Thanks guys!
Wish I had more pics to share, but thought it was best to not post pics of unannounced sculpts and nitty gritty production methods all over the web. Would love to get an invite back next time I'm in Tokyo.
Found out they do all their sculpting in house, and got to see their killer character creation reference library. Lots of rare artwork, books and photos sent by movie studios and comic publishers.
They also talked about the approval process for their designs, and the perks and difficulties of working with the various properties. Apparently is is a lot harder to get a designs approved by franchises where the creator is dead, as opposed to ones where the creators are still living. I always thought it would be the other way around.
They had some crazy cool vintage Ultraman and Hedora posters on the wall that I almost walked off with...
j/kThe employes were really relaxed, but super focused. No assembly line mentality or uniforms. Most of the peeps working seem like honest fans of the franchises they were working on.
Endo-san is a former pro kickboxer and had training equipment set up in various areas of the factory. His son is almost ready to go pro, and everyone lets off steam in the factory now and then with punching bags...
CCP is also looking into ways to make their figures more readily available for overseas fans. The main issue with direct foreign sales they said is the complexity surrounding cross border character licensing. Hopefully we will see some direct sales with their Kinnikuman stuff on eBay sometime in the near future.
Its always good to get an inside look at toy production.
