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| The future of Women Action Figures |
Hello Maven Collectibles, can
we get acquainted with what Maven Collectibles’ products are? Does it already
exist in the market?
Jim Posey: Hello! We are a company that specializes in fine art sculptures and luxury resin model kits.
Since forming in 2016 we’ve created a monstrous 1/6th scale model kit called
Sun Wukong, which sold out quickly. We just launched ARES (God of War) 1/8th
scale model kit bust, under our new CFIX™ line a month ago (currently
available). We had the pleasure of meeting
with Warner Bros. in Burbank, CA to discuss a fully painted 1/6th scale
Robin (Tim Drake) statue on a pending licenses. And we are getting ready to
prep a larger 1/8th scale mini bust of Dracula!
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| 1/8 scale Ares Model Kit bust |
What are your inspirations in
coming up with this product?
Jim: Our
daughters and the many powerful women in and around our lives. We had great
difficulty naming off highly articulate female body forms that looked good to
their comic sources, or just in general.
The few that did had virtually no accessories or swap-out parts, limited
articulation, and not much body variety compared to the male figures in the
line. We felt this was both a missed opportunity and a big mistake for the
market. Women figures in general are not widely available across all scales but
should be.. As collectors ourselves we all agreed there was still a demand and
it still was something not approached head on. Our CEO (Jason Rosa) was very
adamant on taking a risk here and with the crowd funding platform Kickstarter,
we wanted to see if we could solve this issue for those like us. Our aim is to
make a more accurate female body action figure, one that could be used for
customizing and fill in the missing characters of a collector’s display.
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| Size comparison with 1/10 Kotobukiya Art Fx Batgirl |
The first time I saw your
product photos, it reminded me a lot of S.H. Figuarts blank bodies. What make
your offering different from S.H. Figuarts’?
Jim: That’s very
interesting given the S.H. Figuarts body is a very different body
type/proportions. For starters, those figure bodies are very slender and to us,
look more catered to Anime figure markets. Our figures could work with anime
figures as well, but ours is more about Superheroine bodies. It’s in the name
for us. These are for more American Comic Book Figures, Stylized Urban Toys,
and Movie Realistic Figures. Secondly, the joint system on a S.H. Figuarts is
no a very compatible foundation along say Marvel Legends, Neca, or other
figures that are common on the Superhero/Movie figure market. Our accessories
were created to work or be easily modified to fit with that current market.
Especially since it’s such a big one we thought of that instantly as a plan. So
for us our figures are vastly different than S.H. Figuarts.
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| The Superior Female articulation as engineered by Maven Collectible LLC |
I see a lot of classic
articulations derived from the best toy engineering rendered in various toy
lines, care to share what which toy lines you guys are a fan of?
Jim: ALL OF THEM lol! Each one has its perks and each one
has it’s limitations. What we tried to do was compile our favorite armatures/articulation
points to this figure line. Yet a big thing for us was really the sculpting
work. We want to bring a fine art approach to the sculpt so that help narrow
down what we wanted to do with the articulation as well. If you asked me I’m a fan
of Superhero statues for their sculpture, if you ask Mercedes she’s a fan of
old Toybiz Marvel Legend figures, Al is a fan of more classic 80s-90’s toys as
Jason is a fan of fine art statues and Neca figures. So the core group on this
put in pretty much everything we loved about those toys and then we scaled back
with the final product. So yeah, I’d say a wide range but as a whole we all
love toys!
Why the female action figure
blank bodies? Do you have plans for male versions?
Jim: After we
feel we’ve done the greatest possible job here and if the community warrants
it, we will move to male bodies. We just feel that statement has been made
numerous times and pretty well. As mentioned,
there is a major lack in female figure bodies. And we thought to to offer
female blanks to give the freedom to the collector, to finish them the way they
need them to be. We also felt there needed to be a very strong foundation. As
strong as the many male figures out there. It feels like for the male bodies we
have thinner build characters, medium build, smaller build, heavy muscular
builds, and larger build characters. How many of those body types exists for
females? And how many scales do they exist in? The other issue is with the
large amount of male figures try to find counterparts to those that fit. So we
started here first for that reason. We have A LOT of female body types planned
and we decided to start with just two and stretch goals going to 2 more (only
one mentioned however).
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| One more body type in the works... perfect for X-Men's Jubilee! |
I see that you have a
kickstarter campaign for this offering, how many units do you plan to initially
produce?
Jim: That depends
on the amount of pledged support we receive and the tiers that are chosen. We
would like to make as many as possible for the supporters/customers.
Do you think that at this
stage, there is already a sizeable market for blank bodies like yours?
Jim: Not really
in the 1/10th scale, we couldn’t find any. There are blanks for the 1/12th and
3 3/4th-4 inch but again, there are not many high articulated female blank
bodies for any of the scales. The 1/10th or compliments the 1/12th really well
too so it overlaps in a way for us. A example is say a 1/10th scale Venom
figure to a 1/12th scale Spider-Man, so we felt the same with ours. A 1/10th
scale She-Hulk would look great to a 1/12th Fantastic Four roster. So for
something that is produced so often it’s odd how there is nothing available for
this.
Do you have future plans for
licensed products utilizing this newly engineered action figure articulations?
Jim: We never
close the door on any future expansion or collaboration for our products. We are always open to collaboration with
other manufacturers. Also, this gives us another avenue when we are meeting
companies regarding possible licensing agreements. We can always use these as a
base for any customer’s needs when it comes to an action figure line.
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| 1/6th Scale Robin Statue design pending WB's license approval |
Any thoughts on how the toy
collectible market had evolved over the years?
Jim: I think it’s still on
its course you know? There’s
great ideas but we are still pushing the medium but as a consumer and fan of
this market… I think it’s obvious toys have greatly evolved in things like
detail, engineering, materials, and presentation. Yet, what I think is super
cool is how it’s getting back to its roots. What I mean is think of the old
Kenner toys and how a small rag-tag group of renegades, created such amazing
products. They were willing to take risks on things like Star Wars and Alien,
which all deemed to be major licenses. It feels like we are going back to that
idea of smaller companies that are producing HUGE results. This is a big
influence for us and we feel this revisit to the past, helps how you approach a
license or express your product in a company. This is really what I feel is
starting to evolve the toy industry a bit as well.
Any parting words to toy collectors out
there?
Jim: With the wide abundance
of stuff coming out we understand that committing to a toy line or figures can
be daunting. But never forget your roots! We collectors sometimes get lost in
the hauls and miss the real gems we’ve been waiting for. Think of what is
lacking and what needs to be better and put your money and time in those
avenues. For us, we hope you guys see that what we are doing is not an easy
venture by any means. We are 100% sure we can do it but we need the help of
those that really understand women in toys need a revisiting and updating.
Other than that keep working on those masterpieces on those shelves the right
way and we hope we could have our spot reserved one day! All the best!
You can visit their Kickstarter campaign here to know more about their products.
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