Barry’s Blueprints of Hits and Heartbreak

[thereasonsy]

3 hours ago, Liney said:

That Betsy could have also been a good stand in for Moira

I would love to have seen that Jean hairpiece - its has a nice flow to it, and is longer than what she eventually had

Ionic Wonder Man would still be pretty cool!

That Jean hair will haunt me for the rest of my days. Now to learn how to sculpt. These are fun @barry thanks for sharing them. 
 

tbh I’m always surprised we didn’t get “action” Patch or Ninja Wolverine versions. 
 

That General Ross is pretty sweet too.

Edited February 2 by thereasonsy

[nandoninny]

wow!!  these are great to see.  like a director's cut.  thanks!!  and yeah, still a lot of minimates that i would have loved to see done and some of these were on my list.  i'm surprised the wonder man wasn't made.  i would have thought that would have been a perfect variant for one of the ones that did get made.  i don't know squat about the character so i am not even sure if i have one of the ones that did come out.

 

[Barry]

21 hours ago, NerdyTrev said:

I remember seeing some of these in a big mural. Maybe around the 10th anniversary of minimates in 2013 or 2014. There was an early Toad design, right?

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.

 

15 hours ago, thereasonsy said:

tbh I’m always surprised we didn’t get “action” Patch or Ninja Wolverine versions. 

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...)

 

8 minutes ago, nandoninny said:

i'm surprised the wonder man wasn't made.  i would have thought that would have been a perfect variant for one of the ones that did get made.

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.

[Nervous Rex]

On 1/30/2026 at 10:28 AM, Barry said:

 

 

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.

 

 

Ha! well, i thought they were great. Its one of the reasons i jumped over to minimates customs. Before that i was doing lego minifigs.  I hear you about the quality part, the stuff i was doing back then was not very good compared newer work. Side note, i wish i had the amount of info and tools to use now when i started out. it was an entirely different game back then. It would be cool to see old designs but i agree maybe not the best move to add to your official site. 

[cylonchaney]

4 hours ago, Nervous Rex said:

Ha! well, i thought they were great. Its one of the reasons i jumped over to minimates customs. Before that i was doing lego minifigs.  I hear you about the quality part, the stuff i was doing back then was not very good compared newer work. Side note, i wish i had the amount of info and tools to use now when i started out. it was an entirely different game back then. It would be cool to see old designs but i agree maybe not the best move to add to your official site. 

No artist ever sees any of their work as finished.  If they're lucky, it's close enough that they can live with it being out in the world. But, if they'd had just one more hour to work on it ...

[Barry]

4 hours ago, Nervous Rex said:

It would be cool to see old designs but i agree maybe not the best move to add to your official site. 

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!

 

4 minutes ago, cylonchaney said:

No artist ever sees any of their work as finished.  If they're lucky, it's close enough that they can live with it being out in the world. But, if they'd had just one more hour to work on it ...

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.

[NerdyTrev]

21 minutes ago, Barry said:

I did a Batman TAS art series of 50 characters in maybe 2009 or so and those linger around. 

👀

[Barry]

4 hours ago, NerdyTrev said:

👀

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.

 

[NerdyTrev]

Oh! I've definitely seen these!! It's really exciting to find out you're the brains behind them. 

I dreamt for a long time of BTAS getting minimate'd. I planned out several series' and everything. Do you think we could ever see some off-hand, speculative designs from the man behind the 'mates? 

[Barry]

19 hours ago, NerdyTrev said:

Do you think we could ever see some off-hand, speculative designs from the man behind the 'mates? 

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.

[nandoninny]

sorry to hear things are still rough.  i thought to ask how it was going on the luke's stream but figured it was none of my business.  i wish i knew how to help.  my guess is most of your work is digital but if you can take on some commission work there's a market for that.  

John Cleary (former mcfarlane artist) also has a patreon where he offers up files for 3d printing.  i doubt it brings home a living on its own but its a way to make a few bucks i'm sure.

anyways, i hope you find something soon.

 

[Shanester]

This poster?  I assume it was a one-off because I hunted for it for years.

[Barry]

1 hour ago, nandoninny said:

sorry to hear things are still rough.  i thought to ask how it was going on the luke's stream but figured it was none of my business.  i wish i knew how to help.  my guess is most of your work is digital but if you can take on some commission work there's a market for that.  

John Cleary (former mcfarlane artist) also has a patreon where he offers up files for 3d printing.  i doubt it brings home a living on its own but its a way to make a few bucks i'm sure.

anyways, i hope you find something soon.

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!)

 

13 minutes ago, Shanester said:

This poster?  I assume it was a one-off because I hunted for it for years.

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.

[Barry]

2 hours ago, Shanester said:

This poster?  I assume it was a one-off because I hunted for it for years.

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.  

 

[Shanester]

Very cool. I always thought it was a poster and I even asked some Art Asylum guys about it and no one seemed to recall.  I was gifted some booth display materials a few times and agree with your assessment.  When I saw the poster online, I saved a copy of the image in 2007 but I bet its from even earlier. I typically scooped up anything I could get my hands on.

[Barry]

15 hours ago, Shanester said:

I saved a copy of the image in 2007 but I bet its from even earlier.

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.

 

[Trekker 42]

My God...

*The* Poster. It's beautiful.

[Shanester]

I may actually have one printed up. I always liked it for its history.

[nandoninny]

let me just say that put a BIG smile on my face.  brought back memories.  i was still working in a toystore when this got announced and the first few waves started coming out.  good times.

thank you!

[NerdyTrev]

5 hours ago, Barry said:

 

That's the one! Thanks for digging up such a quality image of it. I definitely remember it being a big deal when that Brotherhood box set with Toad was announced.

[Trekker 42]

I never noticed before this that the poster has Spider-Man twice. Was this in reference to the fact that you guys were gonna make a fucktillion of him?

[Padrino]

3 hours ago, Trekker 42 said:

I never noticed before this that the poster has Spider-Man twice. Was this in reference to the fact that you guys were gonna make a fucktillion of him?

forshadowded is forwarned

[cylonchaney]

4 hours ago, Trekker 42 said:

I never noticed before this that the poster has Spider-Man twice. Was this in reference to the fact that you guys were gonna make a fucktillion of him?

would a fucktillion Minimates weigh more or less than a metric fuckton? LOL Why am I suddenly thinking of bhm's hoard?

[Barry]

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.)

[thereasonsy]

@Barry have you ever considered putting stuff up for print on demand? There’s several of your digital files that I think would be beautiful as merch. Heck I’d wear a teeshirt to cons etc. Also commissions could be fun. I’d love to see your take on Crystal.