Originally appeared on Facebook as daily posts, I decided to collect this series of MOTU concepts on my blog as well, so you can see them all in one place at once.

With all the talks about a possible rebrand of the Classics line of figures for 2016, I wanted to explore what I would personally like to see.

I then created a series of B-Sheets portraying a line-up of figures, based on MOTUC molds, but reworked to offer new versions of the main characters, offering a jump-in point for new collectors. Released as a full year line, they would probably work mixed with other unreleased characters, appealing to the existing MOTUC collectors too.

Going by the name of the line "Signature Series", a name mentioned by the former MOTU brand manager echoing the latest DC Signature Series, I envisioned a line of figures that pay a big homage to the original creators of the line. Most of the figures I sketched are redesigned to reflect as much as possible the original B-Sheets that Mark Taylor created in 1981.
Which mean, they are not really my own designs, but they are what originally generated MOTU, as Mark was the creator of all the main characters.

Mind you, you may not recognize some of this stuff, or think some of the color scheme are pretty arbitrary. They are not. Everything is based on the original Mark's colored drawings I had the privilege to see a couple of years ago and that hopefully will be published in one of the future The Power and The Honor Foundation publications.

But why not go completely wild and just design figures that look exactly like the b-sheets, with different bodies etc.? Because I tried to design a complete and affordable line up of figures that could be released over the course of an entire year and remain affordable especially since this would be what rebranding means: bringing back main characters for people that missed out, but using most of the existing molds and changing line name and packaging

That also means, some figures have more new tooling, and cost more, some would have less, and cost less but help fitting the higher-tooling ones in the budget.
It’s how MOTUC worked since day one.

A few extra notes: rebranding the line means mostly the following things:
-Refreshing the “appearances" of the line, by changing mainly the line name and the packaging.
-Reusing as much as it’s possible existing tooling
-Bringing back the main characters.
You may not want that because you already have them, but that is not how the marketing works for those things. A “rebranded” line will supposedly try to catch up with collectors that didn’t buy this line in the first place, or that got into it too late and can’t find or afford the first releases anymore, all this while appealing to a portion of the existing customer that will buy again the main characters.

Now, mine is just an idea of many possible. I approach it with a very nostalgic and historical eye. I don’t think this is the best possible, it’s just what I’d love most.
Also, this idea was originally what I would have loved for the 30th anniversary line.

Where did I left?
Oh yes, Palos Verdes! Once Power-Con was history (at least for me it is now) on Monday we went visiting Mark Taylor and Rebecca at their beautiful home! Rebecca had invited also Peer and Kevin "Jimpansen", two awesome MOTU fans from Germany and they joined us for the ride.
After being amused by the street names in Palos Verdes, we arrived at Mark's place, where we've been joined by Rudy Obrero and our new pal Errol. Rudy hadn't seen Mark probably since 1982, so that was a great reunion happening in front of all of us!
A sudden toothache prevent Ted Mayer to be there too, but we'll hopefully do it again next year.

I remember Peer being totally in shock for the surreal experince. And I knew what that was like! Hanging out with He-Man creators and artists, and while we had planned that for month, for him it was a totally unexpected turn of events!
Despite me getting a cold, we spent a wonderful day with Mark and Rebecca, enjoying the beatuful view on the Pacific Ocean and listeniing to stories about MOTU, the toy industry, crazy airplane flights and a lot more!

Mark will always have a story to tell, and all of them are fascinating. One funny anedoct was that Mark was telling us about a King Kong playset by Playmates he designed and Rudy exclaimed: "I did the box art for that set!" Without them even knowing, the awesome team the created Graykull and the famous boxart for it, had been reunited by Playmates on another project!

We left Mark and Rebecca later that night, me sneezing like crazy but all very happy for the time spent together. I lef the house not just a fan anymore, but as a friend. The best thing that MOTU brought to my life is definitely the people I met, the friend I made. One day, I will probably make a blog post about this.

The following day, while handling the flu, we didn't stop! Early in the morning we went to visit Dave Wolfram, who showed us some very cool MOTU concept art. We should be used by now, but no, we were once again amazed by the great stuff Dave had. All this is now saved for future Foundation projects of course, so I won't go in details, but among that we also saw a lot of other art for Judge Dredd, Food Fighters and Captain Power! Dave was extremely sweet and let us scan all his art, which is now preserved forever by The Power and The Honor Foundation.

After a quick stop to get some Tylenol, we paid a visit to the Otis College where Rebecca teaches.
Rebecca gave us and Peer and Kevin a tour of the college and well, how can I describe the feeling of being in a college which has an entire floor dedicated to toy design?  It felt like the place where I wanted to be! And I was not even sure I wanted to be there teaching or studying! That place is just awesome, and the students are simply amazing. We got a glimpse of their skills and no wondering on why companies try to steal them from the college before they even finish courses.
For anybody interested or just curious, I suggest to check Otis website, just the video presenting the courses it's so captivating already! (and look, Martin Arriola is there too!)

After the Otis, having still some time to kill in LA before our flight back to NJ, we went with Peer and Kevin on hunt for toys and collectible shops. We didn't find anything special, but it was fun! I wish we had more time with both of them, and I hope to see them again soon at Grayskull-Con.

Wow, all this in just 2 days. I want to keep these posts shorts, so let's end this one here for now. The rest of the trip may not sound so exciting, but it's still filled with little MOTU tidbits, so hold on for Part 3!
And, hopefully I will get to make some posts about Castle Grayskull and the DC comics soon too
Oh, and tear apart the new minicomics of course!

Josh, Mark Taylor and Me

Okay, almost a month: from September the 20th to October, 15th, I've been travelling in US. Needless to say, about 95% of my time has been spent as a MOTU fan. Yeah, shocking news, I know.
Being out of He-Man.org didn't diminished my passion and my commitment to MOTU in the slightiest and I was lucky to do a lot of cool stuff and make a lot of great experience as a fan during the month in US. And even if I have tons of stuff to do, I'm gonna bore you with a small journal of what I did there!

First stop was Los Ageles, where with my pal Josh Van Pelt we immeditaly went to meet one of the most influencial artist in MOTU. Nope, not Rudy Obrero, and not Bill George (even if we had the pleasure to meet both of them later on during the trip) An artist which remained a mystery to many for 30 years, and still, all He-Man fans are familiar with his art. The amount of art he created for MOTU is probably 4-5 times what George and Obrero did together. Thanks to Mark Taylor, we got in touch, and we had a wonderful time at his home. We'll soon reveal more about him on The Power and The Honor Foundation website, for the moment, let's say he's an incredibly sweet, humble and nice person, who also let us borrow all his art and take it with us at the hotel in Torrance, where we spent most of the following 2 days scanning like crazy.
During Power-Con, many friends stopped by our room to take a look at the historical pieces laying on our beds during the scanning process. They all had the same shocked look I had when I first looked at that art, and they have been extremely lucky to share with us that incredible sight.
Don't worry, you know why we did all that. Years ago I promised I wanted to wait to present all those toy design pieces we had, to make it right. Rest assured we want to do make justice to this artitst and his work too, so just keep your finger crossed!

The PAH Foundation crew!

Oh, right, Power-Con.
Or the lack of it. I won't be hypocrital. That was a bittersweet experience. I was officially cut out of anything Power-Con related, barely allowed inside and with silly restrictions. My plan was not to go at all. Still, I went in a couple of times, mostly to say hi to friends there. And that was the best part. The words I heard most where "I'm glad you're here". I felt the trust people put in me and their love was still intact and that was really heartwarming and made me feel a lot more relaxed.
The sad part that being officially excluded, I was not allowed to share lot of things with my friends and hang out with them as much as I wanted. And I don't mind admitting I enjoyed the work I did last year at Power-Con, which I missed this year.
Sad part aside though, everybody has been wonderful and I so loved the time I had chance to spend with all my friends: Danielle & Magoo, Karla, Arnoud, James, Tom, Chuck, Josh B., Pete, Mike and Englebert, Nate, Dan, Leanne & Rod, Israel and last but not least Eric, Jim, Owen, Shane and Sherri from the Four Horsemen Studio, plus all the great fans I met or met again (too many to list!)
If I forgot someone, you can call public shame on me when I'll post this on FB (but a couple of German guys may want to wait for Part 2...)

Martin Arriola was a blast as usual, now joined by Ed Mosqueda, which showed us a few great pieces he worked on (including purple & black haired tytus and Eldor test shot!) Larry DiTillio was sweet as always and speaking of Filmation, this year I also got to met Rob Lamb! Rob was one of the higlights of the days in LA for both me and James, and thanks to him now the Foundation now has lot more very cool art!
I had also the pleasure and the honor to intruduce Rudy Obrero to William George. What a moment!
Oh, and I sold out of my prints in half an hour!!

On Saturday, we had to stop scanning earlier and set up the room for the Friends of  The Power and The Honor Foundation Foundation Reception.
Thanks to the art loaned from friends, we had some amazing stuff on display. Some never-seen before art (with very cool surprises) and a huge homage to (and thank to) Mark Taylor. For us, that was the best way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of He-Man.
We also had the He-Man Power Tester on display, but we coudn't manage to make it work properly. Oh well.
The reception was successful: a nice, relaxed, small thing, with a few friends and guests that chimed in all night to say hi and check out the art. I'm glad we did it, and I'm glad so many friends showed up and donated to be part of it :)

The Cake Ricky made for us!

Our pal Ricky also brought us a great and tasty cake skillfully made with the vintage MOTU cake pan!!

In the afternoon, while setting up, looking at all the cool stuff by Mark, I decided to give him a call at home to describe him the view of the room and say hi. Mark was very happy to hear it was looking good and asked me where we were. I told him the hotel's name and he said he would have joined us for the night.
My mood immediatly jumped and I told everybody we were going to have a very special surprise.

Everyone was captured by Mark's stories!

Mark and his wife Rebecca arrived later during the dinner and spent the rest of the night with us the fans at the reception. Everybody was listening to Mark's stories about He-Man and toy industry and I was just sitting back chatting with Rebecca and thinking there was nothing better for He-Man's birthday party to have his dad there. Fans loved Mark and Rebecca. Both me and Josh are extremely grateful they joined our little thing and I'm sure all the fans feels the same. It was a wonderful time and I'm so grateful also for Mark and Rebecca trust and friendship: another thing I will never forget.

And those were just the first 3 days!
But before we move to Palos Verdes, I gotta get back to Transformers, work is calling!
Stay tuned for Part 2, (hopefully) soon!