Kool Stuff[4]: Unfulfilled Nostalgia - Diamond Select Toys' Mortal Kombat Collectibles, Part 2
This post is part of Kool Stuff, a companion book to Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 (now on Kickstarter!) that contains interviews I was unable to do before hitting Long Live MK’s deadline. Subscribe to Episodic Content to keep up with news on Long Live MK, and to follow along with Kool Stuff as new chapters are published.
In the first of my two-part oral history of Diamond Select Toys' Mortal Kombat line of collectibles, I talked with marketing supervisor Zach Oat and artists Joe Allard, Salvador Gomes, and Nelson X Asencio about the company's Legends in 3D busts of Scorpion and Sub-Zero. In the final installment, I interview the same trio about Diamond's gallery diorama statues of Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, and Kitana.
[Author's Note: Click here to read part one of my conversation with Diamond Select's marketing and art teams.]
Part IV: Depending on the Concept
Diamond Select Toys' Legends in 3D busts of Sub-Zero and Scorpion gave artists Joe Allard and Salvador Gomes little to work with. The busts had to tell a story, and the artists wisely focused on the eyes and masks of each character to distinguish them from one another. The company's gallery dioramas, full-figure statues frozen in a pose, presented challenges of their own. The first was brainstorming a pose that captured the character's look and personality.
ZACH OAT [marketing supervisor]
The designs are entirely thanks to our designer for the line, Nelson Asencio. He's been designing for Diamond Select Toys and Art Asylum, a company we worked with early on and eventually acquired, for at least 20 years at this point. He usually submits sketches, concept thumbnails of multiple poses, and then the president picks the best one and the designer will flesh that into a final sketch, which is submitted to the licensor as a concept. That concept must be approved, and then it goes to a sculptor who executes it.
NELSON X ASENCIO [designer]
I do 2D designs. I capture something on paper that the sculptor will bring to life. Because I'm putting things on paper, I'm narrowing things down to one view. Sometimes things can be misinterpreted by the other artists, or they might not get the right message of what I'm trying to convey, so I try to be as clear as possible with what I put on paper.
ZACH OAT
The sculptor for each Mortal Kombat product was Salvador Gomes.
SALVADOR GOMES [sculptor]
It all depends on the concept. Usually, we know the sizes of products will be different. But when you work in digital, the clients will want to see as many details as possible. Sometimes you might place a detail that won't be visible when they print out the figure, but you still need to put the detail because it will help the client visualize the overall character. It doesn't matter if the figure is one-sixth or one-fourth. You do need to think of the scale of detail, but there must be information in the character to help visualize the whole.
It comes back to the concept. If the concept is too cartoonish, details may come out too flat. It helps that 3D printers are getting better and better. We can add details to tiny heads that you may not notice, such as eyes.
Like his peers Salvador Gomes and Joe Allard, Nelson Asencio has drawn dozens of characters from properties too numerous to mention. No matter who he's drawing or what style the client wants, the first step in his process never changes.
NELSON X ASENCIO: I was thinking about what I'd want to see in a figure. I also look at what's on the market as well. I want to see what people are collecting. I think of a hero pose for each character, a signature pose that you'd recognize instantly. When you think of Scorpion, you think of him throwing out his chain and shouting, "C'mere!" A lot of the sketches I did, some were kind of basic, but I was trying to catch moments frozen in time. That's where you have characters in movement, but also a lot of effects. I like to add flames and anything that conveys movement. With Raiden's design, I wanted to show the movement of electricity around his body. Those are the things I think of at first: What would be the coolest pose to freeze in time?
I try to think of poses that are iconic and that haven't been done yet. I do around four to five sketches, each a different pose. Sometimes I'll do more than four or five because I realize some aren't as good as others, or I'll look at one of mine and say, "Wait a minute, this is kind of reminiscent of something already on the market." Sometimes I'll submit a piece and learn it's already been done and have to redesign it. Being a designer, that's the role I play: Sitting there, doing the research to make sure that what we come out with is badass and unique, something that stands out on shelves so people will want it in their collection.
“When I was designing the Mortal Kombat pieces, I kept thinking of my friends and me hanging out in arcades and the pizza shop, putting our quarters on the dash and saying, ‘My turn next.’” -Nelson X Asencio
Once the licensor and licensee agree on which characters are available, they must determine what incarnations of those characters to reference. Mortal Kombat has accumulated 30 numbered entries—and many side stories such as Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Shaolin Monks—which meant Diamond had to decide which versions of Kitana, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and Raiden to bring to life.
NELSON X ASENCIO
Another thing we were playing with was determining which version of the characters to use. We did the original Kitana from Mortal Kombat II, and did the original versions of Sub-Zero and Raiden, too.
Sub-Zero and Raiden would come from their original looks. Kitana, introduced in MKII, hailed from that bestselling arcade game. Scorpion was another matter. No matter which diorama statue a fan chose to purchase, their box art would bear the Mortal Kombat 11 logo from the 2019 game. It made sense to model at least one of the four dioramas after their appearance in that title.
NELSON X ASENCIO
At the time, Mortal Kombat 11 was out. We could do Scorpion from MK11 or from the first MK. We had to figure out which costume he'd be wearing. I'm always particular about anatomy because I want to make sure the body is in the right position. I don't want to draw something with flaws that would then cause the sculptor to make the same mistakes.
For Scorpion, I started by drawing a view from the back. I make sure the arms are in the right positions, and that when the arms are turned, biceps and other muscles are in the right spots. I'm also conscious about the way the clothes fold. It's important to capture the right movement of the clothing as well.
SALVADOR GOMES
I was lucky enough to sculpt all the Mortal Kombat products, and I hope Diamond makes more and gives them to me. I love them because of all the special effects as part of the characters: Scorpion's fire, Sub-Zero's ice, Raiden's lightning. Doing effects isn't easy. How do you sculpt fire? It's tricky. I found a way to make it nicely, and it's easily reproducible. That's the important part. It's one thing to figure out how to sculpt fire, but if it's difficult to make copies, it's worthless.
I made nice effects, and I would love to do more. I spent more time doing those effects than sculpting the actual characters. First, I would work on a character, and then I moved on to their effects. It took two or three weeks just to finish just the base of the fire effects, because I needed to do tests. For example, for the fire, I had to make it three times. The first two were okay. I sent them to Diamond and said, "What do you think about this?" Because I was testing a lot of techniques to see which fire looked the best.
NELSON X ASENCIO
Salvador Gomes actually changed the figure's design, and I think it looks way better than my design. We were thinking of the same movement, but Salvador put the character's right leg forward. That piece came out so well. He did a beautiful job with that.
“I live in the United States because of the work I've done for Diamond. I was able to work on my VISA, and that has been life-changing.” -Salvador Gomes
SALVADOR GOMES
I used a lot of experimental stuff, some even by hand. Before I made digital sculptures, I worked by hand, and sometimes it's easier to figure out what you can do and where you can go when you work with your hands. The most difficult effect was the fire. The fire was--if I may say this--a pain in the ass. If I'd had more time, I could have tried three or four more options. But I needed to finish the project. I always have a schedule for myself. Diamond is really great about deadlines; they give you time because this is art and things need time to develop, so they don't push me.
NELSON X ASENCIO
What I do with the sketches is find a point that is the most iconic position he's in. I wanted to show Sub-Zero throwing the ice blast from his arms and hands, but also circling his body. I wanted to catch him in that pose of when he's sort of pushing it out toward his opponent. I'll draw the initial pose and then go in and refine it to make sure the sculptor has enough information to use my design. I did a sketch of Sub-Zero where he's making an ice wall, and the base was going to be made of a clear resin. Sub-Zero would be holding a sphere in his hands and he would be floating. Most of these sketches didn't make it to the final phases.
I send drawings to Chuck, and he sends them off to the licensor to approve. Once they approve that, it's sent over to the sculptor, and they take it from there. Sometimes I get change requests. For Sub-Zero, I had more ice on the base and going around his body. That was removed. I don't remember if the licensor made that decision, but when the licensor has changes, we make them, and from that point, it goes on to the sculptor.
SALVADOR GOMES
The ice was tricky, too. Usually, I work using ZBRUSH, a program that can simulate sculpting materials like clay. I use another program called 3D Studio Max, and in 3DS Max, you have ways to work with things like fire and mold it into shapes. I did a lot of experiments, and when I was testing the effects, the ice came from combining a lot of things on top of each other. When it was time to come up with results, I went into ZBRUSH and applied final touches.
So, the ice was the most expensive in terms of time. It wasn't difficult because the computer did most of the work; it was just more technical than it was artistic. It's good to have technical skills, too. A lot of artists say, "Computers are too technical," but when you're making products like toys, you need to find a balance between the art and technical sides.
NELSON X ASENCIO
My sketches are all different poses of different ideas. I like to do a variety of drawings. For Scorpion, the pose they chose was my third sketch, a back view. I had another pose of him jumping in midair and swinging his weapon, the chain, and you see the spiked head in front of him. There's another one of him also in midair, but the chain is coming out of his arm. So, I play with poses, but I also like to come up with different backgrounds. For the Mortal Kombat line, I was looking at game screenshots to find out what items were in the backgrounds. That gives statues an Easter egg effect of, "Oh, I remember that from a stage where Scorpion fought Sub-Zero" or something. Scorpion's base is a stone floor.
I played with several bases for Scorpion, but some were too complicated even though they differed from having a rock base. I'm always thinking of cool ways to capture a character in movement. I also like my fourth sketch of Scorpion because it has more movement: He's kind of sprinting and the whip is coming out around him. Of course, that's difficult to produce as a three-dimensional object, and would also take up so much space in a box. But I like how the sketch came out.
SALVADOR GOMES
I do a lot of research, including look at other artists' work to see how they are doing things. That research is just to give me a hint of, "Maybe I should go in this direction." When I was looking at fire, I often didn't like it, or I would think about one artist's fire and wonder how I could make it unique for Diamond. I didn't want to copy someone else. Based on my research, I arrive at a way to do something even better, or do something similar using a different approach.
But I push myself a lot. I set deadlines for production tasks. It may be one week, or eight days, or whatever. When I hit these deadlines, I say to myself, "Okay, I cannot spend more time on this." The exception is when I don't have good results. For Scorpion's fire, once I had three good results, I knew they would pick one of them, and if they requested any changes, they would say something to me.
NELSON X ASENCIO
Raiden was my favorite character from the first game. His design made my friends and me think of the Lightning character from Big Trouble in Little China. For Raiden, I sent Diamond five drawings. I enjoy showing little details on faces, coming up with movements and other ideas.
“As you look at the busts , you see these little details that Salvador and I put in there. That's what I want: The discovery of thought we put into the products after you recognize them as the characters you love.” -Joe Allard
SALVADOR GOMES
In the concept illustration for Raiden, it didn't look like lightning. People know it could have been lightning because they know the character has that power. I changed the concept and make it more digital and cartoonish to make it clearer that it was lightning. I ended up doing it two times. I did one closer to the concept because I like to create artists' concepts in 3D without changing too much unless it's necessary because of production concerns or other technical concerns. I try to capture as much of the concept as I can.
NELSON X ASENCIO
With Raiden, there's one sketch where he's shooting upward. It's more of a martial arts stance, and I liked how that one felt. In another sketch, he has his arm up, and there's electricity coursing around his body; I like that one too.
SALVADOR GOMES
The lightning wasn't tricky, but I had to say, "This lightning doesn't seem like lightning. Can I try a different approach?" They said, "Yeah, sure." I asked because you have to be careful. When you're on a team, you shouldn't decide by yourself to do whatever you want. I like to work together and create together because you learn more that way. People teach you things. I had to change a little, but by the end, I think we were all happy with how it turned out.
PART V: Body Language
Illustrating and sculpting Mortal Kombat's gallery diorama statues came with challenges. Some were unique, while others overlapped with those of the Legends in 3D busts. Designing full statues meant each character's stance had to speak to their personality, "kombat" style, and be instantly recognizable to fans.
NELSON X ASENCIO [designer]
Most of my Kitana sketches were of her holding her fans and used a later version of her costume. I wanted to show Kitana holding her fans. Because there are no effects, I wanted to make sure her stance was powerful and seductive: She's coming toward you, holding the fans in a way that suggests a dance. It's a stance where she's not doing something major like an attack, but you still know she'll kick your ass.
SALVADOR GOMES [sculptor]
The female anatomy is difficult to sculpt. A male with muscles has a lot of landmarks you can use as artistic markers. Kitana couldn't be as muscular as a man, but you have to communicate that she's strong. I spent quite a lot of time sculpting her. The female anatomy has such a striking profile, and you need to get every single angle correct.
Also, because she doesn't have any fire, ice, or anything else, all of your attention is going to be at her. There's nothing more. That means artists need to be more careful. Characters that appear simple are often the hardest ones to replicate. People are going to scrutinize her, so she needs to be perfect.
ZACH OAT [marketing supervisor]
Kitana seems like a great choice because she's a strong female character and is visually interesting. Sonya Blade has street clothes, but that's not a costume, exactly. Having someone more like a ninja would make a character like Kitana a more interesting choice for us than Sonya, just because she's a more visually interesting character. It would be cool to do a Mileena statue to tie to Kitana later on, because if there are strong female characters in a line, we always like to mix things up and have more than male characters.
SALVADOR GOMES
You need to get inside the character's head. When making 3D models and having them pose, I would look at my clothing and body, and use them as references. With characters, I try to see them from the inside, then from the outside. I go inside them to learn their language, then I go outside them and think, My arm should be here. Where should I place the other arm? It's almost like I'm acting. I'm not just looking at an artist's concept.
It's about body language. Think of someone dancing. When someone is dancing, they're speaking with their bodies. I know the mechanics of the body; I know every single muscle and its movements. The only time I use references now is when I have to model cars, or dogs, or other animals. I don't have those muscles or mechanics.
Facial features posed a significant obstacle, as they did on busts, but the challenge was arguably more complex here. How do artists make facial features expressive with characters who have masks covering half of their faces, and whose faces are smaller than those of the busts?
NELSON X ASENCIO
I think the hardest part for me sometimes is getting the right expressions on faces. You don't want the character to have a static feel. You're hiding half their face. If you look at the statues, a lot of the emotions are coming through the eyes. It's funny that we're talking about this because of the way life is now during the pandemic. When you go to the supermarket and talk to someone wearing a mask, you can still see emotions like happiness when they smile even though half their face is covered. You see lots of expression in the eyes and use that to convey emotion and information.
ZACH OAT
When you're doing likenesses, you come under more scrutiny from fan bases if facial features don't look right. Someone might say, "I don't like how you did Sonya," but Kitana's wearing a mask, so the focus is more on her pose, her weapons, and the diorama's base. Those would be great reasons for choosing Kitana, and that's not to say we wouldn't consider Sonya in the future.
SALVADOR GOMES
As an artist, you should learn quite a lot about anatomy. That means the full human body, but I've spent the most time learning about faces, such as expressions and features that make a character's face iconic. When you see Batman's face, or a Wolverine face, or a Raiden face, they're iconic enough that you should so, "Oh, that looks like so-and-so's face." The face is the most important part of a character, and that's why I spend the most time learning about facial features and expressions.
When I made Raiden, I figured out how to do his face in a single day. Diamond Select approved it and I moved on. But you still need to think in three-dimensional ways to make a character's face work, and about where you'll apply lines to make up the face.
NELSON X ASENCIO
Speaking of masks, I remember the first time I wore an N95 mask when the pandemic started. I put it on and was like, "MORTAL KOMBAT!"
PART IX: The Things We Love
Joe Allard, Nelson Asensio, and Salvador Gomes are three of several artists on Diamond Select's payroll. As their contributions wind down, each artist must set the next collaborator up for success as production continues.
NELSON X ASENCIO [designer]
It's so important to capture a moment in time that's reminiscent of the character. You want to make each product interesting so it pops on the shelf. Sub-Zero having that stance where he's shooting ice at you takes you back to that move in the game, and some of your memories of the character. That's the most important part of what I try to do in designing these gallery figures. I love the fact that I get to do this, and I want the work to speak for itself. That's why I share so much on my Instagram. People can see the work that goes into these products, and most people don't see that process.
SALVADOR GOMES [sculptor]
The way I work is once I've finished a 3D model, I send it to Diamond's prototype team. They print the statue and paint it as a prototype, and that prototype will be used for production. When I work digitally, I sometimes add some color just to show my work, but I have them in gray so people can see the raw 3D sculpture. During painting, they add color to parts that hide parts of the sculpture.
That's why I have some raw, gray images, just to show the pure model so people can see it and analyze it. For example, another artist will look at that and be able to see what I did, how I did it, study the shape. My philosophy is, if I have something that looks nice without color, it will look even better painted.
NELSON X ASENCIO
When you go to the comic store and you see these products on the shelves, you don't realize there's a process. They just say, "Oh, this is so cool." Diamond gives us credit on the product boxes, too, and that's really awesome.
I work in black and white, mostly. The projects Diamond gives me don't need color because it's self-explanatory, but if I needed to call out colors, I could do that. I still draw in pencil. All my sketches are done in pencil, so I have a thousand pencils and lots of paper. My process is I'll do a sketch, scan those into my computer and work on them in Photoshop. Then I send off the sketches to Chuck and he'll choose one. Sometimes Diamond might combine pieces of my sketches, like, "I want the base from sketch A and the figure from B."
I'll combine those parts in a rough drawing on paper and then I scan it to the computer again. In Photoshop, I'll clean up my rough sketches, print it out, and trace it on a light box. I can ink sketches if I need to. I use a disposable brush with ink cartridges inside of it. That makes things easier than having to dip into vials of ink. A lot of guys do things digitally. I have a Wacom tablet, a smaller Cintiq, but I love the tactile feel of pencil on paper. I'm thinking of doing more on the computer just to cut time out of my process, but not until I feel comfortable. The computer is just another tool. I'll always want to have a finished piece of art of whatever I'm working on.
One of the most important renders Salvador Gomes builds is one that color-codes each component. Think of it as a key that shows the prototype artist and painter, the next artists in line after Gomes finishes sculpting, how each gallery diorama statue should come together and the colors that give the illusion of textures: cloth for robes, metal for weapons, and so on.
SALVADOR GOMES
The reason I included that picture [in my portfolio] was to show the amount of work you need to do after you've made the piece and it needs to be cut. The painting done by the company will be done in-house, and Diamond wants all their artists to do the cutting and engineering. They're the best people to do that because they know their files and projects. They know each part and each place where you should cut. When I make a model, I'm thinking in the back of my head, Where should I cut? It's easier to make a key for people to follow. It's an easy way to communicate that a yellow part and purple part might go together, for example.
Colors help the team communicate because they're easier than saying, "The shoulder pad should be together with this or that." You just say, "Put the purple and yellow parts together." I think I developed that type of communication because I was terrible at English back in the day, so I thought, I'm going to develop a child-like way of communicating with colors. Sometimes they ask me to make a line guide in the exact places they should place the paint. Some area might need a certain texture. If I didn't place lines, the painter might do something other than what the character needs. People may think we have a blank canvas, but we all have to place marks others on the team can follow.
That's why, when I finish a project, I'm excited to see how each product would be painted, how it would come out. I have my own studio where I print physical statues and paint them myself just because I'm missing the physical part of the work. I like to have things that I have made. Diamond sends me the products I've made for them; they set aside samples for me, and those figures remind me of how we all worked together.
JOE ALLARD [designer]
I'm a Photoshop guy. Everything I do--drawing, inking, coloring--it's all Photoshop. It's what I learned on the job back at Malibu and Marvel Comics because that's what they used, and Marvel uses it to this day. There are other programs you can use, but Photoshop is still the most widely used in coloring and in toy design. In fact, for several years, I taught a class at Otis College of Art and Design out here, and the class was Photoshop for Toy Design. The great thing about Photoshop is you can do everything in there: you can illustrate, you can do your designs, you can experiment with colors, you can do your measurements and your scales. All 2D stuff that needs to be done in toy and collectibles design can be done in Photoshop.
The tablet I use is the Cintiq Pro from Wacom. Wacom is the best, man. Back at Malibu Comics, when we first started coloring, we were using a mouse. That was like trying to draw with a bar of soap. It was ridiculous. Then we tested what I think were the first Wacom tablets. They were small, around 4"-by-5", and you weren't drawing on a screen; it was almost like a mouse pad you were using a stylus on. You still had to look at a monitor in front of you, but at least you were using something shaped like a pencil. Fast-forward 10 to 15 years, and they came out with the Cintiq where you're able to draw directly on the monitors. It gives you a very natural feel because you're looking at what you're drawing. That's a blessing to artists to have a natural, drawing-by-hand feel, yet still working in the digital realm to make workflow easier. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today without it. Wacom has paved the way for a lot of careers in the design and art fields.
Zach Oat's role in the process is constant. As artists illustrate, sculpt, prototype, and paint, he interacts with Diamond Select's community to share information.
ZACH OAT [Marketing Supervisor]
I handle most of the consumer-facing conversations we have. We have teams that handle social media, but I take care of most of the copywriting, and I still do a lot of copyediting to make sure everything we release is accurate. I also write catalog and packaging text, and make sure the packaging looks good and oversee catalog layout. We put out a monthly catalog through Diamond Comics' distributors, and they have a monthly catalog called PREVIEWS; it's about an inch think and focuses on toys, collectibles, and primarily comics, because Diamond is the biggest distributor of English-language comics in the world. We are part of that catalog that comes out near the end of every month.
I also talk to fans on message boards and handle pretty much all interviews. Not many other people at the company want to talk on-camera, and I'm the one who does. I work with people who do reviews like many of our Mortal Kombat fans; we send them statues to review. I don't know if you know a guy called Mortal Kombat Elite. He has an Instagram and a YouTube, and they're all about Mortal Kombat. I send stuff out to reviewers and photographers like him.
The job is a little of everything. I even take pictures, too. I don't put them online so much because we've hired a great photographer on the west coast, but I take pictures of some of our products featured in the Disney Store, just because they like to have pictures of action figures posed in certain ways for their website.
Like many companies, Diamond Select Toys suffered complications such as delays because of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in late 2019.
ZACH OAT
Advertising hasn't really been affected at all. Our marketing is mostly the same except for conventions. They were a big part of what I did. We'd go to three or four a year: Toy Fair, New York Comic-Con, San Diego Comic-Con. We used to go to Chicago's C2E2 and we were going to attend Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle, but the pandemic canceled that year's, and the following year's as well. Right now, we're back to the New York and San Diego Comic-Cons. We were going to go to New York Toy Fair, but it got canceled this year too.
We're working on a video to present a lot of our products to retailers, which we'll release online around late March. Once you add in video production, that adds another month to all the development we have to do for that promotion. Normally, we'd ship a bunch of toys to New York and then set them up; now we have to ship them to our home office in Maryland, set them up, record narration for the footage, and edit all that together. So the promotion will come out a little later than the New York Toy Fair timeframe, which was coming up pretty soon. That's how marketing has changed. We've done more online promotion and less in-person promotion.
Manufacturing was slow for a while because there factories were shutting down at the beginning of the pandemic because of outbreaks. This was in China, of course. Now, the factories are more or less back up to speed because of knowing procedures such as social distancing, wearing masks, and that sort of thing.
The only part of the chain slowing things down in shipping. More recently than those factory closures I mentioned, there were outbreaks at ports in China, so they were short on people to load the boats. There were also some delays in the U.S. because they weren't able to unload boats fast enough. There was an upsurge of goods at the Port of Los Angeles, just so much stuff coming in. Our merchandise would be sitting in a boat off the coast of California for a month or more before someone could dock the boat and unload it.
Then there were issues with truck drivers, where companies were having trouble finding drivers who could transport our merchandise from California to our warehouse in Olive Branch, Mississippi. Now there's another problem, a shortage of containers in China; they're sending back ships empty rather than taking the time to fill them up with empty containers. Getting a container out of China costs a premium. That adds time and expense.
Slowly, inevitably, Diamond's Mortal Kombat Legends in 3D busts and gallery diorama statues made their way from warehouses to retail and digital storefronts and, eventually, into the hands of MK fans.
JOE ALLARD
It was an awesome experience. The busts were the first Mortal Kombat products I could work on. I'd done a few things for PCS [Premium Collectibles Studio] a long time ago, but it was mostly bases and tertiary stuff. This was the first time I got to work with the characters. What I loved about the busts was I got to put my own spin on the characters. I was taking these old video games and these low-resolution character designs and amping them up. The fact that I had artistic freedom to make these how I thought they had looked when I was a kid--you fill in extra details in your head, so as an adult, I got to imagine those details again to define what the characters looked like.
It was a great deal of fun to put all of that into collectibles for other fans to collect and enjoy as well. I want people to look at those busts and know immediately who they are, but to see all the extra details later. At first, I want you to say, "Oh, that's classic Sub-Zero and classic Scorpion," and you love the busts for that because that's what you're connected to. But then, as you look at it closer, you see these little details that Salvador, the painter, and I have put in there. That's what I want: The discovery of thought we put into the products after you recognize them as the characters you love.
And it was a great joy to work on this property, and especially to do it for Chuck and Robert at Diamond. They're a great client to work with because they offered creative freedom to tune these characters up, and that helped me define them.
SALVADOR GOMES
I'm in Brazil right now visiting family for the first time in a few years, but I live in the United States because of the work I've done for Diamond. Not just Mortal Kombat, but all the projects I've made for them. I was able to work on my VISA, and that has been life-changing. But the thing is, Mortal Kombat is my favorite brand I've worked on because I could work on all the products. I've told Diamond Select, "If you get any more Mortal Kombat characters, please send them to me. I will make them better and better."
I've liked the characters and have played the games since I was between 11 and 15. That's when I played the very first game, and I was fascinated when I saw the realistic characters fighting. To do those kinds of projects isn't like work. It's a dream come true. My life changed quite a lot: I was able to move to the United States, a place I love. Obviously I miss my family, but I was prepared to leave because most of the work I do, I needed to be doing there, where the companies are found.
NELSON X ASENCIO
I get to touch all these properties, and they take me back to moments where I was hanging out with friends. That I get to design things that had such an impact is just amazing. When I was designing the Mortal Kombat pieces, I kept thinking of my friends and me hanging out in arcades and the pizza shop, putting our quarters on the dash and saying, "My turn next."
It's hard to describe the feeling of getting to work with things I love. Thank goodness I can do that.
This post is part of Kool Stuff, a companion book to Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 that contains interviews I was unable to do before hitting Long Live MK’s deadline. Subscribe to Episodic Content to keep up with news on Long Live MK’s Kickstarter (set for March 8) and to follow along with Kool Stuff as new chapters are published.