Chapter 126: Detailed Toylines

Alexander's secret to the detailing and work done on the ThunderCats toyline, or any other Creed toyline, presented was no secret to everyone who has seen the toylines produced by McFarlane Toys.

If one thinks of McFarlane Toys, then they would most likely conjure up an image of an incredibly detailed action figure, figurine, or playset from the said company's long-running production history.

It was Alexander's inspiration from taking in the best of Mattel and Hasbro while keeping the aesthetic side to the best as possible.

Delving deep into hyper-detail, articulation, and accessories to a level people had rarely seen before, Todd McFarlane made a name for himself in toys by building on his already celebrated comic book fame and growing from it.

McFarlane and McFarlane Toys was mostly known for his and its Spawn franchise after all. With the wild success of the Spawn run due to the Image Revolution, Spawn was a franchise and toy authorization target of many.

Initially looking to partner up with Mattel, they proved unable to produce figures with the level of detail he wanted, so McFarlane got back his rights from the company and began life as Todd's Toys.

He later changed the name to McFarlane Toys at the request of Mattel to avoid confusion with a character from their Barbie line. Still, that didn't stop his Spawn toy line from being the success that it was.

It became a staple toy business that everyone in the industry sought for and the focus on gimmicks became less prevalent from there. The visual quality of toys grew from there and the shoddy toys that became prevalent in the 80s became downgraded.

Perhaps McFarlane Toys probably wasn't the start of the detailed quality toy uprising but there was no denying that his Spawn toy was immaculate and drew the attention of many.

It was incredibly 3D and more realistic than anything else in that 90s era with Spawn's red cape draping as a cape should be with his muscle tones and suit wrinkles being embedded in the plastic mold.

This trend even created a solid demand for the toys and allowed them to expand into pop culture, doing figures tied to film, music, gaming, and even into sports with many sports stars being molded into toy form.

Alexander simply took inspiration from that and grew his toyline from that detailed philosophy.

Dragonballs and TMNT weren't able to convey it much due to their relative smoothness and much soothing complexity. However, the same could not be said for the rest of the other Creed toylines as they took detail-work to the next level.

ThunderCats, of course, with its furred archetype and layered armoring with clothing were the perfect characters to convey McFarlane level of detailing.

Poor Spawn could only take on as a follower now that the ThunderCats has won the detailed race before it even began.

Lion-o's many battle forms with the Sword of Omens were just the tip of it all with the ThunderCats calling form and Lion-o's far-seeing sword behelding form.

Cheetara in her running form, Tygra on a fierce glare, Panthro showing of his scarred muscles, Jaga being wisely and sage-like, Thundera's King being as grand lion-y as he can, WilyKit and Wilykat showing mischief, Mumm-Ra being as eerie as how iconic 80s villain are.

Of course, there are others to add to that selection with all the other anthropomorphic and high detailed characters that were there to choose from.

They were present and were already explored on the first 10 issues and there was no denying that their numbers would increase as the grand adventure ensues.

The big scale and size coherence work its charm as the relatively huge scale allowed the mass-producers a lot of leeways to work and paint on while the size coherence gave the entire ThunderCats storyline the cohesion it deserves.

Even the cutest Snarf was already urging others to buy him and Alexander found it amusing that the original 80s Snarf was one of the most hated and annoying characters. Since that talking Snarf trouble was avoided, pet Snarf and its hidden lore in the grand Third Earth could be explored with much anticipation.

It was essentially the Pikachu of the ThunderCats franchise from this point forward in Alexander's opinion as a lot of the cheerleader ladies in the crowd were giggling as they petted the plastic figurine toy.

Creed Toys should note to make Snarf a teddy bear type to exploit more of its abundant appeal.

Alexander's time as a tweaked Undercover Boss was truly working out quite nicely with all that he has seen so far.

He had seen a much more up-close viewing of everything and could have his personal judgment on things be much more grounded than basing it on collated data. Perhaps Ms. Marker could learn from his experience and employ a store visiting method once in a while.

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Of course, his scouting work was not done yet as the next trio he would go through was another soiree into the high-detailed merchandise that Creed Toys had worked on.

His sequential release viewing might have to be disrupted though as The Cybertronian Chronicles section was flocked with wowed people that just can't look away from it. Alexander can't blame them though as "Transformers" was just that appealing to many.

In any case, the mechanical alien may have to wait later as he might as well work with the alien and the mechanical first.

The chances of Autobots and Decepticons failing was without question, so Alexander focused much of his attention towards the much-venturous cult icons that he breathe new life into.

Although their comic book runs were a grest success, it was still too smug to say that it would translate well into the toy industry.

RoboCop and Predator were the least diverse among the selection as the toyline is truly just made up of its title characters.

Future Detroitians and Slaughtered Soldiers just didn't have much toy appeal and the only way for the company to make money from them is their "rareness" of quantity that would be brought about by their lack of necessity.

Perhaps Alex Murphy's wife and son had much leeway to work into but it was up for market judging to scout out on that.

For ED209 toys, Alexander had grand plans for it but it was best to stay simple for now and wait until the ED209 toy batch be mass-produced and made ready to buy. It was a bulky toy after all as RoboCop toylines size coherence was still in theme.

Since the RoboCop toy was the size to be close to Barbie, then ED209 toy specs can already be imagined.

As for the Predator side characters that are meant to be foils, maybe Arnold's 'Get to the Choppa' action figure was the one with the most feasibility.

However, Alexander doesn't have to focus much on those toyline diversity and expansion options for now as Predator and RoboCop were doing quite well from what he has seen.

Its packaged units are slowly being whittled down as he continued to observe, so there was no doubt that the cyborg and horror appeal would lighten the pockets of many.