit of hellfire so feverish its likes have not seen before. For all eternity he shall be mildly uncomfortable. Unable to take a short walk without sweating. His flesh won't be burned off or anything like that. It will just be unseasonably warm in the pit. And it will be a big pit, don't worry about that. He'll have room to walk around, stretch his legs, maybe even go for a jog. Of course the scenery won't be very interesting, being in a pit and all. Maybe he could put up some posters. Yeah definitely, we'll have to make sure he has a selection of posters so he can choose what he wants to put up on the Pit Walls. Eighties hair bands, exotic cars, starships, Justin Beiber, whatever, we won't judge.

He can have a lamp too.

I've always been curious if there is a "Most Ignored Members" report available for Admins/Moderators.

...and 40 magazines about homes, beauty, weddings, and other chick stuff.

As I walk by the newsstand I still glance at the covers of these. Just to make sure that the women on the covers haven't started laughing at me again.

I don't see any Atlanteans?

Grand Admiral Groundhog has a great many scary and mysterious powers. Unfortunately time travel is not among their number. Though I have no doubt it will be added to the repository in short order.

*A thousand apologies exalted Grand Admiral. Please do not spite me for pointing out your only inadequacy.*

There are other ideas brought up in the 'DST/Art Asylum Q&A' thread (starting here). You know, where we usually discuss the Q&As.