Sideshow Collectibles is one of the best at taking iconic moments from your favorite franchises and bringing them to life in stunning statue form, with DC, Marvel, Star Wars, One Piece, and more among Sideshow’s lineup. One of the coolest series on the roster though is the Pulp Vixens line of Premium Format Figures, which is the brainchild of the husband-and-wife team Will Harbottle (Key Artist, Sculpt) and Kat Sapene (Key Artist, Paint). The line is inspired by classic pulp stories, spy thrillers, and epic adventures, and ComicBook had the chance to speak with the creators all about how the line got started, what’s in store for the future of the line, and the story each entry tells if you’re paying attention.
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Matt Aguilar: The Pulp Vixens line really feels like a love letter to classic pulp stories of the ’60s and ’70s. Which authors and stories of those eras inspired you most with the new line of statues, and was there a particular element of those stories that you wanted to highlight in each of the first three episodes?
Will Harbottle: You are 100% correct. That’s the era I grew up in, and it had a lasting impression on my interests in movies, books, music, everything. I read all the James Bond books, and I adored TV shows like Mission: Impossible. I loved all the British and Italian spy thrillers and adventure stuff. I was also a huge fan of pulp novels, especially the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I was attracted to the strong, glamorous women of the ‘60s and ‘70s. The Avengers was an obsession! American TV shows at the time still showed couples sleeping in separate beds, then suddenly we saw Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit! (laughs). That was iconic.
I also completely fell in love with the music of the era. John Barry’s orchestral jazzy spy music, Lalo Schifrin’s incredible movie and TV themes. That music is absolutely the soundtrack to Pulp Vixens.
Kat Sapene: I was a child of the 1980s, but it’s fair to say those ‘60s and ‘70s movies, the music, all of that has become a big part of our household (laughs).
As a painter, I’ve always been fascinated by the colors of an era. Not just the defining palettes of the popular culture of the time, but also what was physically possible to print and replicate. I love the colors of the 1960s, but also how they were reproduced in film or on paper with the materials of the day. Without the ultra-vibrant synthetic colors that we’re now used to, even the brightest and boldest color pallets of the ‘60s have an earthiness to them that I was eager to replicate.
Will: The sheer variety we saw on our screens in the 1960s and 1970s was incredible. On a Saturday in front of my television I could watch incredible and visually distinct movies and shows from Spanish or Italian studios, or Hammer Studios in the UK, or whatever. Each of them was visually distinct, but they all had these roaring soundtracks and jet-setting exotic vibes. I loved the whole thing! Especially these strong, confident, powerful women!
Kat: We talked a lot about how these aren’t “startled beauties.” There’s an element of pinup here, sure, but there’s much more too. They scream: “I’m not a damsel in distress. I’ll distress YOU!!” (laughs)
Each Vixen Reveals Their Own Unique Story
Matt: Speaking of episodes, I love how each statue really tells a small story. My favorite might be Ursula Strand simply because of that beautiful staircase and all of the small details in the hidden laboratory, but the way the money is revealed to be hidden in the chair in Bridgeburn’s statue is a standout as well. Can you break down how you come up with the concepts and designs for each episode?
Will: First off, I really love these questions! I’m so flattered that you really took the time to look at these pieces, and I love hearing about what stood out to you! This is awesome!
A statue is a snapshot of a moment. We can suggest a locale, hint at an unseen world, and give a slice of a story, but the viewer has to fill in the blanks themselves. We both like to do as much world-building as possible through costume, gesture, color, and suggestions rather than literally spelling everything out for the viewer. That interaction as you look deeper at the art and dive into the story with it. You are part of the process. That’s a lot of fun.
Kat: We absolutely had the plots and characters all figured out. This evolved for a long time. There were literally years of research and story expansion, but we wanted to see how much we could convey by not oversharing. We didn’t want the viewers to be overwhelmed.
Will: That’s very true. My background is writing. I began my career as an author. It came naturally for me to script out these “episodes” and work out how they all tied together. At one point we thought about telling the whole tale, maybe through a comic book or something, but we kept coming back to the idea that this should be suggested not dictated.
Kat: We loved the idea of these characters being from a 1960s movie or novel that you just might have missed. We wanted them to feel real. Like they are licensed creations based on content you haven’t seen (laughs). Every time someone sees the statues and asks: “What movie are these from?” — that makes my day!
Will: I made fake movie posters to pitch this project to the team here at Sideshow. That was an awesome exercise as it helped me visualize the characters and their situations in an ultra-condensed way. After years of developing their stories, I forced myself to pitch them with single images, photo-bashing rough sculpts in photoshop. They began to go from head canon to statue form very quickly.
Kat: But all that research paid off in Easter eggs and little storytelling details.
Will: Right?! Even the smallest thing. Like the ashtray in Killer Return. Among those cigarette butts there are a few burned up IBM computer cards. That’s a little plot point coming to life.
Kat: Deep Down had a whole storyline about Russian submarines being stolen by the bad guys. We hinted at that by having a hidden star symbol that’s been painted over
Will: …but it’s still there in the sculpt, you can feel it with your fingertips. The texture gives it away!
Kat: There are so many of these Easter eggs that folks have yet to discover. I don’t want to give them all away, but there’s a lot of storytelling that’s being conveyed through color, patterns, little symbols. Like the pattern of the kimono in Mr. Sin…
Will: …I designed the whole thing in 2D first. It depicts life and death locked in an embrace. A skeleton and a lady dancing, and she’s stabbing him with a knife. Mr. Sin made Ursula wear that. She didn’t pick out that outfit!
No Challenge Is Too Great For The Vixens
Matt: What tends to be the most challenging aspect of creating each Vixen in terms of concept and design, as well as the sculpting, paint application, and eventually the final product?
Will: The sheer size of the canvas was incredibly daunting. When we first pitched the idea to our colleagues, they were very supportive. They wanted us to own this and even dared us to think bigger and really push ourselves. Anything was possible. Where do you go from there?? (laughs)
We needed a lens. A grounding element. For us that was the scale and the format. Whatever story we wanted to tell, we had to do it in 1:4 scale, and as a three-dimensional statue.
Kat: That helped a lot. It gave us a mission. This was our love letter to collectible statues. A medium we’ve both worked in for over 30 years. We had an audience now. These were statues made for people who love 1:4 scale statues. We wanted to give them something they would hopefully admire, enjoy, and appreciate.
Will: That format informs everything now. For Deep Down for example, we wanted a confrontation. This wasn’t a woman swimming away from danger. She has danger in her sights! But how do you show her looking down at a threat below her without completely obscuring her face from the viewer?
My colleague, Sideshow Designer and Artist Ian MacDonald, helped us troubleshoot some composition ideas, and we landed on a pretty extreme diagonal “canvas” with her floating off to an angle. Now, for a statue, that is now an engineering problem to solve. How to balance that and make it structurally stable. But also for a collectible, just how deep are people’s shelves? How far can you push that before it won’t fit in anyone’s collection? Those are the kind of things we have to think about.
Kat: Lighting was also a big challenge. But it was totally a challenge of our own making! (laughs) We really wanted to experiment and push some boundaries there. We used light as a storytelling device. Nothing is clean, there’s a dirty grunginess to everything. Plus, those light
The Elements That Didn’t Make It To The Final Vixens Cut
Matt: You’ve really gone all out in terms of details and creativity in bringing these characters to life. Is there anything that hasn’t made it into the final design of a statue that was in the initial idea?
Will: (laughs) That segues perfectly! Those lightmost entirely by candelabra. I loved Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick, and I was really inspired by the use of natural light in the movie. We wanted that candlelight to be a significant part of the storytelling
Kat: There was also an amazing James Bond scene shot by candles. I did a ton of research, and became totally fascinated by the utterly unexpected colors I was discovering. So much orange! (laughs). The final result was very atmospheric, very moody, very authentic to how a person actually looks when only illuminated by these warm candles.
Will: And then we removed them! (laughs). Compositionally the candelabra was taking up so much space. It seemed superfluous. So instead of directly showing you the light
Kat: Now, the finished statue is very dramatically lit by something you can’t see. It’s a leap of faith for the viewer. They need to really embrace that story.
Will: I think all the statues so far have that element of self-editing. Sideshow has given us so much freedom to tell these stories. It’s up to us to reign ourselves back in. Honestly, every piece so far has been a learning experience and an evolution.
Some of our ideas, designs, and daydreams have crept out into the world in other formats. We had the pleasure of partnering with Heroes & Villains on a line of T-shirts that share some unseen images.
The Next Pulp Vixen Might Be Heading To Space
Matt: Do you have a book somewhere that has the full stories mapped out for these episodes, and how many concepts and stories do you have of future Vixens in the line? Any teases you can offer as to what’s happening with the line in the future?
Will: Yes, absolutely! Each story has its own research bible, with years of world-building, reference, and ideas. I have a rough sculpt of part 4, but there are easily 10 more stories that are various stages of research and design. It’s become my job and my hobby (laughs).
Number 4 is … well, let’s just say it’s inspired by some of the sci-fi elements of pop culture of the ‘60s.
Kat: …and you always wanted to sculpt a woman in a space suit! (laughs)
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