It's about due time for some more King Katch photos. I'm not quite ready to reveal his face... but I wanted to show off his immensely radical (haven't used that word in a long time!) Fists of Fury! His hands are twin monstrosities of mayhem! You also can get a better sense of King Katch's overall height next to the Tequila figure. Please note that the Tequila in the picture is the production model rotocast vinyl figure while King Katch is in his sculpt stage. We're expecting the final production version to be 10% smaller than the sculpt (due to production shrinkage from the molding process) so while King Katch will be clearly larger than Tequila he won't be QUITE as big as what's shown in pictures

As we near the final stages of Monster5's King Katch sculpt. it was due time we shared a bit with you! Both pics are from Monster5's latest batch of development pictures. At this stage, I'd say the sculpt is 85% done. We had a few issues with Monster5's teeth and arms, but Monster5 did a wonderful job addresssing them. The toughest thing to translate was King Katch's hair. Compared to the anatomy of the King Katch design, the hair is very abstract and spiky. Monster5 did a good job of maintaining the simplicity of the hair shape while giving it the needed weight and volume in it's three dimensional form. The only thing that will get a makeover from the included photos are King Katch's calves. Fabien wants the calves to be a bit more plump and smooth. In it's current state the calves are a bit too angular and have an unnecessary and overly realistic dimple behind the knee. We have already asked Monster5 to make the necessary changes.

Many of you have been asking for them. And although, they are still there, many have been having troubling finding links to the in depth developments of Tequila, El Panda, and Red Demon that we did "back in the day" with our good friends at Vinyl Pulse. Well, here they are. It brings back many memories looking through these posts! This, my friends, is where it all began:

CLICK HERE for Making of Tequila (Vinyl Pulse).

CLICK HERE for Making of El Panda (Vinyl Pulse).

CLICK HERE for Making of Red Demon (Vinyl Pulse).

Hmmm. It appears that the earlier Tequila sculpting posts have been lost. I'll start reposting them soon.

When most people see the beautiful designs our artists have done for the Lucha Libre toys and comics, they immediately imagine it being the perfect fit for an animated feature film or television series. There's a distinct style to Bill, Gobi, and Fabien M's illustrations that lend themselves to 2D animation. Since all three artists are heavily inspired by the masterworks of Manga artists like Akira Toriyama and old school Capcom character designers, that inclination is a worthy one.

But, from a conceptual standpoint, we feel that the concept and characters lend themselves to the world of live action feature films. The spirit of our comics comes from the beauty of Los Angeles city, Mexican wrestling, and geekdom. As a cartoon, our characters would immediately be seen as "cool". But as real people in costume, there's an integral element of absurdity that is brought to life.

To me, the "perfect" Luchadores Five movie would be a live action adventure comedy. It'd be a fun mix of "The Warriors" and "Ghostbusters" with just a pinch of "The Big Lebowski". That'd be a heckuva a film!

Watch these previews and tell me if you can see what I'm talking about!:

Here I have combined the official pictures of Tequila Original and Tequila 2.0. This should give you a better sense of the similarities and differences between the two figures. Please keep in mind that the pictures are not to scale. Upon comparing the 2 Tequilas in hand, I'd say that Tequila 2.0 is about 1-2% smaller than Original. Both figure casts/molds were made from Monster5's original sculpt. The difference in shrinkage is attributed to the different materials used in the prototyping process by our 2 factories. Interestingly, despite being a hair smaller than Original, all of Monster5's sculpt details have come out way sharper on 2.0.

After seeing the initial steps Monster5 took in sculpting King Katch, the Muttpop team asked Fabien (the character designer of King Katch) to illustrate his critiques of the sculpt. When working with a sculptor, it is super helpful to use illustration over the original sculpt photos to convey any potential problems. What can be described in a few lines of drawing would take an entire paragraph of words.

Below you will find a few of Fabien M and Muttpop's concerns. The placement of King Katch's right fist appears to be assymetrical to the rest of the sculpt. His right pectoral muscle appears to be out of line when compared to the left. There is too much detail/relief in the tricep muscle and too much of a separation between the tricep and bicep. Fists should be reduced in size. The torso needs to be widened. The legs and feet need to be made bigger.

Occasionally, the problems are more minor than what can be seen in the photo. When looking at a photo, you lose a sense of scale... so a minor problem on a small figure looks like a major problem in the photo. We had more of a problem of that with the mini figures we have produced.