Archive for the ‘Vinyl’ Category
Been home from school for a little bit now, and just finally this week got to unpack my modeling stuff. In the mean-time, a great package arrived, and had me itching to get to work: Monster Kolor! I got a 1oz. Starter Set, and was immediately impressed. I had been reading some recent comics, and was inspired by some glowing energy on characters that inspired me to try some serious fades and glowing effects with the new paint, and they performed well beyond my expectations. I started with the red-yellow hot-looking fade, and then blocked in all of the ‘armor’ looking bits in black, to make it look like Jet Jaguar was red-hot with energy, sealed inside a containment suit. I highlighted the black with a little blue, and picked out some parts in bright silver, since I wanted to try every paint in the set. I then worked on the green, first just a glowing effect from the hands and eyes. From there I tried out the Purple Pearl paint I got, which shows up the most on the darker areas. I was expecting it to tint the bright silver purple, but this was a learning experience.
The green contrasted, but wasn’t doing enough for me, so I was trying to decide how to finish the figure. When I was spraying the Monster Kolor, I realized just how thin and fine it sprayed compared to the much thicker acrylics. I was finally able to use my Super-Fine tip and needle, and added in all of the cackling energy lightening effect… JJ is souped up and ready for battle, oozing raw energy and looking for a monster to vent on!
You’ll notice a couple weird spots in the gloss coat, which I think are from dust settling on it. I think I need to get some kind of cover for the figures while they dry, since the special MK Gloss Clear takes 24 hours to fully cure.
Last night we had a big CollectionDX meet up, and I got to pick up this fantastic figure. The Bandai Missile Firing Vinyls are phenomenal pieces of vintage vinyl, with great big chunky sculpts. I don’t have any missiles right now, but the launchers should work when I do get some. Until then, this guy is just a 10″ tall behemoth of mechanical justice, stamping out the evil of standard-sized kaiju wherever they may rear their hideous maws!
I painted a new Gigantor-colored Bigaro for a friend, and had extra paints left over. I tried some new tricks to get a really shiny metallic candy-coat, including throwing on nice thick coats of Future and immediately hitting the figure with a hairdryer to really cure the Future in place as shiny and smooth as possible. It came out really great on the Bigaro, so I decided to use the rest of the paint on a flesh blank M1GO mini U-tom I had lying around. I’m really pleased with how both of them came out, and think Dan from CollectionDX will be thrilled with the Bigaro!
Got a package today with a truly magnificent new figure in it. Elegab’s latest, the tunnel monster Tonneran is a segment of earth that has come to life, uprooted itself from the ground, and looks angry! The little details really make this figure, like the tree texture on the back, the damage to the streetlight panel, the water drainage pipe arm, and the fully painted little cars trapped on the road.
When I was at Matt Doughty’s house a few weeks ago, he would not let me leave until I took an Armodoc with me with the instructions to go nuts on it. These pics represent about half-way through the process. I am going for a heavily weathered desert-themed figure, I started off spraying the entire figure dark brown, and then worked up the colors, leaving some of the darker colors in the lower areas and crevices, providing a shading that does now show up in the pics right now because the whole figure is gloss-coated for the oil work. Next up are the markings, and then on to chipping, some oil filters, and then some serious dust!
Just a random shot. I’m mostly a Chaos guy when it comes to Real X Head, but I really love this Mutant Head for some reason. I don’t know if it’s the wonderful black vinyl or the luster of the metallic paints, but this guy just pops.
When I met with Matt Doughty of Onell Designs a few weeks ago, he presented me with a small gift. Matt had for me an extra Mutant Chaos head and probe arm from the making of the recent Glyos System Chaos Custom Corps wave. These parts had air bubbles and imperfections and were not fit for proper release under Matt’s stringent quality control guidelines, but Matt knew that I could clean them up and would put them to good use. I got to assemble a body for the parts from The Junkpile, and then sat down to plan a paint scheme. I knew I wanted to use the colors of a Mutant Chaos release, and I ended on the Frankenruge tribute scheme, one of my favorite figures, which I used for my Chaos Family review on CollectionDX:
http://www.collectiondx.com/review/designer_toy/chaos_family
I had the wonderful privilege of getting to see the place where Matt Doughty works his magic at his house, Glyos HQ. He had plenty of cool thing to show me, and wouldn’t let me leave without a few cool things for upcoming projects (and a hint of things to come). Front and center was my getting to see the entire box full of the first Onell release of the Pheyaos Man, and getting to pick mine up early. I know people have been just going mad waiting for this release after seeing the sculpt used in a few Japanese releases so far, and I can say with complete certainty that it is worth the wait. The only disappointed people are going to be the ones who cannot grab one, but I have been assured that more are forthcoming and Matt is going to do everything he can to make people happy. The Pheyaos head sculpt perfectly blends RxH’s Mutant Chaos with Glyos’s Pheyden, as Chaos absorbs some of Pheyden’s power and essence. Anyone who’s seen my previous posts will know that I love the Adult Chaos body, and with the amazing paint work by Goto-san, the whole figure comes together under the head sculpt beyond all expectations. I’ll be reviewing the Pheyaos vinyls, and plan on having the Pheyaos Man review up on the night of the release.
There’s also a pair of teasers here for upcoming customs. One is a Mutant Evil custom I am almost done with, just need to finish some small details. The other is a custom Chaos Glyos figure I got to assemble at Glyos HQ, with resin Chaos arm and head that were flawed and unusable from the recent Custom Corps. I am planning on painting this guy similar to the Pheyaos Man with some fading between a Chaos figure of mine (not sure which yet) and a recognizable Glyos figure scheme.
I also recently published a review of the 3A Toys WWRP Bramble over on CollectionDX:
http://www.collectiondx.com/review/designer_toy/3a_wwrp_bramble_medic
UPDATE: I just published my Pheyaos Man review for CDX:
http://www.collectiondx.com/review/character_toy/pheyaos_man
If you’re into Glyos, don’t sleep on this release.
I am going to be covering all of the 3A Toys I receive for CollectionDX as I get them, next up will be the Portable Berties, hopefully going up before they are all sold out from retailers, so people can actually read a review when looking at buying them.
Gargamel is pretty much the single biggest and most prolific of the Japanese vinyl companies, and their most recognizable figure is the Zagoran, based on a vintage bootleg toy. There are Standard Sized, Mini, Crouching, Pocket, and now Micro Zags, enough for everyone to love one. There are mini releases of many of the popular sculpts in true-blue vinyl, intended for customizing. I went back and forth with my little Zag trying to decide what to do… finally I settled on a low-saturation color palette, contrasting with the bright and wild-colored production releases. Initially the figure was all sprayed, but I really wanted to bring out all the fantastic texture and scale detail in the sculpt, so a wash and some drybrushing later I have a very well-textured cute little Zag. I spent some time thinking about how to do the eye as well, and settled on some more color to ‘pop’ against the muted body color. The mini Zag just has such a fun face!
Incubot Productions is the brainchild of ToyboxDX founder Alen Yen, and is his venue for his original toy designs. Incubot first released the PVC Nekobot USB Flash drive, with is an excellent little figure, and its USB-ness is a good excuse to leave it in your pocket or backpack. The Nekosaurus sofubi, however, is all toy, and an expression of Alen’s love and appreciation for classic Japanese toy funk. The actual figure is sculpted by Kiyoka Ikeda of Gargamel, and produced in the Gargamel factory in Japan, so it is a pure and perfect Japanese vinyl. This first release is the crystal Nekosaurus, complete with paper inserts featuring mechanical gut detail designed by Alen himself. The guts are just jammed pack with really well thought out detail, and crystal really is the right word to describe the vinyl… it’s perfectly clear and flawless. The vinyl and the guts are fantastic, but my favorite part of the toy is hands down the actual sculpt… it is a perfect melding of classic sensibilities and vinyl toy design, and just a phenomenal toy to play with. It’s bigger than a fight figure, but smaller than a standard sized kaiju, around 6″ tall, and fits in your hand perfectly.
Neko looks good and plays just as well, and there are just a few left after the December preorder, available at the Incubot site here: http://incubot.com/sofubi.html Nekosaurus triumphs over other vinyl toys, and is just plain fun. Pick up a Nekobot Flash drive while you’re there!
Prometheus Rising Studios 