Press Release - Striking Dioramas Return!

Striking Dioramas Return!



Luke's Toy Store has relaunched its unique brand of display environments called Striking Dioramas! While the previous series was made of
cardboard, the new series features laser cut black acrylic, for a stronger, more professional appearance. The new series also features foot pegs that are compatible with mini-figures such as Minimates and LEGOs. Figures can be displayed as a static collection, or in dynamic action poses. The high resolution graphics are printed on durable vinyl film that features crisp details and vibrant colors.


Each diorama is 5" wide, 3.5" tall, and 3.5" deep. Some dioramas in the series can be seamlessly displayed side-by-side to create larger displays!

The new series includes 13 brand new designs, plus a blank diorama with templates for you to create your own customized display. The 13 designs cover a wide variety of environments, from industrial bases and smashed concrete walls to alien planets and rainbow bridges. Striking Dioramas start at $13.99 and are available exclusively at Luke's Toy Store: http://lukestoystore...ramas-displays/

 

Day 545

Day 545 Feb 18^th

Welcome to MiniJeff’s Toy box!

Having a bit of fun with some of the Walking Dead Minimates while parting out some spare zombies to bulk up my horde!

Best of 2012 - Pre Super Bowl Ad

Our good friend Mini Myte has been doing a heck of a job the last few years with the "Best of..." annual award show over on the Minimate Multiverse and this year will be no exception I am sure!  Follow this link to see the show on March 3rd and in the meantime enjoy the teaser ad below!

Zombie Survivor Contest!

We have all thought about it at one point or another - what would you do if the zombie apocalypse happened? In this new Minimate contest, you will get a chance to answer that question! You are tasked with creating a survivor of the zombie apocalypse, and telling the story of how he/she/it survived. The sky is the limit with your character! Feel free to make them anything from a plumber to a robot to a super powered soldier. You can make a quick custom (using only parts swapping) or make a fully painted and sculpted Minimate.

Luke's Toy Store is sponsoring this contest in order to promote our expanded Loose Minimate Parts section, the largest selection of Minimate parts anywhere online! We are offering up over $100 worth of cool prizes. There will be 2 prizes for the best custom, and 2 prizes for the best story. And since this is a zombie contest, every prize includes some zombie army builders!

For a list of prizes and rules, please visit the contest thread at the Minimate Multiverse here: Zombie Survivor Custom Contest 

Day 544 - Exclusive Reveal!

Day 544 Jan 15^th

A Diamond Select Release!

Back again due to popular demand!

A Portrait of an Addiction exclusive reveal!

This lightweight cardboard carry case is ready to go, capable of holding up to 36 (or more if you double up) Minimates, and is perfect for everyone from kids on the go to collectors looking to trade or show off their Minimate collections or customs to friends. Each case features a magnetic seal and plastic carry handle, and has two clear plastic trays with snap-tight lids to hold a variety of Minimates of all sizes. As an added bonus, each Minimate Carry Case comes with an exclusive silver 10th Anniversary Minimate, available nowhere else! Only available on the specialty market!  Look for it in the next issue of Previews and stock up!
SRP: $19.99

Breaking News - Marvel.com reveals series 50 images

 Over on Marvel.com the image of the Minimates for the fan voted series 50 have bee4n revealed.  They all look great and I am super impressed with the details on the Cyborg Spider Man.  Those stitches on the costume look great!

Day 543

 

Day 543 Jan 10^th

Minimates art project

One of the coolest things I have grown really attached to with the Miniamtes has been how cool they look in projects like photo/web comics and such.  I really dig the art work that DST has done especially the posters they have been doing as of late and wanted to see more like that.  One day while picking up some comic books I happened to come across some of Marvels blank variant covers to comics.  The light bulb raged in my head with the idea of getting Minimates drawn onto these covers!  There was only one small problem with this – I can’t draw to save my life.  So I picked up a cover here and there just to stock them up while still trying to figure out how to make my idea work.  Ideally I could get someone to use a photo I took and draw the Minimates onto the cover but finding someone to do it was proving to be more difficult.  I had a couple covers sent to me from a good friend who had his tattoo artist draw on them, not Minimates but still a couple great covers.  When I had the chance to attend the Calgary Comic Expo last spring I had toyed with taking the comics along and getting them sketched but the idea that I wanted Minimates drawn on them held strong.  Well as I have been making the rounds as a substitute teacher I happened to make an important discovery…I noticed a grade seven student drawing comic book characters for his art assignments.  Talking to him I found that he really enjoys comics despite not having very many of his own and loves to draw them too.  I got around to asking him if he would be interested in trying some drawing from my photos, and he agreed and he drew the cover picture to my comic project.  I liked what I saw and got him to try his hand at a couple covers too.  I think he did a good job and will get him to do more, as well continue my search for other artistically minded people to give it a go as well!  If you fit this bill feel free to let me know and we can work something out!

Day 542

Cheetara

Tygra

Berbil

Tygra

Wilykat

Wilykit

Wilykat

Wilykit

Day 542 Jan 9^th

Thundercats Box Set 3 Pictures

For fans of the classic Thundercats cartoon this was a welcome reveal as it is generally a slower news time as Toy Fair is looming on the horizon.  It was revealed at NYCC last fall that Icon Heroes had 4 box sets for Thundercats in the plans, with the first two being released at SDCC and NYCC respectively last year.  This week they gave us fans pictures of the Minimates in the third box set and labeled them as a ‘Spring 2013’ release.  When exactly this is is unknown but odds are leaning towards the C2E2 convention as it is the bigger spring time convention and it would follow suit with the trend of them being convention exclusives.  These are some great looking Minimates, completing the core team of good guys nicely.  Most Minimate fans have been buzzing about these not only for what they are but also for what the new design on Wilykit and Wilykat could mean for other Minimate licenses with smaller/child characters most notably the character of Carl from The Walking Dead.  The newly designed shorter arm and leg sections will help make these characters look smaller and more childlike compared to the standard Minimate without to much changing of the core Minimate body style which is something that DST has said they are unlikely to do to make the smaller characters.  Personally I think these look great and will be a welcome addition to my Minimate collection and I can see my kids already asking for a set for their Minimate collection too!

Day 541

Day 541 Dec 31^st

Minimate Multiverse Secret Santa Gift

I have had a streak of receiving new minimates in the mail on News Year Eve for the last number of years and this year it still was true!  The best part of all was that this was also my Secret Santa gift from the Minimate Multiverese secret santa event.  Many thanks to Kostisfire for this gift all the way from Greece!  In the box was a very nice gift bag, a Marvel and a DC comic, a Toblerone (promptly claimed by my kids), a Mars bar, a black and white Munsters Koach and a nifty box decorated in drawings…it’s layout is very similar to a box set layout.  Inside the box are customs of the Dr from Dr Who, Predator, Samus Aran, Green Arrow and Deathstroke along with a head with green hair, a Batman head a Darth Vader head and a mini Scarface puppet.  Some of these customs were not finished but there was a note explaining that in the package.  Given how busy my life can be I can totally understand how that goes!  The Green Arrow and Deathstroke strike me as similar to the announced DC Direct 2 pack based from the Injustice: Gods Among Us game.  Huge thanks to Kostisfire for this great gift!  Happy New Year to all my readers and here is to a great 2013 for us all!  Stay tuned for some new ideas and formats to this blog in the coming weeks, thanks for sticking out my creative break!

I swear this picture looked fine on the camera when I took it, sorry for the blurriness!

Day 540

Day 540 Dec 30^th

Minimates 10^th Anniversary Interviews

Matt Cauley – Iron Cow Productions

  First off, please tell me and us a little bit about yourself, your interests, how you got into art and how you got to working on toys.

Hey, Jeff -

Thanks so much for approaching me about this interview. I really appreciate it!

Looking back, I have been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. My mother was an artist, and she encouraged me from an early age to express myself creatively. From the moment I could hold a crayon or marker, I would be scribbling over any surface I could find. One of my earliest surviving drawings is of Batman, Robin and Superman. I believe I was age 5 at the time it was created, but even then I was already obsessed with the characters; the vast majority of the drawings I would produce involved Batman in some fashion.

My interest in both Batman and drawing grew as I got older. Mom was always there providing encouragement, and by the time I got into high school I knew I wanted a career in the art field. I had long since been mimicking the artists working on the Batman and X-Men comic books, and comic book illustration felt like a natural direction to explore.

Batman: The Animated Series launched around the time I entered college. I still remember walking into a local Target and seeing all the action figures for the first time. Even though I hadn’t purchased an action figure in the better part of a decade, I was instantly hooked and grabbed all the Batman figures I saw. As the months went on, it began to gnaw at me that not all of the Batman characters were being produced as animated-style action figures. My good friend Cason shared similar interests with me, and a similar obsession not only with the Batman Animated figures, but the missing characters as well. After bouncing ideas back and forth, I began to experiment with making custom action figures in an attempt to flesh out the official line a bit.

What began as a part-time hobby quickly expanded into a full-on obsession, and I found myself customizing action figures as often as I was illustrating and painting. People began to notice, too, and I launched my website Iron-Cow Prod. to not only showcase my artwork, but to serve as an online portfolio for my custom figures, too. This proved to be an instant hit, and only further encouraged me to increasingly experiment with what was capable by customizing toys.

How did you first become involved with Minimates?

During the spring and summer of 2004, SubCultures Design teamed up with Art Asylum to offer the Minimate “Create-A-Mate” Design competition. This opened the doors for aspiring toy designers to create their own Minimate action figure, with their artwork being submitted to Art Asylum for consideration as well as the option to have their designs produced as custom prototypes. The response to the competition was fantastic, and Art Asylum took notice in particular of the work I submitted.

A few weeks later, I was tagging along with the Millionaire Playboy guys during one Toy Fair. I struck up conversation with Adam Unger of Art Asylum while I was photographing their recently unveiled items. When I introduced myself, his face lit up, and he said “You’re ‘Iron-Cow?!?!’” It was wild. He had been a fan of my custom toys for awhile, and he was genuinely impressed with the Create-A-Mate designs I had submitted. He immediately brought me around the studio, introducing me to the other designers there. Based on the strength of the work I had submitted, Adam offered to bring me in to try out my design skills for some upcoming Minimate projects.

The first designs I mocked up were that of the Adi Granov Iron Man suit as well as an Edward James Olmos “Commander Adama” design from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. My designs weren’t quite on-brand for the line, but it showed a lot of promise and a fresh approach to what was capable with the medium. The crew from Art Asylum agreed to have me submit official designs for the Battlestar Galactica line to see what else I could do.

What's your favourite Minimates line that you worked on, and why?  Is here one particular design that you are really fond of?

Well, being a life-long Batman fan, I would probably have to say that working on the DC Direct Minimate line was a dream come true. There were so many characters involved and the scope of the project was ridiculously ambitious. I tag-teamed with Art Asylum design guru Uriel – I designed the vast majority of the characters while he came in to contribute the face and chest artwork. This would ensure a style consistent with the other existing Minimate lines until I became more adept at mimicking the style.

That said, I have always had a soft spot for Bane, S.T.R.I.P.E., Brainiac-13, and Ares, which were a few of the projects I handled completely on my own, start to finish.

Is there any one minimate that you would consider to be a favourite?

It’s so hard to choose a favourite, so how about one that I consider perhaps the most important?  In that case, it would definitely be the Daggit/Muffit Minimate from the Classic Battlestar Galactica line. 

I remember meeting with Robert Yee, the Art Asylum Product Manager. He wanted to discuss some of the early plans for the fledgling Battlestar line. I had mentioned that I’d love to take on the Cylons of course, but I also wanted to try my hands at a Daggit design. Robert frowned a bit, saying they probably didn’t have the budget to tool a Daggit as an accessory. I clarified myself, saying I actually wanted to design a full-on Daggit Minimate. Robert still felt there would be too much custom tooling involved, though, and it would be too difficult to create a torso capable of supporting 4-legs, at least for this project.

I responded by saying “Wait a sec…” and went over to their showcase wall. On display were several blank Minimates. I grabbed a few of these and simply swapped out the arms of one figure and added an extra set of legs instead. Within seconds I had whipped up a rough proof-of-concept for the Daggit figure. Robert was noticeably impressed, and it was enough to convince him to pitch it to Universal for the line.

A 4-legged Minimate had never been done before, and I would like to think that this out of the box thinking was what paved the way for the recent Lockjaw Minimate as well as the Terror Dogs from the Ghostbusters line.

If you could have any character from any property as a minimate who would it be and why?

That’s a tough one, considering that the DC Direct and Battlestar lines were all dreams come true for me. I wish the Doctor Who line would have been given the greenlight, as I had worked on some designs for that as well.

If I had a dream property that hasn’t yet been produced, it would have to be a boxed set for either Fight Club or a Clockwork Orange. Both of these properties have a huge cult following, and I would love to see either translated into plastic. SE7EN could be darkly fun as well.

Do you still collect Minimates/stay current in what is being released?  If so is there anything in particular in the new releases that have you excited?

Most of my toy collecting has tailored off these days as I focus more on my portrait painting (and that my studio is already crammed with toys as it is). I still pick up any 1980s X-Men character, so the Nimrod and the reworked Nightcrawler Minimates were fun additions. The New Mutants were also a must-own for me, and I have even customized some additional characters to go with that series.

Notice the 'floating' angled feet of this design!

LOVE the lightning effects on this design, would have been great to see them in production!

A cyclone type base designed for the Red Tornado...I believe this was one of the first times a base was designed to be added, something that is very common now.

I do love the Max Elite Heroes line. This one features fire fighters, police officers and others. I feel it is important to have a line of “real world” heroes in addition to all of the licensed properties that otherwise dominate toy lines today. I get a big thrill whenever I see a new set of those hanging on the pegs. The NYCC Spider-Man/Fire Fighter 2-pack was brilliant, and a nice tribute to everyday heroes.

When you look at the Minimate line how does it make you feel to see that it is still going after 10 years and that you had a hand in this property?

Oh, I feel it’s fantastic, but truthfully I was just one contributor on a team of several talented individuals. The Minimates were a success long before I came along, and they have continued strong long after my projects wrapped up. I still get nostalgic for those design days though, and I email Robert every now and then to see what he and the crew up to. The work I contributed for the lines definitely fills me with pride, and I am extremely fortunate enough to have been given that opportunity. I can’t wait to see what’s in the works for future Minimate waves.

What does your current job entail?

I’m currently celebrating my 15^th year as a graphic designer at Bloomberg LP. I began as a designer of on-air news graphics and over the years I have worked on Premium Design, Print Collateral, Web Design, Interactive Media, Display Booths and Signage, among other projects. I am currently a member of their Internal Agency within the Marketing group, and we continue to expand the scope of our design work. The specifics of the day-to-day work may have changed here and there over the years, but the job itself has always been creatively rewarding. I am surrounded by a strong team of talented individuals.

In addition, I continue to take on freelance illustration and painting projects, and am currently producing work for a solo art exhibition later this year.