McFarlane Toys in Babes, Beasts, and Brawn
Okay, the very first thing that I have to do is apologize to all of you. I thought for sure that I had shared Babes, Beasts, and Brawn* in the past, but a quick search of battlegrip.com doesn’t reveal any mention of the book. How did I completely miss sharing with you this look at action figure design and sculpting? That’s an inexcusable error on my part!
Published in 2006 by Dark Horse, Babes, Beasts, and Brawn* is 160-pages showcasing the work of Steve Kiwus and his Eightball Studios. Page after page of photos and thoughts on action figure sculpting make this a must own book for any action figure fan.
Inside the book, on pages 82 and 83, we see Kiwus’ work for McFarlane Toys. Kiwus sculpted six of those very first Spawn action figures, and seeing his sculpts really drives home how similar the original Spawn action figures were to the other toys on the market. The sculpts were definitely Spawn, which is a lot of what made them look different, but the joints and toy design side of the process are clearly from the action figure realm and not the later statue-like designs released after the first few waves.
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- “Total Chaos” in the 1997 McFarlane Toys Catalog (battlegrip.com)