Written by Adam McCombs

Until recently I have avoided collecting any of Mondo’s 1/6 scale Masters of the Universe figures. It’s not because I don’t like the way they look – to the contrary, they look amazing. But like most collectors, I have plenty of things I’m collecting currently and I really didn’t want one more thing competing with that.

That all changed when the Sky Sled was revealed. The Sky Sled is, of course, the front half of the Battle Ram. As anyone who is at all familiar with this site already knows, I am obsessed with the Battle Ram. Even better, it’s the 10th anniversary of Battle Ram Blog and this foot-long Sky Sled just happens to be coming out! It’s fate, right? I imagine Pixel Dan might feel similarly if Mondo were to come out with a Mosquitor figure on the 20th anniversary of his channel.

Initially I thought I might get the Sky Sled but just leave it at that. But of course I wanted to review it for the Battle Ram Blog, and what’s a Sky Sled without He-Man to ride it? Anyone who is a collector of action figures knows this internal dialogue and where it leads.

History

Since this blog is more toy history site and less toy review site, I thought it would be appropriate to dig into the history of the Mondo Sky Sled before getting into the review. So let’s start with Mondo toy designer Emiliano Santalucia.

Emiliano Santalucia

Emiliano is a long-time MOTU historian and a founding member of The Power and the Honor Foundation. As frequent readers of the Battle Ram Blog know, I am constantly referencing the work of the Foundation on this site. Emiliano has worked as an illustrator for Masters of the Universe comics, DVD covers and posters, and he has also done packaging art for the MOTU NECA statues and for Super7. He assisted with design work on the MOTU Classics line, and went on to be a toy designer for Hasbro and recently for his own startup, Formo. He has also been a Mondo designer for the past eight years or so. I recently shot him over some questions and he was kind enough to answer them for me.

Adam: Okay, so I remember back from our Power-Con “MOTU Historians” panel, someone in the audience asked what we would want to see made into toy form. I mentioned I’d love to see a prototype Battle Ram made into a toy. At the time you mentioned that I would probably get to see that, at least the Sky Sled. I think it was at the same time your Sky Sled concept art was being teased by Mondo.

I definitely see some of that prototype in the new Mondo Sky Sled, as well as bits from the vintage vehicle, the box art, and even a little bit of Filmation. Am I reading that accurately? What were your major influences in creating this updated interpretation?

Emiliano: LOL, I didn’t remember that, but judging by the timing, you’re probably right, I had already designed the Sky Sled by the time of the panel. My main influences, other than the original toy of course, where the well known prototype we’ve seen in archival photos (I have a ton of those at home) and in the minicomic drawn by Alfredo Alcala.

But I also looked at the original art by Ted Mayer, from which I took some extra details. From Filmation, I took the idea of the removable panel, as seen in one of the cartoon episodes.

My main goal was to enhance certain detail that got softened up in the original toy to allow for easy molding and demolding. For example, I wanted the front cannon to be able to move and resemble more the prototype. I also wanted to define better the bottom cannons that can be barely made out in the original toy. In addition to that, I tweaked the proportions slightly, making it a little longer, kind of like the box art, but without going too far, so you don’t really notice it, yet it is less clunky and more aerodynamic.

Adam: Were there any major roadblocks you faced in the design? For instance I’m sure it’s challenging to design to a price point when there is almost zero parts reuse – other than the heads that came with the Sky Sled.

Emiliano: Fortunately, we had no roadblocks. Mondo didn’t give me a budget or a price point and let me run wild with it. I think the only thing we slightly limited was the amount of color application on the engine under the removable panel, jut to make it less difficult to produce.

Adam: The Sky Sled comes with a lot of bells and whistles, which is expected from Mondo – the removable side panels, the three laser blasts, the jet engine flame effect, and the extra heads for He-Man and Prince Adam. Is there anything you had to leave out that you really wanted to include?

Emiliano: We played with the idea of creating a base that resembled a cloud of smoke, but that was ultimately discarded. But other than that, they added even more parts that I had been requested at the beginning. For example, I didn’t know about the plan for the alternate heads until the Sky Sled was announced.

Adam: What is your personal history with the Sky Sled/Battle Ram? Was it something you had as a child?

Emiliano: I got Battle Ram during Easter holidays, I’m not sure if it was ’83 or ’84 (we were a year behind in Italy). My mom took it out of the box and tried to put it in an Easter Egg made of paper strips. It didn’t really work, but it was sweet. It was probably one of my favorite MOTU vehicles and a staple of all my playing sessions with MOTU figures. I also did a first preliminary design for the MOTU Classics version for the Four Horsemen.

Adam: What other vehicles would you want to design for this line, given the chance?

Emiliano: Of course I’d love to complete the Battle Ram. At that scale, it’s hard to make vehicles without going into prohibitive prices, but if I was given the chance, my main pick would definitely be the Attack Track!

Peer Brauner

I was also able to interview Peer Brauner, who did the original digital sculpt for the Sky Sled. Peer has worked on various brands over the years, including Star Wars, Transformers and Masters.

Adam: What is your personal history with the Sky Sled/Battle Ram? Was it something you had as a child?

Peer: Other than staring and it and crushing my nose on the toy store window, I barely have any. I never had my own. I loved the Battle Ram visually and the box art was amazing. For all the kids in the neighborhood owning one was a huge popularity boost.

Adam: Did you ever expect to be sculpting a Masters vehicle for a 1/6 scale line?

Peer: I was lucky to sculpt Roboto and Kittrina for the classics line and the vinyl Scareglow from Mondo. But I was never expecting to get to sculpt this thing. I am immensely grateful that Mondo gave me the chance to do this.

Adam: Can you tell me about your sculpting process on the Sky Sled? I assume everything is done digitally these days.

Peer: Yes the whole process is digital now. It is just so much quicker and cost effective than traditional model making.

First I get the turns (a multi-sided view in parallel perspective) from the client, in this case executed beautifully by Emiliano Santalucia. He is a long time friend and partner in toys and working with him is always a pleasure. His work makes my work easy because he understands volumes in 3D so well and his turns are very precise and true to real life. That takes a lot of guessing out of my modeling process.

I start with laying out the biggest volumes and establish all the main proportions and silhouette.
Then I work my way up to finer and finer details.

Adam: What were the major challenges with this project?

Peer: And this is where stuff can get a bit complicated… let me name two examples.

The dragon head on the side. It was really enjoyable work, but not easy to get right. In the world it is placed in this is a man-made machine right? So someone crafted it. An engineer or blacksmith, forged this piece of figurine/inlay. So it has to look like a “made and stylized” object. Organic, but fabricated. Makes sense? And getting that right took me a bit.

The engine bay. There are not only a lot of objects in there but they also overlap each other.
Getting the setup in there right and arrange everything to fit on the separate layers in depth and into each other got a bit confusing at times.

Adam: Were you happy how it came out in the end?

Peer: I am very happy how it came out, I saw it on display and I can’t wait to get it in hand to give it a close inspection.

Review

Now, on to the review! The Sky Sled ships in quite a large box, with lots of molded foam inside keeping everything safe. The artwork on the front of the packaging was illustrated by Florian Bertmer, and depicts an air battle with He-Man, Tri-Klops and Trap Jaw all piloting Sky Sleds. Buzz-Off is also shown flying in the background. Buzz-Off has already been announced for this line, but Tri-Klops has not. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were be a teaser for an upcoming Tri-Klops figure.

Another panel on the box gives a little bit of a “bio” for the vehicle and credits the design team that worked on it:

The vehicle itself is 8.5 inches tall and 12.5 inches long. It was given a “distressed” paint job, with sculpted nicks and silver paint “wear” from battle, as well as streaks of dark airbrushing indicating heavy use. Every sculpted detail is brought forward with multiple hits of paint, for a movie-realistic look.

One of my favorite accessories for the vehicle is the two-tone translucent exhaust effect that plugs into the jet engine nozzle. Also in the image below, you can see that a “leather” seat has been incorporated into the design. All of the control surfaces are sculpted and have multiple hits of paint.

Taking a closer look at the back, you can see some airbrushing on the jet engine which simulates metal discoloration from the heat of the exhaust:

If you take the Sky Sled off of its included stand, you can check out the detail that’s present on the bottom of the vehicle:

Another fun detail is the handles, which come sculpted with controls for (I assume) firing the cannons and accelerating the vehicle:

The central cannon on the front has the ability to pivot left and right as well as up and down. There is also a yellow transparent “light” piece on the steering column, which was influenced by geometric shapes present on Ted Mayer’s original concept art.

The steering column can turn left and right, and the handles and rotate up and down. The rotating handles are necessary to allow He-Man (or most any other Mondo figure) to hold on while riding it.

One of the most fun features is the removable panel on the left side of the Sky Sled, which reveals the engine parts within.

Here is is the Mondo Sky Sled compared to three others made by Mattel over the years:

The set also includes two bonus figure heads: one for Prince Adam and one for He-Man. They feature windswept hair and help sell the illusion of speed when either figure is riding the vehicle.

Speaking of riding the vehicle, let’s check out how He-Man looks when piloting it! In order to really ride it, the handles need to be tilted forward, allowing him to hang on while keeping his feet anchored on the Sky Sled.

That brings me to the final accessories – the Sky Sled comes with three translucent energy blasts that connect to the vehicle’s three cannons. They’re quite long, too long for my little glass case. I love the colors on them though. If you are not keeping your Sky Sled behind glass, I’d recommend not displaying them, really. I can imaging if this were displayed on an open shelf, it might be easy to walk by and catch the energy blast effects with your clothing, causing some immediate heartache.

Now, if you want He-Man to sit on the actual seat, it gets tricky. He can do it, but I haven’t found a way to do so without having his feet dangling under the vehicle. The Mondo male buck has pretty long legs and a limited range of motion at the hips. I wasn’t able to get mine to sit with his feet up, but maybe you’ll have better luck.

Final Thoughts

All in all as a die-hard Battle Ram fan, I’m very pleased with the Mondo Sky Sled. It’s a wonderful tribute to a classic Masters of the Universe vehicle, and it’s a pleasant surprise to see it show up in a 1/6 scale collector line. My example seems to be flawless, so I don’t have any criticisms per se. I suppose it might have been interesting to include a snake head to transform it into the evil War Sled/Doom Buggy version of the vehicle, but then that version was supposed to be green, not blue. Still, the extra figurehead would have made it more versatile for use with both Heroic and Evil Warriors.

My one criticism would really be for the windswept He-Man head, which has somewhat purple lips. They look fine from a few feet away, but up close they look a little odd. Speaking of He-Man, I’d love to see a more rough-looking (ie less handsome) face sculpt for him in this line, more similar to the original 1982 toy, but translated into the highly detailed Mondo style. I’ll get into that when I review my Mondo He-Man figure.

Many thanks to Mondo for sending me this review sample, and thanks to Emiliano and Peer for taking the time to answer my questions. A super big thank you also to Oz and Tommy!

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