Category: Reviews

Reviews

Custom Castle Grayskull by Guillermo Grande

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

For a couple of years now I’ve been admiring the minicomic-inspired customs of artist Guillermo Grande. What has caught my eye the most, however, is his recreation of the original Mark Taylor prototype Castle Grayskull (as featuring in the first set of Alfredo Alcala-illustrated minicomics and other material), using a combination of newly sculpted pieces and paint work on an existing vintage Castle Grayskull shell. When he created a second one for sale, I had to jump on it right away.

The original Castle Grayskull prototype (designed and sculpted by Mark Taylor) is shown below for reference. You can also check out my article on the prototype for a more detailed discussion of what sets it apart from the mass-produced castle, which was trimmed and simplified to reduce manufacturing costs and to fit it in a smaller box (which would reduce shipping costs and allow more playsets to fit on shelves at retail).

Image shared by James Eatock, originally via Andy Youssi

Guillermo of course references that prototype in his custom work, but he also references colors and other unique elements from the illustrations of Alfredo Alcala.

On to the custom!

Exterior

Color-wise, the exterior of Guillermo’s castle seems to invoke the more dramatic and moody color scheme of the Alcala comics, with deep blue shadows in the recesses of the exterior and vivid green on all protruding surfaces, as if lit by some eldritch light. This is of course present on the prototype, but it’s more amplified in Alcala’s artwork.

On the front face of the castle, there are quite a few modifications. The most obvious might be the teeth, which are much more ghoulish than the retail castle and have quite a bit of overhang. The teeth ended up being more recessed on the retail version because that was much easier for molding purposes.

Another key feature is the ledge on the side of the tower:

Another obvious change is the so-called pawn-piece on the top of the helmet. The helmet itself also has an enlarged center section of the decorative piece on the front.

A really ingenious addition to the castle is a completely reworked jawbridge. The retail castle had an enlarged opening with some extra room at the top half of the entrance. The prototype had a narrower front entrance. It also had a stone textured exterior, while the retail jawbridge had a wood texture on the outside. Guillermo has also modified the jabridge teeth to match the prototype (while extending it a bit to completely cover the entrance when closed):

Custom version
Retail version
Image source: Guillermo Grande

There is also a hole to the side of the door for He-Man or Skeletor to insert their sword – a detail taken from the minicomics. I should note that doing this won’t actually open up the jawbridge – that must be done manually.

A more subtle change is the addition of extra material between the eyes and around the nose, to better reflect the prototype design:

Visible from the front is the concept laser cannon. This one was actually kitbashed by Mark Taylor from Micronauts Hornetroid parts – he later designed something from scratch for the production model. You can see also from this view that Guillermo has included simulated stone floor on the platform.

Visible from the front on the taller tower is the “Spirit of the Castle.” This wasn’t from the prototype playset, but it was included at the end of many of the Alfredo Alcala/Don Glut minicomics. The Spirit would appear at the end of the story to deliver a message to the triumphant heroes. The custom “Spirit” glows in the dark.

Something that I’m told will be available in future customs is the prototype flag. Guillermo was kind enough to send me the artwork he did for it, so I could print one out and add that to my castle (note – I made a modification on the colors of the evil side of the flag):

On the exterior of the other half of the castle, there are a few changes as well (other than, of course, the paint). The handle that was added to the retail castle to allow kids to use it as a carrying case has been removed to restore it to the prototype design, and sculpted stone is used to cover up the tops of the battlements.

The tower on the far end has had its roof extended to a sharp point, again to match the source material:

And a really fun feature: a secret door has been created under the side windows, which was again a feature of the prototype, but not included in the retail release:

Secret door behind the prototype combat trainer

Interior

The second floor pieces of the interior have been given a wood-like finish, and the gargoyle piece at the top of the elevator has been cast in a greenish stone finish. The prototype castle had a circular elevator and a skull at the top, although it was never illustrated in the Alcala comics (it does get referenced in Don Glut’s text). On the right side we see a replica of the computer cardboard cutout that came with the retail castle, but below it is a 3-D piece that recalls the prototype castle:

From the prototype

One of my favorite extras here is a green computer and monitor. It wasn’t in the prototype castle, but it was featured in King of Castle Grayskull:

Down below we have a repainted elevator (in red, like the prototype) and a repainted weapons rack. There are also weapons from the retail playset, cast in metal, with wood handles on the spears/poleaxes. Behind you can see that the ground floor is given a stone slab texture.

In the throne room, we have several fun goodies. There is a redesigned throne that is based on the prototype. Included is a red blanket or cloak shown in the Alcala comics. There is also a small green computer, from the Alcala comics. The single rail ladder, featured in both prototype and comics is there as well. Guillermo has also created a 3D version of the space suit cardboard cutout, which was a part of both the prototype and retail castle as a 2D printout:

Rear detail of the laser cannon, also showing stone slab detail on the platform.

A great feature of Guillermo’s custom is that the trap door works just like the vintage castle!

On interior of the front entrance, we have a few more goodies. To the left of the jawbridge, we see the dungeon. The prototype didn’t have walls and a door like this, but it was illustrated in the Alcala comics:

The door to the dungeon opens on a hinge. Inside is a poor unfortunate victim who was left there too long. The dungeon is removable. On the back wall are a set of shackles, which were featured in the prototype:

And that’s the castle! Guillermo has been constantly coming up with new additions and innovations to his designs, so I’m sure his creations will continue to evolve. Some possible extras I might suggest in the future: the prototype combat trainer, jetpack, bop bag and torture rack. The round elevator might be fun too, although that might difficult to engineer. In any case, this is the Castle Grayskull I’ve always wanted and I’m absolutely thrilled to have it in my collection!

Guillermo is accepting commissions – if you’re interested in custom work, you can reach out to him via his Instagram account.

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Artwork, Reviews

T. Mark Taylor – Sketches 2

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Many thanks to my buddy Doug Feague for kindly sharing pictures of his copy for this article.

At the 2019 Power-Con, Mark and Rebecca Taylor made available to fans a collection of art prints called T. Mark Taylor – Sketches 2. It’s a sequel to the first set of sketches released at Power-Con last year. A few pieces from this set appear in the 2016 Mark Taylor – The Original B-Sheets Collection, which I reviewed in depth. I’ll take a look at each piece of artwork and provide a little commentary, although several of these pieces are new to me and I don’t know the backstory behind them.

Dungeon Sticker

To start out with, the cover (shown above) is the famous Castle Grayskull dungeon sticker, which was illustrated by Rebecca Salari Taylor.

The dungeon has all sorts of meaning for Mark Taylor, who envisioned it as having held Skeletor at one point, turning him into the monster who he eventually became. More on that in a future article.

Sorceress

The Sorceress was included in the 2016 Mark Taylor Portfolio, and is one of my all time favorite pieces of art. This character’s design was eventually merged with Teela’s. The Sorceress would later show up in the 1983 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon with a completely redesigned costume. But she does make an appearance in this form (albeit with a green face) in the minicomic, He-Man and the Power Sword. You can read more about this character here.

Face Shifter

Face Shifter is one of many face-changing character concepts that Mark Taylor came up with, eventually leading to Man-E-Faces. This particular version may have inspired the armor used on Terror Claws Skeletor, and possibly even the costume for the New Adventures character Flipshot.

Viking Raid

Viking Raid depicts and early Castle Grayskull concept. This one also appeared in Mark’s 2016 portfolio collection and in Dark Horse’s The Art of He-Man.

Kang Gi

As I understand it, this character was apparently pulled from Mark Taylor’s sketch book from years before his work at Mattel, and the intent was to use him as one of Skeletor’s henchmen, but may have also been considered for the Conan line that never came to be.

Kang Gi’s face bears a strong resemblance to Webstor, and may have been used by Roger Sweet as a springboard in the creation of that character. However this should not be considered an early version of Webstor – it’s a separate character.

Ram Man

This is a rather exciting bit of concept art for Ram Man that I personally had never seen before. His look is fairly well developed, although he features the red/brown/orange color scheme that seemed to stick with the character right up until the toy was released in stores, where the colors were changed to red and green. The overall look is quite similar to Ram Man as he appears in the minicomic, He-Man Meets Ram Man.

The Merciless

Known to many fans as “Demo-Man” (a name attached to him in the MOTU Classics era), The Merciless is a differently colored version of a piece of Mark Taylor concept art that has been floating around for the fan community for some time. This version features a darker color palette and a blue beard. This may have been a concept for the unproduced Conan line, but I don’t know that for sure. In any case, contrary to popular belief, it was not an early Skeletor concept. Update: read more about the history of this character here.

The Enforcer

The Enforcer is a character that I’ve not seen previously. To me he fits in very well in the world of MOTU, and I would leave to see a figure made from this wonderfully weird and quirky design.

Mokus

Another character that is completely new to me, Mokus looks like some kind of giant, frightening but also whimsical plant monster. I’d love to learn the backstory behind this character.

Stalker

Stalker is a great plant monster concept. The face reminds me just a little of Swamp Thing, and the plant-based costume and weapon are right on target.

Blaster

Blaster is a classic-looking science fiction concept character. His helmet almost looks like the prow of a space ship. He seems to be shooting beams of some kind out of his writstband as well. This is another concept I hadn’t seen previously.

Back Page

Finally, the back page features a lovely message from Mark, adorned with another piece of art from the Castle Grayskull playset, again illustrated by Rebecca.

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Reviews

T. Mark Taylor – Sketches 1

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

At the 2018 Power-Con, Mark and Rebecca Taylor made available to fans a collection of art prints called T. Mark Taylor – Sketches 1. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but thankfully fans who couldn’t attend were able to purchase copies directly from the Taylors afterwards.

The set is kind of a sequel to the 2016 Mark Taylor – The Original B-Sheets Collection, which I reviewed in depth. A few pieces from that collection appear in Sketches 1, but mostly this is a new set of artwork. Unlike the first set, much of the artwork in this new collection actually predates work on the He-Man line. I’ll take a look at each piece of artwork and provide a little commentary.

Cover

The cover, which Mark was kind enough to sign, features one of the early Beast Man concepts. Rebecca shared the full artwork several months back. For more information on the evolution of Beast Man, check out this article.

Image courtesy of Rebecca Salari Taylor.

The Eternal Hero

This piece, titled “The Eternal Hero”, doesn’t seem to be a direct ancestor of any particular figure. However, his armor has touches of what would become Skeletor’s armor. His axe and boot designs were reused for He-Man. The shield ended up with the Castle Grayskull weapons. This most likely originated from the 1970s, long before the He-Man line.

Evil Incarnate

Rebecca actually shared with me some of the history behind this image:

It was done before Mark went to Mattel. I found it in a sketchbook. He has a few versions of skeletons as warriors and royalty. It is based off of a story he wrote once when he was a kid in college… about a skeleton king called “The King of Styx” … circa 1971. I found a new stash of sketchbooks when they repaired our garage.

Evil Incarnate or The King of Styx isn’t Skeletor, but you can see that Mark reused several design attributes (most notably the face and cross bones) when he was coming up with what would become Skeletor:

Image source: The 2016 Mark Taylor B-Sheet Collection . Scan by Axel Gimenéz

Paladin

Paladin was actually first intended by Mark Taylor for the never-produced Rob-N & the Space Hoods toyline. When that line failed to be green-lit, the character (eventually named Man-At-Arms) was reused for Masters of the Universe. This is one of my personal favorites from this collection. You can see how the design continued to evolve in the B-sheet below:

Image source: The 2016 Mark Taylor B-Sheet Collection

The Merman

This piece was included in the 2016 B-Sheet collection, although this one has more of a green color, as opposed to the blue of the other version. Personally I think green suits Mer-Man better. This is perhaps my all-time favorite piece of artwork by Mark Taylor. You can see the blue version released in the previous collection below:

Image source: The 2016 Mark Taylor B-Sheet Collection . Scan by Axel Gimenéz

Stygian Moat

The moat was actually intended to be a mat that would come shipped with Castle Grayskull. Unfortunately it proved to be too expensive and it was dropped from the playset. Those who are fans of the creepy creatures in the Castle Grayskull dungeon sticker will appreciate this artwork the most.

The War Cat

The above artwork was also included in the 2016 B-sheet collection, but fans who missed out on that can enjoy this exquisite representation of Battle Cat.

The Segway

Although it’s not immediately obvious, Segway represents an early take on the Man-E-Faces concept. Rebecca has actually shared a number of early designs. This particular version represents an evil character.

Castle Stickers

The Castle Grayskull stickers and cardboard pieces, exactly as they appeared in the vintage playset, are reproduced here. These were done by Rebecca, based on some notes by Mark.

Warrior Teela

Teela was also included in the 2016 B-sheets collection. She remains one of Mark’s most elegant and striking figure designs.

Ursis Prime

Ursis prime is the earliest known Beast Man design. In the beginning the character was based on a bear, although Mattel rejected it because they were afraid it was too similar looking to Chewbacca. The next stage of the design is the savage-looking red Beast Man featured on the cover of this collection. You can read more about the evolution of Beast Man here.

The Castle Grayskull

We got our first peek at this design in the Netflix Toys that Made Us episode on Masters of the Universe. This is a more evolved design compared to what was included in Mark’s previous B-Sheet collection. This is another personal favorite of mine from this collection. Mark sculpted his Castle Grayskull prototype based on this version, although he cut out most of the the Near-Eastern influences. Mark’s earlier design is below, for comparison:

Image source: The 2016 Mark Taylor B-Sheet Collection.

The Rhinomen

This design was first shown in the Power and Honor Foundation Catalog. The design is somewhat related to Ram Man, especially in the helmet design. Although this toy was never made, it would have had a ramming feature, as shown below:

Image Source: The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog, Vol 1

Back Page

Finally, on the back page we get a picture of Mark and a nice note to fans, punctuating a superb and heart-felt collection.

Many thanks to Rebecca and Mark for making this available to the fans!

You can also watch Mark and Rebecca talking to fans about the origins of He-Man at the 2018 Power-Con in the video below, moderated by MOTU super-scholar Danielle Gelehrter:

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Reviews

Barbarossa Custom Creations Laser Power He-Man

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Earlier this year I acquired the Barbarossa Custom Creations Laser Light Skeletor. I had become somewhat obsessed with the figure, and it was my best shot at getting a complete, working and nice-looking example of the rare, European release figure at a price that wouldn’t require the sale of an internal organ. At the time I was only planning on getting the one figure, but I was so impressed with it, I had get Laser Light Skeletor’s heroic counterpart, Laser Power He-Man.

If you’ve ever purchased a custom or replica action figure from any customizer/builder, you know they’re not cheap. That’s just a factor of economies of scale. It’s considerably more difficult for one person to create one figure at a time than it is for a fully equipped factory (with steel molds, paint masks, etc.) to pump out one figure among tens of thousands. It’s even more difficult with a complex toy like Laser Power He-Man, with his internal electronics. But as the original laser figures were produced in low numbers and only released oversees, they go for quite a lot of money on the secondary market. In this case, the replica is something like a third of the cost of the original.

Barbarossa offers the figure in both of its vintage configurations – with either the unique head sculpt that came with the Italian version of the figure, or the 1982 style head which came with the Spanish version of the figure. The Italian version is often called the “Dolph” head for its resemblance to Dolph Lundgren. In my opinion, no He-Man head sculpt will ever surpass the original 1982 version. However, I opted for the Italian “Dolph” version, as this was my one chance to get a figure with that particular head, and I’ve already got the original head on my other vintage He-Man figures.

Vintage 1988 Italian LP He-Man vs 1988 Spanish LP He-Man

Barbarossa has actually done something really interesting with this figure that adds to its durability. Rather than casting the figure in one or two colors and painting in the details (as was done in the vintage figure), Barbarossa casts the trunks and boots in the same teal as the armor. The belt and gloves are cast separately in silver. These pieces are glued together for a seamless look, and the there is no possibility of paint wear on the gloves or boots (an issue that plagues many vintage figures). The only painted parts, in fact, are the head (hair, eyebrows, and eyes) and the silver accents on the armor. The figure retains all of his vintage points of articulation. Another modification is that the belt lacks the “M” design of the original.

The plastic has a very realistic feel to it. I don’t know what the secret formula Barbarossa uses for his materials, but it feels very much like a factory figure. The cast is nice and crisp, with better paint details than many factory examples.  The figure also stands solidly without a tendency to fall over.

The light up action feature has been altered from the 1988 original. Instead of raising his arm to activate the sword, the light turns on with a switch hidden in the battery compartment. The light runs on a watch cell battery, rather than an AA battery as the original did.

If you happen to have a vintage LP He-Man without his accessories, Barbarossa also sells them separately for a reduced cost.

The sword glows quite brightly, especially in the dark. I took some shots with him next to the modern Masters of the Universe Classics Laser Power He-Man for comparison.

He looks great next to his arch nemesis, Laser Light Skeletor (also by Barbarossa):

Laser Power He-Man was quite a departure from the original He-Man design. In 1988 Mattel was heavily exploring different ideas for a more sci-fi take on He-Man. Laser Power He-Man represents an intermediate step in that direction, just before the “New Adventures” reboot:

Original 1982 He-Man and Barbarossa replica Laser Power He-Man
Left to right: 1992 Thunder Punch He-Man, 1990 Battle Punch He-Man, 1989 “New Adventures” He-Man, Barbarossa Laser Power He-Man.

You can see in the photos above that a big theme in Mattel’s sci-fi themed He-Man figures is translucent yellow swords. My understanding is that all of the above figures were designed by Martin Arriola, with the exception of Battle Punch He-Man, who originates from a design by Mark Taylor. Laser Power He-Man, to me, is much more recognizable as a He-Man figure than any of the New Adventures versions. I suspect if the rebooted line had been more in the style of the Laser figures, they might have had greater success.

I’ll explore the history of Laser Power He-Man in more depth in a future toy feature. In any case, I’ve been thoroughly pleased with Barbarossa’s customs so far, and would recommend his Laser figure replicas to anyone looking to add these hard to find figures to their collection.

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