Trekker 42 Posted August 21 Posted August 21 42 minutes ago, Padrino said: wait, what? Lol, I legit had not idea it was double sided until right now. I never looked and don't remember it being mentioned before. (either that or i totally forgot) Only the original Dukat. Legacy Dukat was single sided. Quote
Trekker 42 Posted August 21 Posted August 21 Oh, @Barry speaking of Trek what was the intention for a second wave of Legacy? Were you going to do a First Officers wave with villains for each of them? Quote
buttheadsmate Posted August 21 Posted August 21 2 hours ago, nandoninny said: wow!! thank you for that very good detailed explanation, @Barry !! i'm an accountant so i understand this driving the logic and detailed answers to my nerdy questions like this make my day! thanks again! ..........& I'm a retired printer & Barry's post almost brought me to tears . Quote
Padrino Posted August 21 Posted August 21 2 hours ago, Trekker 42 said: Only the original Dukat. Legacy Dukat was single sided. I have them both. Wow, I'm a lazy Trek fan Quote
Trekker 42 Posted August 22 Posted August 22 5 hours ago, Padrino said: I have them both. Wow, I'm a lazy Trek fan Hey that’s convenient. The second Dukat is such a massive improvement that you can leave the other one as Damar Quote
Barry Posted August 23 Author Posted August 23 On 8/21/2025 at 4:13 PM, Trekker 42 said: Oh, @Barry speaking of Trek what was the intention for a second wave of Legacy? Were you going to do a First Officers wave with villains for each of them? I recall that was the main idea, but I don't think it was fleshed out into an actual line plan. Certainly no design work was done. For the 50th Anniversary there was the Bridge Crew set which was shown at Toy Fair, but if we didn't produce them then that means there was little buyer interest. It was new tampo with reused parts. I also had this listed in my notes for the 50th, but I think it was just a spitballed list trying to get the TNG crew released in one wave: Picard (Wesley) & Q Kirk & Spock (Amok Time) Geordi (Barclay) & Dr Crusher (Ogawa) Data (O'Brian / Yar) & Troi TRU - Worf & Riker TRU - BD Kirk vs Gorn The characters in brackets would have been alternate parts. There was also the pre-Legacy series Wave 6 designed by Uriel and myself, which was Borg Queen, TWOK Chekov, Data, TWOK Khan, TWOK Terrell, DS9 Worf, and First Contact Worf. Borg Queen and Khan were reworked into the Legacy wave. There was a Wave 7 planned, but I can't find who was in it other than the Jem'Hadar, which was moved to Legacy as well. Quote
Navaan Posted August 23 Posted August 23 My mom is a huge Trekkie. Would have loved to get these for her. Quote
Trekker 42 Posted August 23 Posted August 23 Oh that bridge set looks amazing. I absolutely would have replaced my set with them. I feel like Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and McCoy were well done in the face, but Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty (sulu especially) needed a rework from their first appearances. Quote
thereasonsy Posted August 24 Posted August 24 I love the designs of the Legacy characters but man would those TNG figures have been my JAM. Quote
Barry Posted August 24 Author Posted August 24 Pretty sure these were known about, but here's the unreleased TRU W3 Muppets, plus an attempt at a full Robin figure. He would have been gigantic though. Quote
cylonchaney Posted August 25 Posted August 25 Phantom of the Muppet Show is one of my favourite characters ever! Great likeness Barry. Quote
buttheadsmate Posted August 25 Posted August 25 I am keen not to criticise ,unnecessarily ,anything posted in your thread Barry & I must stress that your Minimate insights are a revelation . Whilst the Star Trek stuff is great to see I can never overcome my instinctive prejudice towards ST Minimates as "the line where all the male characters are identical from the waist down" so "why don't they just sell us the heads ?" Sorry but that's the way it is with me & my comment isn't aimed at you . I loved the Muppet line but ,once again, it had its frustrating & confusing design decisions , decisions that TBQH I found bizarre . Maybe this was licence /manufacturing issues? Kermit for example lacks a moulded mouth yet Gonzo / Ms.Piggy has a moulded nose & many other characters get painted noses in the Minimate multiverse where the majority of characters don't have noses . I'd love to know why ? Thank you in advance . Quote
Barry Posted August 27 Author Posted August 27 22 hours ago, Trekker 42 said: Oh wow. What a collection. At some point I need to drag out production pieces on some items. I have test shots of unreleased items, but also some fully painted by the factory. These Muppets are some of them. Problem is they're all in very large storage bins and it would take some time to do. On 8/25/2025 at 3:45 PM, buttheadsmate said: I am keen not to criticise ,unnecessarily ,anything posted in your thread Barry & I must stress that your Minimate insights are a revelation . Whilst the Star Trek stuff is great to see I can never overcome my instinctive prejudice towards ST Minimates as "the line where all the male characters are identical from the waist down" so "why don't they just sell us the heads ?" Sorry but that's the way it is with me & my comment isn't aimed at you . I loved the Muppet line but ,once again, it had its frustrating & confusing design decisions , decisions that TBQH I found bizarre . Maybe this was licence /manufacturing issues? Kermit for example lacks a moulded mouth yet Gonzo / Ms.Piggy has a moulded nose & many other characters get painted noses in the Minimate multiverse where the majority of characters don't have noses . I'd love to know why ? No worries about the criticisms. For years I’ve seen them online, and it’s been frustrating not being able to share my side of the story when there was one that helped explain things. I want to give some context so people can understand why certain decisions were made because it was never a dart-board decision. If after that the criticism still feels warranted that’s completely fine! I'm probably my own harshest critic, so I see the flaws. I completely agree with your thoughts on Trek. At the time though the goal was to pace things out for line longevity, not to give everything away at once. When designing a Wave 1, you don’t want to include three different display options for every character—otherwise, you’ll have nothing left to offer in Wave 2. You rarely go into a new line assuming it’s one-and-done. For the TNG idea above, this would have been a 'one last wave' concept, hence trying to get all of the main crew in one set. The challenge with some retailers is that they prefer to wait and see how sales perform. You go in expecting there will be a Series 2 or 3 down the road, but then a year passes and they never request a refresh. By the time they’re ready for a full planogram reset, they may have already decided not to continue the line. At that point, you can try pushing for specialty-market or convention exclusives to expand the line, but if sales isn’t on board, you’re out of luck. As for selling just the heads, that becomes a licensing issue. Unless the agreement specifically allows for accessory packs, you’re only permitted to sell complete figures. We never had a formal design bible. I more or less made one up in my head based on what came before me. For reference, a lot of that 'bible' was really just Marvel Waves 1–16 and anything produced before 2007 (I started in November 2006 on Spider-Man 3). Things like how head caps worked, or how large Kingpin's chest cap was, or where tampo was used on the body. Over time that evolved based on design choices, or production / cost changes. For instance, when I started I never actually realized there was no tampo on hands or feet. I put it all over the Spider-Man 3 designs. They gave them to the factory who was a bit taken back by the choice and requested their removal, but the AA team liked the complete webbed costume look so they kept it on the Preview pack as something special since the movie was a big deal and everyone loved that Tobey Maguire Spider-Man suit. For faces, there was some precedent on noses as the Astonishing X-Men Beast had a nose, and the BSG Muffit had a snout. I'm not sure why, but those must've been conversations / decisions at their time. Many decisions for myself came down to what simply looked right. Robert and I would try variations, making different elements as tampo, sculpted, or left out entirely and if something felt off, we weren’t afraid to break precedent. For example, the first Slimer had no nose and it didn’t look right, so every version after that included one. Distinct noses were usually represented as they were part of the character, but it usually happened when the nose or character was less human. I've often wondered if I'd designed comic book Penguin if I would have included a nose. I did design the Gotham TV Penguin and left it off, but then his was much more human with a pit of a crooked point and was not sticking 4 inches off the front of his face. Muppets were especially tricky because of the wide variety of body types. There was input from multiple parties that shaped some of the decisions, and for the only time in my tenure a third, unofficial party was brought in to 'refine' my drawings. (I’ll just politely leave it at that). As for mouths: I don’t think any of the Muppets had sculpted ones. With Kermit, his mouth had to be tampo because cutting too deeply into the head would interfere with the neck peg cavity. For noses, we tested Wave 1 characters without them and they looked awful. Piggy and Gonzo probably could have had tampo noses, but because of their size sculpted versions looked better. Round or oval “puffball” noses, though, felt unnecessary as sculpted pieces and would have required more unique tooling whereas reusing a head with new ears was far more cost-effective. Another complication: each wave was designed about a year apart. In a perfect world I could have tackled all three waves at once, which would have smoothed out the inconsistencies. But that kind of upfront design cost just wasn’t feasible. I'm sort of blanking on any more reasons why we did things a certain way on Muppets specifically, but if you have more questions left unanswered let me know and it might jog my memory. Quote
nandoninny Posted August 27 Posted August 27 damn, did i just get a kick out of reading that! thanks again @Barry i think @DSTZach always did a great job explaining decisions but i'm sure even his hands (tongue?) were tied a few times regarding what he could/couldn't say. so this un-plugged performance is especially insightful. @DSTZach -- any secrets you want to get off of your chest? Quote
buttheadsmate Posted August 27 Posted August 27 Thank you for your continuing insight , it's like the first day at school. "I completely agree with your thoughts on Trek" ..... What a thread this is ! Quote
BuffaloDelorean Posted August 27 Posted August 27 On 8/23/2025 at 12:23 PM, Barry said: There was also the pre-Legacy series Wave 6 designed by Uriel and myself, which was Borg Queen, TWOK Chekov, Data, TWOK Khan, TWOK Terrell, DS9 Worf, and First Contact Worf. Borg Queen and Khan were reworked into the Legacy wave. There was a Wave 7 planned, but I can't find who was in it other than the Jem'Hadar, which was moved to Legacy as well. How much like the Legacy versions were the original designs? It's hard for me to imagine something like the Borg Queen's torso from that era of minimates. It's too bad those Worfs didn't make it into Legacy, too, even as swap-out parts for Picard and Sisko. Quote
Barry Posted August 28 Author Posted August 28 Khan was a complete redesign to update him. Uriel drew the first one, I drew the second. The Legacy hair looks like an Uriel drawing though. Also, for reference, the original was Jan 2008, the new one was Oct 2012. Borg Queen I don't have enough of the original. It looks like I worked out the body mechanics, but didn't do any of the deco before it was shelved. The body is what you ended up getting though. Quote
Trekker 42 Posted August 28 Posted August 28 Definitely think the bigger face was a good call. More room for a better likeness. Quote
Trekker 42 Posted August 29 Posted August 29 Seeing those prototypes of Shane’s reminded me of the one Minimate prototype I’d get if I could. We were almost there. We almost had all the big ones… Quote
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