YoJoe.com has a really interesting interview up with Ron Rudat. Rudat was a designer for the GI Joe franchise from 1980 to 1987. He was involved since the inception of the 3 3/4 inch line through what could be considered the golden years of the line. He gives some insight into the design process, in addition to a few of the inspirations for characters. Also, of note is the very last couple of lines in the interview. Check it out for yourselves. Its a good read.

Link.

Die Cast Construction isn’t so lost after all!

It’s just been discovered that there’s some new Classics protos over at the Japanese patents office. It’s a bit of a hassle getting through their site, so I’ve mirrored the images here. They’ve also updated with Prime and Starscream, but it’s nothing new. In additon ebay seller SPY_Toys has Classics Grimlock for sale.

Continue on for a mirrored gallery of these 3 highly anticipated Classics.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

As a recap for any fans interested in the Revoltech line of figures coming out of Japan from Kaiyodo, I thought I would post the roster of upcoming figures and when we can expect them to be publicly available. The dates I am using are from AnimeNewInternational as reported from the WonderFest 2006 Summer Toy Show in Japan.

• September 15, 2006 
  • Revoltech 10 Patlabor Ingram Unit 1
  • Revoltech 11 EVA-00 Custom
• October 15th
  • Revoltech 12 Revi
  • Revoltech 13 EVA-04
• November 15th
  • Revoltech 14 Patlabor Ingram Unit 2
  • Revoltech 15 Soltic H8 Round Facer
• Beyond
  • MazinKaiser
  • Shin Getter Robo 3
  • Optimus Prime!

Go here for images of some of the figures on display at WonderFest. More pictures here!

Marvel Legends fans should now be on the look out for Mojo wave. They have been sighted in the wild!

This wave consists of the following figures as announced at ToyFair earlier this year:

• Longshot
• Psylocke
• First Appearance Iron Man
• Falcon
• Power Man (Luke Cage)
• Baron Zemo
• VARIANT: Unmasked Baron Zemo
• VARIANT: Falcon Classic Costume
• VARIANT: First Appearance Iron Man Gold Armor

Traveller’s Tales, developers of the great pick-up-and-play platformers LEGO Star Wars have revealed their newest game to CVG.

LEGO Batman will taked DC’s famed Caped Crusader to new block shaped heights no doubt. I certainly hope we get all the body and character swapping fun from LSW, and the option to build and modify Bat vehicles. No solid details are known, but given how well the first game in the series handled, one can only hope. Whats next? LEGO has a lot of licenses, and also a lot of original properties. I’d go for any LEGO Pirate or Space game, personally.

On a semi-related note, a couple years ago the The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School project was to create a Batman short film called “Batman: New Times” featuring CG models based on Art Asylum’s Batman Minimates, which is a hardy derivitive of the LEGO style. Adam West reprises his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne, and Mark Hammill is the Joker. Its a nifty film, and worth a watch if you’ve never seen it before.

To check out the LEGO Batman toys, here’s the official site.

There was a lot of Transformers news in the past few days that we passed over, so I wanted to do a quick round up of some of the things we missed in case you missed it too.

First off, the lenticular cover art was revealed for the 20th Anniversary release of The Transformers: The Movie. That can be seen here. Its a large animated gif, so it may take a minute to load. Magnus seems to have gotten the shaft on this one.

The Hartmans’ shared some images of a ‘few’ items they will be bringing with them to Botcon to be sold. The Hartmans’ have what is generally believed to be the most complete collection of Transformers and have stated that it will be on sale at Botcon. The images can be seen here on the 2005 boards. The wall of American carded figures alone leaves me speechless.

Registration letters and events schedules should be arriving in the mail for those who have pre-registered for Botcon.

An image of an upcoming 2-pack in the Classics line surfaced. It features a repaint of Prime as Ultra Magnus and Starscream as Skywarp. The package indicates it will be a Target Exclusive.

The peoples at e-Hobby have listed Rodimus on their site, with a very nice collection of pictures showing his all the new features that he comes with. Check out this boner-riffic repaint below.

Link.