Wednesday, June 4, 2014

The Origins of Maddie and The Four Horsies of the Pocalypse

They made a ton of noise across the internets when some art of Maddie, the lovable Cthulhu-esque pony was discovered. This snowballed into the Kickstarter currently picking up steam and set to make this Horsie of the Pocalypse a force for destruction among your toy collections! We grabbed Klim Kozinevich to find out how it all began.


Paul Nicholasi: Those who have been in the toy industry for some time know Bigshot Toyworks as the creative force behind killer collectibles from major action figure giants to renowned artists realizing their creations in plastic. So what exactly does Bigshot Toyworks do?

Klim Kozinevich: Bigshot Is a full service creative shop with a deep focus on character design and brand development for advertising, toy and entertainment industries. We create memorable characters and help our clients utilize those characters in print and TV advertising, and also use our highly refined development pipeline to turn those characters into toys , gifts and other high end merchandise. Because of our long history of product development and production for so many major toy and entertainment brands, We are able to not only to offer our clients first class sculpture, prototype and production services, but we can also get in at the early stages of development to help flesh out the look and feel of the characters, the world, and the overall brand look for them. All these stages are unified and supported by our unique development and production pipeline





Usually we set up teams of experts to tackle any given project. You need a story? We get a writer in to work with our concept and character guys. You have a story? We will drop it into our cycle and create amazing looking characters, vehicles and props. You want to make toys? We have made hundreds of unique products ranging from theme park premiums and advertising giveaways to remote controlled cars, fully articulated action figures and high end collectibles for the games and film industry. Basically, over the past 18 + years, we have been building a network of some of the best artists working in the industry and pull them in on a project to project basis. This has been a great success and we are always expanding and growing.

PN: With all of this creative energy constantly being thrown about, you must have been dying to create your own products at some point.

KK: Many friends clients and colleagues have looked through my personal sketchbooks and often suggested I should be creating my own projects. I have been building quite a library of new brands, concepts and characters and “Maddie and the Four Horsies of the ‘Pocalypse” is the first of what we hope will be many fun projects down the line.





PN: What was it like to bring these adorable lords of chaos to life?

KK: I have been working with my in-house team for months on refining and fine tuning the look and attitude of the characters while thinking only briefly about who they are beyond the basic premise. Then, talking to Jason about who the characters are, the world and our ideas really gave the project a whole new perspective with more depth and personality. We kept building on our ideas and it all started to snowball from there. The original idea was "Would it not be funny if I did some designs of what the kids of the horses of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse would look like?" Jason helped to open up that conversation into the bigger world, fleshing out what are their relationships are, what the characters are like, and who are the other characters? I was cracking up over the thought of Death's mom saying "Are you kids hungry? You are all bones! Let me make you a sandwich.”

PN: So they've got back stories?

KK: They all have stories. There is a whole world and a hilarious premise that sets up all the animated shorts we have planned. All this kicks off with Maddie. She is the primary character that holds the others together. The 4 Horsies are all troublemakers in their own way. In fact, they are the ones that are set to bring on the 'Pocalypse, but they just can't get it together to make that happen. Maddie is the "Older one" tasked with the job of keeping them in line, teaching them and helping them become the Nightmareish fillies they are destined to be.






PN: Are they distracted by cartoons and endless hours of Ancient Aliens?

KK: and school! They are always trying to bring on the 'Pocalypse but fail miserably and Maddie is always frustrated.

PN: So what can we expect to see in the months to come as the Kickstarter rolls out?

KK: We hope to have production samples ready in about 2 months after Kickstarter, then ship the figures out. If there is demand, we will look to make the other main characters...hopefully in the same size but I am open do doing 2" or 3" minis of all of them if there is interest. Basically my goal is to make this happen at all costs, and then hopefully move on to other things like ROBOTS and TANKS and ROBOT TANKS with awesome human characters, furry animals and fantastical creatures

For more info on Bigshot Toyworks, head over to their WEBSITE!
To secure your own Maddie and bring us all one step closer to a full line of Four Horsies of the Pocalypse, hit their KICKSTARTER and make it happen!

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