With the advent of crowdfunding, there’s been a fair number of DIY toy projects out there.This month there’s been a kickstarter for a line of Ninja figures, called “Legends Of The Hidden Force”.I liked the designs, and while I’m mainly a G.I.Joe fan, and this being a line coming out of the G.I.Joe community, it’s something different, rather than just “G.I.Joe but tacticool”, which works for some, but doesn’t do much for me.
Since, I’d like to see this succeed, I figured I’d give the creators a chance to get some of their opinions out into the G.I.Joe blogosphere, so without further ado, here’s some comments from Darren and Matt from Whiskey Jack Toys.
Chad, the other half of ChadMatted, the designers, doesn’t do media, but is also important as a consultant.
Make sure to check out the Kickstarter, and the Whiskey Jack Toys website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1754423583/legends-of-the-hidden-force
https://www.whiskeyjacktoys.com
Q.
Thanks for agreeing to do this, care to share a bit of the background for how Legends Of The Hidden Force came to be?
Darren: We had just come off a 3 ¾” o-ring Military action figure line, and were looking at what was next.We saw our peers (and friends) were all digging into their own 3 ¾” o-ring Military action figure lines, and saw the opportunity to do something different.We landed on Ninjas out of a few possible options, as it seemed the cheapest option for us to entry into the game.Just a few tools to get it started.
Matthew: My initial ideas begin around the unproduced “Legends of the Arashikage” along with ninjas heavily influenced by the different masters from the Arashikage.
Darren then began throwing around the original ideas that eventually morphed into what is now “Legends of the Hidden Force.”
Q.A lot of background details and lore has been created for Legends Of The Hidden Force.This helps flesh the whole line out, and is different from a lot of independent toylines, especially for a completely new property.Were there any major inspirations?
D I’m not sure exactly what you mean.I mean, lore and details are key to every toy line.If you don’t have a good story, good characters, and a good direction, you don’t really have a toy line.
My personal inspirations came from 80s ninja movies, and gijoe, and video games and other media where ninjas factored heavily, much like everyone else I would assume.
But the story inspirations are from classic sagas and tales.
Q.Legends Of The Hidden Force, in a lot of ways, really feels like a toyline, with ideas like the Adventure Packs.Was that always the intention, or did it blossom into this over time?
D We’ve scaled it way, way back.We had vehicles and playsets in mind right away as well.There are some great designs we hope to get to.
This has always been intended as a full on toy line.There are comics outlined, cartoons outlined, many, many figures designed (you have no idea of some of the loops and curveballs coming), vehicles, playsets, costumes, trading cards, etc etc.
– all planned.I don’t see any reason to do anything with half effort.It’s full effort on all of these – Hidden Force, CHAOS, I.M.P.A.C.T., etc.
Our intention is to get to retail with every step we take.National retail eventually.
Q.The Ninja concept is a lot of fun, and not one really seen as a stand-alone acton figure line.Was there anything other than Ninjas considered before settling with Legends Of The Hidden Force?
D Yes.
I had 8 partially fleshed out ideas, out of about 30 altogether.At this point there are four fully fleshed out and ready to go.
We opted for ninjas because of the price of admission as we mentioned earlier, but as we were exploring ideas and notions, we quickly all gravitated to ‘the ninja one’, and haven’t really looked back since.We love these characters.We know that given the opportunity, you will too.
Q.Legends Of The Hidden Force has a fairly intricate weapon and accessory system.The customization aspect is quite impressive, was there anything that inspired the system?
Matthew: I really wanted each character to have individualized accessories.
The accessories from the 80’s Joes will always be tied to a singular character.So instead of creating 24 unique weapons I looked at what we could create using modular weapons to get more bang for our buck.LEGO (specifically their Ninjago line) was the starting point for our “Hidden-Forged” accessories.Nerf Modulus was another.
Q.
On the accessory topic, it’s impressive to see how unique each figure’s accessory compliments are, were they assigned to characters intentionally?
Matthew: Some were absolutely intentional.I wanted Shinobi, the main protagonist, to have swords.
Kusa (whose name means grass) got a threshing scythe.Our snake-them troopers, the Hebi-Gi, needed the ability to strike from a distance, hence the spear.At some point, though, we also had accessories that we wanted to use, like nunchakus, and divvied those out to the characters that were left.
Q.While the accessories are intricate, I have to admit I like the subtlety of the sculpting on the figures.The lack of sculpted on weapons is refreshing in comparison to most 3 3/4 figures.Was that intentional or just something done to keep costs down and parts sharing easier to do?
Matthew: I think it’s a bit of both.Costs savings for sure, but ninjas have a specific look that we didn’t want to stray from.
We added a few details here and made sure that they could be repurposed in various ways.The armored torso and the upper arms are the base example as we could paint them as clothed or bare skin.
Q.A thing I’ve found impressive with the roll out of the digital previews is just how unique each figure is.Obviously a lot of effort was put in to make each figure unique, was it difficult keeping some designs, like Shinob, relatively muted after doing intricate figures like Tatsu or the Hebi-Gi ninja?
Matthew: I appreciate this as it’s one of the things in which I’m most proud.One of the main things I wanted to do was have everyone be as unique as possible.
While there are some shared color schemes, mainly Obake and Kyonshii, no two characters share a primary color.Most of the color schemes were a direct result of their name or their inspiration.I wanted to make Torashi as tiger like as possible and Raiju’s is a literally translation of the reference image that Darren gave me.Other designs came from reasearching tv/comic/video game/etc ninjas.Once the intuitive designs came together the others fell into place.
D Matt’s amazing.It’s as simple as that.
He always throws at least a few options for each character as starting points, and many, many of those unused designs end up being the basis for later characters.His designs are just too good to toss out.
For instance, Shinobi v2, I want to say he’s due in series 10, barely changes anything about the figure, but actually changes everything, and completely changes the tone and feel of the character.And that started as an alternate design to the original.We just couldn’t toss it out, so we repurposed it for a later release.
Q.There’s obviously some G.I.
Joe nods in the Hidden Force, without being too blatant.
Was it difficult to not go to that well too often?
Matthew: Yes and no.While I have fond memories of other 80’s toys, G.I.Joe was and is my favorite childhood toy.I think it’s easy to see that influence here.
Oddly enough, though, a character like Shinobi (who is Cobra blue) was never designed to be a “Cobra” ninja even though he could be used as one.Like I mentioned earlier, the inspiration for the line came from Joe, but the more we developed and got to know the characters, the easier it became to not go continue to go to that well.
D I’m a lifelong fan of Gijoe as well.
It’s easily the reason we chose the size, style and format.But although it was fun to entertain Gijoe adjacent characters at first, we quickly began to love our creation too much, and trimmed the most of the parts that weren’t true to it.Only a handful of nods remain, and they are in the initial lineup.
Q.
Which figure are you most excited about coming to life?
Matthew: Of the figures that have been shown, Shinobi.
We have a character that we are considering for our BackerKit that I’m really excited about though.
D All of them.
Honestly.
Obake is just a fantastic bad guy that I can’t wait to see people latch onto.Shinobi has shades of me from my young adulthood (mostly the impetuousness and poor decision making).Furi is the pet I never had.Torashi is my son.Kuno is a mashup of my younger loves.Raiju is my relationship with my father.
Omen has shades of my spirituality.Komainu is my lack of self awareness.Oni is if I stopped caring about people.Joro is my nature of second guessing myself.
Ne is who I hope to age into.And so on, and so on.
They are all extremely personal, and I love every one of them.
I can’t pick just one.
Advertisement Related This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Legends Of The Hidden Force , Ninja , Whiskey Jack Toys .
Bookmark the permalink .
← Pictures Of 1984 Roadblock Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here…Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:
Email (required) (Address never made public) Name (required) Website You are commenting using your WordPress.com account.( Log Out / Change )
You are commenting using your Twitter account.
( Log Out / Change )
You are commenting using your Facebook account.( Log Out / Change )
Cancel Connecting to %s
Notify me of new comments via email.
Notify me of new posts via email.
Δ
Search for: Blogroll ARAH Gallery Cobra Cabana (Never Updated!) Colin’s Joes G.I.Joe Netherlands Mike’s Forgotten Figures Nekoman’s Viper Pit Plastic Battles Surveillance Port The Dragon Fortress Recent Posts Legends Of The Hidden Force Q&A Pictures Of 1984 Roadblock Red Laser (Action Force) 1986 Leatherneck 2005 Backblast (Winter Ops) Recent Comments Josh Zyber on Pictures Of 1984 Roadbloc… Red Laser (Action Fo… on 1983 Quarrel (Action Forc… Red Laser (Action Fo… on 1983 Gung Ho Red Laser (Action Fo… on 1983 Stalker Red Laser (Action Fo… on Red Shadows Star Duster (The B… Archives April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 Categories Diorama G.I.Joe Miscellany Lines In Filecards Reviews Uncategorized Meta Register Log in Entries feed Comments feed WordPress.com.
