ToyFair in the haus!

General Hawk (Justin) of GeneralJoes.com and the boss of Sigma 6 Central (.com) has found a way into Toyfair. Toyfair is basically a big ad for toy companies to show off what's up for the future. It's a chance for businesses to make or break a toyline. New stuff is revealed there and if it gets cool response, it's back to the drawing board. Some toys can be great, but if someone like Walmart shakes their collective heads, the idea is scrapped. Pics are flooding in from figures.com, toynewsi.com and s6c.joebattlelines.com.

2007 is also the 25th Anniversary of GI Joe. Hasbro is bringing back the 3.75" figures (after a bit of a hiatus from B&M (brick & mortar) stores. They are taking 25 characters from 1982-1985 and giving them new articulation and an updated sculpted look. While the initial pics looked great to me, seeing the stuff at ToyFair has me wanting more. Or rather, I'll just stick to what I have. No need to see my stuff!

On the flipside, there is the 8" figures. Sigma 6 was just a theme name and it's time is up. The 8" franchise of GI Joe is splitting 3 directions. Commando. Combat Team. Adventure Team. The latter 2 are nods to the old 70s toys. Adventure Team will be dealing with the Joes (and Cobra) fighting monsters and animals. MONSTERS? Yup. Mummies should show up, y'know? Maybe dinosaurs. We've seen alligators, tigers and snakes! My interest is in the Combat Team. But the best? Snake Eyes and his mech. Oh wow. Talk about neato!!!

Let's get to the gritty!

It took me a long time to get the next 3.75" dio rolling. When doing Transformations and War For Territory, I had grand ideas and the execution was decent at best. It was good in some places, not so hot in others. But the story carried it all thru. That was, I believe, almost a year ago. As I was doing the last chapter of War For Territory, I was already starting the Sigma6 dios. The S6 dios are their own entity and totally fun. The 1/18th Joes have a different feel and is more serious in terms of story and characterization.

Originally, I had wanted to do a sequel to the other 2 episodes. (Don't get me started on the categorizations, it's very confusing). It's pretty vague, but I never actually 'said' the two aliens from another world die. If you read into it enough, one knows that the green duder (forgot his name!) can open portals. So the reality is, they weren't thrown into the energy beam. I had seriously considered making the story so that Cobra goes back in and ends up in the aliens homeworld. Kinda like Mortal Kombat 2. It never got further than that.

Hooking up w/ Netflix, we began to understand just what we could really rent. I got sucked into Lost and watched a few more movies and thought it'd be great to do a GI Joe/Lost story. (then I watched the 1st season of 24 and damn!!!) It took months of thinking. Summer was turning into Fall. Fall was turning into Winter and in the NW, that means it's usually wet and cold. How was I supposed to do tropical landscapes in the winter when everything's dead. I was telling people that it wouldn't be shown until Spring or Summer.

Such would not be the case. I decided to create a whole new set that would act as the underground bunker like in Lost. It's not quite as anal as the other big set I did, but at the same time, it's better designed. ie; there's no map to follow and I won't bother showing off the possiblity of corridors in the Cobra research facility. Sure, I'd love to go all out w/ the sets but money and time (and THomas), it's not possible. What I've done, it works pretty darn well.

I did take some outdoor shots when the weather was nice. They came out well and Episode 1 was released about a week ago. On top of that, I had released a 5-page prologue (w/ bios!) as a teaser of what was to come. I just didn't expect Ep1 to show up as quickly!

I'm working on Ep2 when I can. It's one thing to shoot sequences. It's another to create pics. I've had to create a lot of pics for my dios as of late. Ep2 starts w/ a 4 panel fotoshopp'd sequence. I have more sequences to shoot. What's rather nice is that a lot of stuff that didn't find it's way into Ep1 (it was getting long), was immediately put into Ep2. Ep1, I wanted the team to find the installation and also enter it. I kept the finding and put entering into the next episode. I have to watch the MBs involved. I can't go past 10 mb and Ep1 is just under 9mb. The email systems don't like anything over 10mb being transferred, y'know?

Anyway, I'm working on Ep2 when I can.

Until Next Time.