Zach Oat to Appear on 'Idolz'

Very often, someone will ask me to loan my artistic talent to a project. ...No, not really. It rarely happens. It's never happened, in fact. And sometimes the seething jealousy as I was overlooked in favor of more important and better-trained people threatened to consume my soul. So when the guys at Idolz Toyz asked me to customize one of their posable, stackable, tiki-inspired Idolz for them, I was instantly filled with a sense of vindication, and swore to do my very best.




Sadly, I didn't take into account the holidays, the surge of Oscar-quality movies hitting theaters and the fact that I was the father of a one-year-old. So I got delayed a bit, but the New Year gave me the time off necessary to finally complete my design! In addition to a couple carded versions of the first release, Gruntor (in camo, above), I was sent a totally blank version to paint however I wanted. After briefly considering making a Zach Oat Idolz, which my wife Melissa roundly discouraged, I settled on my favorite comic character, Hellboy, who is similarly craggy-featured.





I wanted to use the removable arms, so I passed on the sideburns in favor of the stylish BPRD trenchcoat. I tried to find a good-sized version of the Samaritan pistol, but ended up just using the included hammer, which I can only assume is magical, and kills Nazis. I'm pretty happy with it, and I think it stands up to some of the other Idolz customs out there, including Iron Man and Spider-Man. You can see those great customs on the Idolz Facebook page, and you can buy your own camouflage version at IdolzToyz.com! (No blank ones for sale yet, but maybe someday!)

Why My Wife is Awesome

...Okay, she's awesome for a lot of reasons. She makes me laugh, she's incredibly crafty, and she's having my baby. But today she made me pretty happy with what she considers a pretty small thing, but what an obsessive toy collector and Hellboy fan would call a pretty big thing. She said I could have the top of the two bookshelves to display my Hellboy collection. It's not even a very big collection, but it's there on display in the living room, and it's the first time I've been able to display all of my HB pieces together (including my Hellboy and Lobster Johnson statues, sculpted by my good friend Ruben Procopio for the fine folks at Electric Tiki). It means a lot to me, since I've loved Hellboy since before his first issue came out, and once dressed up like him for a Wizard magazine costume contest. I even have two Hellboy pieces that nobody (or few, anyway) will ever own: A Playmobil Hellboy made by my good friend Robert "Tothiro" Martin, and a Hellboy head sculpted years ago by my brother, Ash Oat. A third piece, a Mego-style Hellboy also by Robert, is locked away with all of my Megos, along with an Abe Sapien head that is patiently waiting for me to buy and decapitate a Talosian Keeper for parts. Someday they'll join the ranks, and until then I plan to do lots of nice things for my very pregnant wife, because she's been so good to me. Also, so she doesn't change her mind.