The Afterglow of Scale Wars.
You know about a year ago I didn't think anything of this story. Seriously it was just a thought in my head for a single chapter. Well Scale Wars became something greater obviously.
But let me go back to the beginning of all this, back to around July of last year (2008) I was sitting around trying to come up with chapter (then) 8 of Toxie's 1:18th Universe. Hey nice way to sneak those plugs in eh.
Back to the point, obviously I had been building up a confrontation with Antron. Initially Antron was supposed to be much lesser of a threat to 1:18th town. In fact I don't think I took him seriously at all at first myself. He was original made to be that throw away toy we destroyed as children now back to seek revenge on the "collectables." When I first introduced him here, I intended him to have a speech impediment of putting the wrong words into sentences. This was because he lost his brain of course. However the dialogue became too difficult to write so I dumped the idea. Otherwise I think I would have lost everyone cause no one would have understood him very well.
Slowly though he began to gain purpose, he was a schemer even without his brain accessory. He also enlisted help from Saruman in Chapter 4. Soon their plan became apparent in Chapter 5 (Just a quick note, Saruman is actually saying the nearest equivalent to "Eat my shorts" in Latin in the picture at the top of the page, just thought it was funny to add that in, but no one caught it). Believe it or not Scale Wars was just one chapter at that point still. The return of GI Joe was going to be a whole other thing. The chapter was going to be pretty close to what you saw at the end of Scale Wars, mostly action with comedy dropped in. However I knew I couldn't just "go there" and be happy with it.
It was after Chapter 7: Whatever Happened to Joe, that I began to rethink things. I came up with the name Scale Wars at that point. I had decided that the story would be six chapters long (each one named for one of the Star Wars movies). The original chapters were going to be:
Chapter 9: Scale Wars: Episode I Dennis the Phantom Menace.
Chapter 10: Scale Wars: Episode II Attack of the Cute
Chapter 11: Scale Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Toys.
Chapter 12: Scale Wars: Episode IV: A New Hurt
Chapter 13: Scale Wars: Episode V: The Umpire Strikes Out.
Chapter 14: Scale Wars Episode VI: Return of 1:18th Town.
What killed all of that was the story and the shooting process. In the course of it I ended up coming up with tons more ideas. While The Marvel Legends Thor, Beta Ray Bill, Iron Man and Captain America were always in the final battle (As well as DC Direct Superman, Batman, ect) I began grabbing down the others as well. In fact I extended out to Lord of the Rings (which led to the Optimus Prime vs. Cave Troll fight, believe it or not that came at a whim while shooting. Probably my favorite fight of the whole story and has the greatest response), Other Marvel Legends, DC Direct, Mini-mates, and just about every single thing you see in the story.
Honestly I just grabbed and grabbed and came up with scenarios for the fights. I shot almost everything for two weeks (I had some time off from everything just before I started back to school) and loaded it all in my computer. Honestly I wanted to do more but time was a factor. But I would shoot about 10 hours a day, day and night until it was almost done. Of course it wasn't cause there were sequences I shot later as new figures would be released like here. But most of it was shot in August of 2008.
One of the big sequences that gets tons of attention though is the Ride of the Joe-hirum. The first question people ask me about it is this shot (the first one on the page) and what the heck am I doing with so many My Little Ponies. Let me share a secret with you, if you look at the picture very closely you will see that there is only 8 different ponies in the shot. Its a composite, and apparently its a good one to have fooled so many people. Funny part is the shot or the whole sequence almost never happened.
The whole idea hit me one day while gathering some items for a yard sale. My youngest was letting go of her My Little Ponies, I instantly thought of the idea as I was stuck with how to bring the military guys back from the dreaded "Girl's Room" (Another idea I came up with after I had started it. When I banished the military figures, I had no idea where they were going to be truthful). It all came together in a moment of inspiration, the composites, the sequence, everything. Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite sets of novels (and now movies) so it wasn't hard to put that scene in for parody purposes. For the actual huge pictures of the Joes coming over the hill or ready to charge, lifted straight from the movie and cut and pasted (for what seemed like forever) until I got the look of the Calvary I wanted. If you look closely on the second large group picture you might notice there are very few (if any) GI Joe figures, most of them are Cobra Army builders. Duke and Hawk in the front are the exceptions.
So there are tons of stories I could tell about messed up angles and lost plotlines or reinventing the subplot while editing. Scale Wars is loaded to the gills with this kind of stuff. In fact half the time I wondered if I was writing it or if it was writing itself. I can't begin to tell you how many times things were altered and changed and reworked.
However at this point I need to thank some people. First, my youngest Vanna for all the My Little Ponies. Next Liz for the loans of all the Batman Figures. Karli for painting her room Pink even though I really was against it at the time. My wife Barb for being so patient about the mess I made while shooting this stuff. Cap for the sets. Doc Rob for the cheerleading and feedback. My parents for making me in the first place.
And of course to all of you, for reading, responding, and viewing all of this. Let's hope Scale Wars 2 goes over just as well (Opps did I say that out loud).