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
