Written by Adam McCombs

Several years back I did a rather brief review of the MOTU Classics Castle Grayskull, in a small series of articles covering a few items from that line. My blog mostly covers the vintage MOTU line, so modern lines like Classics and Origins have never been a focus. However, I think the Classics Castle Grayskull is extraordinary enough to warrant an in-depth look at the history behind its design and development.

The Origins of Masters of the Universe Classics

For some context, I thought it would be worth writing briefly about the origins of the line itself. The Masters of the Universe Classics line began as a pitch from the Four Horsemen to Mattel. I asked them about it in my interview with them for Pixel Dan’s Toy Guide. Here’s an excerpt:

Q: Can you talk about the genesis of the Masters of the Universe Classics line?

A: (Eric Treadaway) We’d wrapped up the 200X version of Masters of the Universe, but we didn’t want to let the property or the toy line just whither on the vine and die, so we started coming up with a new direction to take the line that we could introduce to Mattel, and hopefully they’d like it. We decided that we should try to bring back the proportions and look of the original Masters of the Universe line, but add in the articulation and technical updates of today.

A: (Cornboy) So, on our own time and without Mattel knowing we were doing it, we created a new He-Man action figure prototype that took the classic look and new articulation levels into account. We took it with us to the San Diego Comic Con that year so we could present the idea and the prototype to the managers and designers at Mattel that we worked with at the time at a breakfast meeting that we have with them there every year. We were surprised that while most of the guys at the table loved the idea and the prototype, none were really interested in jumping in with another MotU line so quickly. That is until the manager of Mattel boys toys at the time, David Voss, spoke up and said that he loved it and wanted us to place it into one of the Mattel display cases there at SDCC without saying anything about it just to see what the reaction was. I guess you know by now that the response was overwhelmingly positive, and we released the SDCC exclusive King Grayskull figure the next year and MOTU Classics was off and running.

The prototype shown at SDCC is pictured below. These images were originally posted on the He-Man.org forums – unfortunately I don’t recall who posted them, and those forums are no longer online. I believe the person who posted it had acquired it for their own collection. The version below was later updated for production – the bracers and belt were painted a more classic orange color, with dark red accents, and the Power Sword was redesigned. The neck articulation was also simplified.

The line ran from from late 2008 to late 2020, concluding with the Snake Mountain playset, although the heyday of the line was really from 2008-2015. In 2017 the line transferred over to Super7, which kept it going after Mattel had lost interest in continuing with it. There is actually a nice, highly detailed guide to all the figures, vehicles and playsets of the Classics line created by Wakko, available to download for free here. It’s also covered of course in Pixel Dan’s Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (Dark Horse). I actually wrote about half of the MOTU Classics section in that book.

MOTU Classics stayed alive for 12 years without any significant entertainment (no movies or TV shows), and was mostly funded by a yearly subscription model and fan enthusiasm. I remember in the years where it looked like the line was in danger of failing, many fans bought multiple subscriptions and put out sub drive podcasts, videos and artwork to keep it going.

Castle Grayskull Preorder

Initially the line was very heavily figure-focused. There was one vehicle released early on (the Wind Raider) which didn’t sell very quickly, and that seemed to make a major playset much less of a possibility. However, after the financial success of Mattel’s Hoverboard prop replica, Scott Neitlich, the brand manager for the line, was able to get the Castle Grayskull greenlit, contingent upon getting at least 5,000 preorders for it to justify the tooling cost of $350,000 (note: these numbers were not revealed to fans at the time – it was just said that the preorder had to meet a minimum threshold to move forward).

The plan to do a Classics Castle Grayskull was first announced at Power-Con, in late September of 2012. No images were available at the time, but they announced a Fall 2012 preorder, with an estimated price of $200. The stated idea was to base the castle on Mark Taylor’s original prototype design. More details were to be revealed at the 2012 New York Comic Con in October.

The first illustrations for the proposed castle appeared at a Mattel panel at NYCC on October 13, 2012. At this point, the price was revised upward to $250. To support the pitch, the Four Horsemen commissioned their longtime collaborator Nate Baertsch to draw up some concept artwork, which would be shown in order to pitch the playset to fans. His illustrations were intended to communicate the general look of the castle to fans, as well as show off the intended features and accessories:

I’ll just note that later on, some additional concept art by Nate was revealed, showing different angles and all sorts of optional extras for the castle:

I’ll also note before this project, Nate had designed two previous versions of the Castle, one for the Millcreek 30th anniversary DVD set case (a 2D illustration pushed out to 3D on the box), and the Icon Heroes Castle Grayskull statue, as well as the artwork for the statue’s packaging:

As I recall, Nate worked closely with Eric Treadaway of the Four Horsemen on the Icon Heroes project in terms of figuring out the overall look, and that informed the direction they would go with the Classics Castle Grayskull, if one were to be greenlit.

After the three primary blueprints/illustrations were shown at NYCC, the flat illustration showing the castle from the exterior was blown up and printed on foam to help sell the preorder. You can see that in the image and video below:

The preorder window was opened up October 16, 2012, and was to remain open until November 12, 2012, although due to the success in hitting the minimum on time, the preorder was extended through January 4, 2013. The price point of $250 (plus tax and shipping) was controversial at the time, although it seems quite economical in retrospect, compared to more recent Mattel projects like the recent MOTU Origins Eternia playset. Extra perks were offered for those who preordered – they would get a poster of all of the figures produced in the line to date, and would get to vote on which characters would appear on the box art. Rudy Obrero was slated to do the packaging illustration, just as he had done for the original 1982 Castle Grayskull.

After the prototype was shown at NYTF in February 2013 (more on that later), the preorder window was extended again for a short time, for the increased price of $275. Those who purchased the Castle after the preorder deadline could still get one, but at the cost of $300 plus taxes and shipping.

Here’s a few examples of the kinds of things that fans put together to help drive interest in subscriptions for the castle:

It’sAllTrue.net also had a temporary website (CastleGrayskull.info) up to promote the preorder and track its progress, which is still visible through the Wayback Machine. On this page you can still watch a video featuring Johnny Bilson and Brian Dobson (voice of Skeletor in the 2002 He-Man cartoon) promoting the preorder.

In the end there were approximately 7,500 castles preordered, which was close to the number of subscribers for the entire yearly line at the time (again, these sales numbers were not revealed until much later, after the line had ended). It was a huge success.

Castle Grayskull Prototype

The Four Horsemen sculpted Castle Grayskull over the course of two weeks during the month of January, 2013. Normally the Four Horsemen had about six or so people working on projects at any one time, but for Castle Grayskull they brought in some outside collaborators and had 16 people working on the project. Eric Treadaway actually documented the process for his son, who was fascinated with the castle at the time, and later posted it as The Twelve Days of Grayskull. His original posts are only available on the Wayback Machine. Most of the images are still visible, although not at the maximum resolution.

Thankfully Israel Ramirez, a long-time friend of the Four Horsemen, archived all of Eric’s original posts, including the full resolution of most of the images, on his Power Lords Return site (he also runs the Adam Power YouTube channel). I’d recommend going through and reading it. I’ll summarize the process here as well.

Frequent Four Horsemen collaborator Joe Amaro created an armature (which appears to be 3D printed), upon which the Castle’s façade and stones would be sculpted. The medium used was castilene clay, a wax-based clay that can be softened by heat and even melted and poured into molds. Eric roughed up the surface of the armature and spread some melted clay over the surface to help his sculptures adhere to the plastic. Fun historical note: the original 1981 Castle Grayskull prototype was also sculpted using castilene clay.

Joe Amaro talks about his work on MOTU Classics Castle Grayskull in the video below, on the Adam Power YouTube channel:

You can see below in Eric’s next series of images the shape of the face being roughed out in clay. It was important to Eric that the face have a great deal of depth, similar to the original toy and the original Mark Taylor Prototype. The most recent official Castle Grayskull from the 200x era was incredibly flat with very little relief to its features. Eric definitely wanted a return to form for the castle!

In the image below, Eric has further sharpened up the facial features and added the raised detail to the helmet:

In the image below, Eric has cleaned up the sculpt of the facial features (particularly around the eye sockets), and removed the premade ledge from the armature, which would be added back later in clay, made by pouring liquid castilene into a mold.

In the image below, Eric has removed the plastic rock formations at the base and has started replacing them with clay versions. He also continued to add rock textures around the side of the largest tower.

In the image below, the ledge has been added back in with clay, and its shape has been reworked:

In the images below, Eric worked on continuing the rock textures around the side of the smaller tower. He also started adding some clay over the base piece.

In the images below we can see that Eric has rebuilt the rocks at the base of the taller tower, and continued to add clay to the base of the castle. His vision for the structure, as he describes it in Twelve Days of Grayskull, was that part of the castle is carved directly out of rock, and the rest was built up over time around what was carved.

Here is our first look at the other section of the castle exterior. Most of the clay work on this half was sculpted by Shane Dittsworth, and finished up by Eric Treadaway:

Below we see some continued work on the other section of the castle, along with work on the handle section. Some parts of the armature had to be cut down to make it look right when the castle was closed up.

Below we can see a look at the completed second half of the castle, sitting next to the corresponding piece from the vintage Castle Grayskull.

Beyond Eric’s photos, MTV Geek visited the Four Horsemen studios and took some pictures and videos of the process. Here’s a video still of Eric working on sculpting the castle (unfortunately the videos are no longer available):

Below you can see the mold Shane Dittsworth made from the clay prototype:

During the mold-making process, sadly the clay prototype ended up getting destroyed, but not before the Horsemen had the successful mold they needed to make urethane plastic castings.

On the Adam Power YouTube channel, there is a great video of Shane Dittsworth talking about the difficulty of molding and casting the castle:

And here’s a video showing the molds close up, and one unsuccessful casting:

In the images below you can see a successful casting of the front of the castle:

The Matty Collector Facebook page at the time shared some images from the Four Horsemen of Sherri Lynn Cook working on paint masters for the castle:

From MTV Geek again, more images of the paint masters, WIP:

Back on the Power Lords YouTube channel, there are archived video segments about the process of painting Castle Grayskull:

Below are images of painted up castings of the interior elements, also from MTV Geek:

Djordje Djokovic, often called the “fifth horseman,” was brought in to sculpt the jaw bridge and the dungeon grate. He recently posted some photos of his work on his Instagram page. His jaw bridge was closely based on the original toy and Rudy Obrero’s box art. The Mark Taylor prototype jaw bridge was quite different – it had a stone texture exterior and a slimmer shape. Originally Djordje’s prototype had a vine crawling across the tongue, but it ended up getting removed from the final playset.

You can see the cast and painted version of the jaw bridge in the images below:

Here are Djordje’s images of his prototype dungeon grate. Sadly, this never made it into the castle. The many paint applications required made it prohibitively expensive:

And here is the cast and painted version:

Prototype Reveal

On February 10, 2013, the prototype paint master for Castle Grayskull was revealed at New York Toy Fair:

Actually, shortly before the actual NYTF reveal, a few low-resolution images of the prototype (unpainted) had leaked to fans. At some point in the development of the castle, Mattel had determined that the castle had to be shrunk down a couple of inches from what was shown to fans to meet the price point of $250. Originally it was going to measure about 24 inches from the base to the top of the tallest tower. In the revised size, 24 inches was the height from the base to the top of the “pawn” piece on the helmet. This had a domino effect, and made it so the entryway only just big enough for a figure to stand on the jaw bridge without hitting his head. Of course the unpainted version didn’t look nearly as cool as the paint master version, so seeing this first was jarring for fans.

The size reduction was quite controversial. Although fans were pretty unanimous in praising the overall appearance of the castle, they were pretty upset about the small entrance in the front. Some images of the NYTF prototype display are shown below:

Here is a closeup of the fully painted prototype jaw bridge, with the vine that was later removed:

The NYTF reveal gave fans their first look at the interior of the castle as well. Initially it featured smooth, flat walls inside. Eric had intended to do some kind of sculpted brick walls (as had Mark Taylor and Ted Mayer with the original Castle Grayskull), but it proved to be too difficult to produce that way. It was announced that the flat interior walls would be hollowed out for production, and the interior walls would be a mirror image of the shape of the exterior – just as had been done in the vintage castle.

Nate Baertsch did the artwork for the decals that appeared in the castle. Some of the final decals were a bit different from what was shown at NYTF, in particular the display on the computer screen and the second tapestry hanging on the wall near the space suit.

The size of the entrance was probably the biggest negative reaction from the fans, but second biggest complaint was that there was no way for the Sorceress to sit on the throne due to her tail feathers. In response, Mattel said they would try to make some changes before production, including:

• Lowering the base in front of the jaw bridge in order to allow it to sit lower, increasing the size of the entrance
• Adding a slot in the throne for the Sorceress’ tail feathers
• Adding a slot next to the jaw bridge for the Power Sword to be inserted to unlock the entrance
• Adding a key hole to the secret door on the second half of the castle to accommodate the key that came with MOTU Classics Scareglow

A couple of weeks after NYTF, Scott Neitlich also put together a video on the details of the size of the prototype castle:

Pre-Production Model Updates

The updated pre-production model for Castle Grayskull was shown off at San Diego Comic-Con in July of 2013. All of the changes that Mattel had announced were featured in this model.

A factory pre-production model of the castle was shown in the August 11, 2013 video below. The castle is a “test shot” produced in random colors, made by the factory to let the customer (Mattel) verify that everything was on spec and working correctly:

And finally, an image originally shared on the He-Man.org forums, featuring the original Castle Grayskull creator Mark Taylor, being shown the new MOTU Classics castle by Emiliano Santalucia (wearing the red shirt):

The castle started shipping in December of 2013, just in time for Christmas. Pixel Dan got a review sample in late November, and he did an exhaustive review of it:

Final Thoughts

In looking at all of the pre-production images and videos that were recorded during the process of making the Classics castle, it makes me wish that this wealth of information had been preserved back when the original Castle Grayskull was produced! We’re lucky that a few snapshots of the prototype survived. Imagine if Mark Taylor had been making a photo diary of his process during the creation of his original prototype!

To date, five official Mattel Castle Grayskulls have been made. In my opinion, only the 1982 original and the 2013 Classics versions have really done justice to the concept. The 200x version has its charms, but it was far too flat, with a very generic evil skull face that looks like something out of Spirit Halloween. The Origins version isn’t bad, but it’s still a significant step down from the 1982 original, with an Imaginext-like interior and a strangely proportioned, low-relief exterior. The Netflix CGI-inspired playset is a radical redesign aimed at children rather than collectors, and it kind of came and went without much of an impact. The original 1982 Grayskull is of course classic. Most of vintage Grayskulls (unlike the example in the picture below) had rather sloppy paint, and because of the $30 price point, a lot of the interior details were a bit flimsy. Still, it’s an absolutely classic design, a true avatar for the imagination.

In my opinion, the 2013 MOTU Classics Castle Grayskull is by far the best modern interpretation of the playset that has been made to date, and the aftermarket prices seem to indicate that most collectors agree. In terms of the fine sculpt work and features, no other modern Castle Grayskull comes close. It’s really a work of art, the combined creation of 16 artists at the top of their game.

Obviously it’s a shame that it had to be reduced in size due to the locked-in preorder cost of $250. I think if it were being made today it probably would have been offered at an even bigger size. Collectors these days are used to paying a premium for large items like this. I can imagine this being made at 30 inches tall today, for something like $500.

Indulge me while I daydream for a moment about a successor to the Classics version – let’s call it Ultimate Castle Grayskull. What would it look like, and what would it include? Visually there are of course a number of different ways it could go. The Classics version was heavily influenced by the Mark Taylor prototype, but with teeth, canon, elevator and other accessories more like the vintage toy. Arguably its nose and lower teeth were influenced by the original Rudy Obrero artwork:

Nothing from the Filmation Castle Grayskull ended up in the Classics version:

So, how could all of those things be integrated together? Modular parts. The ledge could be made removable, swappable with a different piece that was flush with the rest of the surface of the short tower. The “pawn” piece could be removable like the Classics version, as could the handle. The teeth could also be made removable – particularly the canine teeth. On the prototype they were quite short and blunt. On the vintage castle they were a bit longer, on the Rudy Obrero artwork they were longer still, and on the Filmation version they were the length of the entire entrance. All of them were quite fat, and only the Filmation version’s teeth came down to sharp points.

The face itself could also be made modular, with a few different swappable styles. In some versions of the castle the skull face looks like chiseled stone, and in others it looks like an actual bone skull. It would be nice to have options there.

The height should be something like 30 inches – tall enough to tower over every extant version of the castle. The paint should be generously and carefully applied, with plenty of dark gray shading in the low areas of the sculpture and light green highlights on the most forward surfaces. It would be important this time to have a sculpted 3D dungeon grate, and sculpted areas around the base recalling Mark Taylor’s original playmat, per Nate’s concept art. It would be great to have dungeon walls inside, but they should be removable this time. Original prototype accessories like the triangular weapons rack and the torture rack would be nice, and there should also be included some Filmation accessories, such as the Sorceress’ throne and the various doorways and portals shown in the cartoon:

However, I don’t think the hypothetical Ultimate Castle Grayskull could surpass the Classics version, unless the original design team were brought back for it again. While Mattel currently makes very nice retail-quality toys using their in-house design team, they don’t deliver the same level of artistry and detail that the Four Horsemen are capable of, in my opinion. In general the best quality toys are made by the smaller boutique studios, these days.

Anyway, all of that is just my daydreaming. I think we were pretty lucky to get what we got. It was probably a flash in the pan, never to be repeated again! I hope you’ve enjoyed this look back at the MOTU Classics Castle Grayskull. I’ve certainly enjoyed rediscovering it and learning more about how it got made. Many thanks to Nate Baertsch for answering some questions I had about his illustrations!

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