Q and A Archives - Page 7 of 26 - ActionFigurePics.com

Icon Heroes Announces Filmation He-Man Mini-Bust, Q&A with Designer Joe Amaro

Icon Heroes has really been on a tear in recent days. Their Castle Grayskull Polystone Environment is coming out this month, and they’ve just announced another Masters of the Universe item – the He-Man Mini-Bust Paperweight.

Keep your papers safe from Eternian winds with the Icon Heroes Masters of the Universe He-Man Mini Bust Paperweight! Based on the 1980’s Filmation television series, He-Man wields his power sword atop a Castle Grayskull tower base defying evil. Designed and sculpted by Joe Amaro and the Four Horsemen, this complete piece comes with sheath and Master of the Universe logo. Cast in high quality polystone, the He-Man Mini Bust Paperweight stands approximately 12 inches tall from the bottom of the base to the tip of the Power Sword. This makes a great addition to any desktop or Masters of the Universe collection. Available September 2013. SRP $60.

We were lucky enough to chat with Nate Baersch, designer of the Icon Heroes Castle Grayskull a couple days ago, and it’s a special treat for us to chat today with Joe Amaro, who designed and sculpted this mini-bust in collaboration with the Four Horsemen. Joe is noted in the collectibles community for his MOTU-inspired creations, like his Manta Raider collaboration with Rudy Obrero. His professional credentials include a stint at Jazwares. Joe was gracious enough to answer our questions about the mini-bust and some of his other projects.

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Q&A with Nate Baertsch, Designer of the Icon Heroes Castle Grayskull

You may know him as Baena at many of the toy and collectible forums, but Nate Baertsch is also an accomplished illustrator, and happens to be one of the designers behind the Icon Heroes Castle Grayskull Polystone Environment. Nate recently got one of the Icon Heroes Castles off the production line, shared these pictures, and kindly answered some of our questions.

AFP: How did you get involved with Icon Heroes for this project?

Nate: Dumb luck! Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’ve had a good working relationship with the Four Horsemen since somewhere around 2007? I started out doing packaging art for their Seventh Kingdom line. Ramathorr was the first painting I did for them, and to this day still one of my favorites. Over time my work with them has increased from packaging artwork for their figures, to occasional design sketches and concepts for figures for the variety of lines that they work on. Over time, and meeting up with them when I could at conventions, we’ve established a good working relationship and friendship, as we all love all things MotU and general super fantastical spacey geeky goodness. A lot of “geeking out” about MotU lore, Seventh Kingdom, their other properties, Outer Space Men and now Power Lords!

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Did Toys Ruin the Batman & Robin (1997) Movie?

Batman & Robin (1997), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, and Chris O’Donnell, nearly put the DC Comics Batman franchise into the ground for good. Joel Schumacher had just rolled off of the extremely successful Batman Forever (1995), but somehow managed to put together what’s arguably the worst Batman movie ever made. On IMDb, Batman & Robin is rated by users at 3.6 out of 10, by far the lowest of all the live action films by Tim Burton, Schumacher, Christopher Nolan, and even the Batman (1966) movie based on the campy TV series.

So what went wrong?

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Poll: Where Do You Stand on the Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull?

With the final pre-order window coming to a close on Monday, I’d like to take a pulse check on where you stand on Castle Grayskull – and no, that’s not a flimsy attempt at escape ledge humor. Up until Toy Fair, we had seen drawings, foam mockups, and teasers – now that the first painted prototype has been shown, what’s the verdict? Has seeing the Castle changed your mind one way or the other?

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Ashley Wood Answers our Top Questions about the ThreeA Toys and Marvel Collaboration

It’s no secret – I am tremendously excited for (and a little scared of) the collaboration that 3A Toys announced with Marvel Comics on Friday. My re-entry point for toy collecting started with 6-inch Marvel Legends, but 1/6 scale figures have started to break my toy budget wide open – Hot Toys and 3A Toys are the main culprits. With the Marvel movies, Hot Toys might as well take my ATM card and PIN, and now 3A Toys will threaten to do that with its re-imagined comic book figures.

Fans of 3A know that they’ve got a very unique style – for those of us with mainstream taste, this combination with Marvel might seem odd. That’s one of the things on my mind as I reach out to Ashley Wood. Ash is the artist and design force behind 3A Toys. I’m sure there’s many more questions, but I wanted to know what Ash thinks of when he thinks Marvel, and how that’s influencing the Marvel figures 3A is making.

AFP: What were some of the Marvel Comics you first read? Have any personal favorite books, teams, or eras of comics? What books are you reading today?

Ashley Wood: I always enjoyed the Avengers, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, Marvel Team-Up, the X-men, Captain America, Tomb of Dracula, Daredevil and so on. The late 70’s to mid to late 80’s are my personal golden period. But I’m very fond of the Tales of Suspense with Kirby Captain America stories in them. I kinda collect the trades from that personal golden period now, but that’s mainly due to not visiting comic shops like I once did and not knowing what the great titles are.

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