As you might all know, Star Wars Celebration took place this year
not too far from Los Angeles, in Anaheim.
The MintInBox team was there for couple of days, and we decided to
hit two birds with one stone: it was the good occasion to visit
several nearby places related to Star Wars.
Three of us were lucky enough to visit Sideshow Collectibles' HQ in
Thousand Oaks, a small town North from Los Angeles.
To inform you, unfortunately we won't be able to unveil everything
we have seen there, but Sideshow has many surprises for the months
to come.
We were welcomed by Andre Wars of Marketing and Jason Eastman, Vice
President of Sideshow, who, after a short briefing in the meeting
room, gave us the tour of the place.
First you need to know that everything is done there, at the HQ in
Thousand Oaks, only the mass production is made in China. From the
design to the shipping, and the sculpt, the painting, the casting
and the packaging all these steps are done in Thousand Oaks
Our visit started by the offices of the designers: in a very cosy
and steampunk ambiance, a small team of designers works among
exclusive pieces or heavily customized by themselves. We couldn't
stay too long because it is important for the designers to stay
focused. We met with Nathan Mansfield and Matthew Black, with whom
we managed to have a small chat. On our way to the Painting
Department, we passed by the famous Alien diorama, which won't ever
be released.
As we arrived, we saw that the statue of "Cleopsis Eater of the
Dead" was in the expert hands of Kat Sapene. The artist put her
work in stand-by for couple of minutes, but enough time to explain
us her work routine on the many statues she is working on: the time
for a painting to be complete is different for each statue, it can
be couple of days or couple of weeks for it to be done.
Then we went through a room a little bit weird, where are stored
all the moulds for every creation of Sideshow. Indeed, the model
sculpted by the designers and the sculptors is then processed to
get a mould, in which the resin would be injected to get one or
several prototypes.
Unfortunately we didn't happen to get a look at the work done by
the Clothing team: at the time we were in Thousand Oaks, they were
visiting the factory in China.
We took way to the warehouses. They are very impressive: it is from
there that the whole of the shipping is done for any order to North
& South America. It is also in one of these warehouses that
Sideshow keeps at least one copy of each of their pieces ever
manufactured.
Next to the warehouses was a room filled up with all the
prototypes, trials and other pieces with defects. We really didn't
mind going out with one of the K-3PO bust for example, but weirdly,
it seemed that our hosts were not fan of the idea.
Time for the Photography Studio, to our surprise, it is there that
the statue prototypes are shot in some specially-made environment
or in front of specially-printed backgrounds. The photographer team
doesn't want to edit their pictures with Photoshop and rather like
to work in "true" environments and conditions. We were delighted to
get a preview on the Jawa Sixth Scale Figure!
We finished our visit with a talk with David Igo, Concept Designer
to speak about his work and Sideshow's future. It was a very joyful
time with serious questions, but also some more relaxed time during
which we got a good laugh.
Once again, we really would like to thank the full Sideshow's team
who welcomed us, and especially the Marketing Department, which
organized everything, and Andre Wars, Jason Eastman and David
Igo.
Mathieu, Paul et Sébastien
weitere Bilder findet ihr hier:
http://www.mintinbox.net/reportages/inside_Sideshow
(Quelle:
http://www.mintinbox.net/reportages/inside_Sideshow)
So far we have seen new Sideshow
The Dark Knight PF
Symbiote Variant for Spidey PF
Green Sinestro Variant
Brown Wolverine
Possible He-man?
Possible Freddy or Riddler?
Possible Ledger Joker Bust?
Possible Aquaman?
More alien stuff?
Court of the dead stuff
Sentinel
Jean Grey
Grüße
Oktay