Archive for the 'General' Category
— December 12, 2007
Cool Toy Review today reports that Gentle Giant has had to cancel some of their products that were recently announced. Gentle Giant is canceling the Will Turner and Captain Barbossa animated maquettes from the Pirates of the Caribbean line. They are also canceling baseball cap, ultraviolet pen, canvas patch, and embroidered patch planned for 30 Days Of Night.
The main reason manufacturers cancel products is due to little or no demand from retailers/distributors. This may or may not be the case here.
This is not good for Gentle Giant and might be an omen of things to come. Many of the fans believe that Gentle Giant has begun to branch out too much, causing them to be spread too thin lately, rather than focusing on their core properties, such as Star Wars.
It is my belief that in addition to spreading themselves too thin, Gentle Giant has begun setting edition sizes too high to be “limited editions.” This combination of problems has caused their products to be in much less demand than in previous years. This can be backed up by simply looking at eBay. Outside of the super limited exclusive editions, the majority of Gentle Giant products can be had on eBay, often much lower than retail price or even cost.
Update: Gentle Giant sent out an e-mail to collectors tonight with a clarification on the situation.
Hello Gentle Giant Collectors,
We just wanted to take the time to clarify some information regarding our Animated Pirates of the Caribbean Maquette line. Although we announced the cancellation of distributor orders for Will Turner and Captain Barbossa Maquettes at the beginning of this week, we are still producing the 2 items. These items will be available directly through Gentle Giant and limited to 1,000 pcs world wide. They will be available to purchase through our website www.gentlegiantltd.com in spring of 2008, and are currently still available to pre-order. We have not cancelled preorders previously placed through the website. You must be logged into your account to see the pre-order.
Thanks,
Gentle Giant Ltd.
So to clarify, distributor orders were canceled, but Gentle Giant is still producing the item and selling it directly through their web site. I’m guessing that there was not enough demand from retailers/distributors for these items, so rather than scrap all their plans they decided to sell it exclusively through their web site. I’m betting that with the current retail situation, we are going to see more direct sales like this in the future.
— December 1, 2007
If you have seen the store recently, you may notice some big changes. As soon as Hero Hunt closed, it has been re-opened. Only now, the listings will be pulled from somewhere else. Can you guess where? Well, Ebay, of course! If you can’t beat them, you may as well join them.
As for the changes, the first thing you should notice is that Gentle Giant products are being displayed exclusively on the first page. From the side navigation, you can browse the categories listed there which are action figures, comics, Harry Potter collectibles, Lord of the Rings collectibles and science fiction collectibles. You can also search these results from this web site from the search bar located at the top.
I hope that you will still find the site valuable, even though you are no longer buying directly from me. On the plus side, buying from eBay, you should be able to save money on newer products. You might also be able to find older items that you missed the first time around to add to your collection.
You may be asking why would I browse eBay from your site instead of eBay directly. Well, that is up to you to decide. I think it offers a lot of value in that it narrows your searches by excluding a lot of other categories and only showing action figures, comics and collectibles. So why not give it a try and see what you think? Let us know as always. Thanks.
— November 29, 2007
To anyone who visits this site:
You may have noticed the lack of updates to this site in about six months. There is a reason. Unfortunately, the store part of Hero Hunt is closing ASAP. Now that most of my inventory is gone and all pre-orders have been taken care of, I have no reason to keep the store open. Thus the decision to shut it down. The site will be sticking around though. This blog will also continue. I will be launching something else here soon, so stay tuned. I hope you will like it.
Why I am Closing my Store
I feel I need to talk about closing my store here, and this is the place to do it. I have been wanting to talk about the ins and outs of the business for a long time, but it never felt appropriate, mainly because I didn’t want to bite the hand that feeds, i.e. Diamond Comics. I think the need for a series of blog posts detailing my different business experiences with Hero Hunt is necessary. Probably more to come on that. For now, I’ll stick to why I am closing the store.
The main reason is simply competition. There is too much competition online right now in the collectibles business. There are many established online stores selling the same items I was, and more are cropping up everyday. And the 600 pound gorilla in the room in this business is eBay. It was not profitable for me to operate an online store, therefore it was not worth my time. So about six months ago, I stopped accepting pre-orders through the site. After that I began trying to unload my inventory through various outlets, mostly through eBay, at less than wholesale prices. More on this also later.
There are other reasons besides competition that it was not profitable for me to run an online store. Competition is just the main reason, I feel. One of these other reasons is Diamond Comics, which is also a huge part of the problem of competition. I have very strong feelings for Diamond Comics, most of which are negative. Diamond deserves a whole post in itself, so that is about all I will say right now.
Other contributing problems were e-commerce, as a whole, and the collectible industry in general. I have more to say on all these subjects. So I don’t think I am finished yet. If you want to know more about this, stay tuned. Thanks.
— September 22, 2007
Gentle Giant updated their blog, and informed everyone about all the new items that are in stock in their store. Below is the full list that they posted with links to the store. They were in stock as of their posting, as far as I know. Of note is the Darth Maul mini bust and the Elrond and Sam and Frodo mini busts.
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Animated Pirates of the Caribbean
Star Wars
Keep in mind if you buy through them you are paying full price, even if you are a member. Most of these can be had cheaper if you shop around, even the ones that have been out for a while.
— September 20, 2007
That’s right, it’s triple H baby! CoolToyReview.com has new images from Gentle Giant tonight from Harry Potter, Hellboy and the new horror line.
From Harry Potter, we see pictures of new busts bust-ups of Bellatrix Lestrange and 4 Death Eaters. I’m guessing these are in the classic bust scale rather than the six inch scale or bust ups. Funny thing is the Bellatrix likeness is a bit off compared to the regular Bellatrix bust and the movie. Update: This is a five pack of bust-ups from Order of the Phoenix.
From Hellboy, we see images of two alternate headsculpts from the new Hellboy rotocast figure.
From the new Horror line, we see images of the Animated Friday The 13th Jason Maquette, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Leatherface and Chop Top mini busts, and The Descent Crawler mini bust.
Also shown, are new images of the Pirates of the Carribean maquettes, which are also up on their web site. Enjoy!
— September 13, 2007
Gentle Giant has updated their web site with final approved product images on the following products. Click on the links below to view the updated images.
Star Wars
Admiral Ackbar mini bust
Tusken Raider mini bust
Darth Maul with Bloodfin Statue
Lord of the Rings
Eowyn Classics bust
Legolas Classics bust
Gimli Classics bust
Harry Potter
Bellatrix Lestrange mini bust
Nymphadora Tonks mini bust
— August 20, 2007
Rebelscum forum member BlueSnaggletooth appears to have an inside connection to Gentle Giant. He has posted a Q and A with Amanda from Gentle Giant on the Rebelscum Gentle Giant forum. I am going to present a point by point summary here and also in a series of blog posts through the rest of this week. Read the full Q and A plus responses on Rebelscum here.
- GG may go back and revisit the Clone Wars Maquettes at a later date.
- No plans for another MBNA exclusive bust at this time.
- There will possibly be bronze pieces produced for other licenses, but they want to see how the first offering goes.
- GG has the same product lines for Indiana Jones as they do for Star Wars. The first official Indy piece (one of the ones shown at SDCC) will be up for pre-order soon.
- GG hopes to possibly have more Clash of the Titans and Harryhausen products released within the next year.
- A Star Wars 4-LOM is on the list to be made.
- GG hopes to get the Collector’s Collections feature up and running in the next few months and start up the ‘Collection of the Month’ contests again.
- Jabba and the Band statues have just made it to the docks and/or will be in the next few days and should be arriving to the GG warehouse within a week or so. That should make these items getting to retailers/distributors end of August, beginning of September.
- The Dooku/Asajj statue lightsabers do not have a light-up feature, but that could change as they are still in development on the piece.
- There are no current plans to do a “Fans Choice” mini-bust where PG members get to vote on who they want, but you never know what may pop up in the future.
- No word on the upcoming Blue Senate Guard statue and who it will be exclusive to. They will let everyone know when something has been decided.
- They hope to bring back the Blog comments sometime next month.
- The reason Blister gets so many exclusives is that Japan is actually a huge market for Gentle Giant and not just a store. Blister also happens to be GG’s main distributor for Japan.
- They’re already looking/planning ahead into 2008/2009 and are toning down the amount of total exclusives they will be producing as well as the outlets that products are exclusive to.
- The AT-TE Gunner Accessory Pack will be around $15/$20.
- There is always the possibility of producing Biggs and/or Wedge in some form down the line.
- The black light posters (for the Premiere Guild) should be starting to ship out next week. The other licensed and GGLTD goodies will be shipped later. There are 3 licensed products and 3 GGLTD items. All the licensed products are exclusive to the PG and will not be available anywhere else. Some items will be great for display and some you will be able to use everyday.
- There is nothing in the pipeline right now for other Cantina denizens in mini-bust form, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
- There are plans to improve the PG program for 2008 to provide better access to exclusives (not via raffle). Before the end of the year, there might just be a few more Premiere Guild only items popping up.
- There is no B/W variant of the Stormtrooper Maquette. The Blackhole Stormtrooper Maquette is the ‘variant’ to the Stormtrooper Maquette. There are no immediate plans to continue the Black/White Maquette variants.
- The little bust of Ray Harryhausen, is actually something Gentle Giant Studios put together, and not really a Gentle Giant Ltd. product.
- They’re in the process of possibly re-vamping the “studio” section on the website into more of a behind the scenes type section.
- The Gentle Giant Booth at the Baltimore Comic-Con will only be where you can pick-up your Pre-Orders. They will not be selling any other products at the show. Baltimore Comic-Con will be handling the sale of the convention exclusives at a separate booth. They will also be offering the PG members an advance window time to place their “Pre-Orders for Pick-Up”, before opening it up to the rest of the members of our Collector’s Club.
- GG will not at this time consider making a small amount of Holiday busts available to PG members via the raffle.
- Gentle Giant Ltd. is now the official licensee for Star Wars LEGO resin products. The LEGO Blackhole Stormtrooper Maquette is the first official LEGO/Gentle Giant Ltd. product.
- Offering up the Life-Size Animated Princess Leia, is still the plan.
- No comment on whether or not Gentle Giant will be producing a companion piece to the the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi in Clone Armor statue, as many have speculated.
There you have it. I tried to summarize, but that is a lot. I will be adding separate blog posts for the major announcements that were made here throughout the week. I appreciate any feedback you have in the comments here or at get_real@comcast.net.
— August 13, 2007
Some of you may remember that Gentle Giant used to have a section on their web site where readers would send in pictures of their collections. Every month Gentle Giant would pick a winner out of all the submissions they received and showcase the winning collection on their web site. Since Gentle Giant redesigned their site at the beginning of the year, they have stopped doing that.
Well, I have decided to do bring it back by doing something similar. If you want to show off your Gentle Giant collection, send your pictures to me, and I will post them here. You won’t win anything, except the respect and admiration of your fellow collectors. I will post as many pictures as I receive, as long as they are good. So get started today, and send your pictures to get_real@comcast.net. Thanks!
— August 4, 2007
If you watch the forums, you may already know this. Gentle Giant updated their blog today with information on items that are now shipping. Here are the items that are starting to ship or are already showing up at retailers near you.
- Clone Wars Animated Yoda on Kybuck Maquette
- Princess Leia - A New Hope mini bust
- Harry Potter Bust-Ups: Classic Moments
— August 3, 2007
This logo was posted a while back on the Rebelscum forums courtesy of IrishJedi.
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