>>8039229They are painted on, and look rather cute.
>>8039276>>8039263You probably have seen pic related before. It's an interview with Jens Nygaard Knudsen where he covers a long range of topics. Among them he mentions a defector in Lego's design team that went on to a Spanish competitor - EXIN-LINES BROS S.A.
Well, that's what they came up with, at least for minifigures.
You can see that they're radically different from Lego figures from the most basic design standpoint. In fact, Tente's entire Astro line was indeed leaning more towards models and older children, having a more "realistic" retro-future look (judged by present standards).
All in all, their product went on for a while and was even sold in the US under Hasbro but they never really took off.
I suspect it was a combination of design choices, especially the choice to make the minifigures more realistic at the cost of play value. I personally think that sealed the deal for them in the long term, as children could not swap, customize, add weapons/tools to minifigures.
So, I apologize in advance for spamming the tread with "not Lego" but I do believe TENTE's Astro line is a direct derivative of Lego Classic Space and thus deserves at least a little of our recognition and interest.
In a sense, it is our best look at what Classic Space looked like under a different company.
I find them charming and fun, and have taken to collecting them. Thank you for reading my blog post - don't forget to subscribe, comment, like, favorite and tweet!
