The 4H at NYCC
NY Comic Con kicks off today, and the Four Horsemen (aka - superheroic action figure design celebrities) have issued a little advanced press release to get us all excited for their showing at the con. They have good news for those us who are still waiting on the FANtastic Exclusive 2 “Anitherian Nine” figures - they’re almost here! And the 4H will be unveiling the first figure from their latest fan-choice “Gothitropolis” series. And, since the 4H are the guys who make all our awesome DCUC and TMNT figs, I’m sure they’ll have lots of other cool stuff to show too (including some rumors surrounding new Master of the Universe merchandise… Hmmmmm…)
For those of you who aren’t terribly familiar with the 4H or their “Fantastic Exclusives”, expand the post for my summary.
Okay, here’s a brief history of ‘The Four Horsemen’. They are four guys - all designers and sculptors, who got together and started a design studio to make action figures. They partnered up with Mattel and did all the sculpts for their 2002 Masters of the Universe line. They’ve also worked with ToyBiz on Marvel Legends (they did Giant Man series Thor and the BAF Apocalypse figure, among others) and they work here and there with other companies (they did NECA’s new TMNT line). Basically, these guys are among the best in the biz. They have a signature style, and they are toy designers who really love toys, and it shows through in their work. Most recently, they’ve been blowing us away with their work on Mattel’s DCUC line.
I’m not sure how they find the time to do all that they do, but in addition to their contract work for “major” companies, the 4H also put out their own line of toys in a very fan-friendly way. They do what they call “FANtastic Exclusives”. They sit down and dream up a few characters from different “worlds” and show their sketches online. Fans then vote on which “world” of characters they’d most like to see done up in action figure form. The 4H then get to cracking and pump out some of the best toys on the market. A few years ago the Horsemen created their own “universe” called “Seventh Kingdom”. This line featured brilliantly detailed and well-articulated humanoid animal creations - mostly all minotaurs or just big bad-ass looking cow-headed fighters. Recently, more figures from this Seventh Kingdom series were conceptualized and put into production - The Anitherian Nine. These branched out from just cow and bull warriors to a whole host of animal fighters - mostly elephants, with a rhino, hippo, and warthog thrown in for good measure. I realize this all sounds kind of weird, but check this pic:
Okay, so what you’re looking at there are the “Anitherian Nine” - a set of exclusives that will pretty much rock your little action figure world. The bad news is that since the 4H made and manufactured these themselves, they ran into some trouble with the factory (in China) they had hired to produce them. Long story short, after a year of headaches and trauma, the 4H have had to switch factories, start the process over, and are just now getting these figures shipped to the states to start fulfilling orders to their fans. Hopefully (fingers crossed) these will be on show at NYCC. And then you guys can fawn over the pics and make your own judgments about how ridiculously awesome they are.
So that’s the 4H in a nutshell. And that’s why I’m so excited to see what they have to show at the con! Not only do these guys do amazing work, but they really understand collectors and they really just love making toys! Kudos, 4H. Kudos!
Tags: four horsemen
Whoa, you’ve got to keep us updated on these bad boys! After seeing that image I shuttled over to the FANtastic exclusives site to see about ordering them… but alas, apparently they’re all sold out for the time being. Which makes me sad, because I totally want that hippo, the orange elephant, and whatever the heck that red thing is in the bottom right corner.
Yeah, I’m jonesing for these as well. Especially the hippo, warthog, and rhino. the red and green guys are “alien mutants” who fight the seventh kingdom animal warriors. this is why i love the 4H, it’s totally the sort of stuff i’d dream up as a kid while having toy battles in the backyard. “oh snap! alien mutants! let’s get ‘em!”
heh. none of these are available for order right now because of the all the difficulty they had with their factory. at one point they weren’t sure they’d be able to do them at all, because they thought the factory they were using had stolen their steel moulds, which were too expensive to replace. fortunately NECA swept in and helped them recover their losses.
Anyways, the 4H have said that once they get their preorders and retailer commitments taken care of, they’re pretty sure they’ll still have quite a few sets and individual figs to put up for sell. I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as I find out more. I definitely want to order these myself!
Oh, and BBTS has some of these up for preorder. You can get the red mutant, warthog, and one of the elephants there. they have the rhino in stock, but i advise against him. the rhino and the green mutant were the only figures to make it out on time from the “bad” factory, and they are plagued with quality control problems. Hence the reason for the 4H switching factories in the middle of production.
oh yeah, if i can get extras, warthog and rhino will so become my Bebop and Rocksteady customs to go with my NECA turtles!
Ha! I had a similar thought, but these guys look way too armored to pass for Bebop and Rocksteady without some serious work — and maybe it’s just a novice customizer hangup, but I’d have a difficult time bringing myself to mess with such amazing-looking figures. That said, Bebop and Rocksteady did appear in costume in Turtles in Time… so you could always pretend the Turtles were taking them on in a themed stage. And since Bebop and Rocksteady never appeared in the Mirage comics on which the NECA figures are based, you could come up with pretty much any backstory/look you wanted for comic interpretations.
When you advise against getting the rhino and the mutant, are you speaking from experience? I was going to suggest that maybe the rhino with the QC problems would be ideal for customization, but $32.99 is a pretty hefty price to pay for a potentially poor figure.
nope i wasn’t speaking from experience about the quality problems. i just read online that those early production runs were plagued with loose joints, so i didn’t “risk” it by ordering them.
you’re right about the custom fodder hesitation with these. it would be kind of crazy to hack up a 30 dollar work of art to make something else. i like the idea of Bebop and Rocksteady being time-travelling baddies clad in ancient armor!