Charlee Flatt Customs: Were they on a new body?

[michael crawford]

As to Phantom prototypes - what you want to consider a prototype is up to you. As I said, I only consider them to be those that were developed at the time of the company either for shows or for manufacturing. And Charlee did sell an awful lot of Phantoms as 'prototypes'. Considering the amount of money I lost, you might understand my frustration with that (and his Uncle Sam, etc.) since he never made any attempt to make it right with any of his investors.

There were more actual Phantoms than any other of the figures, with the exception of Bela of course. That's because we were very, very close on that production. I think there were only two of Devil ever cast, and that sculpting was not done by Charlee.

I went back through some old emails and had a chat with Cal to refresh my memory on the sculpting. Dan Platt did do the final work on Phantom, but he didn't do anything on Samaritan, as that one never made it past Charlee's work or even to approval from the licensor. He also did a version of Zorro, but none of us were too keen on it, and neither was Sony. The final Banderas version of Zorro that we were going with was done by the same guy that did Devil, I think, and he was an ex-Mcfarlane sculptor. I remember the first Devil he sent us was VERY Mcfarlanesque.

As I said, I think there are only the two Zorro's - the one with Charlee's original generic sculpt that was used to sell the concept to Sony and for early shows, and the second done by the other guy (I have to find his name) that was more in line with Banderas. As to whether Charlee did more before or after and whether you want to consider those prototypes or not - well, that's up to you.

[mishu2nite]

I think I still have that Green Lantern Power Battery.

That would be good for someone, he ran out of those.

[Anarchy]

Boss might need that battery to go with his green lantern

[ScottA]

I think I still have that Green Lantern Power Battery.

[starsky]

i'll have to dig up photos from charlee as well. he sent me some cool ones and i got him to make me a figure of myself.

[Anarchy]

you can post as many pics as you want just please give credit

[samurainoir]

I dont want to sound like an idiot but my site costs me money every month to run, the amount of time i put into my site alone is worth more then anything and when people can easily steal or post a link without giving credit to where its from is like someone hacking into it and deleting everything. If you want to use pics from my site thats fine, but please give credit to the link in my signature. thank you.

Fair enough, but look at it this way... you sent me there yourself after I suggested someone post them in the forum. In your very own words, you believed everyone reading this thread was already aware those are your photos.

But let's cut to the duality of this problem and find you a reasonable solution that won't have you tearing out your hair all over the internet trying to close those barn doors after the critters have already skedadled ... you are obviously very eager to share your pics, BUT only on the condition that those looking at it know they belong to Greg Turpin.

if you go to my website http://www.gregturpin.com enter the site and click on charlee flatt photos I have over 9 pages of photos and many more to post. Thought everyone knew about my site

Quote:
Originally Posted by samurainoir View Post
Okay, someone needs to scan and post this catalogue!

Seemed like a reasonable response to Thunderbolts query about body sizes (note Venom and Wolverine) and female figures. My apologies if it wasn't.

Given the incredibly public nature of this thang we call the internet, rather than fighting upstream, maybe you should watermark your pics if it's really important to you that you receive the credit? Otherwise to use your analogy, why are you leaving your stuff out on the front lawn where anyone with access to google image search can "steal" it? How does anyone police that outside of the forums you personally hang out in?

The smart thing folks on the web have been doing for ages and ages is leverage their photos as promotion for their site because the sheer act of making it public inevitably means it finds it's way to other parts of the web... with the Greg Turpin credit already watermarked in you're "safe", because your credit is inevitably insured. Look at the Mego Museum and Plaid Stallions pics... those are pretty much all over the web and inevitably lead folks right back here because they are branded. I can think of no better self replicating marketing engine than that. Cost effective advertising memes in easy to share jpg format.

Does that seem like a reasonable solution? Much easier than chasing folks around the world wide web brandishing a broom if'n yu axed me. Unless you enjoy that kind of thing... then no worries.

[SeattleEd]

Came across these images today:

[mishu2nite]

Ahmeds phantom just prior to being interduced to him:


My old phantom, you can see the holsters better here:


Maybe if you ask Greg nicely, he could probably do a little better pic of the details

Anyone wanting an earlier phantom, there is a place in France selling one. Just google it.

[ScottA]

Even I've got a few different Phantom heads from him.

[Megospidey]

^^ That is most definitely a case of "a picture is worth a thousand words"

Thanks for posting them! And Greg, you too - with all of your archived pics.

[mishu2nite]

I suppose this depends on your definition of 'prototype'. As I recall (and I'm amazed at the memory of some folks here that weren't even involved with all this on a weekly basis back then) there were only two.

Wow Really, nice comment. I live pretty close to Charlee, and use to stop by on a regular basis. I might not have been "involved", but I had pretty good seats from where I was sitting.

The riddler head zorro was previous, and many things were used from that in the developement of the two figures you speak of, so I guess that would have been a developemental figure, or AKA prototype.

As for the phantoms, there were many made before the ones you speak of. Charlee was always trying to improve the overal figures. Charlee used different heads on the phantoms to the end result figures used. Infact the batch made after those two prototypes you talk of had more improvements, such as working holsters, and better boots. Here is the head developement:


Here are some of those earlier figures, notice the boots, heads and even logos on the box. You can see where he was at just prior to the figures you speak of in the box with the flattworld logo. Notice the numbers on those early figs.








Fabric boots:





Two prototypes you speak of pictured at a show:


Another phantom pictured at a show with a totally different outfit being promoted:



Figure used in advertising, again totally different figure from previous:


And a figure from the last batch, with working clasp and newer boots:


As far as figures Charlee used to work in batches, but many times figures were left in tubs only requiring small touches, like adding hands or some such thing. I remember seeing one such tub filled with phantoms.
So just because you didn't see anymore Phantoms, doesn't mean there weren't.

[Anarchy]

I dont want to sound like an idiot but my site costs me money every month to run, the amount of time i put into my site alone is worth more then anything and when people can easily steal or post a link without giving credit to where its from is like someone hacking into it and deleting everything. If you want to use pics from my site thats fine, but please give credit to the link in my signature. thank you.

[Anarchy]

thanks man

[ScottA]

I'll look around and see what else I have. He was always sending me photos.