BossMan Action Figure - Making Of


BossMan, a behind the scenes tour

All the skinny and behind the scenes action that created the larger-than-life super boss. Join us as we reveal the mysterious world of management... well, at least the secrets about how we managed to create BossMan!

Concept
BossMan began in mid-2002 with a general idea - that managers and bosses needed to both be celebrated and taken down in size a notch. In early 2003 we began outlining the character and accessories, and collected tons of reference art showing everything we wanted in our version of the modern manager. We also created rough versions of BossMan's superpowers and vulnerabilities.

In Fall 2003 we brought Toronto artist and animator Tom Nagy on board. Together we worked out the finer details on the character and Tom created some great art. Some of the Tom's work on early fine-tuning of faces and body shapes:


We had a good feel for most of BossMan's colours but had trouble with the shirt and tie. There's a lot of black in the character, from his hair to his suit and shoes. We tried a bunch of different looks with the suit and shirt / tie to bring out as much colour as we could:

In the end survey said the plain white shirt and solid red power tie was the right look. Tom's final coloured turnarounds:



Sculpting
In late 2003 Raven Hood, sculptor superhero, took the flat turnarounds and performed his magic to create BossMan's figure.

Raven sculpted BossMan as a 2-up, about 12 inches high or twice the size of the final toy. This helped him cram in as many details as possible. First he roughed out the basic character on top of an existing base model with the articulation built-in. Then he added the bottom half of the jacket, and all the little fine touches. The final model:

Paint Master
Two copies of the final model were shipped to Suzanne Lunquist, a terrific toy and model painter. A paint master is used by the manufacturer as a template – they match the colours and paint detailing on the final toy. Suzanne used her experience and artistic eye to suggest different approaches to creating the best paint master possible, and also helped to work around the high amount of black in the character. Some pictures of BossMan during the painting process:



Packaging

BossMan's blister packaging was based on the excellent work Justin Cheong and Kyle Kim had previously done with the GeekMan package. Kyle created the BossMan logo and Justin designed new elements for the back of the package. Shirley created the package background, integrated the logo and refined and updated the design with a fresh new look.

 

 

Manufacturing
During spring and summer 2004 we worked with our manufacturer to create a final tooling model. This occurred through several stages, starting from our 12” prototype and ending with a 6” final model.

Pictures of the first shot, a test used to refine the molds, and an engineering pilot - a near final check on the painted toy:

From the test toys we tightened a bunch of his joints, fine tuned some small details and made minor changes in paint colours.

Then we merrily sent BossMan on his way so he could begin to rule over your work day!

BossMan Action Figure - Credits

BossMan was brought to you by...

BossMan Creative Team
Raven Hood – Sculpt
Tom Nagy – Illustration
Suzanne Lundquist – Painting
Kyle Kim, Justin Cheong – Graphic Design
Kris Schantz, Shirley Yee – Creators

Happy Worker Biz Team
Kris Schantz – Mr. Happy Worker and Co-owner
Shirley Yee – Mrs. Happy Worker and Co-owner
Rod Thacker – Legal-Eagle-Beagle (Advisor)
Jason Herod – Mr. Money and Bean Counter (Advisor)

To our families, friends, and everyone who gave their time, feedback and support - THANK YOU!

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