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Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 22 Dec 2008 18:37
by SteveD
paul463 wrote:
SteveD wrote:And on all of those catalogue pictures the Muton has a clear visor - the green must've been a last minute change of mind?
A woman in charge of the design team perhaps?
he he! No, if it were the baron would've been shown sat looking bored whilst the muton changed his visor several times whilst asking if it made his antenna look big, before deciding not to go out after all?

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 22 Dec 2008 21:46
by Muton
SteveD wrote:
paul463 wrote:
SteveD wrote:And on all of those catalogue pictures the Muton has a clear visor - the green must've been a last minute change of mind?
A woman in charge of the design team perhaps?
he he! No, if it were the baron would've been shown sat looking bored whilst the muton changed his visor several times whilst asking if it made his antenna look big, before deciding not to go out after all?
And Muton has a red visor, not green! :muton:
Am I the only one with a clear visored Muton in his collection then?

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 22 Dec 2008 22:06
by paul463
Muton wrote:And Muton has a red visor, not green!
Am I the only one with a clear visored Muton in his collection then?
Gosh so he does! Confused it with the other green bits (he says checking a Muton close at hand) Stewart a picture of the clear visored Muton would be great.

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 22 Dec 2008 22:08
by Quickfire
:muton: had rando red and green visors didn't it? The clear one is way cooler.

Oh and look - the MMS has yellow tipped missiles... and why did the Panther get yellow rollbars?

:quick:

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 22 Dec 2008 22:09
by Quickfire
Muton wrote:
SteveD wrote:
paul463 wrote:
SteveD wrote:And on all of those catalogue pictures the Muton has a clear visor - the green must've been a last minute change of mind?
A woman in charge of the design team perhaps?
he he! No, if it were the baron would've been shown sat looking bored whilst the muton changed his visor several times whilst asking if it made his antenna look big, before deciding not to go out after all?
And Muton has a red visor, not green! :muton:
Am I the only one with a clear visored Muton in his collection then?
You just reinvigorated the Muton market on Ebay. Got any spare visors?

:quick:

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 23 Dec 2008 01:50
by SteveD
Blimey? Is it true? are we to know be scouring Ebay for Muton variants??? All of this snow is clearly making Lucifers hooves cold...

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 23 Dec 2008 22:32
by paulitoy
-
Here's one I noticed back in the day, the cardback Infantryman (wrongly labelled Sapper) has a different head than Wheels and the production figure.


looks like he got it stuck in a jam jar
''Andy1672''


Image

:doc: :doc: :doc:

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 24 Dec 2008 01:05
by The Baron
Looking at Dave Tree's observations, are these Star Wars heads?

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 24 Dec 2008 09:24
by Muton
I noticed the clear visor on the cardback when I was originally buying and playing with these. Like I said Muton was my favourite, but I can confirm that in 20 years of checking Muton bubbles, EVERY single one produced was red! The prototype one has clear visor, and black gloves. I managed to buy one with only the green part of the visor, and no red bit ever attached, and customised the clear part, I'll put up a picture in the customs thread. If you look at the bigger pictures on the vehicles you can see the visor is completely smooth and featureless unlike the production version with the pebbled finish and crosshairs. :muton:

Re: Swordfish prototype with hatch ?

Posted: 24 Dec 2008 11:27
by Dave Tree
The Baron wrote:Looking at Dave Tree's observations, are these Star Wars heads?
could be, but been struggling to think what head that might be, the only heads big or long enough have beards off the top of my head (Ben and Madine).

In terms of why there are so many non-production pieces in the line up, it's not that unusual as in any product devlopment, certain things have to be signed off to be able to hit a release deadline, especially for a brand new toy line. Packaging and photography would have been done way in advance of the the production pieces coming off the lines. I used to work in product design and there were a couple of occasions we had to create a 'visual appearance model' either for photography or sometimes for an Argos catalogue shoot in order to hit their publishing deadline. The product itself would be a dummy, just a shell, nothing working in it, but for a picture most would not be able to tell the difference, however when the production piece arrived, there would often be slight changes like materials, parts ended up in gloss, not matt, pantone colour changes in the plastic etc.

Hopefully some of these might have survived :)