Prepare for the coming of 8-Ball, a Raging Nerdgasm inside look

(join the fun www.facebook.com/ragingnerdgasm)

Those of you that have followed me for any length of time know I'm particularly partial to Kickstarter campaigns. It's a great way to not only get something funded but also get something in return for donating towards someone's cause. I've done a bunch of them in the last 12 months, everything from Renny's Oki Doki food truck and the many OMFG minifigure series to the Uncle Rukus movie and tons more media projects. Some have gone through, some have not but all have gotten not only my monetary support but also my personal vote of confidence and usually some kind of write up on www.ragingnerdgasm.com . As luck would have it, when the project is about a toy it gets a little more attention from me. I've gotten very active when it comes time to support the OMFG minifigure series, so much so we entered a design and won a spot in the upcoming series 4. While cruising Facebook posts a couple of months ago I saw a post for a 4 inch tall creature strongly resembling a Madball figure. I read the tag line;

(I can't tell you how much I like this mini poster.)

"Coming to Kickstarter in July comes your chance to own the first of Radioactive Uppercut's newest line up; Radioactive Rumblers."


What is Radioactive Uppercut? What is a Radioactive Rumbler? Good questions one and all, they will be answered shortly.

(Background card art not final.)

Radioactive Uppercut is the working name of Johnny Santagada, a man who's professionally been a part of the toy industry working for the greats such as DC Direct, Mezco and Gemmy (known for making everything from animatronic Santa Claus to Freddy Krueger and beyond). Designed by Johnny Santagada and sculpted by ERA Sculptures, 8-Ball is a detail packed 4 inches tall vinyl figure with 3 points of monster mashing articulation. The project encompassing 8-Ball and the Radioactive Rumblers have been an ongoing project for Johnny for the last 6 years, a labor of love waiting for the right opportunity to spring it on the collecting world. If you ask me the time is certainly right. Art toys, vinyl toys and independent toys are three of the hottest commodities in the market, especially when you consider the ever rising cost of figures at retail and the value you get for your money is laughable.

(Dat ass @_@)

The inspiration for 8-Ball comes from 50's and 60's sci-fi / horror movies and comics along with 80's gross out toys like Madballs, Monster in my Pocket and Garbage Pail Kids. All of those 80's toy lines are hot commodities on the secondary market right now with even figures in poor condition commanding big money. The verison you see in the photos will be the exclusive Kickstarter color scheme, anything sold outside of the Kickstarter campaign will have a different decoration. $55 gets you 8-Ball in all his classic sofubi glory packaged in a poly bag with header card and a trading card featuring original art on one side and character statistics on the other. Of course there will be other donation tiers featuring everything from custom painted 8-Balls (by the likes of George Gaspar, Spanky Stokes, Ed Long, Damien Glonek, Monsterforge, Tom Connors, Butcher Brand, Motorbot, D-Lux and Topheroy), "Radioactive" green and blank white 8-Balls for you to test your painting skills with. Also putting your money where your mouth is will get you exclusive rights to vote on upcoming Radioactive Rumblers (provided that funding is acquired through the first campaign) and color variants of existing figures in the line. Keeping with the time honored tradition, 8-Ball with be manufactured in Japan in true sofubi fashion.

(join them on facebook at www.facebook.com/radioactiveuppercut)

Stay tuned to both Raging Nerdgasm and Radioactive Uppercut for more news regarding the Kickstarter campaign and hopefully more Radioactive Rumblers coming soon!

(A sign of what may be in the future....)

Raging Nerdgasm moment- OMFG series 3 submissions

A couple of months ago, we here at Raging Nerdgasm entered October Toys OMFG (Outlandish Mini Figure Guys) series 3 submission and voting is coming to an end. With just a couple of days left, your friends here at Raging Nerdgasm would like to implore that if you haven’t done so already to vote for your favorite series 3 submission (and hopefully it’s one of our submissions). This time around we got organized and submitted three options for this round of the very successful minifigure line created by the fine folks at the forums of Octobertoys.com and founder George Gaspar (and his wife Ayleen of the weekly show “Toy Break”). Normally they urge you not to submit more than 1 entry but here at Raging Nerdgasm we totally believe in going all in on a pair of 2’s and playing like you have all four aces’. If you will, please take a look at our submissions and vote for your favorite soon. Voting ends September 29th, 2012 (less than 2 days).

#16- Roadkill

Roadkill was slightly inspired by the no holds barred style of M.U.S.C.L.E minifigures from the 80’s. We always loved how the series had just about anything your mind could imagine as a wrestler; man/buffalo hybrid on steriods or a 7 foot tall clawed hand with a face on the middle finger and everything and anything inbetween. But yet as much as we loved the series, only a few of them were any more functional as any other rubber figure. There was the guy that could be used as a top but that was just about it. With Roadkill, we wanted a OMFG minifigure with the ability to be cool looking and functional in it’s own way. Roadkill went through several different stages of evolution till we came to a crowd favorite of a free-wheeling version with spiked shoulder cuffs and muscular arms. We thought that a OMFG character that could victimize other characters by rolling over them would make for a hilarious design and add to the overall play value of the whole line. Like I said before, they urge you to only submit one design because some people may only vote once for an artist since you are only allowed 5 votes per ballot. I felt that both Bullseye and Roadkill could definitely hold their own and so far I haven’t been wrong. What a thrill it would be to get two submissions into series 3.

#17- Bullseye

Bullseye was one of first doodles that gained our Raging Nerdgasm forum and the October Toys forum’s seal of general approval. Taking what  elements we love of Garbage Pail Kids, Monster in my Pocket and other equally fun figurine lines; Bullseye is a mutant eyeball with hooves, horns and a tail. Luckily through both amazing coincidence and absolute luck, we teamed with board member EMBoyd who in the end helped us bring tangible life to our 2D drawing and hopefully give it the necessary edge to make Bullseye a part of OMFG series 3.

#18- Bottom Feeder

One thing we’ve noticed over the two previous series, nautical themed characters seem to fare well in the voting stage. For those with a fetish for fish and other things that swim in the briney deep we designed Bottom Feeder, deep sea desinen feeding off of the greed of the surface dwellers with his retractable pearl attached to his tongue. In the end, after several drafts, we went with a full clam/oyster body covered in barnacles with lobster pinscher arms and stubby legs. Bottom Feeder may be recycled for series 4 submissions but only the next few day can tell what may happen.

One of our main objectives here at Raging Nerdgasm is to leave a mark on the toy industry, to eventually become a leading source for toys, games and pop culture nonsense that you’ve grown to love and maybe even get into the independant toy game. Getting into OMFG series 3 would be a dream come true for us and a stepping stone in the right direction for us. Not that not getting one of our submissions made into a minifigure would hinder us any, we would  just have to explore another venture to get the Raging Nerdgasm name out there. Like we said before, if you haven’t yet, please vote for your favorite OMFG series 3 submissions. You get to vote for your 5 favorite submissions once and details of the winners should be released sometime in the following weeks. Voting ends September 29th and if you like what you’ve seen, please vote for our 3 designs when you cast your vote for your five favorite choices.

To see all the submissions CLICK HERE!

To register and vote CLICK HERE!