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Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

As the Minimate line grows, Art Asylum continually pushes the boundaries of what their block figure line is defined by. One of ways that they have begun branching out recently is the addition of “mini-vehicles” to accompany certain licenses. Among their more popular offerings is the oh so famous Delorean time machine to compliment their line of Back to the Future Minimates.

Back to the Future is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and what better way to honor such a monumental film series than to feature an iconic image in Minimate form, to coincide with the bluray release of the BTTF trilogy?

Behind the Image:

Anyone familiar with the original poster can tell that this isn’t a straight-up recreation. Art Asylum has already given us a wonderful Minimate homage to Back to the Future, so I felt a little less constrained to make my image an exact duplicate. That came in handy, since I sorta decided to do this image at the last minute (seriously though, it just fit too well. The 25th Minimate Spotlight just days before the BTTF 25th anniversary bluray anthology is released? too good to pass up), and this was a pretty labor intensive image.

I’m not going to get into the editing details, except to say that there was a whole lot of work involved. It’s unfortunate, too, because I don’t feel that the result was worth the amount of time I invested. But such is life… Still, I kinda like the overall look. It’s worth a quick glance, I suppose…

On Ebay: Back to the Future

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Costume changes are pretty common with comic book characters. Sometimes the changes are the result of a specific storyline (remember Superman’s electricity phase?), and sometimes they’re simply the result of evolving art styles (Wolverine’s ‘Astonishing X-Men’ costume is a perfect example).
Whatever the reason, just about every popular character in comic history has several distinct looks.

Art Asylum took this into account when planning out their Marvel releases, giving every wave one short-packed ‘variant’ figure. The variant figure is always an alternate design of one of the characters released in the wave, with the differences ranging anywhere from a different face to a completely different costume.

Marvel’s 28th wave gave us the long awaited Minimate incarnation of Wolverine’s arch-nemesis Sabretooth. Just to make sure all those patient fans were happy with the anticipated release, they added a first appearance variation as the short-packed figure.

Behind the Image:

I always enjoy a photoshop-heavy project. With this one, I wanted to showcase the comic sources of each costume design. The top image is the cover of X-Men #33, and the bottom is the cover of Iron Fist #14. To achieve the sleek, tech-y look of the image, I ran everything through various filters, and fiddled around with the layer transparencies. It was a little time consuming, and ultimately, it didn’t pay off as well as I was envisioning… but then, none of my ideas ever pan out the way I see them in my head.

On Ebay: Sabretooth

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

In addition to hundreds of comic book licensed Minimate releases, Art Asylum has also gives us several waves of Star Trek Minimates.
Unfortunately, this particular license only lasted 5 waves, which is arguably because of their marketing tactic. The first 3 waves were made up completely of characters from the original Star Trek series, and it wasn’t until wave 4 that fans were given anything from a different series. The one Next Generation pack we were given was Captain Picard and a Borg Drone, and in wave 5 we were given Captain Sisko and Gul Dukat from Deep Space Nine.

Apparently, the thought process must have been that TOS (The Original Series) was the most recognizable character lineup of the entire franchise (and had these Minimates been released after the latest movie, that would have inarguably been the case), but it’s apparent that fans felt otherwise. At the very least, the average customer drew the line at 5 different versions of each main TOS character (they even started getting into movie variations, which showed a considerable age difference in the actors. And the one boxed set that was released as a supplement to the traditional wave-style releases was a complete lineup of the main cast from one episode where Kirk traveled to an alternate “mirror” universe – where evil counterparts are apparently characterized by having goatees).

Regardless of which series sells the best, Art Asylum clearly couldn’t make fans want 5 waves of TOS characters. For years, fans called out for a complete set of TNG (The Next Generation) characters, but sadly, those fans were only teased with a small taste of what could be.
Still, that tease was a well received one, as Captain Picard is revered by many Star Trek Minimate collectors as one of the best made releases of all 5 waves.

Behind the Image:

This was part of a set of images that I did all at once, including the Street Fighter image from August 28th’s article. As part of that set, I made this photo with the exact same simple technique – I lined up a computer screen with an image on it (in this case, the Enterprise D from the Star Trek: The Next Generation tv show) and placed the Minimate in a pose in front of the screen. Short, sweet, and to the point, with no photoshop editing required.

On Ebay: Star Trek

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

“Spanning more than one thousand worlds, the advanced Kree Empire ruled most of the Galaxy for ages before finding their ultimate enemy in the form of the shape shifting Skrulls. Now evolutionally stagnant and weakened by war, the future of the Kree race rests with their distant cousins the Inhumans”

Intriguing, no? Marvel’s cosmic universe is a world in and of itself, with a rich history that could easily stand on its own. But when the cosmic end of Marvel canon intersects with the earth-based characters, it adds a whole new layer of awesome… and the Kree are an integral part.

Behind the Image:

I experimented a bit with this one. First, I cropped out the Minimates themselves and set them to their own Photoshop layer. Then I flushed the colors out and cranked the contrast up, so that it was as crisp as a black-and-white photo. Once it was all flat greyscale, I went through and re-colored everything on the Minimates themselves. Finally, I layered 4 different images in the background to give a retro-ish outer space feel to the image. The overall effect is as close to Andy Warhol as I will ever get, lol

On Ebay: Kree

 Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

One thing that every kid loves is taking all their favorite heroes and teaming them up together for a big fight against an ultimate evil. And you can see that in all of the big crossover comic events (Final Crisis; Secret Invasion, etc) and tv shows  (Justice League Unlimited; Batman the Brave and the Bold) and movies (the building Avengers movie universe) that comic book companies give us on a regular basis… but invariably, there will always be team ups that you will never see from an official source. For example, you will never see a movie where Yoda has to recruit Mega Man and Darkwing Duck to take down the Borg before they infiltrate the Batcave and foil James Bond’s mission.

It just won’t happen…
Unless you imagine it, that is.

That’s the beauty of creativity, and resources like action figures. It allows kids (or kids-at-heart) to live out the adventures that they would love to see but may not have the chance to via the companies that own those properties.

This week’s image is simply an homage to the enjoyment of being able to say “I know this team up may never really happen, but I think it’d be cool”.

Behind the Image:

No magic with this shot. I placed the Minimates in the positions I wanted them in, layed out a solid sheet of black paper as the background, set a lamp, and utilized my camera’s macro mode. Voila 🙂

On Ebay: Hulk, Iron Man, Angel, Scarlet Spider

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

One of Art Asylum’s licensing deals gave them the opportunity to make Minimates from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica tv show. The big problem with this license is that most of the releases were humans in rather bland clothing. Sales were decent, but not as well as they could have been had the majority of the character designs been flashy and more appealing to buyers unfamiliar with the show.

However, the one market-friendly thing that this license had to offer was the villainous robotic Cylon design. It just screams “cool looking thing that needs to be part of my collection”, and Art Asylum didn’t fail in their task of adapting the Cylon look into Minimate form. It is easily one of their more impressive releases.

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Another Minimate with a huge fan outcry, Phoenix (Jean Grey’s most popular incarnation) finally got her day with the Secret Invasion boxed set. As I had mentioned in the past, a toy company needs to “reinvent” the products they sell every so often in order to keep a line alive and healthy. One of the methods that Art Asylum picked up over time was to design waves around current comic book events or storylines. This hasn’t become their only focus, as they have recently been dipping into the 90’s for new characters and costume variations, however, they have been consistently integrating boxed sets that compliment the big comic book happenings as they are in their prime. Through this, we have seen releases for Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Avengers, and even the new X-Force that is just now gearing up.

And Art Asylum isn’t just in it for the money. They do indeed like to give something back to the fans. With the Secret Invasion boxed set, they took the opportunity to give us a Minimate of Jewel, who would never have been released any other time, along with a retro release of Beast (the first Minimate of Hank McCoy that wasn’t the kitty version or the movie version), a first appearance costumed Wolverine, and of course, the ever coveted Phoenix.

Behind the Image:

This is another image that might look super-imposed, but in reality, the Minimate was simply standing in front of a computer screen displaying a painting of a traditional phoenix that I pulled off the internet.
If you are a Minimate collector, you might notice that this isn’t the face that comes with this particular release. I didn’t really like the official one, so I replaced it with the “New X-Men Phoenix” Minimate.

On Ebay: Phoenix

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Just about everyone knows the Human Torch from Marvel’s first family, The Fantastic Four. But not as many people know that Marvel had a Golden-Age character named Human Torch before the Johnny Storm incarnation. Back when Marvel Comics was known as Timely Comics, they had three signature characters; Human Torch, Captain America, and Namor the Submariner. While Cap and Namor survived the transition, the original Human Torch did not.

In a retrospective move, Art Asylum released a Golden Age Invaders boxed set, featuring the three signature Timely Comics characters, plus Captain America’s sidekick Bucky.

To differentiate the old school Torch from the current Fantastic Four character of the same name (and power), Art Asylum released this version in translucent plastic and with a more stylized face tampo, to reflect the comic art look of his era.

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Art Asylum has built their Minimates line primarily using comic book characters. However, they have dipped into many other licenses over the years, from movies to musicians to video games. Back in 2006, a Street Fighter 2 line was released, lasting only 1 wave due to poor sales. As a result, many core characters were never produced, but among the few that we were given: M. Bison, Ryu & Chun-Li

Behind the Image:

I’m a child of the late 80’s/early 90’s. I grew up playing Street Fighter 2 on Super Nintendo – that was my bread and butter when it came to this particular series. So to honor my own history with this game franchise, I pulled out the original SNES version of Street Fighter 2 and paused it on the M. Bison, Ryu & Chun-Li stages. I positioned the figures in front of the screen, and viola: each character in thier native habitats. No photoshop required 😉

On Ebay: Street Fighter

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

What do you do with all those super villains after they get arrested? In DC’s continuity, the most favored spot to place a captured baddie is Arkham Asylum. But in the Marvel Universe, it’s a place known as “The Vault”.
Thanks to technology from Tony Stark’s Iron Man armor, the Guardsmen who work security in The Vault are able to keep super powered villains in check even without special powers of their own.

Art Asylum decided to utilize the “Vault Guards” as their army builder for Marvel’s 30th wave, giving collectors a chance to own yet another character (or rather, characters) who may never have been produced otherwise.

Behind the Image:

As I’ve stated in the past, I love playing around with lighting. I also love trying to use random objects as background filler. In this case, I arranged various parts from a computer that I had recently disassembled, and highlighted everything with a few yellow and blue lights.

On Ebay: The Vault | Guardsman | Arkham Asylum