Tag: Iron Man

Interview with JC Hong, Hot Toys Chief Painter and Product Designer

Jedd-the-Jedi got to meet a few of the good folks at Hot Toys during the Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention back in September. Over the weeks that followed, Jedd put together an interview with JC Hong, who is the chief painter and production director for Hot Toys. There’s some very interesting stuff on how 3D technology is affecting their business, and how the US and Asian markets are different. Read on!

Jedd: Hot Toys designers, artists, sculptors and painters are known for their stunning attention to detail, capturing tiny nuances in faces, costumes and props that the regular person wouldn’t be able to catch. How much access do you have to conceptual art, costume/prop designs, set photographs etc. when working on products licensed from movies? Can you walk us through the creative process that goes into creating a Hot Toys figure?

JC Hong: The Hong Kong team is very good at searching for photos, fully checking details, and giving good opinions to us. Most of my job is on human faces. For creating a collectible figure, communication is very important.

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Jay and Iron Man

It’s been one month since my brother passed away, at far too young an age. I’m in the Philippines with my parents, and this morning we went to the parish where my parents have a small crypt for my dad’s father and stepmother and my mom’s mother (more on my Lola some other time). Jay will share his final resting place with them.

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To My Brother Jay

In the early morning hours last night, my brother passed away in his sleep. Despite a very healthy lifestyle (he loved golf, cycling, and playing ice hockey; never smoked; and had to be coerced to have a glass of wine with a meal) he suffered from a heart condition that countless doctors could not figure out. He’s survived by his wife and two wonderful kids.

He’s one of the big reasons I love action figures and photography. I lived with him a few summers while I was in college and he was out in the working world. He had stopped collecting comics, but he let me go through his long boxes, and I was introduced to Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Claremont and Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men, Frank Miller’s Daredevil, and a whole lot more. I got hooked.

A few years later, he lived with me while recuperating from a terrible motorcycle accident, but he was a bit disappointed in my comic collection – what can I say? – it was the 90s. When he survived his first heart attack, I gave him a Marvel Legends First Appearance Iron Man. And in more recent times, I shared some titles with him that were more worthy of his attention, like Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men and Brubaker’s Captain America and Immortal Iron Fist.

I spoke to him a couple of days ago. No talk of comics, but I was going to recommend he read Gail Simone’s Secret Six. I feel an emptiness that defies description. Jay, I love you and miss you.

Update: I’m at the airport, waiting for my flight to join my family at my brother’s home. When I first pressed the publish button on this post, I almost immediately recalled it – I thought it was horribly self-indulgent and not what folks are signed up to see here – I apologize if anybody was offended.

For those of you who have left comments or sent me messages directly – thank you so much. I’m still in a daze and imagine I will be this way for some time, but your thoughts and encouragement have been very helpful. Thank you again!

Hasbro (Return of) Marvel Legends Wave 3 Neo-Classic Armor Iron Man Quick Pic

Considering how successful the Iron Man and Avengers movies have been, I think Hasbro has shown a lot of restraint in Marvel Legends; it seems like Iron Man is showing up only every other wave – the Iron Man armor from the first Return of ML wave was the Extremis armor, and here in wave 3 it’s the Neo-Classic armor. While this figure is hurt a little by the slightly smaller-scaled sculpts that were originally due for release in the 6-inch Iron Man line, there’s still a lot of goodness with this figure.

The best thing for me is that Hasbro has figured out how to do the finish on Iron Man. The first of the resurgence of Hasbro’s Iron Man was the classic armor that came with the two-packs. Great candy apple red, but the yellow plastic was kind of dull. They fixed the gold on the Extremis armor from the start of this year, but it was the red that looked a little flat. With the Neo-Classic armor, both red and gold pop.

There’s no Iron Man planned for the first ML wave in 2013, but Hasbro’s saving it up for an Iron Man wave of Legends to get the boost from the Iron Man 3 movie. I can’t wait to see the comic book version of the Iron Monger.

Hasbro (Return of) Marvel Legends Wave 3 Packaged Pics

When I wrote my Best Week Ever / Good Toy Karma post (reply to that post for a chance to win Free Stuff!) I was pretty excited to get my Pile of Loot from Big Bad Toy Store with RoML wave 3. Now, what Hasbro told us at SDCC was that this wave is actually a filler wave – they had only planned 2 waves in 2012 to relaunch the line, but because those got bunched up at the start of the year and because sales on those waves were good enough, they put together this third wave. And so that means there’s a heck of a lot of reuse and no build-a-figure – instead you’ll get the stand that was included with the 6-inch Wal-Mart exclusive Avengers, minus the Avengers logo.

Even so, I think this wave will be warmly received. It’s still carrying the positive buzz from the relaunch, and the reuse that’s here is done pretty well. Packaged pics only right now, but I’ll give some comments for each figure despite not having them open yet.

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