Howard was interviewed by a local magazine regarding starwars. He answered a few questions about hottoys. Keep reading if you are interested.
1. His cousin brought him to the cinema in 1977, they were deciding between ORCA or Starwars. If they picked ORCA , ?Hottoys? might not exist.
2. Truly fell in love with starwars because of empire strikes back. ( design , effects, cinematography, music , story etc)
3. Loves Luke the most. His first figure is a 3.75? Bespin outfit Luke. That?s why the first starwars Hottoys is DX07 Bespin Luke, he spent a lot of effort trying to make it as detail as possible. A new hope darth vader was difficult to nail as the prop was not perfect, took a lot of time to nail that one, was a great learning experience.
4. Revenge of the sith Anakin Skywalker to him is his greatest achievement. He loves the sculpt and the dark side base is badass, the fans love it as well.
5. Recently they showed lucasfilm the Mando Ahsoka proto and they loved it. He thinks it?s important that the fans and collectors love it too.
6. Will you release all starwars figures ?
A: there are way too many starwars character, some are obscure , some are even disliked by fans. It?s impossible to release them all. I will only make figures that have meaning or important in certain scenes. The fact is we most likely base the decision on whether the movie/ TV have good reception ( promotion) or not.
For example since Mandalorian is so close to ROTJ, it is easier for us to release figures from the OT. This is exactly what we were waiting for.
7. I would love to make the bounty hunters from ROTJ, especially with ? the book of boba fett ? coming out. It?s very likely that we make them.
8. I think most fans would love EU Luke with Darth Vader outfit. However we have too much on our hand that we won?t be making it anytime soon.
9. On Disney + shows:
I think lots of fans are disappointed with the sequels. Even me I don?t have any desire to revisit them anytime soon. The sales were awful. Mando is like the dawn after the dark . Especially Luke , he was redeemed , unlike episode 8. Introducing new characters in one movie is not gonna leave an impression. In contrast , mando?s Kuiil leaves you the impression of wisdom, a clear cut personality and very popular as well. If he were a movie character he would?ve been an extra. TV is good for new characters while revisiting old ones. My most anticipated shows are Obiwan and Book of boba Fett. I love boba and obi is set in ep 3 and 4 so we will learn more about that time , we may see DV again and the original ep 3 casts back!
10. We created the 1:6 millennium falcon since we wanted to advertise for the upcoming ? the force awaken ? movie. It took us 4-5 months to make it. It not that difficult to make. Although it?s not for sale, we got the idea on how big it is, how detail it should be and how to separate it partly and display it.
11. On making more starwars vehicles?
A: We showed Jedi star fighter too! I would love to develop more starwars vehicles, however, they are too big and the factory would face a lot of challengers and difficulties while maintaining a high quality. We don?t wanna do it for the sake of it. Also Disney have different licenses for different scales, even if we switch to a smaller scale for the vehicles, Disney may not approve it.
12. Starwars is the origin of why I build hottoys. Like George Lucas, learning from trials and Errors, bring on the creativity and always be ready when the opportunity comes.
