One of the highlights of Power-Con for me was the Four Horsemen panel and the opportunity to chat with some of them at their booth. Click through for a couple more pics and some thoughts about the Four Horsemen’s presence at Power-Con.
The Horsemen had a slide show presentation that covered their career, which began at McFarlane toys. Eric talked about how they sort of did things the way they wanted and made a lot of mistakes that served as great learning opportunites, teaching them what not to do and what to do. After leaving McFarlane, they pretty much went straight to Mattel, but what I didn’t know was that the first real job with them was to work on the presentation Mattel was putting together to get the Harry Potter license. They showed off some sculpts from that including some deluxe figures of Fluffy, Hagrid and the Mountain Troll and statues. The meat of their presentation was He-Man, as you would expect from a presentation at power-con, and they talked about the initial meeting they had with Mattel about it. They went in all dressed in suits with their presentation and when they got there, the mattel guys were all wearing shorts and Hawaiin shirts! They weren’t sure if the intimidation factor of Jersey guys in suits helped this, but they got quick approval from Mattel to start on the 2002 line. They showed a slide with sketches (see above) from the 2002 line including a couple they didn’t think had been seen before including Dragstor and the Horde Trooper. Chris Dahlberg talked about the alien looking Zodac sketch and how he did complete the sculpt before Mattel decided to go in another direction and that it was ‘in a box somewhere’ in the studio.
They showed another slide that had a pic of a ‘Horde Buster’ He-Man prototype that looked really cool. Cornboy said that the figure had a huge shield that had batwings that extended for extra protection. I wish I had got a better picture of that because it looked snazzy, but maybe the Horsemen could be persuaded to share pics online at some point. They also talked about their work on the DCU and the Batman Movie Masters. The part I found interesting about the Movie Masters was that the WB was so secretive about the costumes and such that the guys were doing sculpts from EW magazine at one point just to get the right likeness! They also talked about the Fantastic Exclusive project and Scarabus got several shout outs during the presentation and was for sale at their booth. One person asked about the progress on the Raven, the latest winner of the Fantastic Exclusive vote and next Gothitropolis figure planned for release, and Eric Treadaway said they hoped to have a variant to show at NYCC.
At their booth, the 4H brought loose versions of Scarabus for all to check out and play with before buying as well as 4 2-ups from the 2002 line. They showed Beast Man, Whiplash, Teela and Trap Jaw. It was fun checking those out in person and marveling at the details of those sculpts, discovering nuances I had never noticed on the tiny production figure.
I found it fascinating how much textural detail was in these massive sculpts. The pitted metal, rivits and battle damage is all so beautiful. Unfortunately a bunch of the pictures I took of Teela and Trap Jaw are unuseable. I was trying to take pictures without flash and my hands just aren’t steady enough. It’s a shame because those two 2-ups are much more impressive than their final figures turned out.
Something else I enjoyed was that they brought a whole bunch of weapons at the ‘fabrication’ stage that illustrates exactly what fabrication is. It was inspiring to see the materials they used and interesting to see how sharp some of the weapons are at that stage. Buzz-Off’s axe looked absolutely fatal! Cornboy stated that the weapons often become less sharp in production due to safety standards and the materials used. Most of the white material on the weapons is styrene and the pinkish looking stuff is called RENSHAPE URETHANE BOARD and is carveable and also millable. As a customizer and a process junkie, I find that stuff fascinating.
They also had a 2002 figure panel later in the day on Sunday that I was not able to attend. It was great having another opportunity to interact with and learn from my favorite sculptors out there right now and they helped make Power-Con special for this fan. Check out more 4H news about their Fantastic Exclusive and Outer Space Men lines at http://www.fourhorsemen.biz/!
