Latest / The Euro Legions Podcast / 91. Jeremy Girard from Four Horsemen Studios

Transcript

91. Jeremy Girard from Four Horsemen Studios · The Euro Legions Podcast

• 0:01
  My wallet is sobbing. I can hear
• 0:31
  OK, welcome to episode 91 of the Urine Agents podcast.
• 0:36
  And this one is dropping on the week of Legions con.
• 0:39
  So it's a very, very, very exciting news.
• 0:43
  And and here we are with not just the three of us, but we
• 0:48
  have a 4th guest Co host. We're going to call him this
• 0:52
  week. You know, he's just, he's more
• 0:54
  than just a guest because he is one of the men at the Four
• 0:57
  Horsemen studio and one of the most outwardly facing ones, the
• 1:01
  ones that we we deal with on a day-to-day basis.
• 1:03
  We used to know him as a fan and customizer and he's still that,
• 1:07
  I believe. But he now works for the Four
• 1:09
  Horsemen. So it's Jeremy Gerard.
• 1:11
  Welcome to the show, Jeremy. Thanks for having me back, happy
• 1:15
  to be here. So we're going to do a latest
• 1:17
  news section later on there, but it's actually going to be just
• 1:20
  you doing the news for us, you know?
• 1:24
  Tell me everything you need to know, right?
• 1:26
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:28
  And Rich, how are you doing? I'm doing good.
• 1:32
  Your holidays. Yeah, I'm on holiday as of
• 1:35
  tomorrow. I'm going to finish work
• 1:36
  already. I'll be heading off to Wales,
• 1:38
  obviously, where we always go for holiday tomorrow.
• 1:41
  So yeah, a week of probably constant rain there, but we've
• 1:44
  got a hot tub at the cottage, so that's good.
• 1:46
  Yeah. So that's that's the explanation
• 1:48
  where we're we're actually recording this a little bit
• 1:50
  ahead of Legions con week because even though it's going
• 1:54
  to drop on Legions con week because they're rich, will be
• 1:57
  away in the land of no recession good enough for this type of
• 2:01
  crack. So.
• 2:02
  Potato powered Wi-Fi, Yeah, it's not great over there.
• 2:06
  And Mal, how are you doing? You're getting into the zone
• 2:10
  now. I'm a very excited for Legions
• 2:12
  con. I'm sure as this drops I will be
• 2:14
  even more excited and I will have finished for work at that
• 2:18
  point too, yeah. Exactly.
• 2:20
  I had I should tell Jeremy that I had my first night the other
• 2:23
  night of not been able to get to sleep because my mind was going
• 2:27
  Oh, he just kind of so excited for legions con.
• 2:29
  It's like, how old are you? Come on.
• 2:32
  I love the fact that you're all talking about being off work and
• 2:36
  that is the busiest work week. Like we're because it's here,
• 2:41
  you're all on holiday and I'm like working 16 hour days for
• 2:47
  two straight weeks. The difference is, Jeremy, you
• 2:49
  love your job. That is true.
• 2:53
  That is true. We're just doing it to buy
• 2:55
  legions. Well, actually my senior
• 2:59
  managers are watching, in which case I love my job.
• 3:01
  Obviously I. I used to have this thing and
• 3:06
  and especially when I've I've been a bit injured this year, so
• 3:08
  I haven't played golf, which is my favorite kind of past them
• 3:11
  outside of this. So I used to, I used to, well,
• 3:15
  as I was trying to fall asleep, I'd maybe go around the golf
• 3:18
  course, play the last round I played in my head, we'd get
• 3:20
  about, you know, 2-2 minutes into it and you'd be done.
• 3:24
  So now I can just play The Walking around the Legions con
• 3:26
  boots in my head and maybe remembering what it's like last
• 3:29
  year, but also imagining how it's going to be different this
• 3:32
  year in terms of I know where the different people are, having
• 3:35
  just looked at the map kind of continuously for the last couple
• 3:40
  of weeks. And also, of course, imagining
• 3:43
  how the Armory is going to look at the Horseman is going to look
• 3:46
  in that room. Jeremy has a better idea than us
• 3:48
  and I'm sure all will be revealed.
• 3:50
  I think that stuff is we have the map.
• 3:53
  I think that's good for now. We don't need to.
• 3:55
  We need to then experience it in person.
• 3:57
  Yeah, because it's the best way to experience that.
• 4:00
  But yeah, Jeremy. So this is, I believe, the 5th
• 4:04
  Legions gone. Is that right?
• 4:07
  6th Legions gone. Yeah, it's, there's that virtual
• 4:10
  one because 1999 was the first one and then we had the virtual
• 4:15
  one. But technically this would be if
• 4:18
  you know, counting now and this would be the 6th 1:00.
• 4:20
  But I've, I've said this before that it's almost like the first
• 4:25
  two in some ways don't feel like they count in the same way
• 4:30
  because that first one was just, you know, an after hours, 3 hour
• 4:34
  meet up because the second one was virtual.
• 4:38
  It really feels in a lot of ways that 2021 was the first legions
• 4:44
  con and that was one that was just a single day.
• 4:47
  It was the, you know, toy con New Jersey was a 2 day show.
• 4:51
  This was the Sunday of toy con New Jersey.
• 4:55
  So then in other ways, 2022 almost feels like the first one.
• 5:00
  It's it's really weird. I Every one of them is special
• 5:04
  in some way, but technically this is number six.
• 5:09
  Wow, that's amazing. And you were?
• 5:12
  When did you start working for the Horsemen then officially,
• 5:14
  like I know you were doing the website and all that.
• 5:16
  When did you start? The marketing director I, I
• 5:21
  started talking to them about working with them at G Con in
• 5:25
  1999. So that was the point where G
• 5:29
  Con was in the summer. It was usually like the week
• 5:32
  after San Diego Comic Con and it was the second G Con.
• 5:36
  I had gone to both of them and I was talking before the show
• 5:42
  actually started. I was talking to Jim about what
• 5:44
  I do and you know, he was why aren't you working for us?
• 5:48
  Why aren't you helping us? So that's really where it
• 5:50
  started. So by the time that we did that
• 5:52
  first Legions con, we had launched the website like a
• 5:57
  couple weeks I think before Legions Con.
• 6:00
  So I was working with them on a for like a part time basis at
• 6:05
  that point. It was the 2021 Legions con, the
• 6:09
  one where Sir Gerard debuted that during that weekend we
• 6:14
  started talking about like, look, I'm working part time for
• 6:18
  you. Originally I was supposed to
• 6:20
  work like 20 hours a month and I was working like 60 hours a
• 6:23
  month. Wow.
• 6:24
  I also had a full time job and we were like, there's only so
• 6:29
  much I can do not being totally dedicated and focused to this.
• 6:34
  What would it look like for me to be full time here?
• 6:37
  And that's really what I wanted. I loved what I was doing.
• 6:40
  I wanted to be able to spend more time doing it.
• 6:44
  There were things I knew I could have brought to the studio that
• 6:47
  I just didn't have the ability to do.
• 6:50
  So that's when we started talking about it.
• 6:53
  We started negotiating and then it was right after the new year
• 6:57
  that we agreed on terms and I, the job that I came from, I had
• 7:02
  worked out for 14 years. So I gave them like a 2 month
• 7:05
  notice. So it was it was March 1st 2022
• 7:10
  that I started working full time.
• 7:12
  Wow, so, so then the 22 Legions con, which was the one in that
• 7:19
  was the one that we went to, I think guys, wasn't it?
• 7:22
  Yeah, that was the one in La Quinta.
• 7:24
  In La Quinta, yeah. Yeah, that was the furious 4
• 7:26
  year. That's right, the furious 4
• 7:28
  years. I just wonder I have somebody
• 7:30
  posted in the cabal during the week, a video from the first
• 7:34
  legions con and I just have a little clip here on to on to
• 7:36
  place it because it kind of gives you a look at the IT gives
• 7:40
  you a look at the layout there. So you see.
• 7:43
  That was Joe, yeah. So there's a question I'd quite
• 7:50
  like to ask Jeremy. How exactly did you and Joe come
• 7:55
  to know each other and go about setting this up?
• 7:58
  You know what made you go right? We need to do Allegiance Con.
• 8:01
  So Joe has been a show promoter in New Jersey for years.
• 8:08
  I knew Joe as the guy behind Toy Con New Jersey.
• 8:13
  He was invited to G Con as well. You know, he had, just like I
• 8:18
  had a segment where I was talking about my customs, he had
• 8:21
  a segment where he was talking about his shows.
• 8:23
  And after we got off camera, both Joe Vassapolo and myself,
• 8:28
  we were there with our customs. We had our customs actually set
• 8:31
  up in a different room. This was the old offices for the
• 8:35
  studio. It's the same building as where
• 8:38
  we are now, but it was upstairs in a much smaller space.
• 8:42
  So we had some of our stuff set out and people were looking at
• 8:45
  him and taking photos. And Joe came over and was
• 8:48
  checking them out and we just started talking and we again, we
• 8:51
  had met before about a week or so after he reached out to me
• 8:55
  and he said, hey, you know, I've got this toy con New Jersey
• 8:59
  show. I think it'd be really cool to
• 9:01
  do kind of a mythic meet up. Originally legions con was
• 9:06
  called the Northeast mythic meet up.
• 9:08
  That was I actually have a logo for that that I haven't looked
• 9:12
  at in years. I don't know where.
• 9:13
  It is. Yeah.
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  But that was originally what we were going to call it because it
• 9:17
  was intended to just be like a little group of collectors and
• 9:23
  customizers hanging out and showing off their stuff.
• 9:26
  And he, I remember he looked at it and said, act.
• 9:29
  It doesn't have the kind of emphasis I'm looking for.
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  I want something that feels bigger.
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  So we were just like, well, do you just want to go low hanging
• 9:37
  fruit and call it Legions con? And he was like, yeah, I think
• 9:40
  that makes a lot of sense. So that's what we did.
• 9:43
  We called it Legions Con and the idea, you know, that first year
• 9:47
  there was no charge for anybody like it was after hours at Toy
• 9:52
  Con New Jersey. Toy Con New Jersey closed up at
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  5 from 5:00 to 8:00. We had literally a little tiny
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  room. It's a room.
• 10:00
  They use a classroom at the place now.
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  So that gives you a sense of how big it is.
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  And we just had a handful of us just set up really.
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  No one was selling. It was much more of like an art
• 10:12
  exhibition. And you even saw the tables.
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  I mean, we people didn't have all big, you know, dioramas and
• 10:19
  levels. It was just stuff on a table.
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  That's, that's pretty much exactly what it was.
• 10:25
  But I remember we did that. We had an absolute blast and we
• 10:29
  went out to get something to eat after the show was done.
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  And we're immediately like our brain was racing about how we
• 10:36
  could grow this, what we wanted to do the following year, which
• 10:40
  of course all those plans got scrapped because of COVID.
• 10:43
  But it was very, very humble beginnings.
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  And I can absolutely tell you that back in 1999, I had no idea
• 10:53
  that it was going to get to the point that it is in 2024.
• 10:57
  You know, I didn't have an idea that it would get there this
• 11:00
  quickly, but much less than it would really even ever get there
• 11:03
  because where we are now from where we came from and that
• 11:06
  short time is it's nothing sort of phenomenal.
• 11:09
  Yeah. And I mean, I remember the COVID
• 11:13
  year one even that was really well done.
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  And you, you know, you had the real organization around us
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  really well done as a kind of a foreshadow for for what was to
• 11:23
  come. And obviously because it was
• 11:26
  online, you, you know, it was even easier for people to
• 11:29
  attend. And but there was low.
• 11:31
  I remember there've been loads of people online at that.
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  And yeah, that's kind of just that was an indication that this
• 11:39
  is actually a serious thing and it's going to be going forward.
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  The one thing I will say about the COVID year that I'm thankful
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  for is I mentioned that prior to that year, G Con and Legions Con
• 11:53
  were two separate things. And we had even talked to the
• 11:56
  horseman at a point and said, hey, what would you think about
• 12:00
  tying the two together? And initially they were very
• 12:04
  hesitant to do that. They were like, Nah, you know, G
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  Con's its own thing. We've I don't want to keep it
• 12:08
  its own thing. You know, Legions Con is
• 12:10
  independently run because that is the truth is well, obviously
• 12:15
  4 Horsemen are, you know, the platinum level guests at the
• 12:19
  show. This is still a Viteri
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  Productions show. It is, you know, very much run
• 12:24
  by Joe and myself, but it is Joe's show.
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  So originally they were a little hesitant to time together.
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  And then that COVID year, I again, I was working part time
• 12:38
  with them. I remember us looking at the
• 12:41
  schedule and not wanting to put out a new wave, really not
• 12:46
  knowing what people's lives were going to be like with COVID.
• 12:49
  We've talked before about how we kind of slowed down a little bit
• 12:52
  that year out of respect for just the crisis that the world
• 12:57
  was in. So just fell to the point that
• 13:00
  it made sense to do that G Con reveal at the end of the year
• 13:05
  and all let's do legions Con as well.
• 13:07
  And after that, two days we did Friday we did the G Con reveal.
• 13:11
  Saturday we did the virtual Legions Con.
• 13:15
  Everyone had such a good time that they were like, maybe we do
• 13:18
  want to pair this together. Maybe this actually makes sense.
• 13:22
  And then when we got to 2021, we threw intern for a day on as
• 13:27
  well to create what we now know as you know, Mythic Week, where
• 13:31
  we've got intern on Thursday, G Con on Friday, and now the two
• 13:35
  days of Legions Con. Yeah, because I remember the
• 13:39
  first G Con, maybe it was even the first one was Soulspitter.
• 13:41
  I watched it was in August or kind of ended July.
• 13:44
  August. Yep, a narrator as well.
• 13:46
  It was kind of more linked to the end of San Diego Comic Con
• 13:49
  kind of thing that that kind of so, yeah.
• 13:52
  And then obviously that, as you said, that changed and evolved
• 13:57
  into something quite awesome as we have experienced ourselves
• 14:00
  and as we're so excited about later this week as as as you're
• 14:05
  listening to this. So, yeah.
• 14:07
  Can you? Imagine I was going to say, I
• 14:09
  was going to say I think that virtual one was.
• 14:13
  I think that's what gave me the confidence to go to the 20221
• 14:18
  because it took a couple of years to get there.
• 14:21
  It was a slow burner, but it was just because I remember Stemba
• 14:25
  and Julie from Planetary Dog Toys had a session and I went
• 14:28
  into a few sessions, but their session, like I put a comment up
• 14:31
  and they were like, oh, it's him.
• 14:32
  And I'm like, oh, cool. That's somebody from a
• 14:33
  completely different country is now reacting to me because they
• 14:36
  know me. And that's just, I think that
• 14:38
  started off the slow burner of actually, do you know what?
• 14:39
  This this could, this could be something I would really want to
• 14:41
  go for. Yeah.
• 14:44
  Yeah, for sure. It just, it also made the people
• 14:46
  you're speaking to in the groups kind of real people because
• 14:50
  there was lots of them there doing the presentations or
• 14:52
  whatever. And obviously then meeting in
• 14:55
  person is even better than that. And I think that's what that's
• 14:59
  what this kind of brings to it, you know, And right.
• 15:03
  And so this year's Legions con and kind of legions can in
• 15:06
  general, I mean, you don't have to go into specifics, but what
• 15:08
  has been the biggest challenge kind of with the whole thing,
• 15:11
  you know, as it's as it's gone along.
• 15:15
  The biggest challenge has probably been just fitting
• 15:18
  everything in. You know, one thing that we
• 15:24
  always felt was important was that those who have supported
• 15:29
  Legions Con as exhibitors get first crack the following year.
• 15:34
  So after last year, we had a number of people reach out to us
• 15:40
  saying like, hey, we'd love to have a table next year, but we
• 15:43
  were sold out in 2020, you know, 3 and every exhibitor with the
• 15:50
  exception of very, very few, just a couple of them came back
• 15:54
  for this year. So it's trying to find the right
• 16:00
  venue because everyone loved the venue, right?
• 16:03
  We got rave reviews about the hotel, but one of the downsides
• 16:08
  with the hotel is I cannot fit any more exhibitors in that
• 16:11
  space. I'm capped out, so we've got
• 16:14
  even now I have a list of probably a dozen exhibitors who
• 16:18
  wanted to get in this year who couldn't.
• 16:21
  And I'm already starting to add some who say, hey, when you open
• 16:24
  up 2025, I want to be considered and try to be realistic.
• 16:29
  And I said, well, I can't imagine that I'm going to have
• 16:33
  enough of a drop off from 2024's exhibitors to open up a
• 16:38
  significant amount of space. And then to get through this
• 16:42
  actual guest list, actually wait list, that's going to be
• 16:45
  difficult. So just dealing with that aspect
• 16:49
  has certainly been a challenge. Another challenge is just trying
• 16:54
  to make sure that we're adding value every single year because
• 16:59
  the truth of the matter is we could do the same thing year in
• 17:02
  and year out. And there's a group of people,
• 17:05
  I'm probably talking to three of them right now, that would be
• 17:08
  like, I love it. Like you, I love the
• 17:11
  environment, I love the everything about it.
• 17:15
  If you did exactly what you've done every other year, I'd still
• 17:18
  be happy. But we don't want to rest on
• 17:21
  that success every single year. We're like, what can we do to
• 17:26
  make something cool, to make something new?
• 17:29
  I mean, this year, the Legions Armory experience, which is
• 17:32
  probably the thing I'm most nervous about for this year,
• 17:36
  that was a brand new idea that we're bringing in.
• 17:40
  It's very likely going to be one of the most popular aspects of
• 17:43
  this year's show, and it's brand new for 2024.
• 17:47
  So that is certainly another challenge.
• 17:50
  The very realistic sense, both for Legions Con and for Horseman
• 17:53
  Studios, of how do we top ourselves?
• 17:57
  Like how do we do something this year that tops what we did last
• 18:01
  year? Yeah, that's definitely, I can
• 18:05
  imagine. And I mean with the Armory
• 18:06
  there, when you speak about that, it is an awesome idea.
• 18:09
  I think we've, you've probably heard our show where we talked
• 18:12
  about it, but it's, yeah, it is scary for you because you wanted
• 18:17
  to go, right. It's like, you know, it's like
• 18:19
  when you do anything, I suppose. But this has so many variables
• 18:22
  that you're not able to test. You know, you can't test how how
• 18:26
  long it's going to take people to go through and pick.
• 18:28
  You know you're going to have guys like Mal that are going to
• 18:30
  be something. They're going.
• 18:32
  I knew that was covered. And you're going to have guys
• 18:36
  like Rich that are going to try and sneak out 10 bills, you
• 18:38
  know? And that's the thing, too, even
• 18:42
  like with the Armory, you know, the sense of limiting people to
• 18:46
  two bills. Yeah, there's as a collector,
• 18:50
  I'm like, oh man, that stinks because there's four distinct
• 18:53
  colors. I want to build all four.
• 18:54
  But you know, we've kind of got a way that point where do I want
• 18:59
  to get a fraction of the people through that experience but
• 19:04
  allow them to pretty much build to their heart's content?
• 19:07
  Or do I want to be very, very focused on getting them through
• 19:12
  somewhat quickly so I can have more people do that?
• 19:16
  I was down in Disney and I, I've, I've referred to the
• 19:19
  inspiration from Disney multiple times when it comes to the
• 19:23
  Armory because so much of the idea behind the Armory came from
• 19:27
  our experience at Disney, both Eric and myself.
• 19:30
  And I was down there earlier this year and we went to the
• 19:36
  build a light Saber section in the Galaxy's Edge and it was
• 19:41
  super cool. It was super fun, but it was
• 19:44
  incredibly rigid. Like it was it you were it was
• 19:48
  part of a show like they knew down probably to like the minute
• 19:53
  how long it takes people to get a group in to get them all to
• 19:57
  build, to get them out that back door so they can open up that
• 20:01
  front door and bring the next group in like they are a well
• 20:04
  oiled machine getting it through that.
• 20:06
  And that's part of what we have to think about is.
• 20:10
  While it would be great to have someone come in and this be more
• 20:13
  of like a pop and swap session where they could spend an hour
• 20:16
  at the table trying different combinations, that's just not
• 20:20
  feasible because I'm going to get a couple dozen people
• 20:23
  through as opposed to being able to really allow a lot of
• 20:27
  attendees a shot at this experience.
• 20:30
  So limiting people to two bills and also limiting the options,
• 20:35
  you know, something as realistic as if you need heat to do it, we
• 20:39
  cannot do it. Like that's why all the arms and
• 20:42
  all the legs come together because as you all know, if you
• 20:46
  have to pop those pieces, you need some heat.
• 20:49
  The minute I'm putting multiple hair dryers out, I'm killing any
• 20:53
  kind of. Efficiency.
• 20:54
  Yeah, not to mention it's going to be incredibly loud and
• 20:57
  weirdly hot in that room. Are people are people running
• 21:01
  either to the bathroom or to their to their rooms to to get a
• 21:05
  like a base in the water or, you know, or into the sink or
• 21:07
  whatever the warm water. Yeah, and it wants If somebody
• 21:10
  puts a piece down on the floor and heats up, they're going to
• 21:12
  melt the carpet, as I learned. Yeah, we don't want that.
• 21:17
  No, no fire risk. No, I mean the pop and swap, you
• 21:21
  know, you do that with your buddies out in the lobby, you
• 21:23
  know, I'll go in and, you know, say, right, we try and cover all
• 21:26
  the bills between I don't know if you've 66 group of six people
• 21:30
  or whatever ever many people it's needed get all the parts
• 21:34
  and then yeah, just get a table in the lobby and that's that's
• 21:38
  at least two or three hours of fun.
• 21:40
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 21:42
  So, yeah, I really hope that goes well.
• 21:45
  And I think I think the clear thing is that, yeah, if you get
• 21:48
  in, I think your message is if you get in once to the Armory,
• 21:52
  that's probably your chance and go for a get your two and get
• 21:56
  out. And maybe at the end of the day,
• 21:59
  if the space on any day, see then otherwise, you know, that's
• 22:04
  your expectation should be to go into the Armory once, whether
• 22:08
  you're so we say an intern who maybe gets the chance or the
• 22:13
  people that are selling like, you know, vendors, they'll get a
• 22:16
  chance. And there are two slots on the
• 22:18
  Saturday and Sunday. So don't go dreaming of getting
• 22:22
  into all four of those because I think that would be, that would
• 22:24
  be very tough ask, you know. Absolutely.
• 22:28
  Yeah, you know, and right. And eh, what else have we got?
• 22:32
  Legions console, we got eh, G Con.
• 22:35
  Of course that's yeah, we consider that kind of part of
• 22:38
  Legions con at this stage. It's mythic week.
• 22:40
  OK, It is on this Saturday morning.
• 22:43
  Well, especially now that we have moved G Con over to the
• 22:49
  hotel venue. Yeah, that was.
• 22:53
  There's some stuff that happens with Four Horsemen Studios.
• 22:57
  I'm going to let you in on a secret.
• 22:58
  There's some stuff that it looks like we meant for it to happen
• 23:03
  and it's just a happy accident that there's this like 4
• 23:07
  Horsemen magic that just comes out of it and we just accept it
• 23:12
  and it's wonderful to be a part of.
• 23:14
  It's last year we had always done G Con at a room in the
• 23:20
  studio down the hallway and we were supposed to do it there
• 23:25
  last year in like last minute like week of G Con and Legions
• 23:31
  Con, we found out that that room was going to be rented because
• 23:34
  the space that we are in, we share it with a very large prop
• 23:38
  company. And there will be points where,
• 23:40
  you know, different movie studios will come in and just
• 23:43
  say, hey, we need to rent this for the next three weeks.
• 23:46
  And a room that you thought you may have had access to because
• 23:50
  no one had rented it, you suddenly do not.
• 23:52
  And that's what happened. So we said, we scrambled, we
• 23:57
  contacted the hotel and we said, hey, can we utilize this space
• 24:00
  for this presentation? And they were totally cool with
• 24:02
  it because they, they had it, rented it anyway.
• 24:04
  It was already reserved for us, so we moved it there last minute
• 24:09
  and it ended up being one of the coolest things that's ever
• 24:11
  happened to G Con because it allowed us to present to such a
• 24:15
  large group of people to have that energy in the room.
• 24:20
  So that was really exciting and doing that again this year.
• 24:24
  I agree with you. It feels like G Con is now part
• 24:28
  of that allegiance Con festivities.
• 24:30
  People have been asking, oh, you know, Legions Con should be a
• 24:33
  three day event and I always kind of push back because no
• 24:37
  matter how much longer we make it, there's always going to be
• 24:41
  people that want more. I think there's something to be
• 24:44
  said for leaving people wanting more, but G Con getting tacked
• 24:50
  on does kind of give you that third day especially because
• 24:53
  right after G Con, you walk out of that room and the exhibits
• 24:57
  are going up and everyone is there and the the exhibitors can
• 25:00
  start setting up their booth and the attendees are flowing in.
• 25:04
  It's that is where the level of energy is going to be so high.
• 25:09
  Yeah, that's what we were talking about.
• 25:11
  It's where, you know, we're arriving on Wednesday evening
• 25:15
  because we're going to interns. So and I basically said that,
• 25:18
  yeah, when once that Friday kind of afternoon after G Con comes,
• 25:23
  then it's like click your fingers and it's done.
• 25:25
  You know, it's it's and I can imagine then that's times 100
• 25:29
  for you because you know you're being dragged everywhere and
• 25:32
  every everywhere. But before we maybe get into
• 25:35
  what what might or might not happen at G Con and you've also
• 25:40
  been writing lots of lore. Obviously we talked previously
• 25:44
  about the books that are coming. How's that coming along of the
• 25:48
  any any it doesn't have to be concrete update, but you know,
• 25:52
  is it is it progressing well or you know?
• 25:54
  It is, it's progressing really well.
• 25:57
  It's, it's a very frustrating process in a lot of ways because
• 26:00
  it takes a really long time. You know, that's, I just want to
• 26:07
  get it out there and you know, like the minute I'm done writing
• 26:10
  that last word, I just want to hit upload and let everyone read
• 26:13
  it. And I mean, I, I technically
• 26:15
  could do that, but that's not the best, it's not the best idea
• 26:19
  for this. So, you know, the process of
• 26:23
  editing and I've mentioned before, even someone like
• 26:27
  Cameron at the studio took a look at some of the stuff and he
• 26:31
  pointed out editing aspects about it that I had never
• 26:36
  considered. The the example I've always used
• 26:39
  is there's a point in the book where a bunch of Archers start
• 26:44
  shooting arrows and a soldier yells incoming because the
• 26:48
  arrows are coming towards them. And Cameron pointed out that
• 26:51
  that phrase in modern military terms, that was like kind of
• 26:56
  coined during like the modern military era.
• 27:00
  It wouldn't have been something in, you know, ancient kind of
• 27:04
  warfare. And again, mythic legions, we're
• 27:07
  not trying to be historically accurate in any way.
• 27:11
  What it does, we do want there to be a sense of realism to it.
• 27:15
  You know, even some of the phrases that I use you, you in
• 27:19
  our normal speech, we use certain abbreviations and
• 27:23
  certain slang terms that you have to ask yourself, would
• 27:27
  these characters in this time period, in this, in this
• 27:30
  setting, use these slang terms and little editing, things like
• 27:36
  that. They surprised me.
• 27:39
  Like I had to go back and I had to change a lot of that stuff to
• 27:42
  give the story more sense of a, more of a sense of authenticity.
• 27:47
  So going through that and then the, the, the layers of editing
• 27:51
  that you go through to get to that final piece are absolutely
• 27:56
  incredible. So that's really been, it's the
• 27:59
  actual story has been done for, I mean, almost a year now that's
• 28:06
  been done. But it's just been going through
• 28:08
  stage after stage of editing. As we get closer, I hope to have
• 28:12
  more of an update for it at G Con.
• 28:16
  But it is going very well. That's the the one positive
• 28:19
  thing I can say. Well, I'd like it to be going
• 28:21
  faster at least. Every time something happens, I
• 28:26
  look at the end result and I'm like, OK, yeah, this is better
• 28:29
  like this. I'm happy we went through this
• 28:32
  exercise because what remains is a stronger story.
• 28:36
  It's a tighter story. I'm more I'm happier with what
• 28:40
  we have. Yeah, because I think that it
• 28:45
  that that's what we will appreciate when, you know, when
• 28:47
  we get the book in our hands and and read it, is that those
• 28:51
  little small details are taken care of.
• 28:53
  Because when it's sent out to print and it's out there, then
• 28:56
  you can't imagine since, you know, imagine Cameron coming to
• 29:00
  you like the day after it's printed saying, Oh yeah, you
• 29:02
  know, of those modern terms he used or whatever it might be,
• 29:05
  you know? And some of those things
• 29:07
  wouldn't have necessarily been bad.
• 29:10
  You know, I think of a movie like have you, if you've ever
• 29:13
  seen the movie The Knights Tale with Heath Ledger, I would say
• 29:17
  it wasn't fat extreme. Like that was literally a modern
• 29:21
  kind of flavor on a medieval type setting.
• 29:26
  It didn't go to that extreme. Realistically, we probably could
• 29:30
  have kept in 99% of what we edited and it would have been
• 29:35
  fine. But it's one of those things
• 29:37
  where you don't realize how those little minor edits when
• 29:40
  you make them, they add up to just give it, like I said, that
• 29:44
  that more air of authenticity. It's just a stronger overall
• 29:48
  story, even though the plot and the characters and who does what
• 29:52
  and none of that changed. Like none of the editors who
• 29:54
  looked at it said, I don't like the way this happens.
• 29:57
  I don't like this idea. All of the ideas are exactly
• 30:01
  what Eric and I plotted out. It's just all of this fine
• 30:04
  tuning. Did the editors make a point of
• 30:07
  saying very early doors, we're not going to look at the names?
• 30:11
  No, it's like you spell them however you want.
• 30:14
  We're not. I would.
• 30:15
  Imagine. I would imagine that most of the
• 30:18
  editors just kind of gloss over the names and probably don't
• 30:22
  even like try to pronounce them for themselves.
• 30:25
  How you end up with the uncone 1?
• 30:32
  That's all right. Yeah, I know what you mean
• 30:33
  there, Jeremy. Yeah, With my organization, we
• 30:35
  published statistics and, and commentaries with the
• 30:37
  statistics. So I've done that for years.
• 30:39
  And, you know, they say, oh, you need to run it by some.
• 30:41
  And you're like, really? Do I have to?
• 30:43
  I've done this loads of times. And then our like professional
• 30:46
  editing team come back and you're like, oh, yeah, that's
• 30:48
  much better. OK.
• 30:49
  Yeah, you just removed like a third of the words that didn't
• 30:52
  need to be there. And this sort of stuff, it's
• 30:53
  like, right. OK.
• 30:54
  Yeah, that's why. Yeah.
• 30:56
  And when it comes to writing the lore, I mean, what was did the
• 31:00
  favorite bit of the lore you've done in the books in terms of,
• 31:04
  you know, factions or yeah, that kind of stuff?
• 31:08
  I've mentioned this before that I have a stronger appreciation
• 31:14
  for certain characters after writing the book.
• 31:18
  I've said it multiple times that Artemis Silver Cord is one of my
• 31:21
  favorite characters. I always liked Artemis.
• 31:25
  I always thought I I like Artemis 2 as a figure much
• 31:28
  better than Artemis 1. The Artemis one figures got some
• 31:31
  technical challenges just standing there and stuff.
• 31:35
  I love the Artemis 2 figure, but writing her character and giving
• 31:41
  her like a personality in the story, she is so incredibly
• 31:47
  cool. So there are a number of
• 31:49
  characters that I've grown more attached to.
• 31:54
  There are some characters that are really, really nuanced that
• 31:58
  I, I find them more interesting. You know, that's that's one of
• 32:02
  the things that Eric and I said right out of the gate, is that
• 32:06
  this absolute good and absolute evil that exists in mythos, but
• 32:11
  it's not the norm. Like we want characters that
• 32:15
  have they can be a good character and still have some
• 32:19
  flaws to them. And that makes these characters
• 32:22
  so much more interesting. The challenges that they have to
• 32:25
  face and potentially overcome as part of this story.
• 32:29
  So it's been really a lot of fun to do that.
• 32:32
  It's been a lot of fun to connect the dots.
• 32:34
  It's been a lot. One of my favorite things is
• 32:38
  when Eric and I sit down and I tell him an idea that I have and
• 32:43
  he's got this look that comes over his face and he just kind
• 32:47
  of nods. And he just cuz he, he doesn't
• 32:48
  interrupt. He lets me finish.
• 32:51
  And there'll be times that I just keep talking because I'm
• 32:55
  waiting for him to give me something.
• 32:58
  And I'm like, I'm trying to hammer it home.
• 33:00
  And then I'll finally shut up and he'll just go.
• 33:03
  That's cool. When you get up, that's cool.
• 33:09
  From Eric Treadaway. Let me tell you.
• 33:16
  Because really, he's just feeding you the rope, you know,
• 33:18
  to hang yourself. And you keep talking and you
• 33:20
  keep talking and it's like, is he going to still get to get
• 33:23
  school or does he? Do I need to stop talking here?
• 33:25
  Yeah, but it's it's great. I love.
• 33:29
  I've never, I get to work with Eric very, very closely and I've
• 33:33
  never met somebody who I am on the same level with creatively
• 33:40
  the way that I am with Eric. We both are of the, where he's
• 33:44
  one year older than I am. So we're pretty much the same
• 33:47
  age. We both have very similar socio
• 33:50
  economic backgrounds, a lot of the same references and, and
• 33:54
  just loves and everything that we grew up with because look, so
• 33:58
  much of what we do draws on our childhood and things that were
• 34:02
  important to us. So we really approach this with
• 34:06
  a very similar mentality. And I said before that I love
• 34:10
  what Eric created. You know, I think that's one of
• 34:13
  the reasons we work well together is I don't come in and
• 34:16
  say, I want to put my spin on this.
• 34:20
  I love what he's done. Instead of looking at what he's
• 34:23
  done and figuring out how I can tweak it, I look for the holes
• 34:26
  and I'm like, we're haven't you all these need to be connected?
• 34:30
  How about we connect it like this?
• 34:31
  Oh, you didn't figure out this? How about we do it like that?
• 34:34
  So I'm appreciating and honoring what already exists and trying
• 34:40
  to add to it. And because we are on that same
• 34:43
  wavelength so frequently, it just works really, really well.
• 34:47
  Yeah, for sure. You have.
• 34:48
  When you have such a, you know, awesome talent like Eric, you
• 34:52
  don't want to like kind of override them.
• 34:54
  You want to augment it and kind of, you know, just as you see
• 34:58
  fill in the gaps and in terms of the lower, you know, with these
• 35:02
  stories you write around the waves, be it mythic or cosmic,
• 35:05
  what are you? What's your favorite one of
• 35:07
  those or what? What?
• 35:08
  Oh, the red, the Red Star of Kubara.
• 35:11
  Yeah, that's my favorite one. Yeah, that one.
• 35:13
  Around around this time last year, actually.
• 35:16
  It was, it was. Yeah.
• 35:17
  I mean, that's there's no contest.
• 35:19
  That's the one where I get to anytime I get to write Scapular,
• 35:23
  I'm thrilled. Love writing Scapular.
• 35:25
  He's hysterical. So anytime I get to write him.
• 35:30
  But that was also, I wrote that story.
• 35:35
  That story takes place during events that are in the first
• 35:41
  book. Like there's something that
• 35:43
  happens where I'd already written all that other stuff.
• 35:47
  So being able, you know, I already had the Emir, like all
• 35:52
  of that was already in the book. So being able to write the Red
• 35:57
  Star and know that like, OK, this story's cool and when you
• 36:02
  read the book, you're going to be like, oh, wait a minute, I
• 36:06
  totally get where that falls now.
• 36:09
  And it's going to just plug in and be a really cool little
• 36:13
  piece that connects some other stuff.
• 36:16
  So that one was a lot of fun to write because in my eagerness to
• 36:21
  get the story out there, I was able to get a little chunk of
• 36:24
  it, a little piece that connects to it out early.
• 36:28
  Yeah, that's it. I love all the the questions and
• 36:31
  stuff that that brings up, but also I just like the story them
• 36:35
  itself. You know, they end up kind of
• 36:36
  chatting in the bar and it's kind of intimate.
• 36:39
  And it's also, you know, you got this creepy thing in the
• 36:42
  background of the scapular and, you know, the bit of magic going
• 36:45
  through the wardrobe and that kind of stuff.
• 36:47
  It's just. I will say that you just
• 36:50
  mentioned it and it brings up questions and stuff.
• 36:52
  That's one of the things I'm excited for for the book as
• 36:54
  well, is this toy line, the stories.
• 36:59
  It is introduced a lot of questions.
• 37:01
  There have been a lot of things that have been referenced in the
• 37:05
  BIOS and so forth. I love mysteries.
• 37:09
  The only thing I love more than mysteries are answers.
• 37:13
  So I am really excited to pay off some of that to say like,
• 37:19
  oh, you want to know this little thing we've alluded to here?
• 37:23
  You want to like understand what that's all about?
• 37:25
  Here you go. Like being able to give those
• 37:29
  answers while we also drop some threads and drop some other
• 37:32
  mysteries because that's always been important.
• 37:35
  You know, we've been doing that since wave one.
• 37:37
  But I really, I don't want the book just to ask more questions.
• 37:43
  I do want the book to answer a lot of those current mysteries,
• 37:47
  and it certainly will. Oh man, we're going to have a
• 37:50
  lot to talk about, guys. Really are.
• 37:53
  And Jeremy, can I check when you're doing the the mastering
• 37:58
  The Apprentice? Did you when you wrote The
• 37:59
  Apprentice, were you thinking Irish?
• 38:02
  John? Obviously, you know, John made
• 38:04
  it his own with the reading. So is that what you're thinking
• 38:06
  when you wrote that? It is now.
• 38:09
  It is now. There we go, Jeremy, we reached
• 38:13
  out to and said can we do recording of that?
• 38:15
  And we obviously did episode 39. If you're a new listener, go
• 38:18
  back and have a have a listen. We had fun doing it and I hope I
• 38:21
  think Jeremy enjoyed it. So that was the main victory for
• 38:25
  us. And other people did enjoy too.
• 38:27
  So even better. Yeah.
• 38:30
  But I want that figure now. You know, that's the thing.
• 38:33
  Any figure, any figure that you do a voice for him when we're
• 38:40
  doing the reading, then suddenly you just become totally attached
• 38:42
  to it. Even if absolutely, and even if
• 38:45
  it's like a figure that's just as you say, one that's not a
• 38:48
  figure yet or whatever, that's that's you still, then you want
• 38:52
  the figure. Or if it's a character that's
• 38:54
  out there and you're even more into it.
• 38:57
  Well, the stories, the stories that so much, because I've
• 39:01
  always said that it's incredible how this line has grown in the
• 39:06
  absence of a major media tie in. You know, the fact that all that
• 39:10
  we really have on these characters are those little BIOS
• 39:13
  and now some of these short stories.
• 39:16
  I always come back to the mythic conversations I did where I read
• 39:21
  the chapter on the Covenant of Shadow, and these are 4
• 39:25
  characters that have been out for quite a few years.
• 39:28
  And when I read that chapter and they don't do a lot in that
• 39:32
  chapter, they sit around a table and basically say like, yeah,
• 39:37
  let's be bad guys. That's kind of what that chapter
• 39:39
  is. But the fact that they had a
• 39:42
  voice, the fact that they had a personality, I remember reading
• 39:47
  in the comments a number of people saying like, well, I
• 39:50
  didn't necessarily want these figures or this particular
• 39:53
  figure, but now I have to have them.
• 39:55
  So I think it's incredible where we've come in the absence of
• 40:00
  that, like define story content. And it gets me really excited
• 40:05
  for not only how you know people like yourself, collectors like
• 40:09
  yourselves that already love these characters, how this is
• 40:12
  going to increase your appreciation for them, but then
• 40:15
  the doors that it may open to other.
• 40:18
  Collectors who have maybe stayed away because they're like, well,
• 40:21
  I don't know who these characters are.
• 40:23
  I don't know what the story is. Yeah, I mean, that is one of the
• 40:28
  funny things that comes from you writing the book is, I've said
• 40:32
  before, I've never worried too much about the story.
• 40:35
  They're just, you know, really, really cool action figures.
• 40:38
  And yeah, I love reading the BIOS.
• 40:41
  I love the little, like the Red Star of Kibara.
• 40:43
  That was a brilliant little story and I'm really actually
• 40:47
  looking forward to the book to find them.
• 40:51
  But, and I think that's the key, like you've just said it, there
• 40:54
  is, I think that will then bring even more people in because they
• 40:58
  will have something to connect to other than, wow, this is a
• 41:02
  really cool figure because some people do seem to need that,
• 41:05
  don't they? So.
• 41:08
  Even something now as simple as say you've got a friend who
• 41:13
  doesn't collect toys but loves fantasy and you're like, you
• 41:16
  know what dude, check this book out, check this story out.
• 41:19
  I know you love fantasy. And now they read it and they're
• 41:21
  like, this was really cool. I very much enjoyed this.
• 41:25
  Okay, I'm now I'm curious, who are these characters?
• 41:27
  I want to see the toys. I want to see these figures and
• 41:29
  stuff. I think that it opens it up,
• 41:32
  even if even if it doesn't turn someone who's not currently
• 41:36
  collecting into a massive super fan.
• 41:39
  It opens doors to get our stories, our characters, the
• 41:43
  realm of mythos in front of more eyeballs, and that's always
• 41:46
  going to be good. Yeah.
• 41:48
  And and just simply, you know, when I mean say St. teams out
• 41:53
  there or whatever, or, you know, just a vendor to show like, what
• 41:57
  are these figures all about? You can kind of give them the
• 41:59
  the two-minute pitch. But you can also say, and
• 42:01
  there's a book, you know, absolutely that that also just
• 42:05
  kind of is a shortcut to, oh, it's a book.
• 42:07
  I like fantasy books. You know, let's have a look at
• 42:10
  that. The other nice thing about the
• 42:12
  book, too, is, you know, we've talked before about the comic,
• 42:16
  right? So the comic that came out with
• 42:19
  the first Kickstarter. Since then, we've said that
• 42:23
  that's not Canon, you know, and that was created kind of in a
• 42:28
  vacuum. It was created not with 100%.
• 42:33
  The studio wasn't operating the way they are today.
• 42:36
  So really there's some things in there that weren't necessarily
• 42:41
  from Eric's ideas and thought process.
• 42:43
  Some of it was. And some of those ideas
• 42:46
  certainly do carry forth as Canon.
• 42:49
  But you know, that's one of the things with this is having this
• 42:53
  book, as we start thinking about other potential projects, this
• 42:57
  kind of becomes a Bible. Like this kind of becomes like,
• 43:00
  OK, this is the story. If we're going to do anything
• 43:05
  else, it's got to follow this because this is what happens.
• 43:09
  We can't have a character do something other than this
• 43:14
  because it doesn't make sense. And you know, even knowing these
• 43:17
  characters, I've talked about that with other people where we
• 43:21
  talk about different things. I was one that comes to mind is
• 43:25
  I was talking to someone that wanted to do something where
• 43:29
  Thistlethorn was fighting off this and you had a sword.
• 43:33
  And I was like, no, he can't do that.
• 43:35
  They were like, why said he's a pacifist?
• 43:37
  Thistle Thorn doesn't use weapons.
• 43:39
  You know, when they were like, what?
• 43:40
  And I was like, yeah, that's one of the things we wrote.
• 43:42
  Fuzz monks are pacifists. And I just wrote it because I
• 43:45
  thought it was fun. I thought it was a cool thing to
• 43:47
  make him have to find ways to help his faction without picking
• 43:51
  up a sword and swinging it around and stuff.
• 43:54
  So, you know, having these personalities, having this
• 43:58
  story, gives us a framework to work within for lots of other
• 44:03
  ideas. Hi Jeremy, I'd like to thank you
• 44:06
  at this point for confirming my Zylonas Flocker tree hugging
• 44:09
  hippies theory. That's now been confirmed.
• 44:14
  So here we go. Yeah, that's excellent.
• 44:16
  They are. They may be tree hugging
• 44:18
  hippies, but they are bad ass tree hugging hippies.
• 44:24
  And, and he just heard that Jesse Arnold doesn't like
• 44:26
  painting weapons in his fuzz among customs.
• 44:29
  So, you know, he did. He dug them out there with a bit
• 44:32
  of lore, right. And when we kind of joined the,
• 44:38
  the, the chat here before we started recording, you said that
• 44:42
  you were writing BIOS. I wonder what that was for.
• 44:45
  So I've been telling you, I've been writing BIOS.
• 44:48
  You know, we're talking about G Con Obviously there are new
• 44:52
  characters that are going to be revealed at G Con and I am very
• 44:58
  excited that the BIOS for these characters have become kind of
• 45:04
  an important part of these reveals.
• 45:07
  You know, I the one that I always remember was the
• 45:12
  Necronominus reveal. And when I read the story to
• 45:18
  that room for Bishop, the story of the horse being sickly in the
• 45:23
  stable masters, like, hey, we got to put this horse down and
• 45:27
  Gideon's like, can I just have one night with the horse to pray
• 45:30
  over him and the stable masters like, OK.
• 45:33
  And the next morning the horse is miraculously healed and they
• 45:36
  have a box. I read that and like there were
• 45:39
  people in the room like, oh, my goodness.
• 45:43
  Like I love that. That's so.
• 45:46
  I remember reading that that one, and I remember also reading
• 45:50
  that same reveal, Maxillius the Harvester and talking about what
• 45:55
  a force of nature that character is.
• 45:59
  And people just again, wow, those those were the two that
• 46:05
  come to mind where it really made me realize, and this is in
• 46:09
  line with what we're talking about.
• 46:10
  Without a major media tying, without having seen these
• 46:14
  characters in a movie, that little bio is really my
• 46:18
  opportunity. It's our opportunity to explain
• 46:21
  who this character is beyond just a cool toy.
• 46:24
  Yeah, it's a very, very cool toy.
• 46:27
  But what's the character's personality?
• 46:29
  How does it fit into this world? You know, give you that kind of
• 46:34
  connection that is going to be very important.
• 46:37
  So I've been working on all of these BIOS.
• 46:41
  On the last one right now, I was just finishing it up before we
• 46:45
  started this recording. So we're we're delaying bio
• 46:49
  writing guys. So how about that?
• 46:51
  Yes, our fault if it doesn't. The one, the one that I was
• 46:55
  working on, it might how I don't know, it might be Rich's
• 47:01
  favorite of this wave. Oh, and Rich, I'm not saying
• 47:07
  that as a gag. I'm not saying, oh, it's a
• 47:09
  barbarian. It's, you know, like this
• 47:11
  genuinely might be your favorite of the wave.
• 47:15
  Oh, excellent. Still have to wait though, Rich.
• 47:18
  Yeah. It's only two weeks.
• 47:21
  It's fine. It's two weeks.
• 47:23
  It'll be the the the the day that'll be the most difficult
• 47:27
  but also the most fun is the intern day because that'll be so
• 47:30
  close yet so far. It's just you gotta.
• 47:32
  Go touch it. That day goes by so incredibly
• 47:38
  fast for me because it's like I'm, I'm genuinely living from
• 47:43
  session to session running around the studio.
• 47:47
  John and Mel, you'll get to see this this year.
• 47:49
  Rich saw it last year. But you know, running from
• 47:52
  session to session, making sure that everyone's on schedule,
• 47:56
  that everyone knows how much time they have left.
• 47:59
  So when you're living in those little like 60 minute chunks,
• 48:04
  the day goes by so quickly. So you're the you're the kind of
• 48:09
  link man between all the stuff is.
• 48:10
  Yeah, I'm not. I'm very much the ringmaster at
• 48:13
  this. I'm very much when it starts,
• 48:15
  I'm the one that kind of welcomes everybody.
• 48:19
  And yeah, no surprise, I'm, I'm the one that loves being center
• 48:24
  stage. I work with a number of people
• 48:27
  that don't mind being center stage, but I don't know that any
• 48:32
  of them embrace it as much as I do.
• 48:34
  So they all kind of just let Jeremy do his thing.
• 48:38
  But but then it's great because I get to do that.
• 48:41
  I get to welcome everybody and then I get to turn everybody
• 48:45
  over to such incredibly talented, you know, colleagues
• 48:50
  so they can experience the painting, the, the art, the
• 48:55
  sculpting, all those different aspects of what it is that we
• 48:58
  do. It's, I get very excited because
• 49:02
  as much as I love the spotlight, I'm not like narcissistic.
• 49:08
  I'm not like, look at me. I love saying look at this, look
• 49:13
  at this. I love being I, I said a
• 49:15
  ringmaster. And that's a very apt
• 49:17
  description because a ringmaster doesn't perform.
• 49:19
  A ringmaster presents the other acts.
• 49:23
  That has always been a role that I very much cherish and embrace,
• 49:28
  and I think I do very well. I love doing that at Intern
• 49:31
  because being able to present and give you access to all these
• 49:35
  other cool sessions is just wonderful.
• 49:39
  And and. Everybody, everybody there knows
• 49:41
  that Jeremy is the boss too, and he wants any painting demo or
• 49:44
  anything. You see them nervously looking
• 49:46
  up at the door. Once it gets, you know, like a
• 49:49
  good way into session going, he's going to be here any
• 49:50
  minute. It's going to be any minute, OK.
• 49:52
  Need to hurry up. I need to, but you also know it
• 49:55
  from the fan side as well. You've been to intern as a fan
• 49:58
  before you started SO. That's how I started.
• 50:01
  That's my first time ever at the studio.
• 50:03
  Was at intern for a day with my son many years ago and it was
• 50:09
  such a special experience that it's part of my driving kind of
• 50:16
  just my driving force to to want to make it equally as special
• 50:21
  for everyone that comes to this and that.
• 50:25
  Excellent. And it's an incredible day.
• 50:27
  I remember when I got there last year, I walked in and stared
• 50:30
  open mouth at the cabinet as everybody does.
• 50:32
  And then Jeremy comes straight up to him and he's like rich,
• 50:34
  Rich, come look at this, come look at this.
• 50:36
  She takes her around the corner and there's just this like
• 50:38
  life-size, all like tiger there. And I was like, Oh my God.
• 50:44
  And and Rich, I believe you had a question about Jeremy's
• 50:48
  display at Reed Legions Con. Oh, I did, yes.
• 50:52
  So it was, It was you obviously you've you always have a table
• 50:57
  where you you're just displaying stuff, not selling stuff.
• 50:59
  You have the critters. It's going to be the the
• 51:01
  Shogun's this year. How soon after the last Legions
• 51:04
  con do you like code? You know what?
• 51:05
  This is what the theme I'm going to do this time.
• 51:08
  About a month I I took probably about a month off after I'm I'm
• 51:16
  one of these people that like I'm done my display for this
• 51:20
  year and there's a part of me that doesn't know what to do
• 51:23
  with myself. Luckily I have plenty of other
• 51:27
  stuff to do right now, but after Legions Con, there is kind of
• 51:32
  that period where it's like, OK, what do I, what do I do?
• 51:38
  You know, we've just dropped the BIG4 horseman wave.
• 51:41
  We've just had Legions Con. My display is done.
• 51:45
  So I do take a little bit of time pretty much through the end
• 51:48
  of November to just not get involved with anything.
• 51:53
  But once we get to December, I will start thinking about next
• 51:57
  year. I mean, we're already in the
• 51:59
  process of planning Legions Con 2025.
• 52:03
  The ball's already rolling on that, so we to be able to do
• 52:08
  what we do with that. We can't wait until after this
• 52:12
  year to start planning next year.
• 52:13
  So there's already things even the day after Legions con I will
• 52:17
  have work that I need to do to reset everything for 2025 S
• 52:22
  about a month and then I start planning the display.
• 52:26
  Right. We're going to, I, I have some,
• 52:28
  I have your shoguns here. So we're going to have a look if
• 52:30
  that's OK with you. Yeah, sure, sure.
• 52:32
  So you you stop us in any of the ones who you want to talk about.
• 52:37
  I mean, the first one here we have here.
• 52:39
  But I mean, obviously you talked about Artemis.
• 52:42
  Yeah, being a fan of her character in mythics.
• 52:44
  So what did you do here or what was your?
• 52:47
  Yeah, it was like here with this.
• 52:49
  I did a whole show on Mythic Conversations this week about
• 52:51
  this. Yeah.
• 52:52
  So we will go too deep into it. Yeah, because because of that.
• 52:55
  Some of the stuff I talked about here is I did my first mythic
• 52:58
  shoguns quite a few years ago. Rich, I think you might have
• 53:02
  actually bought some of them back then.
• 53:04
  I I bought 5 bought. Five of them.
• 53:09
  So that was a period. It was very different.
• 53:11
  And I mentioned this on my show this week.
• 53:13
  That's when I used to have the Saturday morning sales where I
• 53:17
  would like on a Saturday morning, I would drop something
• 53:20
  on my Instagram or on the Cabal and I'd say, OK, this is what's
• 53:24
  available. And I don't know if it was the
• 53:27
  you don't know what you're going to get time nature is 1 and it's
• 53:30
  done type thing. But that was definitely right up
• 53:33
  Rich's alley because he was one of my best early customers.
• 53:37
  He picked up quite a few of my early custom pieces and I did
• 53:42
  again, a number of mythic shoguns at that point.
• 53:46
  I did Artemis back then. Originally it was kind of my
• 53:51
  version of an like a warrior version of Disney's Mulan, but
• 53:57
  that ended up transforming into the one that we see here because
• 54:02
  by the time that I did this one, I did have access to the Artemis
• 54:05
  2 parts, which I like better than Artemis 1.
• 54:09
  So that was one that was an update.
• 54:11
  Whereas right now on screen you also have the Gorgo.
• 54:15
  Gorgo was one that I hadn't done previously, but when I decided
• 54:19
  that I wanted this display not just to be so samurai versions
• 54:25
  of like like mythic legion samurais, I didn't want these
• 54:28
  just to be nameless characters that use mythic legions parts
• 54:32
  and samurai type influence. I wanted to reimagine the actual
• 54:37
  characters of mythic legions and of mythos in this fantasy feudal
• 54:42
  Japan style setting. So doing that version of Gorgo
• 54:46
  was, you know, part of what I did here.
• 54:48
  Gorgo has always been one of my favorite character designs, so
• 54:52
  that was a really fun one to do. Right, we have a few more
• 54:56
  barrier. Warriors, another really old 1.
• 54:59
  I did that one very early on years ago, whereas Scapulars, a
• 55:04
  brand new one, I did again my love for Scapular.
• 55:09
  This was one that I was really excited to do.
• 55:12
  This was one, you know, visually, even something like
• 55:15
  the chest plate. I wanted a chest plate that
• 55:19
  looks similar to the one Eric sculpted for it.
• 55:22
  The new Scapular Anthony from Toy Forge had a chest plate that
• 55:28
  kind of looked like that, one of the custom plug in ones.
• 55:31
  So kind of assembling all of these different pieces and it
• 55:35
  was a fun project because being able to look at these existing
• 55:39
  characters and kind of say, OK, what is the essence of these
• 55:43
  characters? Like what elements do I have to
• 55:45
  bring into the design? And then what elements do I
• 55:48
  tweak a little bit to get that samurai type theme to create the
• 55:53
  mythic Shogun that I wanted? And.
• 55:57
  Then we have the Emir, of course.
• 55:59
  That's what the Red Death soft goods.
• 56:01
  Is that right? That's the Red Death soft goods.
• 56:03
  It's a silver mask that was from Wolfgang Customs.
• 56:09
  It a funny picture, a funny custom like that.
• 56:12
  Sometimes with my customs, it's like one piece that sets me down
• 56:17
  that path. I didn't even intend to do the
• 56:19
  Amir. I knew I was going to do scab.
• 56:20
  I didn't know I was going to do the Amir.
• 56:22
  But then I found that little samurai mask that Wolf King
• 56:27
  Customs had done in a fodder bin.
• 56:29
  And immediately I said, oh, that painted silver would totally
• 56:33
  work for the Amir, and it set me down the path to do that
• 56:37
  particular custom. And this is is this twick here?
• 56:41
  Yeah, that's the way. And you know, the main character
• 56:45
  element of Thwick is his smile. So using another Wolf King
• 56:50
  custom part, that Dragon Warrior lower mask to really accentuate
• 56:56
  that, that grin on Thwick is how I, you know, executed that.
• 57:00
  When you when you said about that, I thought that was a
• 57:02
  fantastic idea and I must admit I'm tempted to nick it for
• 57:05
  something that's. That's why I.
• 57:08
  Really cool. I've always shared my recipes,
• 57:11
  you know, since the beginning, I've never understood the
• 57:14
  mentality of I want to keep this information close.
• 57:17
  I, I've always been absolutely sharing.
• 57:21
  I feel bad sometimes because people will message me and
• 57:23
  they'll say, oh, can you tell me what your paint match for that
• 57:26
  was? And I'm never, it's never that I
• 57:28
  don't want to share. It's that I'm horrible with
• 57:31
  that. Like I literally just mix paints
• 57:35
  until I get what I want but I have no I.
• 57:37
  I usually don't even remember what paints I use much less like
• 57:41
  percentages. I've I've seen other people that
• 57:43
  are very specific about how much they used you would laugh at how
• 57:48
  incredibly disorganized and messy I am with that stuff.
• 57:52
  So whenever I say like, I don't really remember, I don't have a,
• 57:56
  you know, a formula for you. It's not me not wanting to
• 57:59
  share. It's genuinely me not having it.
• 58:02
  But I do know the recipes of figure parts that I used and
• 58:05
  I've shared that since the very beginning.
• 58:08
  For anyone that wants to try to replicate the custom, more
• 58:12
  power, please. That's what they're there for.
• 58:15
  Yeah. And I think that's a lot of
• 58:16
  people have taken that up as well with their own stuff.
• 58:19
  I think that's, it was a very good precedent to set at the
• 58:22
  start. Yeah, paint matching.
• 58:24
  I can tell people what paints I've used to match.
• 58:27
  But the quantities, as you say, it's a, it's a, it's a little
• 58:30
  bit of a soup around in the in the palette until you get it.
• 58:33
  These are a couple older ones that I did just, you know, an
• 58:36
  elf builder and an Iron Knight. Again, these these were kind of,
• 58:41
  so these were done before this year.
• 58:46
  The reason I decided on this project was I knew that because
• 58:51
  of my schedule, I couldn't necessarily do a whole display
• 58:55
  of brand new customs. Now, I ended up doing enough
• 58:58
  brand new customs that it would have filled the display because
• 59:01
  I did a lot more than I intended.
• 59:03
  But my original thought process was I need a handful of already
• 59:08
  existing customs that I can pull right out of the display to see
• 59:12
  this, you know, this exhibit with these were two that I had
• 59:17
  done many, many years ago where I was going more for kind of
• 59:20
  generic characters as opposed to the named characters that I did
• 59:25
  for this project now. And when do you get the time and
• 59:30
  the day to customize then? Is it?
• 59:31
  Is it on the weekend or? A lot of times it's on the
• 59:35
  weekend, sometimes it's during the night.
• 59:39
  You know, there's a lot of nights where my wife is either
• 59:42
  volunteering or, you know, following one of her own hobbies
• 59:46
  and doing something that she's doing.
• 59:48
  So I have a little bit of extra time and sitting down at the
• 59:51
  table and doing a little painting to unwind that, that
• 59:55
  tends to happen. I do a lot of planning for my
• 59:58
  customs. So when I actually sit down to
• 1:00:01
  do them, they go a lot faster than I then if they probably
• 1:00:06
  seem sometimes because I do so much like prep work and planning
• 1:00:10
  that when I do finally sit down, I'm very, very mission driven.
• 1:00:15
  Got you. And I suppose then you have the
• 1:00:16
  motivation to get it done because you know where you're
• 1:00:18
  going. So yeah.
• 1:00:20
  And do you have a paint station always kind of set up?
• 1:00:22
  Or I do, I do. I sit.
• 1:00:24
  It's very, very funny. I sit in the backroom next to
• 1:00:29
  the boiler, right on the other side of this wall.
• 1:00:32
  Here I thought. There would be doing a stream
• 1:00:34
  from there once. Yeah, it's a little pink table
• 1:00:38
  that my daughter, it feels like her little toy table, you know,
• 1:00:42
  for years ago when she was a kid.
• 1:00:44
  And I just ended up putting it downstairs and that's what I
• 1:00:47
  used to paint at. It's way too low but I'm so used
• 1:00:50
  to it now that if I had a better paint station I'd probably be
• 1:00:54
  like lethargic and not know what to.
• 1:00:56
  Do with it Probably good black cake or something.
• 1:00:58
  Yeah, right. Oh, Attila Adiz Hammer.
• 1:01:04
  Very easy 1 You know that was one I when I talked about it
• 1:01:07
  this week. I tried a number of different
• 1:01:11
  things for Attila and everything I did to take it further away
• 1:01:16
  from just the Attila figure felt wrong to me.
• 1:01:20
  So I ended up just pulling it back and really just giving him
• 1:01:24
  a torso and loin piece or waste piece from a Walter figure that
• 1:01:28
  I painted gold, giving him a sword in that lower mask.
• 1:01:32
  And wow, the level of customization is so minor.
• 1:01:37
  When I was done, it really did feel like the character himself.
• 1:01:43
  It really looks like a custom. So even if you say you didn't do
• 1:01:46
  too much, it looks like a very well done.
• 1:01:49
  And who's this? This is one of the.
• 1:01:50
  I got another one of the ones that I did early on, just it was
• 1:01:53
  a shadow elf that was from that that early mythic Shoguns period
• 1:02:00
  that I was talking about where Rich brought a bunch of them
• 1:02:02
  that was just a shadow. Yeah, Shadow elf warrior with
• 1:02:05
  some articulated icons armor on it.
• 1:02:07
  Yeah, I've got a a version of this like.
• 1:02:09
  From Jerry. So yeah.
• 1:02:11
  Pretty cool. Oh, we got Brandon.
• 1:02:15
  So Brandon was a newer 1? Yeah.
• 1:02:18
  Yeah, and I. That's one you posted earlier
• 1:02:20
  this week or? Yeah, and it was.
• 1:02:22
  So this was one. I love those moments when I'm
• 1:02:27
  customizing where I don't know what I'm making and something
• 1:02:31
  comes out that I end up just loving.
• 1:02:33
  And that's what happened here. I was playing around this
• 1:02:36
  weekend or last weekend and I had this started with that
• 1:02:40
  helmet. So that helmet comes from the
• 1:02:43
  new fure toys like rabbit figure, which I had used that
• 1:02:48
  custom for my samurai version of Atlas.
• 1:02:53
  So I had the helmet leftover and I was like, oh, it fits really
• 1:02:56
  well on this dwarf head. It's actually the dwarf head
• 1:02:59
  that comes with the Legions Con Day one set.
• 1:03:02
  And I was just playing around and I was painting and when all
• 1:03:05
  was said and done, I looked at it and I said this looks like
• 1:03:08
  Bromdin iron jaw. And the Bromdin iron jaw that I
• 1:03:12
  had done for the display, I didn't like as much as this one.
• 1:03:17
  So I actually had Bromdin wrapped up in bubble wrap in my
• 1:03:21
  case, ready to go to New Jersey. And I ended up opening up the
• 1:03:25
  case, taking him out and replacing him with this one.
• 1:03:29
  Because just in the 11th hour, this guy emerged as a
• 1:03:34
  replacement for Brompton, and now he's coming to New Jersey.
• 1:03:38
  Yeah. Skeleton, just another early
• 1:03:40
  one. Again, another generic type
• 1:03:42
  character, but probably the one of those early generic
• 1:03:45
  characters that I still like the most.
• 1:03:48
  Just something about that skeleton and that silver armor
• 1:03:51
  with the forearms. And I remember when I did that,
• 1:03:54
  when I actually used that back adapter and pop those arms in
• 1:03:59
  it. At the time that this is years
• 1:04:02
  ago, no one had done that. This was before Lithia.
• 1:04:05
  This was before Okiedos, and I remember people just being
• 1:04:10
  delighted and surprised. They were like, Oh my goodness,
• 1:04:13
  I can make a forearm skeleton by using that back adapter piece,
• 1:04:18
  that wing adapter. And there were a number of
• 1:04:20
  people that, you know, kind of used that as a springboard for
• 1:04:23
  their own creations. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  That's what it was. There was always somebody that
• 1:04:28
  did it first and you, you were one of the very early guys in
• 1:04:31
  the customizing scene for Mythics.
• 1:04:34
  So we have a lot to thank you for and oh, look at this orc.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, so that's one again, an older figure that I did, That's
• 1:04:45
  one that I actually replaced that head, as much as I like
• 1:04:48
  that head, I don't have as personal a connection to it.
• 1:04:51
  I ended up replacing it this week with a head that Emil
• 1:04:55
  Wickman had actually done because it was the first head he
• 1:05:00
  ever did for Wolf King costumes. And it just as I was packing
• 1:05:04
  everything up, I was like, I as much as I like the look of this,
• 1:05:08
  I really want this to have more personal meaning for me.
• 1:05:12
  So I swapped them. And I mean, I literally the the
• 1:05:15
  ogre that had the Emile head I just swapped.
• 1:05:18
  So this one is now in my regular display with air theories forces
• 1:05:23
  that ahead is on a kerzog body in the head from a meal.
• 1:05:27
  Ended up on the custom. Yeah, and the Ogre scale Samurai
• 1:05:31
  again. I bought one of these from you,
• 1:05:32
  Jeremy. Different head, but they're so
• 1:05:35
  imposing. It's like just that bigger scale
• 1:05:38
  samurai makes such a difference when you've got a few of them
• 1:05:40
  displayed together. Absolutely.
• 1:05:42
  Yep. And the cat.
• 1:05:44
  I love this head. Yeah, that was.
• 1:05:47
  So that's the the bonus piece that was in the 2022 Legions
• 1:05:51
  concept, the Furious 4 set Cody Cat head.
• 1:05:55
  I just love that look of that Kabuki style face paint.
• 1:05:59
  It's something I've done on a number of different customs.
• 1:06:02
  It's very low hanging fruit. It's very easy thing to do.
• 1:06:06
  That just kind of looks cool. So that was me just wanting to
• 1:06:11
  paint that Kabuki style makeup. This isn't really meant to be
• 1:06:15
  any specific character. Again, he came into the display
• 1:06:18
  initially just to say, OK, I need a couple characters to
• 1:06:22
  flesh out the display. So he's meant to be more of a
• 1:06:25
  generic Jaguar lean type character.
• 1:06:29
  And that kind of the face paint that Jeremy's talking about, I
• 1:06:33
  wholeheartedly stole one of his ideas.
• 1:06:35
  So Jeremy did a mouse with that face paint and I got someone to
• 1:06:38
  paint me one. Not exactly the same, We don't
• 1:06:40
  want to do a complete copy, but the similar sort of paint
• 1:06:43
  scheme. And I love the figure.
• 1:06:44
  So cool. So these are two name
• 1:06:47
  characters. These are two newer ones that I
• 1:06:49
  did for the actual display this year.
• 1:06:52
  So I've got Erzak and the blood armor, the using the Vorgas
• 1:06:56
  Familias 2 figure. And again, I mean, it's it's an
• 1:07:01
  ongoing theme for this entire project.
• 1:07:03
  Just trying to figure out what are the essence of these
• 1:07:08
  figures? What are the essence of these
• 1:07:09
  character designs? How do I tweak that for my
• 1:07:13
  Mythic Shogun's display? What existing parts do I need?
• 1:07:16
  What third party parts? What other toy lines?
• 1:07:19
  Just kind of integrating all of that to create a design that
• 1:07:23
  hopefully fits into my Mythic Shogun's theme while still
• 1:07:27
  immediately to someone that knows the characters of and if
• 1:07:31
  those they can look at this and immediately say, Oh yeah, that's
• 1:07:33
  Ersoc or all that's blood armor. Yeah, that's, that's cool.
• 1:07:37
  And do you have a specific layout plan for for how they
• 1:07:42
  look in the in the display or? I do So what I do.
• 1:07:45
  I've done this every year before Legions con.
• 1:07:47
  I do set up the tables like in my garage, set everything out so
• 1:07:54
  I can see exactly where I want things to lay out.
• 1:07:58
  If for no other reason, just on a very practical standpoint when
• 1:08:03
  I get there and time is of the essence.
• 1:08:06
  I'm not like messing around and figuring out where things go.
• 1:08:11
  I have a plan. You know, in my, in my previous
• 1:08:14
  life, I, when I worked in corporate America, you know, I
• 1:08:18
  did a lot of events, I did a lot of trade shows and stuff.
• 1:08:22
  And we always found that, you know, we would, we would
• 1:08:24
  literally map out the booth in the office.
• 1:08:27
  If we had a 10 by 20 booth, we would take out masking tape,
• 1:08:32
  feel, you know, put a square around for 10 by 20.
• 1:08:36
  We would set everything up in there so we could stage it so we
• 1:08:39
  could figure out what the flow was going to be like and and so
• 1:08:42
  forth. And that's definitely a lesson
• 1:08:45
  that I've kind of taken with me where I like to stage things as
• 1:08:50
  much as possible. So I can do any of the design
• 1:08:54
  tweaks, any of the design thinking what I've got a little
• 1:08:58
  bit more time and flexibility versus when I'm up against the
• 1:09:01
  clock to get it done. Yeah, that's definitely a top
• 1:09:04
  tip for all Allegiance kind of exhibitors in that right, Rich?
• 1:09:08
  It is. It's something I learned a
• 1:09:09
  valuable lesson of my my planning this year is so much
• 1:09:11
  better than last year. It.
• 1:09:13
  Felt like it took 24 hours to set up that table last year.
• 1:09:17
  It. Did I was just stumbling out,
• 1:09:20
  Yeah. I was in the pub, probably
• 1:09:23
  almost finished in the pub by the time you got out.
• 1:09:26
  So we got a Gideon here, Jeremy. Yeah, Gideon and Thistlethorn,
• 1:09:31
  there was a point. Thistlethorn so good.
• 1:09:34
  These were two characters I that weren't on my original list.
• 1:09:37
  You know, originally I had made a list of the characters I
• 1:09:40
  wanted to do because things I had ideas for characters I
• 1:09:43
  thought about. And neither of these were
• 1:09:47
  characters that were immediately I had ideas for.
• 1:09:49
  And as after I did Artemis and Attila, I said, you know what, I
• 1:09:56
  should do all four of the the fact that heroic faction
• 1:10:01
  leaders. So I should do Giddy and I
• 1:10:03
  should do Hera. And that's really what led to
• 1:10:06
  that. It's like I said the other
• 1:10:08
  night, I was 8 or 9 characters that I didn't intend on doing.
• 1:10:13
  I ended up doing after the fact just as I got deeper into the
• 1:10:18
  project and more excited for the project.
• 1:10:20
  But both of these are characters that came out in the later
• 1:10:24
  stages of the process, and they ended up being, you know, a
• 1:10:28
  couple of my favorites. Yeah, they look great.
• 1:10:33
  And then we've got a Azar and Zazar.
• 1:10:37
  Azar and Zazar and Hera. I just talked about Hera, Azar
• 1:10:41
  and Zazar. The notable thing on them is
• 1:10:43
  they're that that's the they're the only customs in this display
• 1:10:47
  that feature a brand new head that I had created specifically
• 1:10:51
  for this display. I knew I wanted them to
• 1:10:54
  obviously have the same head. We didn't just want to use the
• 1:10:57
  existing Azar and Zazar heads, but I and I wanted it to be tied
• 1:11:01
  in a little bit. Immortal collections have some
• 1:11:05
  wonderful only heads, and at first I was going to just use
• 1:11:08
  some of them. That blue forearmed Zazar here
• 1:11:12
  originally had an immortal collections only had on it.
• 1:11:17
  But as I was looking at those, as cool as they were, I've used
• 1:11:21
  them before in my display. I've used them on my table.
• 1:11:24
  So I wanted something new. So once again I worked with I, I
• 1:11:28
  tend to work with very similar teams of people.
• 1:11:31
  Like once I have a group that I work with, I just I love working
• 1:11:35
  with them over and over. So once again working with
• 1:11:39
  Walter DeMarco of Mass customs for the sculpture and Len
• 1:11:43
  LaGuardia of Wolf King Customs to print.
• 1:11:46
  I gave marching orders for Walter were look, I wanted to
• 1:11:51
  have kind of a horn structure of Azar and Zazar, but I found a
• 1:11:55
  really cool print, this old Japanese print of an Oni and
• 1:12:00
  that was kind of the facial structure.
• 1:12:02
  I wanted to replace the normal one on Azar and Zazar and he did
• 1:12:06
  a wonderful job combining those two things to create this
• 1:12:11
  particular piece. Yeah, it really works.
• 1:12:15
  No, those are awesome. Yeah, the torso.
• 1:12:18
  Torso. Yeah.
• 1:12:19
  And again, that's something I already had.
• 1:12:21
  That entire figure existed in that format.
• 1:12:23
  The head is the only thing that was painted new for that figure.
• 1:12:27
  And then I did Azar specifically what I said the other night was
• 1:12:32
  because Azar and Zazar are so they're identical, they're just
• 1:12:35
  different colors basically. I wanted to flip that and
• 1:12:40
  intentionally make them not identical so the fact that Zazar
• 1:12:45
  is taller and he's got 4 arms versus Azar is shorter and
• 1:12:49
  squatter with oversized hands and feet.
• 1:12:53
  Trying to explore because again, when I do this, I want to create
• 1:12:58
  cool looking figures, but my background is as a designer.
• 1:13:04
  So I approach a lot of this stuff I think differently than
• 1:13:08
  some other other customizers because I do approach a lot of
• 1:13:12
  these customs as design challenges.
• 1:13:14
  A lot of my thinking is the same exact thinking that I used to
• 1:13:17
  have when I was working with clients designing like websites
• 1:13:21
  or logos or stuff like that. I really do think about those
• 1:13:26
  different design lessons that I you know, I know and I taught
• 1:13:29
  and stuff like that. So only identical.
• 1:13:32
  Let me do the exact opposite. Let me instead flip that and
• 1:13:36
  make them very, very different and intentionally have different
• 1:13:40
  design elements on them as a contrast to the Azar and Zazar
• 1:13:45
  we know in mythos versus the mythic Shogun's versions.
• 1:13:49
  Love it, love it, right? Couple more here.
• 1:13:53
  Vampire Rich. Yeah.
• 1:13:56
  Oligarch and and brother. Man Dibulus.
• 1:14:00
  These so as I mentioned, I wanted to do, I decided to do
• 1:14:05
  all of the heroic faction leaders and then that quickly
• 1:14:08
  made me say, oh, I should probably do all the evil faction
• 1:14:10
  leaders, but I didn't want to do Lucretia and Morgolith.
• 1:14:13
  Like I just as I was thinking about those designs and what I
• 1:14:17
  could do with them, I wasn't excited about either of them.
• 1:14:20
  So this is another lesson for for me where I was like, dude,
• 1:14:24
  this is supposed to be fun like this.
• 1:14:26
  I was just contrasting this to doing design work that I would
• 1:14:29
  get paid for. That was actual work.
• 1:14:31
  I mean, I had to do that. This is meant to be enjoyable.
• 1:14:35
  So I said, you know what? I don't want to do Lucretia and
• 1:14:39
  Morgolith, but I really think it would be fun to do Baron Valgar
• 1:14:42
  and Brother man Dibulus. So allowing myself to substitute
• 1:14:47
  those characters for those faction leader placements is
• 1:14:51
  just an example of me again wanting to create something
• 1:14:55
  cool, wanting to have a cohesive exhibit, but also wanting to
• 1:14:59
  enjoy my time creating these. Yeah, like these, these almost
• 1:15:03
  look to me like. That they could be in, in Mortal
• 1:15:06
  Kombat or sure or something like that, you know, especially.
• 1:15:12
  Especially the the mandibulous. Yes, my my goal with all my.
• 1:15:18
  Customs has. Always been.
• 1:15:21
  I want them to feel like they could come out in the line.
• 1:15:25
  Yeah, I, I want them to feel, and there's a, there's a number
• 1:15:30
  of customers, customizers out there whose work I think is
• 1:15:34
  phenomenal, but their end products do not look like Mythic
• 1:15:39
  Legions figures like their end products are amazing.
• 1:15:43
  And I, I hope they keep doing what they're doing because their
• 1:15:47
  artistic style is what makes them unique.
• 1:15:49
  And I, I totally embrace that. My style since the beginning has
• 1:15:54
  always been, I want these to feel like they could come out in
• 1:16:00
  the actual main line. I want, I want to put these on a
• 1:16:04
  display and you not be able to necessarily tell which one is a
• 1:16:08
  custom and which one is a production piece because the
• 1:16:12
  design thinking and the execution behind both of them,
• 1:16:16
  it follows that same pattern. And that's obviously that's been
• 1:16:19
  a lot easier to do these days because now I get to actually
• 1:16:23
  work on the main line. So my design thinking does get
• 1:16:27
  to bleed into certain characters.
• 1:16:29
  Got you. And can I check Jeremy?
• 1:16:33
  Now you you seem. Sorry, John, I didn't interrupt
• 1:16:38
  you. You.
• 1:16:39
  From what you've said, you seem to.
• 1:16:40
  Have a bit less time. To do the customs now, yeah, for
• 1:16:43
  sure. You find that makes you find
• 1:16:44
  that makes you more attached to the.
• 1:16:45
  Ones you. Do or does that not really have
• 1:16:48
  an impact? You just had literally have less
• 1:16:49
  time? I don't know that it makes me
• 1:16:52
  more attached. To them, I've always kind of had
• 1:16:56
  an attachment to my customs. A lot of the customs I've sold
• 1:17:01
  over the years I made two of because I wanted literally one
• 1:17:05
  for myself. So I have sold a fair amount
• 1:17:09
  over the years of course, but there is always an attachment to
• 1:17:13
  the art I create. So I don't know that I because I
• 1:17:17
  have less time if I like the ones I create any more than I
• 1:17:21
  used to. I know that part of me having
• 1:17:26
  less time is also the free time I do have being driven to
• 1:17:32
  customize a little bit less than I used to.
• 1:17:35
  Cause for years this was my creative outlet, right?
• 1:17:38
  This is exactly what I did to flex those creative energies.
• 1:17:43
  Now that I get to do all the writing that I do, it's a
• 1:17:47
  different kind of creativity, but it's certainly creativity.
• 1:17:50
  So being able to do all of the lore and all of the writing,
• 1:17:54
  that is certainly part of it. And there's also a very
• 1:17:57
  practical aspect of there are certain customs that I would
• 1:18:02
  have done that I haven't done because I want to bring that
• 1:18:07
  idea into the main line as an actual production figure.
• 1:18:12
  So there are some customs, there are some combinations and stuff
• 1:18:15
  that I intentionally hold back because I know it's something
• 1:18:20
  that we're going to do or an idea I may have for allegiance
• 1:18:24
  con figure or something like that.
• 1:18:27
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:18:27
  And I remember saying when you did the the kitsune.
• 1:18:29
  Initially, didn't you you preempted the horse and didn't
• 1:18:32
  it wasn't Eric planning on making you turn that to be
• 1:18:34
  Krotos the kit, the kits, I didn't preempt them.
• 1:18:38
  So we. Did that was before I was
• 1:18:40
  working full time. We did the kitsune, and Eric
• 1:18:44
  told me much, much after the fact that Krotos was originally
• 1:18:50
  a fox. Like when he was originally
• 1:18:52
  thinking about the the healer character, it was going to be a
• 1:18:56
  fox. And then he saw what I was doing
• 1:18:59
  with Len and he didn't want to step on those toes.
• 1:19:02
  So he decided to rethink Krotos and he made them the Seder
• 1:19:07
  instead. And you know, we've taught him
• 1:19:09
  and I have talked about this and he's he's happy that he made
• 1:19:13
  that change because the design work he did on Krotos ended up
• 1:19:17
  driving a lot of the other decisions on the Olithia wave.
• 1:19:23
  But there is also part of me that's like super bummed that I
• 1:19:26
  didn't get to get an Eric Treadaway kit today.
• 1:19:30
  Figure. Yeah.
• 1:19:33
  Yeah. Well, you know, someday we
• 1:19:35
  could. Yeah, never.
• 1:19:36
  He's in. He's in the he's in the lore.
• 1:19:38
  Now isn't he? He is, so he's he's technically.
• 1:19:42
  In the game, and because the game is Canon, the the Kitsune
• 1:19:48
  race and my specific character Kickapoo is technically lore for
• 1:19:54
  Mythic Lesions. There you go.
• 1:19:56
  So that's amazing. We got it there.
• 1:19:58
  One way or another. So we have Atlas here.
• 1:20:01
  Yep, that's using the Legions con exclusive.
• 1:20:04
  That is using the Legions con exclusive head.
• 1:20:06
  That is also. Using I mentioned earlier the Fu
• 1:20:09
  Ray Toys rabbit figure. This was one that I had a
• 1:20:13
  different idea. I was going to reuse one of the
• 1:20:16
  figures from last year for Atlas and then in the 11th hour I
• 1:20:20
  decided to put this together. Better matched the character
• 1:20:24
  design elements of Atlas. And this is this is one of my
• 1:20:28
  favorites. This one in the scabula are
• 1:20:30
  probably my favorites in the actual collection.
• 1:20:34
  Yeah, this might be my favorite one.
• 1:20:36
  And then Malachi. Cinder Horne.
• 1:20:38
  Again, actually what I said the other night was kind of bringing
• 1:20:42
  it back somewhat full circle. Where a lot of the early figures
• 1:20:47
  I did were just 2.0 bodies with articulated icons, armor on top
• 1:20:52
  of it, and maybe a little bit of paint.
• 1:20:54
  That's exactly what this is. So, so many of the ones that I
• 1:20:58
  did didn't follow those parts recipes.
• 1:21:02
  And then with Malachi, it just made sense to do that again.
• 1:21:05
  And that's what ended up working here.
• 1:21:07
  Yeah, it's cool. Yep.
• 1:21:10
  Right, got three more. I think so.
• 1:21:13
  Lord Aidon was a contrast to Malachi.
• 1:21:16
  And then while I had already done a swig for the 1000 Swigs
• 1:21:20
  display, I really love the idea of doing a swig in my mythic
• 1:21:27
  Shoguns. And when I was thinking about
• 1:21:29
  it, the idea of, you know, 1000 Swigs being all over the realm
• 1:21:33
  and they're all like acting as spies for noggling.
• 1:21:36
  I was like, well, that's kind of like ninjas, like all these
• 1:21:39
  ninjas, you know, hiding in the shadows, reporting his spies.
• 1:21:43
  So that ended up being my ninja swag.
• 1:21:45
  And it uses soft goods actually from see Jessam.
• 1:21:48
  So see, Jessam had done this really cool ninja set.
• 1:21:52
  I, I painted up I have a kids name ninja head that we did with
• 1:21:56
  Wolf King that I painted up and I sent it to CJ as a gift and he
• 1:22:01
  used that head on his model to to model this ninja costume.
• 1:22:07
  And then again full circle, I got this ninja costume from him
• 1:22:11
  to do my ninja swag. Awesome.
• 1:22:14
  Are you going to get a story of? 1000 swigs photo or Yeah I have
• 1:22:18
  I so I have. I'll have this one for the 1000
• 1:22:22
  swigs that I'll bring up and the other one, the first one I did
• 1:22:25
  is I did a swig cosplaying as Sir Gerard. 4 legions gone
• 1:22:31
  amazing. And the the 1000 swigs inspired
• 1:22:33
  us too because I've. Got 2 swigs coming along.
• 1:22:35
  Mal, you've got one, I mean you and John.
• 1:22:37
  Is it the one the weird 1 you showed yesterday?
• 1:22:40
  Well, that was a dark room group.
• 1:22:41
  OK, you should do that anyway. You guys have heard the.
• 1:22:44
  Story. About 1000.
• 1:22:46
  Swigs and how that all started? Because I made a mistake, I
• 1:22:49
  assume. Yeah, yes, yes, I.
• 1:22:52
  Have to say that in all my years of.
• 1:22:54
  Marketing. This might be my favorite thing
• 1:22:57
  I've done. The fact that I was able to turn
• 1:23:01
  over ordering Swig into this absolute love fest for this
• 1:23:06
  bumbling goblin alchemist has become just a wonderful, like,
• 1:23:11
  happy accident. It's like what I said earlier,
• 1:23:13
  these happy accidents, these moments of magic that happen
• 1:23:17
  around 4 Horsemen Studios. This is a perfect example
• 1:23:20
  example of that. Yeah, I mean I I had to buy an
• 1:23:23
  extra 1 to do. This custom and I wouldn't have
• 1:23:25
  bought it otherwise. So there you go.
• 1:23:27
  There you go. There's one extra marketing.
• 1:23:29
  Marketing. At work.
• 1:23:32
  And just the fact he's a spy. I mean John and Mal have seen my
• 1:23:34
  2. So 1's an actor and 1's one's an
• 1:23:38
  outdoorsman, and they're infiltrating their particular
• 1:23:41
  sort of areas. They're going into sort of
• 1:23:43
  thing, and it's just just great fun, wonderful, wonderful.
• 1:23:46
  Yeah. I got to order soft goods.
• 1:23:47
  Clothes to which my daughter loved.
• 1:23:49
  Them bless her, she was like nice, she's like you're dressing
• 1:23:51
  up you're dollies as like they're action figures and I
• 1:23:53
  just happened to have clothes for them.
• 1:23:55
  I don't know what you're talking about.
• 1:23:57
  So this is the last one I showed I.
• 1:23:59
  Revealed this actually on the show and again this this started
• 1:24:04
  I had you know, the torso and waste piece from Bouchotti
• 1:24:09
  pelvicus and I realized that I could paint those little you
• 1:24:13
  know, like plate pieces. I could paint it like a cross,
• 1:24:17
  like Sir Gerard Weirs. And I said, oh, maybe I should
• 1:24:20
  do a Sir Gerard for the Shoguns. And as I was thinking about it,
• 1:24:24
  I was like, OK, well, what would I make Sir Gerard?
• 1:24:26
  Well, he's a changeling. And then it just kind of clicked
• 1:24:30
  in such a perfect way where I've become so known for the kitsune
• 1:24:34
  customs, and kitsune are actually changelings in a lot of
• 1:24:38
  Japanese folklore. So it just felt like it went
• 1:24:41
  together so perfectly to actually do the Sir Gerard and
• 1:24:45
  make this version of him a kitsune.
• 1:24:48
  So that's where we go. It's a fabulous big Yeah.
• 1:24:52
  It's really good, yeah. Thank you guys like this custom,
• 1:24:55
  eh, right. So that's your, that's.
• 1:24:57
  Your display, That's my display, so I'll have two tables at
• 1:25:00
  Legions con. So I will have the mythic
• 1:25:03
  customs display for Mythic Shoguns.
• 1:25:06
  These are not for sale. These are ones that are on
• 1:25:09
  exhibit only. And as I've been very clear, I
• 1:25:12
  do not anticipate ever bringing this collection out in full like
• 1:25:16
  this again. It'll be in my collection here.
• 1:25:19
  So when I do the mythic meetups at my house, certainly you can
• 1:25:22
  see them in my case, but this is the only time they'll be on
• 1:25:25
  display like this. I will also have a second table
• 1:25:29
  nearby. My family does travel to regions
• 1:25:33
  con, you know, last couple years they've run the legion shop
• 1:25:36
  table for me. So Legion shop.
• 1:25:38
  Obviously we closed that this year, so that's not around
• 1:25:41
  anymore. But I do still have a table
• 1:25:43
  where I will have a number of my custom figures for sale.
• 1:25:47
  And I actually just a bunch of random stuff like I've got some
• 1:25:50
  toys that I just don't need that I'm going to bring everything
• 1:25:54
  from some higher end packaged items.
• 1:25:57
  Not not even legions. I'm not even talking legion
• 1:25:59
  stuff, some higher end package pieces from like Mezco and and
• 1:26:03
  stuff along with the exact opposite.
• 1:26:06
  Just a bunch of loose figures that are in bags for 5-10 bucks.
• 1:26:13
  Cool, cool. So that'll.
• 1:26:15
  Be a fun table to to have a look at.
• 1:26:17
  Yeah, something to see, one table, something to buy at.
• 1:26:19
  Another. And do you ever have much time
• 1:26:22
  to buy anything yourself? Jeremy at Legion.
• 1:26:24
  'S con are you? Are you literally just running
• 1:26:26
  around? No I do.
• 1:26:27
  I do buy some stuff last. Year My big buy last year was if
• 1:26:32
  you saw at the immortal collections table they have like
• 1:26:35
  a big like Asian style dragon troll.
• 1:26:40
  I bought that, so I got that from.
• 1:26:44
  Carlo and. Tristan last.
• 1:26:45
  Year. So that's actually in my
• 1:26:48
  display. It actually, it's normally
• 1:26:50
  displayed with the mythic Shoguns actually.
• 1:26:53
  So I do walk around. I do.
• 1:26:55
  If there are things that catch my eye, I'll buy.
• 1:26:57
  I'll certainly probably buy some Glios figures while I'm there.
• 1:27:00
  I've been bitten by that bug. There's all glios behind me.
• 1:27:05
  So I do walk around and when things catch my eye I will try
• 1:27:08
  to to pick them up. I don't usually get first shot
• 1:27:12
  at things because I am so busy. So by the time that I get
• 1:27:16
  around, they're a little picked over.
• 1:27:19
  Do you buy 3D parts or anything like to maybe?
• 1:27:21
  You know, if you're saying no, I need a couple of these heads for
• 1:27:23
  stuff if planned in the next. Realistically I I genuinely
• 1:27:27
  don't. Only because of my limited time
• 1:27:30
  for customizing. I try not to buy 3D parts unless
• 1:27:35
  I know exactly what I'm going to do with them, just because I
• 1:27:38
  have so many that I haven't used yet.
• 1:27:41
  I mean, it's tough because I have some 3D parts that I've had
• 1:27:44
  in a bin for four years that suddenly I'll have a project
• 1:27:48
  that I'm like, that part is exactly what I need and it's
• 1:27:51
  wonderful to go have access to just pick it out of my bin and
• 1:27:55
  use it. But knowing how many I have, I
• 1:27:59
  tried to, I try to avoid just buying just cool parts if I
• 1:28:04
  don't have a plan for it right now.
• 1:28:06
  Very good. And yes, it's very easy to get
• 1:28:08
  carried away with that. That's like.
• 1:28:12
  Remember Rich? I listen to the show.
• 1:28:14
  I've heard you run down spreadsheets of all the parts
• 1:28:18
  and how you're going to use them and they're going to be part of
• 1:28:20
  the Red Hellions faction. You're going to do this.
• 1:28:23
  I, I, I know that it's easy to go down that spiral.
• 1:28:27
  How many? How many is on your list now
• 1:28:29
  painted? Parts you're looking for, Rich.
• 1:28:31
  You've narrowed it down to what I've narrowed it down to 49 for
• 1:28:35
  this year's. Legions con and that's excluding
• 1:28:38
  the the 12. I've already pre bought people.
• 1:28:42
  No, these are. These are not full.
• 1:28:43
  Customs. Everything it's no, these are
• 1:28:45
  just no. I'm trying to limit the full
• 1:28:46
  customs issue. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:48
  I do so one of the things I do. Like is I.
• 1:28:51
  Have a number of custom pieces in my collection by other
• 1:28:55
  artists and other friends of mine and stuff.
• 1:28:58
  So a lot of stuff like that, if I buy something, I like to have
• 1:29:02
  it in my collection because not only is the piece wonderful, but
• 1:29:07
  I'm friendly with the person and it adds that little extra
• 1:29:10
  special level to it. Oh, for sure.
• 1:29:13
  Yeah. That's why like I.
• 1:29:15
  I. Wouldn't I paint so I wouldn't
• 1:29:16
  necessarily have a reason to buy a painted head for example.
• 1:29:19
  But I try and get painted heads from different people that I am
• 1:29:23
  friends with that do paint as well.
• 1:29:25
  I think that's that's always a cool thing to do.
• 1:29:28
  So I have a few to to pick up this here hopefully and get
• 1:29:33
  around to a few different tables the the 11 artist I don't.
• 1:29:38
  Have something from I. I don't have something from you,
• 1:29:41
  John, but true. Well, there's plenty to pick
• 1:29:44
  this every year. I don't have a piece from Eric
• 1:29:48
  Miller. And the reason I don't have a
• 1:29:51
  piece from Eric Miller is I'm holding out to one day find a
• 1:29:55
  way to get him to sell me Figment.
• 1:30:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:30:00
  I figure if I'm going to get, if I'm going to buy an Eric Miller
• 1:30:03
  piece, I'm going to buy my favorite Eric Miller piece.
• 1:30:06
  And I know I'm lucky because I can't imagine how much that
• 1:30:10
  would cost me, but I know he doesn't want to sell it.
• 1:30:12
  So it's kind of this wonderful. It's this wonderful scenario
• 1:30:16
  where I can tell myself I'm holding out for that piece
• 1:30:19
  knowing I'll probably never have to actually dig into my wallet
• 1:30:22
  to buy it. Yeah.
• 1:30:23
  I think if you need any sort of a trade or.
• 1:30:25
  Something. Sorry, Richard.
• 1:30:27
  Yeah. Or if you need any tips about
• 1:30:29
  Gently Harrison. People first stuff thing go to
• 1:30:31
  Curtis. Obviously it worked with you,
• 1:30:33
  with the Disney Princess that you redid for him.
• 1:30:37
  Yes, that's the whole thing is I made him one because I because.
• 1:30:40
  I, you know, I love that figure. He wanted the Princess of the
• 1:30:43
  Frogs so bad that I finally was just like, you know what, I want
• 1:30:47
  to make this dude happy, but I'm not selling a mine so I just
• 1:30:50
  made him one right so. We we don't want you to be too
• 1:30:54
  delayed for your BIOS. So I just have one more
• 1:30:56
  question. Do you have any, any stairs on
• 1:30:59
  on where we might be going this year with the with G Con or
• 1:31:03
  well, I do and I mean so. We're recording this.
• 1:31:07
  It is October 25th, but you have said that this is going to drop
• 1:31:12
  on the Monday of Legions Con week.
• 1:31:16
  That's right. Yeah.
• 1:31:18
  So right now what we have. Going on by the time that this.
• 1:31:21
  Ears, the preorder for the Graveyard Skeletons will be
• 1:31:25
  done. The graveyard skeletons goes
• 1:31:27
  until Halloween, midnight on Halloween.
• 1:31:30
  So the plan is that that next morning we're going to flip
• 1:31:34
  everything over. And like we do every single
• 1:31:36
  year, we post the list of this is the schedule for Mythic Week.
• 1:31:42
  And as part of that, we announce what G Con the name of G Con is,
• 1:31:49
  and therefore what the name of the new wave is.
• 1:31:52
  So I think it's safe that I can tell all of you because we're
• 1:31:56
  all friends here. You'll keep it secret for sure.
• 1:31:58
  Yeah, for sure. So that.
• 1:32:01
  Sounded really convinced them rich yeah, and I'd even tell
• 1:32:03
  the. Cat Sorry, I'm just.
• 1:32:04
  I'm just so excited. I'm I'm.
• 1:32:06
  Just keep us great. Face So yeah, so the name of the
• 1:32:09
  new wave is. Going to be Mythic Legion's
• 1:32:13
  Reign of the Beasts. Yes, if you permit me.
• 1:32:21
  I mean, I am no Mao, but I actually have the the right that
• 1:32:26
  I'm happy to read. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:32:29
  Go for it in the 1st. Stage of the Realm armies of.
• 1:32:33
  Nightmarish soldiers marched across mythos set upon the total
• 1:32:37
  destruction of all that stood in their path.
• 1:32:41
  The great Mother Celine refused to allow her home to be
• 1:32:44
  destroyed or her children to be slaughtered.
• 1:32:47
  Calling upon her powers, she brought forth 4 mighty warriors
• 1:32:51
  to stand against the evil powers that her fellow creator God
• 1:32:55
  Helios had wrought. These warriors would become to
• 1:32:59
  be called the Great Beasts, and Celine created each of them
• 1:33:03
  specifically to match the horrors of the evil generals
• 1:33:06
  called the Dark 41 By 1, these mighty warriors emerged, taking
• 1:33:12
  their places as the leaders of armies of brave soldiers
• 1:33:15
  dedicated to protecting mythos. They would defeat their evil
• 1:33:18
  enemies during a period that history would one day call the
• 1:33:22
  reign of the Beasts. Oh wow, I.
• 1:33:29
  Mean in all our discussions of this over the we say the last
• 1:33:33
  year or so was always mentioning maybe we'd if we got the beast
• 1:33:38
  even one of them or whatever but so this is music to my ears for
• 1:33:42
  sure yeah, I'm extremely excited but.
• 1:33:46
  You know we're 4. Horsemen Studios.
• 1:33:48
  We don't we, we like to still have some surprises.
• 1:33:51
  We like to go this what I just read to you, this is going to be
• 1:33:57
  part of when we dropped the announcement on Monday and
• 1:34:00
  everything this will be in there.
• 1:34:01
  So what I've shared here, by the time this drops, this will
• 1:34:04
  already have been out. It'll be again November 1st on
• 1:34:08
  that Friday is when it'll be out.
• 1:34:10
  There's obviously going to generate a lot of speculation
• 1:34:14
  like any of our announcements do.
• 1:34:16
  I'm still very, very excited for what we're going to present at G
• 1:34:20
  Con because even with this information, we've got some
• 1:34:23
  surprises for some people. And I think as a whole G Con,
• 1:34:28
  I've been saying this G Con ISM like any we've ever done.
• 1:34:32
  This is the 25th anniversary. This is the 10 year anniversary
• 1:34:35
  of mythic Legions. You know, we've got a really,
• 1:34:39
  really great wave with Reign of the Beast to display, but we've
• 1:34:43
  also got some other surprises that we're going to be looking
• 1:34:46
  at as we look ahead and we talk about, you know, what this
• 1:34:51
  anniversary means. I cannot wait to be able to get
• 1:34:55
  all this information out there just so I can talk to people
• 1:34:59
  like yourselves, fellow fans, about what you've seen and how
• 1:35:03
  we're all excited for this. Because guys, you said it at the
• 1:35:06
  start. You know, I started as a fan.
• 1:35:08
  I started as a member of the community.
• 1:35:10
  I still very much consider myself both.
• 1:35:13
  You know, I, I have the distinct privilege of having this
• 1:35:17
  position with the studio, being able to play that ringmaster
• 1:35:22
  role and help bring the stuff to light.
• 1:35:24
  But at the end of the day, I am so darn excited for these toys.
• 1:35:30
  I'm with you all on that. And mark my words, I think you
• 1:35:33
  guys are really going to like some of the stuff.
• 1:35:35
  Stuff we have to show, no doubt. So cool.
• 1:35:38
  No doubt. And I mean, I knew I, I knew
• 1:35:41
  that being the 25th anniversary, there's going to be, you know,
• 1:35:44
  more obviously the Armory was more Yep.
• 1:35:47
  But I still knew, obviously we knew we were going to have the G
• 1:35:50
  con wave. But I still know that there's
• 1:35:52
  stuff that, you know, even within that or around that
• 1:35:55
  that's going to be Econ starts at 10:00.
• 1:35:59
  Yeah, it ends. At 4:00 PM and if you stand
• 1:36:03
  outside of those doors at the end of the G Con, my my
• 1:36:09
  suggestion or my anticipation is people are going to be walking
• 1:36:12
  out just shaking their heads, just going like, wow, like how
• 1:36:18
  are we going to set up our tables as exhibitors after that?
• 1:36:21
  It's just the level of. Announcements and surprises and
• 1:36:26
  just everything that we have cooked up for this year, it's
• 1:36:30
  going to be, it's going to be next level.
• 1:36:33
  That's all I can say is it is going to be it's a very, very
• 1:36:36
  special year. And me worried, I said earlier,
• 1:36:42
  one of the challenges is trying to top this year what we did
• 1:36:46
  last year. I have no worries that we topped
• 1:36:50
  what we did last year with this year's G Con.
• 1:36:53
  I have no idea how we're going to top it next year.
• 1:36:56
  Like, well, that's next year's problem.
• 1:36:58
  Who cares? Strictly speaking.
• 1:37:03
  This is the anniversary. Year, you don't have to be this
• 1:37:07
  good. You can be a little less good
• 1:37:10
  exactly. Or you can be different.
• 1:37:11
  You can be different. Good.
• 1:37:12
  You know, that's also. So I said to my wife, I'm
• 1:37:14
  different good today, but it's going to be cool too because one
• 1:37:18
  of the things I'm excited. For with these reveals is there
• 1:37:22
  are certain things that everyone wants and everyone's expecting,
• 1:37:26
  but to me, the most exciting reveals are the unexpected
• 1:37:30
  things. The people that the the ones
• 1:37:32
  that people like. I did not see that coming.
• 1:37:35
  Like that is super cool. I didn't see that coming at all.
• 1:37:39
  So those are the types of reveals that I'm really, really
• 1:37:43
  excited for. There's some reveals that I just
• 1:37:48
  think people are going to be very excited talking about for a
• 1:37:52
  while and they don't necessarily have to be, you know, figure
• 1:37:55
  type reveals. There's some other cool stuff
• 1:37:58
  that we have planned that's going to make some ripples.
• 1:38:00
  Some ripples. Wow, this is amazing.
• 1:38:04
  So I think we've got our podcast content gents for.
• 1:38:06
  The next few weeks after Legions party, Yeah, exactly.
• 1:38:09
  I will. I will.
• 1:38:10
  Tell you guys though. There is absolutely zero chance
• 1:38:15
  I am bringing Rich up onto the stage this year because after
• 1:38:21
  last year with Rich looking at my phone, I've learned my lesson
• 1:38:26
  that he has got like double O 7 spy level abilities there.
• 1:38:30
  We know when we did, we did suspect that if on the off
• 1:38:33
  chance he did. Like last year, that that Rich
• 1:38:36
  would be told to go the opposite side of you.
• 1:38:38
  You know, in, in my defense, Greg, Greg, Greg will come out.
• 1:38:41
  There you go mate. You were.
• 1:38:43
  Good you saw the since they would you just.
• 1:38:45
  Yeah, I was just so excited. I sat there fidgeting on my seat
• 1:38:48
  like a child. At like getting ready to do
• 1:38:50
  something. It's like, Oh my God, Oh my God,
• 1:38:52
  Oh my God, sorry, I was. Going.
• 1:38:57
  To say I think I think one of the the.
• 1:39:00
  Actually super exciting things about this year's G Con and the
• 1:39:04
  reveals he's OK. What we we know now does provide
• 1:39:09
  some expectations, some thoughts on what might go on.
• 1:39:12
  But actually still there is this whole part of it.
• 1:39:16
  It could be anything. And that's, you know, probably
• 1:39:22
  we've already sort of said we're not even going to try
• 1:39:24
  speculating because it could be anything.
• 1:39:28
  And that's what's going to happen now when we drop this.
• 1:39:30
  Name. People are going to speculate
• 1:39:33
  what it is and I will tell you right now they're not going to
• 1:39:36
  be right. Like don't you maybe have some
• 1:39:39
  idea, like some stuff, you know, you're everyone always gets
• 1:39:43
  certain things correct or close, but even within what we're
• 1:39:49
  presenting, there's a lot of surprises.
• 1:39:52
  There were going to be a lot of things throughout G Con that are
• 1:39:56
  going to surprise people within the framework of what we're
• 1:39:59
  doing here. That's awesome.
• 1:40:02
  So Rich and. Are you still most looking
• 1:40:05
  forward to the breakfast at Intern?
• 1:40:08
  That's what you told me you were most looking forward to, so I'm
• 1:40:10
  just wondering. I wasn't most looking forward to
• 1:40:12
  it, but those breakfast muffins are.
• 1:40:14
  Incredible when the the intern. E-mail went round and it was
• 1:40:18
  like. Breakfast bagels was that?
• 1:40:21
  I was like, oh, there's no mention of muffins, but OK.
• 1:40:26
  I don't even know I got the muffins from last year but.
• 1:40:29
  I'll, I'll have to. I could have even been in a
• 1:40:31
  neurolegions requested the same muffin so could have maybe it
• 1:40:35
  was even somebody that was attending.
• 1:40:37
  That was just nice and brought some muffins.
• 1:40:38
  You know, you maybe could have been that's you're saying
• 1:40:42
  there's no speculating. I was just going to say Mal.
• 1:40:46
  Saying there's no speculating, my family just got.
• 1:40:48
  Home a second ago and I'm going to ignore them on holiday next
• 1:40:51
  week. I'm just going to be running
• 1:40:52
  through various things in my head.
• 1:40:54
  They could just do whatever they like.
• 1:40:55
  It's just, yeah, spreadsheets of possibilities.
• 1:40:57
  It's just like whatever and you'll just be what's up to me
• 1:41:00
  and Mal just going well. Oh glad I just had an idea what
• 1:41:03
  it means. Is breakfast the intern for a
• 1:41:05
  day here not? Not the way.
• 1:41:08
  No, I do mean the the. The new way.
• 1:41:12
  Sorry. Yeah.
• 1:41:15
  All right. I don't think we could top that.
• 1:41:17
  So, Jeremy, this was awesome. John.
• 1:41:21
  Sorry, so good. Can I Can I ask?
• 1:41:23
  What I had one more question for Jeremy, which is it ties into
• 1:41:26
  that last bit, but it is an important thing you say, Jeremy,
• 1:41:29
  that you you stay at the hotel whenever you're in the Legions
• 1:41:33
  call hotel whenever you're in New Jersey.
• 1:41:35
  I do My question for you, and this is a vitally important
• 1:41:38
  question, is do you have a favorite meal at the pub in the
• 1:41:41
  hotel? If you do, why is it so I eat
• 1:41:45
  there? Quite often they have a like
• 1:41:50
  mozzarella flatbread that I get quite frequently.
• 1:41:54
  They also have there's like a corn chowder type like soup that
• 1:42:00
  I get as an appetizer, a potato, potato and bacon soup or
• 1:42:04
  something. I think it is that is really
• 1:42:07
  good. So I like that as the appetizer
• 1:42:09
  and I get the like the mozzarella with some kind of
• 1:42:13
  like balsamic glaze on it. I do get that quite often.
• 1:42:17
  They also have like a crab cake burger that I I really like a
• 1:42:21
  lot. I get that every once in a
• 1:42:23
  while. The fish and chips are good.
• 1:42:25
  I've, I've literally, I've gotten so much off that menu.
• 1:42:28
  I've eaten there so many times. I mentioned to Mao, when I, when
• 1:42:33
  I heard the episode where you guys were talking about, you
• 1:42:36
  know, wanting American food, I mentioned to Mao, there's a
• 1:42:40
  place. It's, it's so funny because when
• 1:42:43
  I come in for all the years that I've come to this, all the times
• 1:42:47
  I've come to this hotel, I always come in from a certain
• 1:42:51
  side of the highway where I don't see that there's a
• 1:42:55
  restaurant literally right next door.
• 1:42:57
  It's unfortunately not within walking distance.
• 1:43:00
  You would have to like drive there or get an Uber there or
• 1:43:03
  something. Going from the hotel there is
• 1:43:06
  probably going to take a few minutes because you have to go
• 1:43:08
  on the highway and around. But coming back it is, I kid you
• 1:43:12
  not, it's a 2 minute drive. It is right, right there.
• 1:43:16
  It's called Miller's Ale House and it is it's one of these
• 1:43:20
  restaurants that you get anxiety looking at the menu because it's
• 1:43:25
  so many options and so much stuff looks good that you start
• 1:43:30
  looking at it and you start thinking, am I going to have
• 1:43:32
  time to eat here a second night? Because if I can, then I can get
• 1:43:36
  this now and that then. But it was really cool.
• 1:43:40
  It's, I mean, it is a very typical American like restaurant
• 1:43:46
  pub type thing where it's, you know, Bar and Grill type place,
• 1:43:51
  but they've got everything from pasta dishes to burgers and
• 1:43:56
  sandwiches and chicken dishes, pretty much whatever you want.
• 1:43:59
  But it's giant port. It's very American Giant
• 1:44:03
  portions, a lot of salt, very, very good, a lot of fried stuff
• 1:44:07
  sounds. Perfect for a weekend, or you
• 1:44:09
  might have Miller. 'S Ale House.
• 1:44:14
  Well, we got a. Snag Noah and his truck there.
• 1:44:18
  You go instead of Jersey Mike's. We'll have to go down there.
• 1:44:22
  Cheers, Jeremy. Yep, thanks.
• 1:44:24
  Thanks for coming on stay. Safe Jeremy.
• 1:44:29
  I will see you guys in a few weeks.
• 1:44:32
  I. Just have to play the outro rich
• 1:44:33
  in case you asked another question.