Vintage Battle Beasts Find: Beast Eaters Box Art

On eBay, an auction surfaced for a "Beast Eaters" Swamp Smasher box mock-up.  As far as I know, nobody has written about these before and no prototypes exist.

There are potentially infinite concepts in the halls of Hasbro, Kenner, and other companies which will never see the light of day as artists sketch out concepts which never make it far enough along for us to see at retail, or even Toy Fair.  The above image is photoshopped from the art in the auction with some minor color correction,

If you know anything about this, or other unreleased Battle Beasts products from the 1980s, don't be shy! Reach out and touch us!

UPDATE: On May 29, this item sold for $583.49.

Battle Beasts: Sumo Blowfish, Egyptian Aligator

While for the comic book, new sketches of amazing, awesome, and otherwise fantastic new designs are surfacing at Previewsworld.com.

Sumo Blowfish is presumably not a final name (or even a guaranteed toy) but dang if that doesn't look like it would make a fun figure concept.  A few new figures (and an interview) can be found here and is well worth your time to read, drool over, whatever it is you kids do.  Maori Hammerhead is also quite striking and I gotta say these sketches really do show that this line might be slightly more open-ended beyond "animals in armor" which could make for a ton of interesting figures.

TONS of news! New Battle Beasts Minimates Interview with Zach Oat

Vorin... but which Vorin?

Over at ToyChestNews, Zach Oat of Diamond Select toys answers some questions about the one thing we're all looking forward to, new Battle Beasts!  Click here for the full interview.

Some highlights:

"The first Beast toys we'll have for sale will be a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive two-pack, featuring Vorin with his cloak down and an evil dragonfly character named Zik."

"Series 1 has both a scorpion and a tarantula, and both of them utilize a new four-pegged hip piece, which allows them to walk around on four legs."


"There will also be a couple of figures based on the book's human protagonists."


"They're two inches tall, they're really poseable, they cost less than $10 for a 2-pack... it just made a lot of sense for the brand."

There you go, Beast fans!  A new picture of a Vorin figure (above) is likely the Stealth Vorin, but as it was not explicitly labeled we'll leave that up to you to decide for now. (And in other news, who can sell me a Stealth Vorin?)

Stealth Black Vorin Minimates Figure Coming?

UPDATE: Diamond's own Zach Oat confirms it: "And there will also be a retailer incentive Minimate of Vorin in "stealth armor," available to comic shops that buy 25 copies of the comic."

The reliable, informed, and all-around nice dude Luke posted this little tidbit on the Minimate Multiverse boards.  So it's good news since it's a new figure... and potentially bad news for those of us aiming for a "complete set." Remember that blurb about their being a retailer incentive figure?  Well, apparently you gotta order a lot of comics to get it. Luke writes:

"This [retailer incentive] figure will be a 'Stealth Black Vorin' according to my Diamond rep. It will only be available through this promotion. We will not be carrying them, as we don't sell comics. If the number [of comics to order to get one figure] was lower than 25 I would consider it. "

As the comic book will be around $4, it wouldn't be out of line to expect the figure to sell for mid-double digits.  I'll be watching eBay, as the possibility of having a hole in my collection right out the gate is troubling.  Of course, the wholesale value of 25 comics is probably in the $50-$65 range, so hey, maybe you might buy a bunch to have something to hand out to the older trick-or-treaters?

Digibash: Not-Quite-Custom MOTUC Redeco as Battle Beasts

Your pal and mine Nik pointed me out to this thread on TFW2005, which features some interesting recolors of Masters of the Universe Classics figures as Pirate Leo, Skull Grotess (pictured), and Transformers Pretenders Catilla!

It's totally unrealistic to expect Mattel to make such a thing, but I'd certainly buy the Hell out of it.  Let's all bug ToyGuru!

Review: Diamond Select Battle Beasts Minimates C2E2 2012 Grey Vorin

Last week we looked at the clear red release, but this week I'm looking at Grey Vorin. This figure was distributed to retailers at an event at C2E2 (or so I've heard) so it's possible your local comic shop might have one to sell you. It's pretty much the same as the red one in terms of functionality, but the plastic feels a little stiffer and it does something particularly amazing in that it proves how much better a figure which is painted a single color can look compared to one which is molded in that color. In my other hundreds of toy reviews, I've noticed that a painted face often looks better than a molded face, and Vorin is no exception. The way light bounces off paint, in this case, changes a figure from pretty dang good to borderline spectacular. The candylike red figure looks nice-- don't get me wrong-- but the grey figure looks like it was painted in primer to use as a pitch sample of some sort, which I suppose it kind of is. When I have this figure in my hands, I can pretty much tell without a doubt that this line is going to be beautiful. Even with just one color (the figure is partially white plastic painted grey), the detail pops in all sorts of places. The red one is fun to play with, sure, but the grey one helps you to see all the sculpted fur, the knife on the back, and every teeny little bit of work that went into this figure.
[ READ THE FULL REVIEW ]

More Beast Saga Reveals from Japan, TCG Too

Once again, Battle Beasts superfan Sylvain added 3 new pictures of Beast Saga stuff to his blog, which confirms what many of us expected-- there's a trading card game, too!

You can also get a look at the dice-launcher mechanism in the figures, plus a painted sculpt of the previously-unseen-painted tiger (unpainted samples were at Sylvain's earlier.)   Cool!  Check it out.

Rise of the Beasts Lion Painted Factory Sample

Over on the Little Rubber Guys forums is the first painted Rise of the Beasts shots of an early prototype from the factory.  Oddly (and refreshingly) the rep for the line actually points out some of the flaws and proportions, with things like this:

"Note: These are the first pics of the sample sculpt. Not final at all. Also, this is the original factory that we already paid for this order. Not the current factory that we are working out specifics with."

Go see more, here. Registration is required for the pictures.

Review: Hasbro Battle Beasts Anarchy (Laser Beasts/Shadow Warriors)

When Diamond Select announced their plan to revive the Battle Beasts brand, that was my indicator to jump on the vintage guys-- people were ignoring them, and they may still be ignoring them, but I wanted to get as many as I could before that changes. (For the record, I completed a US set as of March.) Anarchy was one of the few Laser Beasts I picked up as he wasn't too pricey, and was pretty cool as another mole in this series. With a drill arm and a drill weapon, thematically, he's pretty awesome as a construction/destruction/explorer type.
[ READ THE FULL REVIEW ]

First Look: C2E2 Battle Beasts Minimates Vorin

It's Vorin! The first named new figure in Diamond's Battle Beasts line is here, and the C2E2 exclusive gets a bunch of photos over at 16bit.com.  Want to read more?  Click here!