GREAT NEWS: Looks like there'll be some TOYS of Dana, Potbelly, Magic Boxes, and maybe some other trout creations! This is a big deal for me, as Toys are usually made for more big franchised characters, my dorky stuff usually doesn't have a shot.
But that's what's so cool, along comes Kim Fung Wong, who does those amazing looking Ashely Woods toys, and turns out he really likes my stuff! In a world of large Corporations pumping out toys based on big hit movies… he would only do figures like this because he DIGS my goofy art, thinks they'd just be COOL looking. That simple.
So, because of cool guys like Kim, lucky folks like you and me get a shot at a a few collectable action figures.
Kim could make tons of more profitable toys too with bigger companies. He's no reason to do this, accept for the fact he just has the faith that whatever we come up with, might make really COOL figure. That simple!
Sometimes it's nice a lone person can cut through the corporate crap and just do things to please himself, eh?
Kinda of interesting... trying to wrap my head around a figure in 3D again, like with Batman or Maxx figures. Were starting with Potbelly, partly because almost everything i DRAW has a pot belly, and then move to Dana next.
If you think about it, i've been drawing big bellies from way back, like this old page in Epicurus, so while the idea of big bellied monster may seem an odd choice, it's second nature to me.
This also gives me a chance to re-tool some old ideas i had before. I went back and forth when i first drew Dana's boxes.. part of me wanted to make them living creatures, another liked them being inanimate objects she just collected in the real world.
I still went back and forth, one legged, two legged? hopping? walking? Dana riding it like on horseback?
These quick scribbled above were as far as i got..
But, i still didn't know: Living moving Box? Or ordinary non-moving box? Because i've spent so long drawing and designing the Boxes i built, i was stuck on the idea that they HAD to look exactly the real life version i built, which was stupid, because though those were built from MY drawings in the first place. I got literally too attached to them looking so real.
Kim said he liked the slightly more cartoony version of the Box on the Bimbo cover. I was disappointed at first, because i was still stuck on the box looking as real as possible. But then i realized, it's actually flattering he liked the box on that cover, but cause it's kinda of funky and hand drawn looking. I still like both: the super detailed vs. more cartoony versions of my boxes.
What i'm getting at is, i am subconsciously kept drawing the boxed with one leg (hopping) or two legs (walking, duh!) ... because in the back of my mind there WERE already 'alive'. People like things that move, breath, have motion. personality!
So it's because of the toy, which will move and have articulated joints, that i returned to what i wanted in the first place, a moving living box.
One of the cool things is seeing how a action figure evolves, and why.
So while designing pot belly, Dana's box is rolling around in the back of my mind too.
Lot to absorb this post, eh? Toys take time, so it will be at least a year or so for all this to unfold. But might be cool for YOU guys to help give me feed back and watch this stuff grow along side the comics and art books that these characters all show up in too,
