>>11343444I also painted prototypes for the SDCC and helped set up displays, made customs for the setups. I worked for a shady company, it was a real Shocker and that left a bad taste in my mouth for indie companies. You all see what goes on with them like the Kickstarters that never materialize and Megalopolis or DNA whatever they call themselves now. At the height of my underground career I was answering 50+ emails a day and working on 10 different prototypes in various stages. Many never materialized as complete figures until 10 years later when the markets were just right for 'collector figures'. That modular body system that Hasbro uses and the idea you can swap armor/boot cuffs, and belts on a base body to make a whole new figure? Toybiz/Hasbro was paying sculptors and China to CNC mill a new steel mold for every character. I knew we could do the same thing they did for GI Joes but for comic book heroes. Remolds, repaints, it was basically customizing but on an official level! Some may even remember me asking Hasbro about the concept dressed as Jin Saotome at the SDCC. I was brought to the booth and had my brain picked for hours afterwards.
Anyway almost everyone owns a figure that I worked on or had a hand in creating through some way or another. Companies that disappeared like SOTA and Resaruas were like my best friends and I didn't even charge them for my time. I just wanted the best action figures out there for people and to see my ideas brought to life at a scale I never could accomplish by myself.
But out of all that my dream of getting a company to create an official non-statue Jin Saotome figure (There's a few Blodia mechs out there) never happened. It's still my dream tho, someday I'll see an articulated Jin.
