Aftershock

 My main goal for the show exclusives was to provide attendees with familiar characters that could help fill "holes" in their collections. I wasn't interested in doing new, unfamiliar characters, I wanted a known quantity.

After a lot of work we eventually decided that Targetmaster Quake would be a good option. He wasn't a huge character, so the possibility of being sent a C & D by Hasbro was low, he hadn't had a new toy (at that time) since his original release in 1988 and we just happened to find a ton of Warpath figures we could get for relatively cheap that we could turn into the character. Early on we knew we couldn't call him Quake, so settled on Aftershock instead, as an homage.

All we needed was a head.

I admit, I spent more time on this exclusive than I'd like to admit. The first step was hiring someone who could render a 3-D design for the new head we'd be using to fit on the Warpath body. I managed to find a designer who provided us with a perfect design which I then had cast in a front and back plastic to be assembled.

The next part was disassembling all those Warpaths so they could be repainted, which I did by hand. ALL OF THEM. I seriously underestimated how long this would take. You'd think that painting 70 or so figures wouldn't take that long, especially if they are all primarily one color. But there were five different colors involved in total and some pieces required two passes as they had special paint apps.

Got pretty good with an airbrush too.

Each piece had to be sealed so it wouldn't scratch easily in transformation.

Let's just say it gave me a new appreciation for how much work goes into building a figure. 

We then had to reassemble them with the new head and pray everything worked out. Thankfully, it did.

When the heads finally arrived they were in good condition, but not perfect. But given the limitations at the time, I was happy. Today, a 3-D printer could take care of those in no time. But back then, this was kind of a big deal.

We also contracted out his target masters to MasterShooter Collectibles, who also helped sponsor the show. He designed us some great exclusive figures that ended up working perfectly with "Quake". I was adamant that if we couldn't have the Targetmasters, then it wasn't worth doing the character. We weren't going to do this halfway.

Finally, after a lot of work, a lot of sweat, and a lot of worry, we finally managed to finish all the figures with plenty of time before the show. We were slated for August and I think I had all the figures done and assembled by early March.

And overall, I couldn't have been happier with how he turned out.

Of course, that was only part of the job done.

The other big part of creating Aftershock was the box design. When I first started working on the box, I only had a rudimentary understanding of both Photoshop and Illustrator. By the time I was done, I was a freaking expert. And I was really proud of the final product. There are only a few small areas that could have used improvement (such as character art on the back of the box instead of an empty landscape) but for the most part, I was thrilled.

Originally, because Quake had come on a blister card, we considered going that route. But I felt something more substantial was in order and I wanted to make this exclusive "big". So we decided on the box. But since no double Targetmaster had ever come in a window box before, it took a little creativity to figure out just what it would look like.

In the end, I decided on using the US Targetmaster boxes (Misfire, Triggerhappy, etc) as a starting point, then adding in some additional details, such as the Japanese Targetmaster elements, as well as some 1988 flourishes. Oh, and that patterned starburst behind the figure art? That took FOREVER. But it's 100% accurate 😊

In addition to the box, I created a very G1-style instruction booklet, complete with actual photographs, just like the early run of 1984 instructions before they switched to line-drawn images for the instructions. And those hands that appear on the end? Guess who those belong to? Lol.

By now I was getting pretty confident in my skills. We'd hired out the character image for Aftershock, but I managed everything else on my own, including the back art. So I figured...why not go whole hog and just include everything we possibly can?

After some discussions with Flywheels, we decided a Japanese style collector card would be a great addition. So I mocked one up.

It took a lot of convincing from Flywheels NOT to write the whole thing in Japanese. Though I was tempted!!

We also decided if he was going to have a tech spec, why not add a decoder to the boxes as well? For that true G1 feel? So I bought a big sheet of red cellophane at the appropriate thickness and went about cutting out 75 tech spec decoders. Amazingly, they worked!

Admittedly, I may have gone a little overboard with his tech spec, building in the story of this character. But I saw it as my chance to really flesh him out, a character that had really never received much in the way of the spotlight. So I figured why not?

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to make a "catalog" showcasing all the exclusives at the event. This was only included with the Aftershock figure, but was intended to echo the old G1 catalogs from my youth. We only had so many things I could include, but I figured it was worth having them printed up anyway.

By now I had the excellent packing art from GetRightRobot (more on them HERE) which I could include on the line art I'd created for the back of Aftershock's box.

Can you tell which year of catalogs I decided to use as inspiration?

Finally, I think just because I was bored and needed something else on my plate (because why not), I decided to throw a lot of this information together in a "making of" booklet to include with the figure. 

Why?

Who knows. I'll admit I was having a blast with all the graphic design.

I think the real reason I wanted to do this was to help people understand that creating this figure wasn't just on some whim. We really poured our hearts into it, and it wouldn't have been possible without all the people I have listed above. While yes, I did a lot of the heavy lifting, I couldn't do it all on my own. (Did I mention we even worked with Reprolabels to make a sticker sheet for the figure??)

In the end, it was the culmination of a team of people who wanted to produce the best thing they could for a show they cared deeply about. 

I hope you've enjoyed this look at Aftershock. 

Still want to learn more about Aftershock?

Check out:

Flywheels Review of Aftershock

My personal review of the figure from 2013