Friday, October 17, 2014

Breaking down Ultimate Maxx, and a clarification to paint apps

 Hello there Toyfinity fans!

Thanks for the orders so far on these three editions!
I'm happy to see that people like the Ultimate Edition so much.
I wanted to give you, the fans, a little insight into the color selections on some of these parts.

 So, we have the above parts.
Classic Maxx has to have black arms - there was no doubt about that.
I had a lot of thoughts about what color the middle part of the arm should be.
The vintage figures were so simplistic in the amount of color they used that there was no clear guideline of where to break the colors from part to part.
I always saw the center arm piece as a darker gray than the main body gray, and when we introduced the highlight gray into the mix, I had a number of conversations with Matt about the color of that center arm piece. As it is now, it will match the other darker gray paint applications throughout the figure; I originally thought it should be an even darker gray than those grays, but after a series of test mechanicals, I don't think it would have looked right.

The shoulders were also an important piece to get right to me. He's more complex than vintage Maxx, where they just picked a half of the shoulder to paint...so our solution was a two-tone blue on the shoulder. What you should imagine when you look at this figure is that any dark blue spot is a plate over the internal workings of Maxx - places that he could be opened up and repaired. The lighter blue spots are where you can see his internal energies bleeding through...illuminated from the inside. This concept ties this Maxx more to his friend ZEM, and give us a really interesting potential future variant figure.

Lastly, I really wanted to paint those Hun-Dred claws. Maxx doesn't use them, but those apps will be neat if you make a Hun-Dred in Maxx colors.


 The only real thing I want to say about the hands is something which might not have been clear from day one. These hands are our version of the classic Maxx's "c-clip" hands. With these paint applications, you can finally see the intention - where the darker grey is, there would be a slot, and the black parts are Maxx's fingers which slide out so he can grip things better.

He can also shoot energy blasts out of the blue part on the outside of his hand. I have always loved that conceptually.


 I had a very specific vision of the inner chest parts.
At his core, Maxx has green energy. A very specific green energy....
Also, when you put on his outer chest, the black apps underneath that core will give him a nice little "belt"-looking section.


Ahh, the heads....
Enemy was easy. Maxx pretty easy.
The chest was the biggest tricky part. The vintage Maxx had the sticker, which made it easy to arrange the colors on a black background. But if we had made Maxx with a non-textured chest, he would have looked pretty crappy.
I must have looked at over twenty different potential chest paint applications before settling on this one. I feel it has the right amount of color (each one a callback to the vintage Maxx chest sticker), and gives Maxx a nice amount of color at his core.
It was also fun to finally be able to color the part on Maxx's back the way I actually see it.


 

The legs were a lot of fun. By the time we had determined the rest of Maxx, it was easy to carry the motifs of color throughout the rest of his body. I wanted to have the right amount of black on his lower half to help callback to the treads and the vintage suction cup.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for all this insight Doc, I always find your "behind the scenes" commentary very interesting! I ordered all 3 & I can't wait!

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  2. Awesome info! I always enjoy hearing what the creative minds behind the toys think each part is. I will take note how Maxx can shoot energy out of his hands now too. I love all the color apps, the Enemey head looks great with those purple eyes.

    Now, here's a question: in the vintage line, did Enemy, Hun-Dredd and Maxx all share the same gray hue, or where they slightly different? Cause to me, you could make a good colorway of Hun-Dredd with these parts as well as Maxx.

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    Replies
    1. Maxx was definitely a lighter shade. More of an off-white than grey. I think the primary color of this release will be too light for Enemy and Hundred.

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    2. As Fuzz said, Maxx's base color is definitely different from Hun-Dred and Enemy.

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