John Locke (The Beach) comes on a card featuring posterized art of survivors on the beach with some plane wreckage in the foreground. He's dressed in a brown t-shirt with a velcro closure in the back. The shirt comes tucked in, but is fairly long and can be untucked easily. His tan cargo pants are really good, with pocket flaps, but no actual outer pockets. It has belt loops and the belt is thin leather-textured vinyl with a removable knife scabbard sewn from the same material.
The knife is the same knife BBP made for the Brock Sampson figure for Venture Brothers. It seems like the original prototype pictures showed a different knife, one that was more detailed, but this is an acceptable knife to me. I will offer suggestions for other knives on the market if you are so inclined. The shoes appear to be grey versions of the standard Mego dress shoe as reproduced by EMCE toys, the toy maker contracted with BBP to make these figures.
The head turned out so great. The prototype was attacked because it looked too large (as is standard practice because the heads shrink when cast in vinyl). No one wants a pumpkin headed Locke. This is in perfect proportion. I think it's a remarkable head sculpt. It's simplified in detail as befits a figure of this scale and style, yet it retains a lot of the spirit of the character. From certain angles it really communicates the warmth and personality of John Locke. My only quibble is the decision to go without the eye scar.
I think this will the real crowd pleaser, he's a favorite character for a lot of people and the figure is worthy of John Locke.
I've been looking forward to making several variations of this figure as I detailed in another post. It's not a figure that needs to be redressed, but it's neat to see it in other outfits as seen below. Megos are versatile and fun, and it's awesome they are making them for Lost.
The BifBangPow! Hugo Reyes figure is listed as Hurley Reyes (Oceanic Six). The card art featured a posterized L.A. skyline with an Oceanic logo superimposed behind the figure's head. He comes dressed in his bathrobe and pajamas from the Santa Rosa Mental Hospital scenes in Season 4. BBP has said that ABC was in the driver's seat on costume choice, and this is a frustrating one. One challenge with Lost figures is that they are simply normal people in average civilian clothes (no disrespect to the costume department). There are no flashy uniforms or sci-fi outfits to make for a visually exciting toy (see BBP's Twilight Zone, Flash Gordon, or Venture Brothers figures). To make it jump off of a crowded toy aisle shelf the temptation is to go with the most eye-catching look possible--hence Ben in his clown-like Other's jammies and Hugo in his red robe. But these costumes were in use in only a few scenes and do not represent the characters as we commonly think of them.
For me, I'm happy to have any Hurley figure at all, and as a Mego fan I'm used to doing custom alterations to my figures to suit my tastes. In fact, that's half the fun for me. But before we go there, how did the figure turn out as it was designed? Pretty good, considering the challenges they faced. I think it's got a lot of soul.
First, the body: As Jorge Garciahilariously discovered on the Jimmy Kimmel show, his body is a standard male "Mego" body, but his shirt and pants are stuffed in the belly and butt to give him his weight. It's a funny yet logical solution to the problem. Making a new torso would have been costly, and I've never been a fan of the Mego "fat body" anyway. The clothes themselves are well constructed, the robe actually does a smart job of disguising the pillow belly. I do think wider pant legs would have helped the illusion.
The head came out great, it's well made and perfectly in proportion, looks much better than the prototype. The eyes on my example are a little bit off, the pupils are a bit cock-eyed, but you only notice it if you look close (these large pictures I take are sometimes a little too revealing). It's definitely not "fun time" Hurley, he's got a serious expression and I find that the head sculpt has a lot of soul from certain angles. The facial details all translated into vinyl quite well. All of these male figures have beard stubble which is a combination of surface detail and paint and I'm thankful the light touch they used on it. The hair is a big challenge--in order to make a head that can turn it can't rest on his shoulders, so it has a bit of a flared look to it. It's a design compromise I can live with. The detail of the curly hair is very well done.
Here's a detail look at the belly and shoes. I was pleased to see that the slippers are removable, not molded to the feet, though I wish they'd been able to spend the money on tooling a nice hiking boot or something. (Again with the costume choice complaining....)
Here's what a Hurley in civilian clothes could look like. I'm still exploring the best options for Hurley clothes, there isn't as much available in this size. These are from an I Love Lucy Fred Mertz figure from CTVT, but he's sold out.
Barbie's friend Ken may be able to help out, I'm not sure. I can always commission some new clothes if I get enough inquiries. Let me know if you'd be interested in a custom costume. Email lostmegoisland@gmail.com.
I think it's a pretty great figure and a must have for any Lost/Hurley/Jorge Garcia fan.
I'm a Locke guy, all the way. He made a lot of mistakes and there was some disappointment in the character's story and the way he ended up, but he's still one of my favorite characters in fiction. I've been eager to expand on the BifBangPow! figure as soon as I can get my hands on it.
These Locke kitbashes take a little bit more work than Ben Linus, but it's still not bad. The toughest part is the knife case, I will save that project for another day in it's own post. After that, it's the white button down short sleeved shirt that takes a bit of work. Here's my recipe for "Walkabout" Locke.
1 Playing Mantis WWII Ranger Vest: I thought I was going to cry when I found this thing. It's so perfect for Locke's Walkabout hunting vest. I plan to add a knife and compass to it. of course.
2-3 ClassicTvToys "Richie" shirts. $2.00 each. Why 2-3 shirts? Because this shirt comes sleeveless and you'll have to add sleeves using the same fabric.
I made mine with one extra shirt, cutting the back panel in half to make two strips of cloth, one is pre-hemmed, the other I had to hem myself. Then I sewed them into tubes and attached to the shirt. I'm a bit of a hack, but I managed pretty well.
If enough people ask I can just get a bunch made by a professional. Email me if you'd like to be on the list to have one made.
This shirt isn't a perfect match for the Walkabout costume, but getting any kind of decent pattern in this scale is pretty hard. These stripes are in the same general color scheme and weight, and I think it's just about as good as can be.
1 pair CTVT Tan Khaki Pants:CTVT sells a pair of khakis that have beltloops-this was my first choice but they were too tight to fit on the EMCE?BifBangPow body. This pair of pants is less detailed, but does the trick. $2.00.
1 CTVT white sleeveless shirt: $2.00. CTVT also sells a white t-shirt, but you'd want to get rid of the sleeves. For mine I actually cut up a white super hero jumpsuit I had lying around. It's got a very thin seam on the neckline, but that's a little pricier option.
Brown Shoes: The shoes on mine are standard Mego brown dress shoes. CTVT sells them as does Dr. Mego.
Socks are optional. You can't get those shoes on over socks very easily, but I wanted to be able to have him posed without shoes, like he just stood up after the crash. I took a black superhero female bodysuit from Dr. Mego and cut the feet off to make socks ($7.00, those are expensive socks). CTVT does make white socks for $2.00, you could dye them if you like.
The Wheelchair is a Jakks Pacific WWE wrestling accessory (see previous post). You can find them all the time on eBay in wrestling parts lots. CTVT's wrestling Super STore doesn't carry them yet, but they tell me they are working on it!
Lastly, the Corpse of Jeremy Bentham: The pictures above are photoshop comps using the BBP official picture, so we;ll have to see how this works in real life, but my plan is to remove the paint on Locke's eyes and paint them to look closed. Then put him in a Doc Mego black business suit and start working on a coffin.
The rest of the Wave 1 figures are finally about to ship out, so now's the time to share some of my thoughts about customizing BifBangPow's Lost figures. Almost all of my custom projects require some work and a little skill to carry off, but I try as much as possible to offer solutions that are as simple and cost effective as possible. This is by far the easiest of them all.
I wasn't thrilled with this costume choice which was apparently pushed by ABC. It makes some sense in that it's the most "colorful" outfit for the character, and thus has more toy-like qualities that normal civilian clothing does. But he was in this outfit for exactly one scene in the Season 2 finale, so it's not totally satisfying for a Ben Linus fan like me.
Thankfully, Classic TV Toys line of Married With Children Mego-style figures are readily available. I've put Ben in Al Bundy's shirt, pants and shoes and it's a nearly perfect look for Ben. You can buy the Al Bundy figure complete on the card for $12.00 or you can actually just buy the headless body with the outfit for $8.00. He even comes with a khaki jacket that you can save for a Dharma scientist project (Pierre Change had a khaki Dharma jacket in Season 5).
There are other possibilities for shoulder bags, Cotswold Toys has one that's 12 inch scale, but might work just fine. This bag for $1.00 is totally worth a try but might need a strap. This one is cool too. I'll probably do a more in depth post about bags and backpacks later. Gonna need backpacks!
The Plan B plastic solution that is also extremely MEGO is Dr. Mego's reproduction of the $3.00 Green Goblin satchel bag. If you're going to be doing some Mego customizing you'll be ordering from the good Doctor, so might as well save on shipping and get some gear.
The bunny I made myself out of white Sculpey, I didn't want to spend any money on it and I wanted it in a crouching pose. I have yet to find the perfect white plastic bunny, you'd think that'd be easy enough. The best bet on the market is the Schleich brand, but they are a bit large for Megos.
I'm not at all surprised by the top 3--the crowd at the Museum loves their monsters, and Flash Gordon is a natural for us 70's kids--but I'm pleasantly surprised that Lost did better than Venture Brothers and Twilight zone.
Ben/Kate and Locke/Hurley should land next month! Wave 2 has been pushed back from March to June, not sure what that's about, but I imagine they are taking more time to see how Wave 1 performs...
The BifBangPow Lost figures will be sadly short on accessories, but there are many inexpensive sources for good props for your figures. Here are a few real winners I've come across lately.
Water Bottles! Where would we be withoutWrestling figures? They are close enough to Mego scale that their props are a gold mine. I wondered to myself if they might not have water bottles that I could stick Oceanic or Ajira labels on---and lo and behold, Classic Tv Toys (which also has a wrestling toy business) has them for 3 for $5 or better yet 7 for $10! Throw them in with your custom order.
Handguns! Famously, everyone on Lost knows how to use a handgun with authority, so why don't the figures come with them? Bummer. Thankfully, the heroic Dr. Mego has this weapons set for only $8. Six guns, a pair of glasses, sunglasses, a knife and a watch and well, I think it's a Star Trek weapon or something. Done deal!
The eyeglasses are a bit ridiculous for Lost figures, too heavy and cartoonish. The sunglasses are a bit better.
You can also often find Mego sized guns in cheap dollar store action figures.
Connect 4! I wasn't crazy (heh) about Hurley coming dressed in his Santa Rosa hospital outfit until I saw these miniature Connect 4 party favors on eBay. Sadly, at 3 x 2 inches they are too big to be 1:9 scale, but they are so neat it's close enough for me. What a cool and fun prop! I'm thinking of grabbing some folding chairs and a table from CTVT to make a Santa Rosa game room display. Along the same lines a basketball (the HORSE scene with Jack) would be nice. There are a few possibilities, I'm looking for a reliable source.
Knives! BBP's John Locke comes with his own knife, but Castaway Toys makes one that is a little more detailed and accurate. It comes paired with a dagger that is a reasonable match for Man In Black's ancient Roman pugio. There's the black Mego Tarzan Knife in Doc Mego's weapons assortment as well. Also check Dollar store toys for cheap Mego scaled weapons.
POLAR BEARS! Safari Toys makes a 10.5 inch long polar bear that should pretty much be in scale to Megos.It's realistic, if not especially ferocious looking...
The folks at Hunter Dan made a great angry polar bear in 1:9 scale, but he's been discontinued and is expensive when he comes up on eBay. Hunter Dan himself would make a good freighter goon, by the way.
If you are interested in making some Dharma folk for yourself, you'll need some jumpsuits. Where to get them? There are a few possibilities on the market: Mego's Action Jackson Air Force outfit has a grey jumpsuit that will do in a pinch and could be dyed tan. AJ's standard dark blue jumpsuit will be a fine Dharma motor pool jumper. The recent Mattell Retro Action Ghostbusters line is a nice option but possibly pricier.
You can make your own suit, but sewing doll clothes isn't everyone's cup of tea (if you are interested let me know I can put up a pattern).
If you are looking for an easy jumpsuit that's the perfect color and has all the pockets in the right place, I recommend you get in touch with the Mego Museum's resident seamstress, the talented Theressa. She whipped up a set of super jumpsuits for me at a really great price and can do the same for you.
Check out these rave reviews and samples of her work. If you want to place an order, you can get in touch with me here (lostmegoisland@gmail.com).
Then just print out the DI Logo of your choice, some army boots, maybe a rifle, and you're all set.
For this guy above I used a Mego Peter Burke from Planet of the Apes. He's one of your more handsome 70s dudes. He hasn't been reproduced, but he and his buddy Alan Verdon (who looks very Dharma AND very Others to me) are pretty common to find on eBay or at the Mego Museum marketplace.
One of my goals with this project is to share some quick and easy ways you can improve and expand upon BifBangPow'sLost action figure line. I know this line is attracting people who are new to the world of Mego and I'm here to show you where to find or how to make items that will fit into your own Island of Lost Megos.
Such as: The skeletonized corpse of Roger Linus! This may not be the first thing on your list, but it's one of those easy and fun customs that are possible thanks to the Mego revival.I sloppy-drybrush painted some brown acrylic paint onto a Classic TV Toys Skeleton and soaked my handmade Dharma Jumpsuit in coffee grounds to give it that aged rotted look. The beer cans are 3/8" dowel with grey painted ends and a printed sticker wrapped around it.
This is an easy and fun "kitbash" I have been wanting to do since I spotted the skeleton on their website. Classic TV Toys is a company that began making Mego reproductions and new figures almost 10 years ago. They still have a large backstock of clothing, bodies and accessories at dirt cheap prices. I'll be sharing a lot of CTVT product with you in the future.
It's been awhile since I posted, but there hasn't been much to post about. The remaining Wave 1 figures Locke and Hurley, Kate and Ben have been delayed until January 2011. The word is that BBP! is trying to get the overseas factory to improve the quality of the heads, so that the issues (light coloration, the sculpt's detail and likeness were diminished) we saw on Jacob and MIB aren't repeated. Kudos to them for taking the time to try to get the best possible product produced.
In the meantime, photos of Wave 2 have been revealed, and the figures are available for pre-order at Entertainment Earth! The new 2-packs are Sawyer and Juliet, Jack and Sayid, Miles and Claire. Since they've been revealed they've come under a lot of negative criticism from the Lost fans and even some Mego fans. I've weighed in on a couple of discussions with some of my own issues and criticisms, and I may do a more detailed review later, but I think it's time to get positive about this line!
I was granted a sneak preview of these prototypes at San Diego Comic Con and I thought they looked tremendous in person, better than the photos show. They may not be to everyone's taste, but if you are attracted to this style of figure and are a Lost fan it's up to you to help support this line! Share it with your Lostie friends, join my Facebook group, post about them on Lost message boards, Tweet it, stuff messages in bottles, send smoke signals, do what you can to spread the word so this line can survive and continue.
BifBangPow has done a tremendous job producing a dizzying amount of Mego style figures in a short span of time. Their Twilight Zone figures are some of the best figures made in this Mego revival, with excellent detail, imaginative design and quality production. After a similarly rough reception from the online fan community the Venture Brothers have done very well and the line is expanding in exciting and new directions.
I have faith that BBP! will overcome the setbacks the Lost line has met with and we will see some great Lost figures arriving on our doorsteps in January. If all goes well we could have a DOZEN fully articulate costumed Lost figures in our collections by March. If a Wave 3 got made (Desmond? Sun? Jin? Charlie!!! Who knows??) we could have 18 Lost action figures by summer. That would be pretty damned amazing for an adult show that isn't on the air anymore.
UPDATE: BBP! has updated the photos of Ben Linus, John Locke and Hugo Reyes on the Entertainment Earth website with what appear to be factory-made heads that seem to have much improved quality from the Jacob/MIB set. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how these look. They seem to have tweaked Locke's face from the prototype. His neck seems a tad long, but otherwise I think it's a good likeness of the character, he has that kind of gee whiz look Locke got sometimes. I think Hurley's head looks better than the prototype did. The stuffed belly is a bit funky, but it's a fine solution to the problem. I think Ben looks good as well, I can't wait to put him in some civilian clothes and come up with some eyeglasses for him. I can't wait to see the updated Kate when they post it.
This is a good sign that they are working to fix the problems they said they would fix and that samples is coming in from overseas. I know this line has a lot of critics, but I'm feeling much much better about it.
One of the best scenes in Lost meets one of the best Mego World's Greatest Super Hero accessories! I've been wanting to do this one ever since Tricia Tanaka died.
Here's Dharma Dave (with the awesome Dharma winch) and his new co-worker Dharma Pete. They are both sporting brand new jumpsuits made by my friend Theressa. More on that later!
Here's some info on how I did it.
First, I purchased a Mego Mobile Batlab on eBay. I'm loathe to alter original Mego toys that are in good condition, and of course I don't want to pay top collector dollar for something I'm going to customize. In this case I did kind of shoot myself in the foot. I impulsively hit the Buy It Now on a junker Batlab for $40 shipping included. However, it did not have a roof, so I was going to have to improvise something and it probably would have sucked. But then I got incredibly lucky and someone was selling a roof on eBay. This is very rare to begin with, and I got it for $30 shipped. So I ended up paying $70 for a Batlab that still needed replacement headlights ($25 from the laser cutting service) and a back door (handmade, looks pretty good) as well as the Dharma Logo ($25 lasercut) and about $15 worth of paint as well as the totally superfluous yet awesome sound card ($10). So I'm into this thing for about $150. I probably could have been patient and scored a better condition Batlab for less than I ended up paying. But I had a great time solving problems, so I guess that's it's own satisfaction.
Okay, here's some notes on customizing the van:
Start with a nice soapy bath. The stickers came up pretty easily, I didn't need to use any Goo-Gone on them. The only caveat is the chrome paint on the wheels scratched up very easily with a minimum of scrubbing. The biggest thing to keep in mind is how fragile this plastic is. Simply cleaning it I broke the back door cross bar and the side door cross bar, survivable breaks but unfortunate.
I used my Dremel tool to cut away the posts inside the van holding the Batman shield to the front. I would later have to use this to also cut away the posts and tabs holding the windows in. Mego did a pretty sloppy job putting these together, so you aren't losing much by fling a few tabs away, there's still going to be all kind of flaws on the inside surfaces, but you won't see them, so don't stress.
The bottom section unscrews from teh chassis. I masked off the seats so I could paint them white but still have a black floor. I sprayed white primer over the entire van outside. I masked out the windows as you can see in this shot. This was a mistake--it's hard to fully seal them off and there was a lot of misty spray paint artifacts and leaks I had to later scrub off with paint remover. Just carefully remove the windows. At first I thought I'd leave the inside black, but it looked stupid, so I removing the windows and painting the inside white was the way to go. I masked off the black dashboard and steering wheel.
I sprayed the blue first so I could spray white over any mistakes, but I also masked the white areas so I didn't have to do too much clean up later with white. Use nice medium-tack masking tape.
I was pretty proud of this job. The beater van I bought was missing the back door. I cut out the shape in PVC board and used a heat gun to give it the slight bend it needed. Then I sanded down a strip of balsa wood to match the shape of the profile strip that goes around the sides of the van. Looks great for display purposes.
I sent an .eps file of the Dharma logo to a laser cutting service and they cut me a nice gray plastic logo to put on the front of the bus.
I'd been wanting to add sound components to my custom toys for awhile, and this was the perfect opportunity. How can this van NOT play Shambala by Three Dog Night? And further, how can that Dharma logo NOT be the button you push to make the song play. A little research led me to bigDawgs promotions and their usb recordable greeting card modules. I picked up the 200 second model and eagerly awaited it's arrival. I downloaded their software (pc only--I hate that, but we have an old Dell laptop. It took some updating of software to make it work) and added the song to the chip. It works pretty great, but I did have to remove the batteries twice in order to reboot it, but it seems to be working fine now. Still, for $8 it's a hell of a product. I put it on the floor under the seat, which is the perfect place for the sound to reverberate through the floor and inside the van. Then I snaked the button through the Batman shield hole and glued it in place, then glued the logo around it. I eventually covered the button with the flat end of a rubber gasket I used in my Batman playsets that miraculously fit like a glove.
I final touch is a handmade dashboard radio with an 8-track of Three Dog Night's Cyan album. In the show the 8-track was mounted under the dash, but I liked this look better. The AM radio tunes to 4, 8, 15 and 16, of course. I used photos of vintage dials for the dash stickers.
Now, get down to the Swan site ASAP! And watch out for hostiles!
John Locke comes in a 2-pack with Hurley, and is in stock now atEntertainment Earth.
Water Bottles! 
