Iron Studios is a relatively new player in the
statues arena. As XM Studios which is from Singapore, Iron Studios is not from
United States or Japan, but from Brazil. So how a Brazilian company took the
statues’ market by storm? Let’s find out with Gabriel Ebehardt, in charge of
Projects and Developing of Irons Studios
GE (Gabriel Ebehardt): First of all we would like to thank
the opportunity of this interview. Is very nice and important for us to see how
great is our brand outside Brazil.
1 – I think the first question is the more
relevant of all: how a Brazilian company got Marvel, DC and Star Wars licenses?
GE: Warner, Sony and Disney has their own offices in
Brazil. Our country is always top 5 in the blockbusters movies so the companies
are very stronger and do an amazing job in Latin America and of course Brazil.
Today Brazil is the top 1 country in Latin America and Iron Studios has a good
relationship with the licenses because of other companies from the same group: Piziitoys (the biggest collectible distribution company in Latin
America) and CCXP – Comic Con Experience (the 3 biggest Comic Con in the world).
Since all the companies are part of the same group, the connections are very
good and make it possible.
2 – How did you the partnership with Sideshow –
as a distributor I imagine – came about?
GE: Piziitoys is the official Sideshow dealer in
Brazil since 2008, so the companies are very close to each other and since the Iron
Studios became real, was very comfortable for everybody to make this
partnership happen.
3 – To how many countries your products are
available today?
GE: Depends of the license and scale, but for
Ghostbusters (Sony), for example, we’ll sell for more than 10 countries.
4 – How many years of existence Iron Studios
have? Tell us a little about your trajectory.
GE: Actually, Piziitoys has a great partnership
with Kotobukiya since 2007 and in 2009 the companies decided to produce an
Ayrton Senna Statue, they did 2 statues one in 2009 and one in 2010, Piziitoys
had the license and Kotobukiya the production, the same thing happened with
Minichamps, they did a Ayrton Senna 1/18 car holding the Brazilian flag.
This was a
new game, a new part of the company, the part of “production”. So the group
decided to create a manufacturer company, then Iron Studios was created and
started in 2012 very small, doing Saint Seiya and Simpsons statues. The company
became bigger when they signed with Disney for all these years. It was great
for Iron Studios and great for Disney in Latin America…then everything developed
very quickly as you know.
5 – How much time it takes from the first
concept to the final product consumers will receive?
GE: Depends. It can take 8 months it can take 2
years. We started to work on Hulkbuster, for example, almost 1 year before the
movie was released on big screens, was a very, very complex product. So it all
depends, there is no rule. Depends of the character and details.
6 – How is the status of the collectible
figures hobby in Brazil? How much of your production is bought by Brazilians?
GE: Piziitoys do the distribution of all the
statues in Brazil, we do directly in the other parts of the world. We are
companies of the same group but with totally separated sales and
administration. What I can say is that Iron Studios is huge in Brazil now, 90%
of the items sold out at Piziitoys during the pre-order, so is great. We can’t
complain.
7 - Do you think the collectible statues frenzy
is a global phenomenon or are there specific countries where the hobby is
stronger (apart US, obviously)?
GE: We always research and study a lot about it, I
think the Pop Culture is a worldwide phenomenon. Of course collectibles are
kind of a niche compared to toys and apparel, but it takes so much attention of
everybody, because they are perfect and represent exactly the characters it
calls so much attention but I don’t think it will get bigger than toys, for
example.
8 – How do you answers to fans complaints about
the lack of better quality control of mass production pieces and poor
packaging?
GE: We always want to improve, this is how we
treat everything in all the companies. So you’ll always see a better and better
work from Iron Studios.
9 – In what Iron Studios needs to be better or
are there issues you need to address first (if any)?
GE: I think we need to do things that are different,
trying to innovate. The biggest issue of a company is to be stagnant. So this will
always be the biggest issue, we must always think differently and do better all
the time.
10 – Do you use 3D software to build your
sculpts or there is a part that is handmade? Is handmade statues era coming to
an end?
GE: We
use both. 3D is not perfect yet. Everybody must use hand (and will use for a
long time, I think)
11 – Which figure(s) are you most proud of?
GE: Oh, hard question, I think Captain America
Legacy Replica 1/4 because of likeness and Thanos Deluxe Art Scale 1/10 because
of the difficult to produce such details in a very small piece.
 |
| I think he forgot this one. :) |
12 – What figure is your all-time bestseller
product?
GE: For 2016 was the Batman Vs Superman Art Scale 1/10
line up. Batmans disappear in less than 1 week.
13 – What do you think will happen to the
market when 3D printers become efficient and mainstream as today paper
printers?
GE: It’ll never be easy, you can find 3D printers
that can print anything, but quality 3D printers cost millions, very hard to
find and especially very difficult to buy because of the high cost. This is like
a graphics companies, you can’t print a box of a TV in your house, you need to
go somewhere else. With products will be the same. Quality is everything at the
collectibles market and will take some time until the best 3D print can do
everything, now we still need a lot of human hand.
Now I don’t
see as a threat. Maybe for the toys market, but even then, the print and
material costs for are much higher than to order a manufactured piece. Our
Hulkbuster 1/6 Diorama Age of Ultron for example costed more than U$ 15,000.00
just in materials to print, then we have all the costs of shipping the master,
tax, handmade work, mold (huge cost) etc…
14 – What is the most difficult part of running
a collectible figures company in Brazil? Is there any part of the mass
production made in Brazil or – as all others – you rely on Asian countries to
produce your figures due to costs?
GE: All pre-production is made in Brazil. So yes,
we do have a great team here to make everything happen. The hard part of the
day are the taxes, port and customs in Brazil. Sometimes a container stays 3 months
stocked on customs until be released. Costumers don’t know about it but is a
very difficult situation because it don’t depend on us, depends on the workers
and fiscals at Brazilian customs.
15 – Are you being on San Diego Comic Con? If
not, do you intend to someday?
GE: Yes, for the first time we’ll be in SDCC. We’ll
be at Sideshow and Bluefinn booth.
16 – What advices would you give to a person
who wants to work as a sculptor for a living?
GE: Study a lot. Our sculptors are the best in
Brazil, they study more than 5 years to became what they are right now. So do
just do it. Study a lot.
17 – What do you think is the best scale to
convey your ideas? The 1/4 series of movie Avengers is fantastic by the way.
Any plans to specialize in this size of statues since it seems to be
international preferred size of sculptures?
GE: With 1/4 you can achieve a lot of details. But
we do have a huge success with 1/6 and 1/10 as well. It all depends on your
pocket and room available.
18 – To most fans the base of the figure is
like a second sculpt in itself, so they care a lot about the base. Do you take
this in consideration when creating your pieces?
GE: Yes, we do a lot of work in the base. We love
the Dioramas and especially the figure been part of the history somehow. To convey
this we need to create bigger and more sophisticated bases. This is what we do.
19 – Any final words or bombastic announcements
you want to share with the fans and readers?
GE: Stay tuned, we can’t talk too much about
future lines, but we can say there is much more coming out soon. We have a lot
of new stuff coming at CCXP 2016 (1-4 December this year).
-x-x-x-
Thank you
so much for the interview, Gabriel. I’m sure our readers got to know a lot
better Iron Studios now. Good luck on putting Brazil on the collectible figures
world map. Hope Iron Studios continues to experience this growth of popularity
among fans around the globe!
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