It all started in early 2022 when Wonder Goblin came up with the concept to release a whole toyline of fantastical mutant dinosaurs all at once. Releasing more than one soft vinyl toy at a time is something that's rarely done in the indie designer toy scene, namely because of how expensive and laborious the process is. That didn't stop him from dreaming though. Mr. Goblin surrounded himself with his collection of dinosaur and kaiju toys from his childhood and soaked up the inspiration. He sketched out and designed creative new characters that he himself would have loved growing up playing with. He wrote backstories for the characters and their babies and even fantastical skills and attributes to make each one unique. Once he felt confident with his designs, he got in touch with Mike Lindenthal of Magitarius toys and pitched the concept, asking if he would do the honors of hand sculpting the figures. The two of them passed back and forth ideas and worked out all the details on which characters they would run with. They discussed how the actual physical toys would be articulated and brought to life. Also discussed during this process was the role Mike’s wife, Tracy Lindenthal, would have in adding to this creative process. In short, she would be doing all the illustrating and painting needed for the toy packaging and the Fantasaur comic book.

In an effort to test the waters with the Fantasaurs concept, Mr. Goblin decided to choose one of the characters from the lineup, Fantasaurus Rex, and produce it independently before starting the entire series. Magitarius sculpted the figure late 2022, and Wonder Goblin expedited the factory production in order to premiere it in March of 2023. A pre-order was held in the USA and a separate pre-order was held in Taiwan by Strange Gallery. The releases were successful in covering overhead on factory expenses, and so they pushed onwards with the rest of the toyline.

In late 2023, Mike began sculpting the characters in clay while Tracy painted an array of pieces for the project. For over a year, Magitarius worked on bringing this vision to life. Tracy painted header card art, original paintings, and even an entire collection of kaiju anatomy posters for the purpose of compiling into a complete Fantasaur field guide to be showcased in the comic.

Once Mike finished sculpting the pieces, he molded them all in silicone, and cast the prototypes in urethane resin. From that point, all of the resin prototypes were taken to Wonder Goblin's studio where the three artists came together to work jointly on finishing the project up as a team. Lastly, Mr. Goblin took the figures and developed unique colorways for each character, airbrushing all of the prototypes as paint masters.

In March of 2024, they launched a Kickstarter campaign for THE FANTASAURS in an effort to raise funds for the factory expenses and comic book production. The campaign raised nearly $30,000, all of which went to covering the factory overhead. It wasn’t until the end of the year that the comic books were in hand and the factory finished mass production on the blank vinyl. For the next few months, Wonder Goblin and Magitarius painted tirelessly through the winter in order to get the backer rewards completed by March 2025.

They plan to release more colorways in the near future, so keep watch for more Fantasaurs!