The Le: Can you give me rundown of how a figure goes from start to finish? I assume WK names a specific figure and tells you what it should look like...?

James: here's what usually happens...

I get assigned the character by Wizkids usually. Often I got to choose from a list so that would be cool becuase you could kind of pick a character you like. Wizkids would then send me reference with the specific costume details. Usually I do extra research on a figure, to get as much reference as possible, and pick the most iconic pose I can find for the character.Sometimes they would have a specific pose they wanted in which case I pretty much have to reproduce it. Other times I get to choose, which is always more fun, but often there are restrictions on what you can do because of production requirements-more dynamic poses often take more parts so the cost is higher to mold.

Then I sculpt the figure (to really go into this would take an entire interview on its own, which I'd be happy to do). When it is done I send photos of the figure to Wizkids and they let me know if they have any changes. If they have changes I do them and then ship the figure to them.

The Le: Once complete, do you get to keep the original molds or anything like that?

James: No, all my clients keep all the originals, it is included in the fee they pay me. They mold them themselves so they would own all that type of stuff. I used to get unpainted resin copies of some of my figures that we used to get to do the paint masters which was cool because they look very different before the painters in China get a hold of them. I also would get a factory set if I sculpted and figures in a given set. Some sets I would miss though. I never got a Fantastic Four Starter Set or a Freddy vs Jason set which I kinda regret because I really liked the sculpts I did for those two products. Regardless, Wizkids was always very good when it came to making sure I got copies of my figures.

The Le: Are you a comic book reader? If so, do you have any favorites from the past or present?

James: I am a huge comic fan. I still have my first comic I ever read when I was about 10 years old. It was Uncanny X-men #173. I read that comic and I was hooked, of course that was before I had learned about bags and boards so it is in a "well used' condition now. I take much better care of them now...honest. I am a Marvel fan so those tend to be my favorite characters. X-men was always my favourite title and naturally Wolverine is my all time favourite character. I like all the X-books and characters the most. I also liked the Punisher, Captain America, Thor, and Daredevil, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wildcats, The Tick. Oh Hulk is cool too, and IronMan, and Spidey and.....the list goes on.

Part of why I loved working for Wizkids so much was that I got to sculpt comic characters, which is very rare because aside from toy companies there really are no other oportunities to sculpt comic characters. It was very sad for me when they closed down because I had finally gotten to the point where we were doing such cool stuff, and the stuff they had planned had me really excited to be able to work on. That is why it is so great the Neca has hopefully got things going again, I can't really talk about the details but lets just say you guys are in for a real treat if they do get going again.