Trash Bag Bunch XL

So here's the reveal: these are not mini figures.  

If something is to be revisited, why not take it into new territory?  This line will see the original designs from 1991 at a scale approximately 4X the original toys--about 8-10 inches, depending on the character.  With larger sculpts comes added detail and the potential for some articulation where appropriate.  These toys will fit right in with your Kaiju, Sofubi, and Vinyl collections. 

The first few will be from series 1, but, as many are probably wondering, YES, I also intend to bring the ever-so-rare original series 2 designs to all the fans who never had the chance to welcome them into their collections.

As the price and production costs will reflect the scale and detail of the figures, only a handful of the coolest creatures will get the XL treatment to start with, however, as long there is an audience for these, there is no limit to the scope.

Which characters can you expect?  Is there other merchandise?  Multiple colorways?!  STAY TUNED

A few months ago I started a dialogue with Mel Birnkrant (http://melbirnkrant.com) as a fan, fellow collector, and toymaker--which has led to a collaboration.  After some emailing back and forth, we got to talking about licensing.  Mel owns Trash Bag Bunch, and I love Trash Bag Bunch--it was a perfect match.  I immediately started developing ideas for what I could do to bring the license back.  I'm currently in development of officially licensed toys based on some of the characters from the original line--but with a new approach.  This isn't your father's Trash Bag Bunch!  Details about the toys and characters for this new line will be announced in the near future!

And we're back

This site has sat dormant for a while as you can see by the date of my last post.  I, on the other hand, have been anything but dormant.  Run-A-Mucks are neither dead nor forgotten.  I ran into some speed bumps with it, life happened, and here we are 3 years later.  The prototypes are safely in storage eager to be produced, however, they will be waiting a bit longer.  I still have every intention of making them...but first...I will be making some licensed product to help garner attention and build a brand.  Official announcements to be made in the near future!  Find Last Resort Toys on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in the meantime (links on the CONTACT page).  The pages are quiet at the moment, but not for long.  I'm working on multiple licensed projects, so stay tuned!

Don't do it!

Suicide Snowman is my (Bryan Fulk) design contribution to round out the first six figures.  This is actually the second design I sculpted for this set of toys.  The first one is called The Old Stump…I may do something with it at a later date, but it needs a little reworking and I wanted to do something different, so I cracked open my list of character designs and ideas to see what else I had stored away.  I'd be remiss if I didn't say I drew some inspiration from a little boy and his stuffed tiger. 

Here you can see my exemplary 2-D drawing skills…and also my exemplary coffee drinking skills.  Though I'm primarily a 3-D artist, I usually rough out my ideas on paper, crude as they may be.  It can help with creating and sticking to a scale or just fleshing out and playing with options.  I pretty much stuck with this basic concept, adding and changing some details here or there.  I decided to give the figure a more expressive mouth rather than sculpting bits of coal sliding down the melty side.

I really enjoy asymmetry in some mini-figure designs so I changed up the arm positioning from my original sketch and added a mitten to one hand.  Since it's static, a variety of shapes, angles, and textures can really help make a more visually interesting toy.

Comparing Suicide Snowman to some other standards, he's pretty average, but his hat does give him some extra height pushing him over the two-inch mark.  To the left is The Crawdad Kid from OMFG and a Mini Boglin.  And on the right is a S.L.U.G. Zombie and a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure.

Commander Sporloff

Designer Trysta Lilford works in games, web design, and illustration.  She said that Commander Sporloff began as a high school doodle.  In case you were unsure, Sporloff is indeed female.  Trysta said the design was revisited and brought up to snuff much later.

The first version of her design included a headset and microphone.  She has a backstory that fits into a larger universe where she's the commander of a small mercenary group that specializes in transporting dangerous beings to other worlds for work or rehabilitation.  I want to know more about this…Trysta?

Although I'm sure the headset helps on her inter-planetary missions, this pared down design is the version I worked from for my sculpt.  In a small, usually solid-colored medium where texture can be so important, I really enjoyed having a completely smooth figure to work with.  Trysta's design note about the skull drooping like an octopus definitely affected the way I approached the sculpt.  I made her head look more like a soft, fleshy mass than a hard skull.

Take notice that Commander Sporloff has a pretty non-traditional shape, especially at her base, for a mini figure.  I wanted to allow for some sculptural freedom in this line of toys, and this is a perfect example.  This figure will require a more complex molding process and will cost more to produce, so keeping this to a minimum, I plan to allow for one "deluxe" (for lack of better terminology) figure per set.  Sporloff is it for Series 1.

And the ol' comparison shot.  On the left we've got a S.L.U.G. Zombie and Zombie Pheydon from OTMFG, and on the right are M.U.S.C.L..E. and Gormiti figures.

Check out more of Trysta's design work at her Diviant Art page: http://trystentangled.deviantart.com/

Here comes Stinkweed...

Stinkweed was designed by Gabriel Barragan (Lazzy Lizard), who has been collecting toys for as long as he can remember in addition to customizing and designing toys for nearly twenty years.  He said that he drew inspiration for Stinkweed from an Andy Panda cartoon in which a weed character was terrorizing his flower girlfriend.  Stinkweed is a much more detailed update.

I think this might be my favorite transition from concept to sculpt of the first six Run-A-Mucks.  Bask in the glory of this MS Paint mockup of the plant formerly known as "Potman."  I love it.

Then the design was updated by Christopher Howard Wolf of www.slimebeast.com .  And here it gets a little interesting.  On the right is the original detailed version of the art for Stinkweed, however, on the left is the only reference art I had for my sculpt.  So making a few changes for practical and molding purposes, the Stinkweed sculpt is of a more stalky, tough-looking guy.  Only after I was done with the sculpt did I see the original art for the first time and contemplated changing the sculpture into the more slender, taller-looking version, but Gabriel and I were both happy with it, so no changes were made.  It's pretty cool how having the reference art out of aspect actually made him look like more of a mean bruiser…wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.

Stinkweed is of pretty average height, though he has more mass to his stalky, broad form than many mini figures.  Compare him here, from left to right, to a Battle Beast figure, a Mystical Warriors of the Ring toy, an OMFG mini figure, and as always, a classic M.U.S.C.L.E. toy.

Meet Grinade

Al Sharpe (bigburty) came up with this awesome little dude and approached me about sculpting it approximately a year and a half ago.  Al joins this ragtag bunch of designers from England, making this an international toy line, and I'm sure adding some class to the group as well.  Al enjoys collecting and customizing toys and coming up with awesome characters like this one.

Al told me about thinking up Grinade while driving home from work one day.  He started with a large toothy grin, which led to "flicking through witty 'grin' related names" in his head and coming to Grinade saying, "I knew instantly how I wanted him to look--no eyes or nose, just a crazy huge grin."

The 'pulling the pin' idea came later and he was originally saluting, but we went with this second pose here--I think it was the right call.

And here's the obligatory mini figure comparison shot.  Hanging out on the left we have a Laser Beast and a Monster in My pocket figure, and on the right you can compare Grinade to a Z-Bot and a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure.

Antaeus

Antaeus is the little guy of the bunch, coming in at a little over 1.25 inches to the top of his head.  He makes a great smaller mini figure, but certainly looks like a badass.  I met designer and fellow toy maker, Sam De Jesus, last fall and discovered this character.  I contacted him a couple weeks later and he allowed me to scale down his design into a mini figure.

This art is so cool.  Sam was telling me about the conception of Antaeus and he said, "I've always had an affinity for frogs, and I would constantly make this one mean-looking frog with a tongue that transformed into different objects: a heart, a flyswatter, a word bubble…one night it just happened to be an AK-47 and it looked great."  I Agree...

And here's your scale comparison photo featuring a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure and an OMFG figure (I sculpted that too!) on the left, and to the right are Trash Bag Bunch and Monster in My Pocket figures.

And get a load of this…he's got a big brother!  I highly recommend that if you're into this design you rush over to Sam's store and buy one of his bigger Antaeus figures while you have the chance: http://www.samdejesus.com

And he's got even more awesome stuff here: http://samdejesus.deviantart.com

Knockout design, Sam--thanks for trusting me to take a crack at it.

A Closer Look at The Coughin' Coffin

Coughin' Coffin designer, Nik Sardos, a.k.a. T16skyhopp, is a 2-D designer and animator.  He said he liked the idea of making a design out of "nothing specific," referring to the creation of a character that's not much more than a conglomerate of stuff.

I love seeing the transformation of the character.  Check out the more anthropomorphized version with the goofy eyes.

But here's the refined concept that Nik came to, leaving off the more "alive" aspects, and focusing on creating the character out of nothing more than exactly what it is.  There's still a nice hunched over "heaving" motion to the design, which I tried to capture in my sculpt.

Here's one last picture showing how Coughin' Coffin will play nicely with your other favorite mini figures.  To the left is a classic Monster in My Pocket figure and one of Alex Pardee's BUNNYWITH toys.  On the right, we have a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure and a S.L.U.G. Zombie.

Thanks, Nik, for the great design.  Check out his website: http://niksardos.com/ and also his art store: http://society6.com/NikSardos

Run-A-Mucks series one

Here're the prototypes for the debut series of Run-A-Mucks.  These are all about 2 inches tall.  I have collaborated with 5 other designers to get these guys off the ground.  They send me the concept artwork, and I sculpt the characters.  It's very exciting to finally share these publicly!  I'm in the process of pulling together numbers and figuring out production costs and requirements, but that's the goal, to get these produced and available for purchase.

Top row from left to right: Coughin' Coffin designed by Nik Sardos (T16skyhopp), Suicide Snowman designed be me, Bryan Fulk, and Antaeus designed by Sam de Jesus.  

Bottom row from left to right: Grinade designed by Al Sharpe (bigburty), Commander Sporloff designed by Trysta Lilford, and Stinkweed designed by Gabriel Barragan (Lazzy Lizard).  

And while I'm giving credit to my collaborators, I owe a big thanks to Kevin Ivers for my Last Resort Toys logo and the Run-A-Mucks logo.

A closer look at each figure and an intro to its designer to come...

Welcome to Last Resort Toys

My goal with Last Resort Toys is to launch an independent toy company to produce the kind of toys I'd like to have on my shelves, and hopefully others will too.  I will focus on original content, but in time, would also like to produce some licensed properties as well.  I am currently working on two sets of mini figures that will hopefully become ongoing projects.  Stay tuned for updates and photos of my first series: Run-A-Mucks.  This site will grow in time to include a store and other features.  Thanks for taking a look, check in often!