Diamond Select Toys to Produce new Muppet figures and mini mates!

[Blue Frackle]

Also, a little-known fact. When compared with other Muppets on product pegs beside her, the pig sells a lot fewer units. The trick with successful Piggy sales is when it's a signature product of her own. Also, customers are more open to buying other Muppet characters as long as Kermit is available in the mix. That's why Palisades released several Kermits.

Really interesting.

Got any interesting insight on the SS line that never came to be?

What exactly was your role with Palisades?

 

[muppetperson]

That's my preferred Piggy too. She was much better, but I remember the struggle with Henson back then. They required Palisades to use cartoony yellow hair (instead of blonde), to not texture her skin and to shape her in more Barbie-like proportions. Remarkably, Disney has actually been a lot better with handling her likeness in products than Henson Co was post-Jim.

I remember my disappointment when the Weta Miss Piggy bust was released with bright yellow hair, after seeing the prototype with the correct blond hair!
I wish the insert "real" hair Palisades Piggy prototype would of been perfected.

 

[jvcarroll]

Really interesting.

Got any interesting insight on the SS line that never came to be?

What exactly was your role with Palisades?

I did some legit freelance art for Palisades between 2002 and 2005. Their product developer, Ken, got me a gig early on. Fantastic guy. I worked primarily with him on likenesses, concept art, design, research and development. I'd basically help fill in the gaps. The Muppets weren't really set up for product design, particularly not the way that Palisades was aiming for. No one had attempted to recreate the puppets in that way. Diamond Select also seems intent on making these look like the puppets so it's kind of offensive when some random fan claims that they're using cartoon clip art as their source material because it's absolutely false. I've seen the Muppet licensing art books and can tell what comes from where.

A lot of the work included figuring out what the legs looked like on the more obscure Muppet characters like Suggs, Lips, Pops and Deadly. I'd draw them from head to toe and try to figure out what went where. We weren't able to do the retro bellbottoms and platforms for Suggs that we wanted, but it almost got through. It took watching the end credits of Caper when Pops jumps out of the plane to discover that he always wears house slippers. Deadly's claw feet and tail are only seen in one picture in an obscure children's book illustration. Most characters in the Muppet Show, including Suggs and Deadly, just used generic slacks and loafers to represent their legs, but this wasn't good enough for us so we pushed forward. The first time they ever built proper feet and a tail for Deadly was in 2011's film and the OKGo video. Proud moment for those of us who worked on the fella's figure. Art imitates life imitates art and so on.

Here are some of the portfolio clips that I'm permitted to show. There's some stuff I'm not at liberty to share so I'm kinda cagey about that. I guess one can read in between the lines a bit, but as a working artist I'm very serious about Non-Disclosure Agreements.

I guess you could say I worked on over half of Palisades' figures in one way or another. No one person makes any of this stuff. It's a team effort and everybody works very hard. It's very much a labor of love. I'd bet it's that way for DST too.

I will say this. Palisades' Ken is one of the hardest working people in the product design business. No one does what he does. When people talk about Palisades' excellence, they're talking about him. What Jim Henson was to the Muppets, Ken was to Palisades. No joke. I've never met someone with that level of perfectionism, much more than mine and that's a very high bar!

I've also worked on the Muppet brand for other sources and worked on other brands too.

Some of the other items I've worked on include licensed art for posters:

(Sketch)

(Final Piece "Muppet Theatre" ©Disney. Licensed by Acme Archives)

Officially Licensed Through Threadless © Disney

To answer your question about Sesame Street. Palisades simply ran out of steam. Everyone wanted to release the Sesame figures. It just wasn't feasible. There's not as huge of a market for this as fans believe. Toys are a tough business!! And collectors, while wonderful, can also be fickle. I'm both a designer and collector and I certainly am. Ha! Maybe one day someone will do Sesame. It'll take a brave person and company to spearhead that and there a very few people who'd try.

That's why I'm proud of Diamond Select's fearlessness in what they've done. People have thrown a lot of crap at them for not being Palisades. They're something different that's a whole bunch of wonderful on its own. I've got mad respect for that.

 

[jvcarroll]

I remember my disappointment when the Weta Miss Piggy bust was released with bright yellow hair, after seeing the prototype with the correct blond hair!
I wish the insert "real" hair Palisades Piggy prototype would of been perfected.

A little note on that. If you're feeling brave, mix together some slightly watered-down burnt sienna acrylic paint and carefully brush it over her hair to tone down the yellow. It will fall into the grooves and cracks nicely and give a darker, richer blonde.

 

[BobbyBenson64]

Just got mine in yesterday and I'm loving them more than I thought I would, Scooter is my favorite from the set Fingers crossed for a third wave of figures because I'd love to see Piggy and Rowlf.

 

[jvcarroll]

They should make each series come with a Build-a-Kermit that I have seen other lines do so people end up buying everyone in each series. Buy Statler and Waldorf, get Kermit's head, Bunsen and Beaker - Kermit's torso, Doc Hopper: Kermit's legs .

I would love that!!

 

[muppetperson]

Diamond Select also seems intent on making these look like the puppets so it's kind of offensive when some random fan claims that they're using cartoon clip art as their source material because it's absolutely false.

Getting back to the "Toony" comment, I don't think that is what the person meant. I think the person meant that the prototypes looked Toony because they appeared to have no texture on their skin (other than the main fur textures) so a case of what they finally looked like, rather from where they were sourced from??

 

[jvcarroll]

Getting back to the "Toony" comment, I don't think that is what the person meant. I think the person meant that the prototypes looked Toony because they appeared to have no texture on their skin (other than the main fur textures) so a case of what they finally looked like, rather from where they were sourced from??

Some of the paint apps seem a little thick and have obscured some of the textures. I believe all of the sculpts are thoroughly textured. And Series Two seems to have woven in some hightlights and lowlights into the paint apps. Yay that.

 

[LaRanaRene]

I did some legit freelance art for Palisades between 2002 and 2005. Their product developer, Ken, got me a gig early on. Fantastic guy. I worked primarily with him on likenesses, concept art, design, research and development. I'd basically help fill in the gaps. The Muppets weren't really set up for product design, particularly not the way that Palisades was aiming for. No one had attempted to recreate the puppets in that way. Diamond Select also seems intent on making these look like the puppets so it's kind of offensive when some random fan claims that they're using cartoon clip art as their source material because it's absolutely false. I've seen the Muppet licensing art books and can tell what comes from where.

A lot of the work included figuring out what the legs looked like on the more obscure Muppet characters like Suggs, Lips, Pops and Deadly. I'd draw them from head to toe and try to figure out what went where. We weren't able to do the retro bellbottoms and platforms for Suggs that we wanted, but it almost got through. It took watching the end credits of Caper when Pops jumps out of the plane to discover that he always wears house slippers. Deadly's claw feet and tail are only seen in one picture in an obscure children's book illustration. Most characters in the Muppet Show, including Suggs and Deadly, just used generic slacks and loafers to represent their legs, but this wasn't good enough for us so we pushed forward. The first time they ever built proper feet and a tail for Deadly was in 2011's film and the OKGo video. Proud moment for those of us who worked on the fella's figure. Art imitates life imitates art and so on.

Here are some of the portfolio clips that I'm permitted to show. There's some stuff I'm not at liberty to share so I'm kinda cagey about that. I guess one can read in between the lines a bit, but as a working artist I'm very serious about Non-Disclosure Agreements.

I guess you could say I worked on over half of Palisades' figures in one way or another. No one person makes any of this stuff. It's a team effort and everybody works very hard. It's very much a labor of love. I'd bet it's that way for DST too.

I will say this. Palisades' Ken is one of the hardest working people in the product design business. No one does what he does. When people talk about Palisades' excellence, they're talking about him. What Jim Henson was to the Muppets, Ken was to Palisades. No joke. I've never met someone with that level of perfectionism, much more than mine and that's a very high bar!

I've also worked on the Muppet brand for other sources and worked on other brands too.

Some of the other items I've worked on include licensed art for posters:

(Sketch)

(Final Piece "Muppet Theatre" ©Disney. Licensed by Acme Archives)

Officially Licensed Through Threadless © Disney

To answer your question about Sesame Street. Palisades simply ran out of steam. Everyone wanted to release the Sesame figures. It just wasn't feasible. There's not as huge of a market for this as fans believe. Toys are a tough business!! And collectors, while wonderful, can also be fickle. I'm both a designer and collector and I certainly am. Ha! Maybe one day someone will do Sesame. It'll take a brave person and company to spearhead that and there a very few people who'd try.

That's why I'm proud of Diamond Select's fearlessness in what they've done. People have thrown a lot of crap at them for not being Palisades. They're something different that's a whole bunch of wonderful on its own. I've got mad respect for that.

I noticed that the Yorick Uncle Deadly is holding is not the Yorick used in the figure and is the Yorick from Sam and Friends. Was that the original plan?

 

[jvcarroll]

I noticed that the Yorick Uncle Deadly is holding is not the Yorick used in the figure and is the Yorick from Sam and Friends. Was that the original plan?

Hehe. Nope. Just my wishful thinking.