Happy Halloween

J.C. Leyendecker

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

My apologies for the lack of posts of late. Real life has a way of intruding on this sort of pointless thing. I had to make sure that important things were getting done - like making sure your Star Wars Collectible Costumes ship on time.

That being said, have a wonderful night tonight, egg a few houses, soap some windows, smash some pumpkins and light some dog poop-filled paper bags on fire....just be safe. 

I'll post some more 'monstery goodness' throughout the coming days/weeks to make it up to you.

Two Peas in a Pod...or Two Creeps in a Pot

In keeping with the Monster Toy theme, I thought I'd share two of my favorite toys that we created at Sideshow so many years ago.  They make their appearance every Halloween and take their designated spot inside a blow molded witches' cauldron in front of the fireplace. There they sit, arms around one another hanging out like 'besties'...staring at me while I watch television. Those two never fail to put a smile on my face.

I love them for a number of reasons. The first being the fact they are the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man - 'DUH!' 

The second reason, the sweet smell of victory. This product was a REALLY tough sell with Universal at the time as well as internally. Up until this point we had been making 8" Tall action figures, 3" Tall figures we called Little Big Heads, Polystone Bobble Heads and had begun making 12" dolls based on the Classic Universal Monsters - and we were pretty successful doing that. I wanted to start branching out and create new lines, and basically make some fun toys. It had always been my dream to make a large oversized Big Frankie doll along the lines of Aurora's classic GIANT model kit, Gigantic Frankenstein (or Big Frankie like everyone called him) from 1964. This idea wasn't exactly universally accepted at first-people thought I was nuts. The general consensus was to stick with what we know and do best, and not experiment too much...make more of the same. 

I couldn't do that, so I did a few sketches. I played around with a look/style that I liked and figured out the best way to make it the cheapest way possible but still maintain a level of quality that we were cultivating at the time. Luckily my partner at the time, Mat Falls (Head Sculptor), saw the merit in my designs and thought it would be a nice change of pace for him to sculpt. To his credit he knocked it out of the park. It is by far my favorite piece he sculpted back then - that and the Wolfie Pozer. Once it was sculpted, people started to get behind it. But he really started to come together once he was painted. My original concept had him painted like your standard 1960's vinyl toy, BUT when I saw the amount of surface detail Mat had put into the final sculpt (that was all him, my original design was more stylized) it would have been a sin not to show it off. The new direction would be to make this thing look like a painted statute, make him creepy as hell and really push the capabilities of our factory to match the paint master. They did, and the results speak for themselves...he came out amazing.

The Frankie Pozer was complete and ready to be peddled to the 'big' retailers for orders. At 18" tall he was the biggest thing we ever made and the most expensive. Luckily the initial order was well received by my fellow monster nerds and sold out rather quickly much to my delight. This prompted for the quick creation of our Pozer line (because they had wire in their arms and legs for posing), so I quickly drew up concepts for the Wolf Man, Creature, Mummy &  Dracula (trying to find them so I can share later). 

We quickly noticed that after the initial success of Frankie, we began to seriously struggle with convincing the retailers reordering our monster lines. Items were selling out in a week and the pegs were bare, what the hell aren't they recording more action figures and Pozers? They all felt that monster toys were a SEASONAL item and had a very small sales window...4th quarter only. This was in 1999-2001, a very different time than now when it comes to selling these kind of items, AND our subjects were 70 years old, not the latest blockbuster movie. They just didn't get it. They didn't see our products the same way we did. We believed them to be an 'evergreen product', a product line you could sell year round. EVERYONE knows who these characters are, these characters are engrained into everyone's DNA for Christ sake! You didn't have to see the films to know who they were. Sadly they didn't understand, they didn't know the fan base and the fact that it wasn't children buying these items...so we eventually stopped selling to them and cultivated the web business and focused on 'Mom & Pop' & Comicbook shops. 

That is why the Pozer line quietly went away when it did. We no longer had the initial preorders that we used to get from TRU etc, that the factory needs to produce the item at the price and quality we needed. The smaller shops just couldn't order the same numbers (item took up too much shelf space) and web commerce was still in it's infancy, so our reach wasn't where it needed to be at the time. So my beloved Pozer line died after we made Wolfie. I was bummed, but for a short time I felt vindicated, like I knew what I was talking about...I was just a little too early for my own good.

But out of the ashes of the Pozer line grew another line of products that is still going today, and I'll talk about that one another time. 

The original marker & pencil concept sketch that was submitted to Universal Studios for approval.

Holiday Frankie concept. I basically traced the original drawing and added a Santa Hat and added a candy cane - how's that for HIGH concept?! Anyway, we actually prototyped that one and displayed him at Toy Fair coming out of chimney, so I'm sure there are images floating around somewhere. He came out really cool, but unfortunately we never produced him...

My Bed Time Buddy/Sleepy Time Frankie concept. The idea was to make a retro doll with a 'Nite-light' feature that kids (or grown men) could take to bed with them. This was going to be a 'Big Box Retailer exclusive item...but alas, twas not to be for various reasons.

MY FAVORITE, and the one I'm most disappointed about not producing. Biker Frankie or Fink Frankie as I liked to call him. Once again, traced the original design and dressed him up to be a Biker thug. I still believe in my heart of hearts this would have been pure Gold. Universal kicked this idea to the curb, but that's a WHOLE different story.

Sadly, Wolfie was the last of the Pozers...another great sculpt by Mat based on my drawings. We were a good team on these guys. I was really hoping to do the Creature from the Black Lagoon next...THAT one would have been epic. 

This guy is highly collectible if you can find him, I'm just saying...not too many of him were made.

Gee, I wonder where Ray Villafane got the idea for THIS pumpkin...

Real Monsters Toys and what could have been...

I thought I'd share the inspiration for my first installment of INKTOBER drawings - The Real Monsters toy line that I worked on during my time at Mattel. It was one of the very last lines I helped design before leaving and starting my own toy/collectible company with my best friend from college.

This was a really tortured toy line to work on, as most were, during my time in 'Boys Toys'. Mattel wasn't really burning up the male action toy isle during the early 90's, they kinda of lost their way. Shitty licenses, corporate politics, lack of overall vision and maintaining the status quo made for an incredibly torturous time for designers. I wanted to make really cool shit, but always felt that my hands were tied and I'd never get my shot at helping to create something like Masters of the Universe or cooler.

...but let's face it, I really didn't fit in anyway.

Now I'll give you the Reader's Digest version of how this toy line was developed. The journey begins (as most of them do), with the 'Good Ol' Boys Club'. Nine times out of ten, a toy idea or line will be bought or retained from a very small and special group of individuals on the 'outside'. This group is special because they have formed relationships over decades, with the corporate suits in all the major toy companies. Since it's 'common knowledge' that the designers that toy companies hire don't know a damn thing about toys or how to design them, they need to rely on that special pool of 'Good Ol' Boys' on the outside to save the day. I noticed first hand the same few names kept popping up when it came time to start on a new toy line, AND they happened to be best buddies with various 'suits' within the company. This toy line started out that way...

Originally it wasn't even based on Aaahh! Real Monsters, it was a simple novelty toy line with a monster feel. LAME as hell, uninspired and pretty much stupid as shit. Lots of magnets (which are a fucking nightmare when you're a company as big as Mattel and open to all sorts of lawsuits if some dipshit kid eats a pair of magnets and they get stuck in his friggin' colon), finger puppets, squirters, pull string and suction cup jumpers...ugh.

So I spent a few weeks with the pitch packet and redesigned the figures and tried to make them more fun...it was like polishing a turd, you just can't do it. THEN someone in Marketing had a great idea...let's take THIS line (that we have on retainer) and blend it into this new Nickelodeon property and it will be AMAZING!...and my friend will make more money now because it's attached to an animated cartoon on Nickelodeon! I designed a bunch of fun figures based on the characters from the Nickelodeon show, but alas...they were not meant to be. Instead we were only allotted 4 characters from the show, and they had to be designed to fit within an already specified blister card size. 

Good times, and here they are:

Oblina was the best-how's THIS for packaging?! We can't stand her up straight on the blister, that will ruin everything...I have an idea, let's cram her into the blister diagonally, who cares if it looks odd. Kids don't care and won't notice, they also won't notice that we made her shorter as well so she can fit in this half-ass blister. Classic.

Then we had to round out the line with the 'Good Ol' Boy's Club' concepts, regardless if they fit the line aesthetically or not. The thought was, we'll just paint them in a pseudo color paint scheme to match the feel of the show...we'll make the kids think that these are actual characters in the show! It'll be awesome! We're fucking brilliant! Success!

...and here they are:

If you noticed, SPLUG is named CHOOMPS in the catalog

...and HALUGA is named GULPUM

...and KALUGA is named SUSH-EYE

...and KALUGA doesn't even appear in the catalog

...and I never got a ZOOMPS on a final printed blister card, only a test package.

ANYWAY, you can see that the last group of figures in no way fit the look and feel of Aaahh! Real Monsters, with the exception of GULPUM

Now I'll show you the toys that SHOULD have been. Here are a few of the MANY marker concepts I cranked out in the hopes of making a fun toy line for kids, they're really rough and based on really simple features...because when you make toys for MATTEL, they have to look good on T.V. and do really cool shit...

I honestly believe it had the makings of a really fun toy line and could have been pretty successful if given the chance. But it wasn't to be, and it really helped me make my decision to leave that much easier and start making the kind of action figures I always wanted as a kid.

Classic Universal Monsters, but that's a post for another time.

Inktober Catch-up...and drawing Real Monsters.

 I have to tell ya, having a bunch of really talented artist friends can really make you feel like shit when it comes to the month of October...or 'INKTOBER' as they like to call it. October, basically becomes a showcase for everyone's mad inking skills, unbridled creativity and a way for the world to see how awesome you think you are...that is until you see everyone else's work.

If you didn't know it already, artists tend to be a very sensitive, insecure, sometimes self-loathing group of individuals - and yet we continue to put oversells out there for the world to critique. AND with the advent of Social Media and the Interweb(s), now you have the possibility of someone in the deepest jungles of the Congo saying your work is shit and derivative. Pretty crazy if you ask me.

Artists also deal with peer pressure as well, as you can see by this stupid post. SO, in the spirit of Halloween I thought I'd have fun drawing some REAL Monsters. Monsters from Nickelodeon's 1994 animated show: Aaahh!! Real Monsters to be exact. Why draw these you may be asking? Basically because I'm lazy and it's October 17th and I had to bust out a bunch of ink drawings to catch up to my contemporaries. They are also easy to draw and didn't require any fine brush work, score one for me!

The other reason I did them was because this was the very first Monster line of toys I ever designed when I worked at Mattel, before I left to make other monster toys for my own company, so I thought it would be fun to revisit the gang.

So here are my first official INKTOBER drawings (17 days late) for you to critique. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it going on a daily basis starting today with number 17...I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna do.

This is GROMBLE: He's the Headmaster of the Monster Academy, he's been known to literally chew up his students and spit them out. I love that he wears patent leather pumps...

This is ICKIS: He's the shy neurotic one, but has the ability to grow huge, eyes turn red and his teeth become pointed fangs.

This is KRUMM: (My favorite) He smells like ass and holds his eyeballs

This is OBLINA: You could say she's a haunted Candy Cane with a special talent for reaching down her throat and pulling out all kinds of hideous shit.

This is SNORCH & ZIMBO: Snorch is really big and stupid, and is basically the bouncer at the academy and Zimbo is his sidekick/translator. Trivia for you, Zimbo was voiced by Tim Curry.

This is SIMON: He's the Monster Hunter, plain and simple...

...Now I gotta think of something to draw...AND use my Windsor Newton Series 7 Brushes to do the inking instead of the 2 shitty Tombow Black Brush Pens with the split tips...God those things suck ass.