Hades Glyos Drop Details Up at Onell Design

Apparently Onell Design invested in some PVC tooling this season because the swell Hades Force drop includes the first-ever PVC scarf!  And it's an oddly exciting little piece, Matt Doughty shows it off on his Hades Pheyden MK II and Buildman Jorvannic figures.  It looks good and two flavors of Armorvor are included.

The full details are here, (well, mostly full) and the long and short of it is to be ready Wednesday, September 5, at 9:30 Eastern.

This drop is mostly black plastic with some glow-in-the-dark, clear, and of course teal.  Transformers fans may be delighted by the similarity to some of the black-and-teal Nemesis Prime/Scourge figures... I sure am!

Nanite Monstermatic Vinyl Custom Glyos Vehicle

Our pal Nanite has been busy!  The Monstermatic is a big vinyl toy making use of original parts as well as numerous vinyl parts and elements from Spy Monkey Creations.  This nasty-looking fellow is $70 shipped and looks like it might eat your babies.

Custom Crayboth, More from Nanite

Our pal Seth (aka Nanite) posted some pretty awesome customs to his trading post on the October Toys forums.

Jeweltone Crayboth, Ersatz Bubblevein Govrom, and more can be yours if the price is right! And the price is $16 shipped for Monster Kolor Crayboth, and $40 for the travelers assuming they have not yet sold.   At press time, a few of them are spoken for and there are many sparkly, glittery, or otherwise pretty amazing figures to check out.

Ni Stuff Offering Unique Heads, Customs, More on Tuesday

Ni of Ni Stuff and 481 Universe fame has a new drop coming up Tuesday night!  At 5 PM EST, a bunch of new heads are up for grabs including some specially decorated Crayboth figures and a metallic redeco of the Venjorun Armorvor that should knock you on your butt.  Seriously, what will it take to get this kind of crazy shine on a production piece?  That's amazing.

Check it out right here!

Incoming: Glyos Hades Force

The Hades Force is coming!  Isn't that exciting? Well, we don't know yet.  Full details are coming but Onell Design posted that this new batch is coming next week.  Matt updated his post in the comments section with this juicy series of words:

"Some highlights from this wave include a Black Armorvor with some painted accents, a black Armodoc that has a kind of neat look to it and a new release of Hades, for the first time with production scarf! It's a small detail, but I've been waiting literally years to finally get that little head piece into a mold.

"There will also be a compliment of [glow in the dark] Green parts, including the return of Spectre Pheyden."

Banimon Update: Gotta Catch 'Em All This September

The Planet Banimon blog has a short update about their new Glyos-compatible mini figures.

The little guy's head is about the size of a normal Glyos figure, and we are told they should be coming in the back half of September.

I certainly can't wait to see more and availability permitting, we'll be picking up a set of these to review so you know if they're worth it.  Just looking at it, I certainly believe they will be worth picking up.

Armorvor Concepts: Grathans and Granthans

A few days ago, we looked at The GodBeast's Granthan heads, which came from a Matt Doughty design.

Today, Doughty decided to tell us what they're all about!

The Granthans tell us of the origins of the spacefaring dinosaur warriors which, I gotta say, makes me excited all over.  (After all, I grew up obsessing over the Dinosaucers because it seemed like a toy show with no toys too!)  The head concepts are pretty nifty.

The Granthans: Part 2 shows Rechlen and Aves-era art of the warriors, complete with tails.

The Granthans: Part 3 tells their story relating to the Delphi and Armorvor warriors, and will probably make you cry with joy at the prospect of them seeing mass-production soon.  I'm tearing up right now.

Review: Onell Design Glyos Venjorun Armorvor Action Figure

This is in my top 5 of the year... no question about it. It's one of those figures which, had there been no limit, I'd probably have bought about 15 of them to send people come Christmas season as I'm fairly sure most of the people I know do not have one.

If Matt Doughty of Onell Design was a friend (or at least associate) of yours, you may have seen sketches or sculpts for the Venjorun Armorvor over the last couple of years-- he's had it on his phone, he's teased it on his blog, and he even let us preview it late last year. Since it's been at least a couple of years since I first saw it, I'm not only delighted that it finally made it out, but that it did so cheaply. $8.00? For a low-run figure withabout 14 points of articulation, I'm not complaining. It even has an alternate head-- the only thing it doesn't have is, sadly, a weapon. (Oddly, most of the figures from Onell Design come unarmed... or maybe that speaks volumes about our toys, culturally speaking.) Against the current mini-beast figure revival lines, this seems to be the largest at a hair over 2 1/2-inches tall. If Glyos figures like Pheyden were tributes to toys of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Armorvor has to be late 1980s and early 1990s with its sharp lines, several V-like structures in the heads, and of course, the Black Core on its chest.
[ READ THE FULL REVIEW ]

The Delphi Oracle: 2012 Release Possible, Armorvor Eyes Too

Over at the Glyos Transmissions Web Log there are many posts, and in those posts are comments, and in comments lie truth!  What kind of truth?  The future!  It turns out there's a few great nuggets in there, not the least of which was this one from Matt Doughty himself:

"The Delphi will make it into production, hopefully before the end of 2012. I'm happy you still like those strange looking creatures!"

Insert giant smile here.

If you don't know who or what a Delphi is, shame on you.  Not just because it's an awesome part of the Glyos legacy, but the figure is pictured to the left.  The figure currently exists as Custom Corps releases (read: very expensive and rare hand-made one-offs, see some here) and a run of metal Delphi heads were also made, so the rest of us cry like little girls thinking we can never get one.  Well, looks like we might be able to get one soon!  Rejoice!

There are also comments about the Armorvor eyes, and here they are:

"The different color eyes on the Armorvor was just to spice things up and make the first production run something special. There are less of the red eyes versions out there, and even a few oddball ones that escaped the barn."

As of yet no other colors have shown up, so if you have some, know that you are bound by Internet Toy Bragging Rights Law to share your finds!

Armorvor Heads: The Lion

Because there are too many heads I'm going to go ahead and do one last post.  There are others, but hey, I wrote these up in advance and need to go to bed soon. The Lion by Jason Frailey went through a process which he, wonderfully, wrote about.  Early on the figure had a sort of a page-boy hairstyle, which morphed into the creation you see here.

The figure's style seems more in line of a hybrid of old Battle Beasts, modern action figures, and the deep sculpted grooves that are the Onell Design signature.   There's also an added chest piece on there, but as far as I can tell you can't get one.  Since the figure's head has a helmet, it really does feel like a descendant of those older action figures from the 1980s.

More on the Lion (and how to buy one) here.

Onell Posts Armorvor Concept Art, History

The Glyos Transmissions Web Log posted a hefty story for us all today with Armorvor: History and Concepts.  This really cool article shows off a number of Armorvor weapons which haven't been produced (yet at least) as well as detail the inspiration for the figure, who was involved in its birth, and even namechecks two other figures which were postponed to get him out first (Delphi, Noboto.)

...as much as I'm looking forward to a Delphi of my own, I think they made the right choice.   But hey, at least we know that a non-Custom Corps Delphi might be in the cards soon, right?

"Armorvor Heads," said the Spider to the Fly

Because we can't get enough of these guys, The GodBeast posted two quick previews of new heads to the October Toys forums.   He describes them thusly:

"2 mysterious black spider and bug heads were a special request of gaga4toyz. Very eerie looking and kewl as heck on Armorvor."

It is widely assumed/confirmed/rumor-that's-not-a-rumor that the next Armorvor release will indeed be a black one, so start saving those pennies for Fall!