Hey guys
Seems like everyone understands most of the reasons for the delays, which is great. Bit of a bummer people are losing interest but you cant make everyone happy.
I wish we could pump out 3-4 for the "Legends" line a year, and yah, we did put some time and energy into the Skeletor Bust and the Classic He-Man & BC, but those didnt really take up a calendar spot for another "Legends" piece...
The "Legends" line is the most time consuming stuff we produce. We cant just crank these out. The Skeletor bust and the He-Man & BC went a LOT faster just because with Skeletor, we only had to worry about the bust, and we could use that to help expedite the full statue, and He-Man and BC is based on the vintage figures, so its a bit more straight forward...
But things like Hordak, Teela, Mer-Man, and now Trap Jaw... all those pieces take a LONG time to make... they are re-designs, lots of "try this out, oh wait, that doesnt work..." because we have to get these just right... If we dont, and one sells bad, it could be the end of the line. We want this to go on as LONG as possible... we're playing the long game...
And Trap Jaw was easily our longest project in development so far, it took almost a year to get him from design to on the website, even a bit longer... part of that is Gio, the amazing talent behind most of the design and sculpt, has a very demanding full time job and he only has a handful of hours here and there to work on anything. We also went through a major pose change about 75% the way through, which set things back... and we worked in the classic arm at the last second.
We put a lot of time and attention into these, I have a lot of hands-on time with these to make sure they are consistent, that the sculptors (who help design these things) are supported with proper feedback, and so it doesnt look like a bunch of different sculptors worked on these pieces, we want them to feel cohesive.
So, we could go MUCH faster, at the compromise of the quality of the line, which neither Chad nor I are willing to do... but we are picking up steam. Getting some of these going was a long process, and some things we've had in the works for a while and we're able to pick back up where we left off with them to get them going again, so we're gaining time from previous efforts, and we're finding the right artists to help continue to work on these pieces...
End of the day, I wish we could do every character, now, the best we could, and make them all under $400. I want that. But all of that is just impossible. Time is the hardest thing to come by, same with talent that we trust with this line... because we feel this is the best line available for any collector and we dont want to compromise that. I might be biased tho...
But yah, quality > quantity. Thats our approach.
