INTERVIEW WITH IMAGINARIUM ART OWNER DANNY LIM

He is a very approachable guy with no restrictions whatsoever. He owns one of the beloved studios from Singapore, Imaginarium Art, and his line of Iron Man figures are praised by many, even though it’s hard to North American people get his pieces.

1 – What do you think sets Imaginarium Arts apart from the fierce competition of the collectibles market nowadays?

Danny Lim: Every statue company has their own touch, be it licensed or customs, every designer gives their greatest effort to ensure acceptance from the community.  In fact, we greatly respect their work.  At the same time, IA sets ourselves apart by producing statues that changes posture by switching limbs and torsos to ensure fresh look on display shelves as and when our fans like.  On color, it is a challenging task to keep up with what fans want, to counter fierce competition to be as accurate as we can.

2 – Why so many Iron-Mans? Could you explain that to us? What else do you have under your sleeve? I see you’re focusing on Transformers as well. Do you have a special taste for robots?

DL: I am a fan of Robots, as Iron Man falls into the same category. I decided this is what we would love to do. In our first 1:2 scale Iron Patriot, our expectation for it was high, we could not imagine we pull it off so well with color application, and hence our factory became one of the best Iron Man producer in China.

As a Death Metal fan, I had always wanted to do something under Horror category, let’s see how we can twist this out in the future.

Yes, Personally, I am a Japanese Anime Robot Fan, I collect Bandai’s Soul of Chogokin from GX-01 Mazinger till now, so robots are my forte.  They capture me with their excellent shiny paintwork while on display.

3 – What’s the differentials seek when developing a new piece?

DL: Though it’s a statue we produce, we seek playability aspect of it too, for example, a pose change statue can be another avenue of playability.  The face sculpt is also an important factor which we always seek good painters to work on color application on production.

4 – You seem to work only with big-sized figures from 1/1 to 1/4. Why this choice?

DL: Personally, I like bigger display in my house, as the details can be seen from afar, and catches more attention at home for me. Also, licensing concern, there are a huge pool of licensees holding many years of smaller scale categories.  Well, we do with what we can have, and work towards success.

5 – Do you believe that characters on throne sells well? Because you made Aquaman on throne and Sideshow launched Thanos on throne and there’s XM famous Magneto on throne. Is this a trend you intend to follow?

DL: Not Exactly, it really depends on the character, to be exact, all kings sit on thrones, for Aquaman, in Chinese, it called King of the sea translated, oh well, then he need a throne.  Our upcoming  Coronation Starscream is on throne as well, he wears a crown and likely to fit in a throne, would be suitable.

The success of other brands with characters on throne, IA congratulates them on their success.

6 – What licenses Imaginarium Art have and for which markets?

DL: We currently hold Hasbro’s Generation 1 license in Asia + North America.  There will be more to come.

7 – Which piece is the biggest IA success up until now?

DL: There are different successes in every release we have, namely, 1:2 scale Mark 42, Mark 17, our 1:1 Helmets, Hulk Busters, they truly brought up the name of company.

8 – What character do you want IA to make that wasn’t done or is not possible to be done just yet?

DL: I would love to make a Transforming Japanese Anime Robot Voltes V in diecast material.

9 – Who do you say it’s your direct competitor in the market today? What do you offer that the said concurrent doesn’t offer and what is the same?

DL: Basically, it’s the paint work, sculpt details, and product accuracy. There are more companies that produce accuracy too. It’s really not up to us to say who is better.  In the end, it’s always the fan that chooses which brand they want to buy from.  If it’s us that they choose, we are most grateful and will keep working hard to fulfill all the requests of our customers.

10 – What is you wildest dream for IA?

DL: My wildest dream for IA is to have me retired and start sunbathing in Hawaii with 2 bikini girls!

11 – Who is you favorite all-time character? Do you have a license for it?

DL: My all-time favorite character would be God of War’s Kratos. Oh well, we don’t have the license but I prefer to buy just 1 for keep sake in the market.  Gaming Heads made a good one on throne.

12 – Is you who decides what pieces/characters/poses will be produced or the development team has some input in the decisions about a new release?

DL: I would think of a draft concept, what the characters should be, poses as well, and we table out all the possibilities in a team to explore production, paint work, and packaging.  It’s a team effort.

13 – Do you consider yourself very centralizer regarding the way you run your company? Do you have some problem to delegate some decisions to other members of the team?

DL: For collectibles industry, it is important to have people with good knowledge, skills at what they do best and enthusiasm with good energy.

14 – Speaking of team, how many work at Imaginarium Art? What are the departments of the company? Is there someone or a team to manage quality control of the pieces in the factories? Because I never saw nobody complaining about IA having any production problems.

DL: Occasionally, there are support issues needed for our products. Electronic problems bound to happen sometimes but very minimal.

We have Design & Art team, Admin & Customer Support, Factory coordinator (Me!), Quality Control Managers, Logistics team, these are the basics as every company needs.

15 – Name three IA pieces you’re really proud of.

DL: Iron Man Hulkbuster, Iron Man Mark 42, Transformers Soundwave

16 – Name three pieces from other companies that you see as great accomplishments.

DL: Sideshow’s Thanos on Throne; Prime One’s Transformers Movie version, all of them;

First 4 Figures’ Zelda

17 – Three favorite bands or singers/composers etc.

DL: Whispered (Finland), Dimmu Borgir (Norway), Nightwish (Finland)

18 – Do you still use hand sculpt on IA or is all digital as it is the new reality of our hobby?

DL: Most of our sculpt are digitally sculpted as it gives the freedom to amend and resize within a short time.  It does not mean manual sculpt is but it takes a longer time, as we all know licensing time frame keeps the clock ticking.  As well as, it takes a very good hand sculptor to produce what we need.  Unless it’s a custom, where time is not a concern, hand sculpt can be considered.

19 – What’s the average time of development of a Imaginarium Art piece, from the first idea to the boxed product ready to go to the buyer?

DL: Depending on the model itself, mechanical projects takes a longer time to cast due to multiple parts and it could go up to hundreds of little parts.  Organic Projects like Batman, takes a shorter time.

Form an idea till a ready product, it takes about 6 - 9 months to complete 1 project.

20 – How do you decide the edition sizes (ES) of each piece? What was the biggest and the smallest ES from IA?

DL: We decide the ES based on the popularity of the character, at times, based on our distributor’s estimation.  The Biggest is our Transformers G1 Soundwave and lowest is our Guardians of the Galaxy Milano.

21 – What do you think about the quick raise of prices of certain collectible companies? Do you think this is a movement of all industry? What do you think are the factors that lead to this immense raise of the prices?

DL: The quick raise of pricing currently is a concern, we agree China labor cost and standard has raised, standard of living too.  It’s an expensive hobby now, we have fans that have to save for months just to buy our Soundwave, as for this, considering factory owners producing statues are driving BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz and even Porsche. They know the market too, so jacking up the price is somehow normal regarding this.

We are looking into ways of producing products in a more affordable way with no compromise on quality, working hard on this.

22 – Three favorite games.

DL: Crash Bandicoot, Starcraft, Uno card game

23 – Three favorite movies.

DL: Saving Private Ryan, The Lady Killers, Pacific Rim

27 – What would astonish you the most: to see a ghost or to see an alien?

DL: Neither, I would be very astonish to see Jabba the hutt drinking an Ice Cold Beer with me.

28 – Live a phrase, a bombastic revelation or a quote to our fellow readers.

DL: Be true to yourself, and keep going in what you do if you think is right, obstacles will happen along the way, stay focus and believe in yourself.

29 – Many people think Imaginarium Art is gone. What can you tell to those people?

Imaginarium Art is not gone at all, in fact, we have grown into a better company, rumors are rumors, and rumors are powerful in social media platforms.  People use perks and money to engage parties to create rumors.  That’s life, it’s either we fall into this trap or keep up.  Anyway, it’s of not of a concern to us.

The fact is we have new warehouses, new team, new offices, better IA Warriors, new manufacturing partners to keep ourselves up to this game.  How can we be gone or bought over if we are still posting and producing new sculpts to show our fans for production? 

Not the time yet to go Hawaii with 2 bikini girls yet for me.  Still got statues to produce…..hahahaha

Thank you for your time and patience. I’m sure the readers will really enjoy this interview, especially Imaginarium Art fans.

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