Summary: Like all the releases so far – a head shaking, “cool-but too bad they didn’t…” experience that still somehow ends up being a must-have in any 1966 Batman Collection. Yes, it’s very nice and looks great. Loaded with mistakes when compared to the original on-screen version(s) but probably is an exact duplicate of someone’s replica out there. If it’s too much to ask for screen accuracy, it would have been nicer if they had at least changed the crappy wheels on the Go-Kart on the Elite version. If it had been the only one out they could have charged $85 and it would have been fine. The fact that a $29 version came out first with maybe $6 less detail parts on it just makes this version all the ruder. Still – had you told me 6 years ago that we’d be holding such a model and that it would be (for the most part) a mass market release – I wouldn’t have believed you.It’s a great model and if taken on its own merits – certainly worthy of your display shelf. Buy it from our retail sponsor, REPLICARZ and tell Brian that Scot from PMB! sent you.

The other day we inadvertently left a window open in the PMB! offices and just like we were Tina Turner, Ike smacked us down. Now, being this far inland and away from the Gulf, we didn’t get much more than big winds and rain (and power out for 7 hours) But we got rain all over a few folders of artwork and – yup  – Batmobile decal sheets.

We are all out riht now. The remaining sheets all got ruined. We have put out an emergency call to our decal guru and are hoping for a quick fix but please – if you’ve placed orders – either ask for a refund or hang tight. We’re working on it.

 Saw some preliminary shots of the new figures which look great.

Working with a new vendor on lighting kits (and more)

Got some great stuff coming in soon from Falcon Designs and Futurabat etc. so we’re trying not to let our serotonin levels get too affected by some silly rain.

We waited for the Elite.
Then we waited for the Super Elite.

Clown time is over.

People have been asking about the new upgrade parts and when were we going to show any of these parts/tips in action for months. We were waiting to see if maybe,  juuuust maybe Hot Wheels would pull an eleventh hour sneak, surprising all of us and defying all of their past performance. And we now know that was crazy nutty dream thinking. Like planning to win the lottery with your new “system” that uses a laser, a clothespin and tidal schedules.

But we now know better.

Now we dig in. Look for our upcoming new parts and tutorial videos and posts effective immediately.

Gentlemen – start your engines.

(wait, I think there’s a few more cliches I didn’t tap into, how about “Let’s Do This Thing” or “It’s On”…)

1.
Q. “What’s the difference between the ‘Products Page’ and the ‘Custom Shop’?”
A.  There is no difference! It’s just two ways to refer to the same section.

2.
Q. “I got my username and password but I still can’t get into the products page. What’s up? Help!”
A.  You missed the little memo on the security pop up that told you you’d be getting a first set of UN/PW for The Site and a second set of UN/PW a little later for the Products Page/Custom Shop.

3.
Q. “Okay, but it’s been an hour and I still haven’t received that second set of info!!?”
A. That’s correct. I actually screen every single registration and send out the second set of UN/PW myself, by hand. that means it might take me a little while to do so. Please hold tight and be patient. I have never gone more than 48 hours without responding.
- Also, please check your spam folders – we have heard that our replies have sometimes gone there.
- Also – sometimes people discard the second email, thinking they’ve already got the log-in info and that it’s a duplicate email. It isn’t. They’re different.

4.
Q. “Okay but that sounds like super overkill. Why do you do it like this?”
A. There are several reasons. To make sure we don’t get spambots flooding us and that everyone is a real person is one. But the main reason is due to some of the sensitive licensing zones that some of our products veer into. As we phase some of the more uh…contentious stuff out and feature all original artwork, that issue may go away.

5.
Q. “Okay, I understand the need for security but then why are there TWO sets of UN/PW’s? That’s a pain!”
A. Well, actually there are THREE.  Don’t forget the forum/message board. The reason for this is that we wanted to go cheap and easy on the message board and shopping cart to keep costs down so we grabbed what was out there instead of custom coding things that take time and money. And so the makers of these things all need you to buy into their systems. So we end up with multiple log-ins. We set up the Message Board log-in so that folks coming from the 1966 Batmobile site wouldn’t have to re-register for another message board. 

6.
Q. “I can log-in to the forums, but I can’t get into the other areas.”
A. Right. There are THREE different log-in scenarios. If you like - set-up the same username and password for all of them. That should help. Also – use autocomplete or have IE remember your passwords so you never have to type them again.

7.
Q. “AaaaarrrggHHH! It’s frustrating!”
A. I know. Sorry. We can spend all our time streamlining and revising the way the site works, or we can work on new modeling ideas, customizing batmobiles, and parts.

Hopefully we’ll be able to fix some of these issues some time in the future when we don’t have as many projects going on and products in development.

-S
    

2. Crimefighter Figures. The second and last batch of finished/painted crimefighter figure sets are going out this week. That’s it for the first gen. figures. We are working on a follow-up set but we don’t expect to have news on them for a little while yet. Our thanks to everyone who’s been patient and supportive through us finding our way with these.

3. Upgrade Parts Set #01. Well the Super Elite came, saw, but sadly didn’t conquer. Not even close. But we said we were waiting and we did. So now the wait is over. We are now moving forward with the first parts upgrade set. Hopefully we’ll have news on ordering and what’s in the final set very, very soon.

4. Products Page Updates. These are coming this weekend. We promise. Other new items and corrected pricing and photos. Sorry but we’ve been BIZZY. If you’re still having problems logging in – read one of the many helpful explanatory articles peppered here and there on this site.

Since then, we waited patiently as the Standard, Elite and Super Elite editions have been issued. It might be interesting now to take a look at things that changed (other than the previously well-discussed rollbar/canopy revisions) as the production cars came out. (This topic was sparked by Tim, thanks)

1. Bat Ray Trim Striping
Well this is one aspect of the prototype that we all naturally expected to get carried through to production but for whatever reasons – it wasn’t. What first seemed like an error of omission has since bloomed into an obviously economics-based intentional gaffe. They had too long to fix the paint apps and too many people have been complaining for 6 months for this to be acccidental.

2. Barris & Ford Badges
When HW laser-scanned the car, they brought along many placards and badges. These seem to indicate that both the Barris shield and the Ford oval badge that lingered on the #1 car as a reminder of Barris’ Ford sponsorship was intended to be part of the final product at one time. Maybe HW was trying to get Ford to pay for some of the tool-ups and the deal never got inked. Either way – they are both gone by the time we got the toys. It has been indicated elsewhere that Barris was only paid a consulting fee for this project. Maybe they tried to sell him ad space as well. 

3. Bat Radar  This just looks like a proto-mockup that they would eventually replace with either the plastic piece on the Standard or the photoetch piece on the Elites.

4. Rear Antenna Not a big thing but the prototype’s was taller and more accurate looking than any version that we got. Amazing because a guitar string looks better than any of their versions.

5. Non-Rader Wheel Rims This is pretty interesting because it shows that originally the rims were much closer to the ones on Barris’ car NOW (which are not Raders). One of the few times they seemed to skew toward 1966 versus the current condition of the car. (Though the new ones seem to be tri-ridge as opposed to just center ridge)

Are there more differences that we can’t see from this shot? Are there ones that YOU see and we missed? Let us know.

This is my desk at the moment.

Initial builds and brush-ups by TPM Customs, this first batch awaits some bat decals and final detailing and out they go. Just wanted to update some of you patient pre-orderers. I know it’s been a while, but we ARE showing progress. 

This is my other desk at the moment.

Suck ass Jakob Nielsen.

 ”I always wanted to be an animator and was fascinated by the multi-plane cameras created by Disney Studios and how animators used it to create a 3d effect in animation movies. My art has the same basic principle. each illustration is cut out by hand with an exacto knife then all the whited edges from the cuts are hand painted to match the illustration. each illustration is accompanied by one to two sheets of glass, sometimes I will have to paint portions of the illustration right on the glass. For example if I do a space illustration the stars, explosions and some of the planets will be painted directly onto the glass. Sometimes I use prints of the illustration and other times I use the original art either drawn on paper or painted on mylar then carefully cut out with an exacto postioned  on the glass with a divider between each illustration usually 1/2 inch. The materials include no less then 3 sheets of glass, depending on the complexity of the 3d. I have used up to 8 glass panes.”

Gator board or foam core is used as the dividers that are built up in sections to separate each illustration and lock in the the sheets of glass. There are anywhere from 3 to 5 levels of illustrations again depending on the complexity of the 3D. Some times 1 level can have a half dozen different illustrations in it or more. From start to finish A 3D illustration can take anywhere from a couple months to a couple years depending on the complexity.  

“Right now I have a 3d Star Wars space piece im working on with over 30 different illustrations on five separate dividers including over 20 Tie- Fighters, 3 XWings, the Millenium Falcon, explosions, a planet, the Death star and a couple thousand stars. I’ve been working on this piece off and on for over 2 years now. ”

Jim Hopkins works in color and black and white and can be commissioned. Mediums include, acrylic paint, water color, pen and ink,  and color pencil. All of the art featured here is available in 3D format as well as traditional prints.  His work is available through our site online and we will be featuring it in our ordering page soon, or you can contact him directly at jhopkins007@comcast.net

Jim is also a Batmobile Pimper:

(More of Jim’s art and batmobile customizing can be found on the message board)

If you’ve been patiently waiting for our newly designed decals to get started on your Hot Wheels mods – the wait is over. Andy got them out to us yesterday and they are great. Check them out on the products page. Everyone keeps asking if they are the same as Jason’s decals that he sells on ebay, so here’s the real poop – NO. They are all new, CORRECTLY sized designs spefically for the Hot Wheels 1:19.5 scale Batmobile. Jason’s decal set (which Andy also designed for him) were created for his resin 1:18 scale model 2 years ago. They’re nice, but his model is a full scale bigger than the Hot Wheels car so many of his decals do not fit the Hot Wheels car at all. We could have released those decals months ago, but instead – Andy went back to his original art, measured and re-sized everything for the Hot Wheels specs and now we have much more precisely-fitting decals available.

They are professionally printed wet-slide decals printed in full-color including silver! Just cut them and place them as needed. They work great with the photo-etch metal parts also available on the products page and the upcoming parts upgrade set which is almost ready for production.

See, people were moaning amount my hints, but really all you needed was the very first one:

We have a winner! Of the 167 registered users we had as of 6/1 our random number generator selected mnbatman as the recipient of the 1:50 Batmobile and Batcycle set! If you’re out there, mnbatman – give us a shout.

So let’s see what else…The seated figure samples just got here and they look better than we had hoped for. Production starts rolling and we should be shipping those out very soon. Thanks for all your patience.

And we are almost set to start production of the Parts Upgrade set #1 which will include a modified version of the Elite’s newly resized batphone. So some of you wanting to stick to customizing the standard edition can get the only useful part from the Elite version for your mod job. And it will be better. How? Wait and see.