A really great example of this is the forthcoming Umbrella Academy Book & Figure Set and the Umbrella Academy Six Piece Figure Set. In trying to bring forward the vision of creators Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, we tapped senior project manager Rebecca D'Madeiros to coordinate. Like the goddess Arachne, she began to weave together the diverse elements that brought the figures to life.
Certainly the first goal of this little adventure was to achieve the creator's vision. Coordinating with Scott Allie and his team in editorial, Rebecca discussed the look of the characters and worked up visual reference for the sculptors. Gabriel participated enthusiastically, eventually finalizing, with Gerard Way's approval, the character's poses. Here's a look at the final art.
Then the sculpting began. In this case, we used our crack team of Chinese sculptors, who were best-suited for this particular assignment as they were able to assess the needs of the manufacturing process while still being artistically true to the underlying work. As Rebecca began to show rough work to Mr. Bá, he would digitally suggest various revisions and add any comments. Here are some examples of the preliminary sculptures with artist commentary. Considering that Gabriel is in Brazil, Rebecca is in Portland and the sculptors are in Dongguan, China, we are already sending our inventive little tentacles around the globe!
As work proceeded on the 3D modeling, Rebecca began to work with the Dark Horse design team on packaging solutions. Additionally, when we decided we wanted to create a book-and-figure combo as well as the figure collection, Rebecca went back to editorial and Scott and Sierra Hahn developed a special hardcover edition of the Umbrella Academy graphic novel, which had to be printed at a press facility in China and shipped to the toy factory. They did a great job on it.
The design team at Dark Horse then took on the challenge of coming up with suitable design solutions for each of the projects. Everyone loved Tony Ong's brilliant use of white on the book packaging. It really popped!
But the figure set was a bit more daunting. Usually we somehow place the figures all in a line, but with the different size characters here, it didn't seem like the right way to go. Spaceboy towers over the lad called .05, so what to do? It became apparent that if we built a circular type of container, we could elevate various characters as needed to result in a coherent presentation that looked good. In fooling around with the circular shape, a “light bulb" of an idea went off -- only this time it wasn't a light bulb, but an umbrella-shaped idea. By shaping the top of a container as a dome, we almost had an umbrella anyway, so a dowel rod down the middle and some clever paint applications completed the illusion. Voila! Rebecca was impressed by the cooperation between the factory and the artists, observing: "The creative packaging solution was a result of brainstorming between all parties involved and was unique to the situation."
Back at the sculpture studio, we had moved from sculpting to painting the prototypes and making the mold. The manufacturing process for a figure set like this is known as “injected plastic". This process requires very expensive metal molds, known as “tooling", which are meticulously crafted by a master tool-and-die maker. It is the single most expensive and time-consuming part of the process. Simultaneously, we enlisted top prototype painter Kat Sapene to handle the colors. Working from Bá's notes, she applied a color palette that evoked the look and feel of the graphic stories.
Now we were ready! After final approvals by all and sundry, we proceeded with our marketing plan. We sent out press releases, pictures, ad pages for Diamond Previews, and debuted the prototypes at New York Comic-Con, International Toy Fair, and Wonder Con. Response has been very gratifying -- if you are already a fan of Umbrella Academy, chances are that you were pretty happy with the look of the figures. If the material is new to you, we hope that this collector's item package piques your curiosity and makes you want to read the books. They won the Eisner Award for best limited series last year, so what are you waiting for?
T.Amat copyright SDCC
After thorough safety testing and analysis by an independent testing facility, a confirmation of the non-phthalate materials, review of press proofs and other details, we are now wailing away on the production run and arranging ocean freight and other distribution logistics. All to arrive at a better retailer near you real soon. The book and figure package goes on-sale April 15; the deluxe figure set follows at the end of May.
This was an endeavor involving many hands, and the resulting “tapestry" would make old Arachne proud. We hope you find that it was as productive and inventive as our team did.
A special thank you to Damien Cabaza and Jackie Estrada of Comic-Con International for their kind assistance in helping us to obtain the photo of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá at the Eisner Awards ceremony during Comic International 2008.