[Pictures of current line-up of toys.]
We have been shipping Reboot Toys for the last month. The last item to be shipped has been the Micro Figure Playsets which look fantastic! Although stores have been a bit slow in putting out the product, sales have been excellent. There will be a major promotion on September 23 at the Puzzle Zoo in Santa Monica, California.
Collectors should be aware to look for the following items while they remain available. Both Bob (in Guardian outfit) and Enzo ("01" outfit) are being phased out of the assortment.
We have a new sculpting process generated directly from the computer animation (more about that later) and Bob and Enzo's new heads will be ready very early in '96. The old tools will be retired forever. In addition, Bob will have a very limited run in two outfits of around 10,000 units each. The first will be Bob's white game outfit from "Talent Night", the second will be Bob's yellow race car outfit from "Racing the Clock". These will be out in November/December '95.
We have a very ambitious line up for '96. There will be a completely new assortment of 5.5" figures. All figures will come with a limited edition Binome. Each Binome style will only be available for around 6 months before being phased out. We will do Bob and Dot in their game sequence outfits from "The Tiff". Each figure will have mega-weapons. Enzo will put in an appearance in his "10" get up. Megabyte will be in sinister looking grey. We have nicknamed him "Stone Cold Megabyte". Hex will have new face masks and something interesting in black and silver. Hack and Slash will have rocket packs and fists that have rotating machine guns ("The Great Brain Robbery") in place of their finger digits. They will also have a wild new color scheme not yet seen on T.V.
We will be introducing Mouse and Frisket. The first Binomes will be Mike the T.V., Captain Capacitor, Doctor "Fingers", Scuzzy, Old Man Pierson, Al's Waiter, Cyrus the Traitor, Phong and Elvis Binome.
We will release an expanding series of Micro sized vehicles from the show. There will three to a pack. In micro figure scale we will initially do three styles, Megabyte's Limo, an ABC vehicle with rocket launchers and Mouse's vehicle from "The Great Brain Robbery". Each vehicle will open up and have two micro figures.
For Fall '96 there will be a new series of 5.5" figures, a large soft bodied Enzo, a plush Frisket, additions to the existing micro playsets as well as larger playsets and vehicles for both the 5.5" figures and the micro figures. There will be a series of role playing toys (featuring touch activated Reboot icon and a neat Glitch with lots of hidden surprises).
Keep your eyes open in this space for more extensive information as this is just a preliminary glimpse of what will be a much broader line. If you have toys that you would like to see, whether it be more variations of figures and vehicles, or even completely new items, please let us know. Contact either myself, Mike Feraday, Product Manager; Henry Tsang, Project Designer or Paul Waxman, Assistant Product Manager, in this space.
Safe Netting, Mike Feraday
Our new prototype making process starts with the show itself. You've never seen any cartoon like it. Reboot is most likely to set new standards in the way cartoons are produced and look. You could say it look's like something between a movie and a traditional cartoon. The fact that the characters and vehicles used in the T.V. show, were originally created using SoftImage software on Silicon Graphics work stations, was of great interest to us here at Irwin, and we felt that we may be able to use this to our advantage.
First of all it would allow us to keep the majority of the detail in our action figure models. Secondly, the hard copy's are the same models seen on the screen, so virtually every bump and ripple in Bob's hair will be correct.
Using propriatory conversion software, the models are converted from SoftImage format to Alias. The advanced surface and evaluation tools found in Alias allows us to create a solid model from this nurbs based wire file, a process which includes the pointing outwards of surface normals, closing of gaps between surface meshes, and subdivision settings of each surface, each of which are essential to the output of the SLA information.
The SLA information is actually a conversion of the Alias nurbs wire file to a triangular polygon wire file. This file is read by the rapid prototyping machine, and the model is formed from a liquid resin within the machine's vat.
Thanks, Henry Tsang.[more]
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