Marvel
Legends Ultron- from Concept to Figure
Many posts and pages have been written on the topic
of the Marvel Legends Ultron figure. From the first leaked pictures
from Toy Fair 2005 to the "dog head" prototype pictures
to the final product fans were wondering why this design was picked
over a more classic streamlined look. Who was this new version?
What was the design based on?
  
The Design
This new Ultron was designed by Toy Biz favorite Paul Kimoda.
Kimoda also designed the cool Cyber-Spiderman figure in the Spiderman
Classics line and he sculpted the unmasked "hamburger"
head for the Marvel Legends Deadpool figure.
 
Since the story of Ultron involves him rebuilding or regenerating
every time he is destroyed, each time coming back stronger than
before, Kimoda was allowed to let loose on the design and come
up with a future incarnation of Hank Pym's "son." Let's
face it, apart from the scary robot head with that weird signature
mouth, classic Ultron is just a silver guy. Kimoda came up with
a new design that looked more like something that if it showed
up in your front lawn you would want some Avengers to assemble!
Here, for the first time anywhere AFI is proud to bring you the
original Kimoda designs for the Marvel Legends Ultron figure:
 
There are some very insect elements to the design
and a very bio-mechanical feel as opposed to just a robot. The
body is almost a precursor to the new Cylon redesign on Sci-Fi
Channels Battlestar Galactica with some very claw-like appendages.
The prototype
When pictures of the "dog head" prototype
showed up on the Toy Biz image disk given out to press at Toy
Fair, no one was more surprised than Jesse Falcon. The press photo
session for this wave of figures happened while Jesse was overseas
in China overseeing production. Normally he is at these shoots
and helps set everything up. The Ultron prototype had changed
to the more classic looking head several weeks earlier and this
version was never going to be seen outside of the Toy Biz offices.
The Finished Product
The figure was sculpted by the Four Horsemen. It
was one of the first Marvel Legends that they sculpted, and they
continue to work on the line. I suspect their run on Marvel Legends
may end now that the line has moved to Hasbro since that might
be a conflict of interest to their Mattel projects. Time will
tell if that is the case.
With the finished product it looks like there was
some middle ground taken to smooth out Kimoda's design and still
give some of the old robot feel to the figure. The double blades
of the elbow extensions become single, the feet lose a lot of
the spiky detail and the whole figure doesn't feel quite as armor
plated as the sketches.
  
 
 
Ultron is part of Marvel Legends 11 the Legendary
Riders series and is available at our sponsors: YouBuyNow.com
and Legends
Action Figures.
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