Not too long ago I was invited to work on a new
Galaxxor edition by its creator, artist and
Nerd City host Ben Spencer. I've admired Ben's Galaxxor project since discovering it and was very excited when the chance to collaborate popped up! Galaxxor has a very cool vibe and the sculpt looks right at home with the stuff we do over here, so working together seemed a natural fit.
What's really fun about this particular edition is that it's not just Ben and I pairing up, but also Marty of
TGB Customs and Nate of
Dork Dimension doing their magic in the casting and illustration departments! Marty has been on fire with his Kabuto Mushi and Infection 2.0 turnout, so seeing an all new set of casts is a great way to keep the ball rolling. Nate continues to impress with his abilities to push the characters into new territories with each illustration he completes. Both of these guys have been doing incredibly solid work since kicking off 2011.
For my part in this crossover I sculpted two "jumbo" sized heads for Galaxxor's larger body. Compared to a standard Glyos figure, Galaxxor is a giant, so the heads had to match up. When approaching the design itself on the brainy looking one, I was trying to get that
Mother Brain feel from Super Metroid fused with the
big brained enemies from Robotron 2084 (and a dash of
Brainoid from the Adventure People line). This had to be a head that would also be fun to make larger scaled Glyos bodies for down the road. I've always wanted to have a few beefier noggins to use for the purpose of topping extra large builds, and for deformed Braniac little creatures as well. Hopefully you guys find this pile of synaptic scariness interesting!
The other head has kind of a funny story, as it was actually created after the Main Brain one. When Ben, Marty and I were going back and forth about what the special head should be we all landed on a version of Pheyden to do the job. Well, I had a hard time getting into it when the time came to actually start the sculpting and I mutated the once innocent Pheyden into the bulbous thing seen above! When I showed the boys I think they were a bit surprised by the weird direction I went in and were a little confused by what I had done.
Since the brain head had a reversible "back" face that has a kind of visor thing going on, it made the cut, but since I felt a bit like a mad scientist unveiling his freak I created another head more in line with the original idea.
Naturally even that head was warped by my hazard of a mind and it became a part of the ongoing Pheyden storyline from the Passcodes involving the Delphi. I imagine it is very possible that the Delphi may have evolved from something like a Traveler throughout their long existence, and that it might be that the current Travelers could follow this pattern. This "Delpheyden" head represents the next step in a Traveler's evolution, taking design cues from the Delphi look. I see the Galaxxor body as an inter-dimensional technology that was discovered and then utilized to hasten this evolution by Glyaxia Command. I know, I have problems.
The plan is to eventually release these two heads on their own in continued collaboration with Marty, following up on our work together with Kabuto Mushi and Infection 2.0. The first place to get them though, is on the special C2E2 Edition of Galaxxor coming out on March 18th at the Nerd City Booth at
C2E2 in Chicago! Ben has created a very cool color scheme and Marty has done some of his usual super quality molding and casting work. Top it off with an all new illustrated header card by Nate the Ace, and the team up is complete!
I wanted to say thanks to Ben for inspiring me to get sculpting and for allowing me the chance to play with his creation. Galaxxor has an excellent feel as well as a lot of heart. My thanks also go out to Marty for bringing together yet another fun collaboration with some very talented people. I'm lucky these guys even let me in their building!