It Came from Skullbrain II is the second (now annual) showing of customs made by artists at Skullbrain.org, organized by and held at Super7 in San Francisco. My contribution is a M1GO GID Manda entitled “Sodor” after a particular Chinese Dragon any child should know. The show opens this Saturday!
It Came From Skullbrain II M1GO GID “Sodor” Manda 1 comment
Max Toy Co & Dream Rockets GID Neo Eyezon and Shelves Leave a comment
Grail time here… I got back to school yesterday, and today went to the mail room to track down an elusive score. Conspicuously absent from my Neo Eyezon shoot was this Tokyo Magazine exclusive release via Dream Rockets. This guy has an orange rub and green sprayed accents on GID vinyl, and was actually the first production GID release, which snuck under most people’s radars. The rub work admittedly is not amazing on this figure when compared to some of the Ream X Head, but the colors are great.
I also snapped a couple shots of the eclectic mix of vinyls that made it to school with me… there’s a few other toys here as well, but there’ll be time for that later.
EDIT: Added at the end is a shot of the three newest Neo Eyezons I received in the mail today. The two two-tone figures are the latest release in Japan, and the red with silver and green spray figure is actually one of two Christmas-themed figures painted by the legendary Goto-san himself. I hadn’t seen the Christmas one before, and was thrilled when I opened the box. I’m also looking forward to adding the Kikaida colored figure to my slowly growing Kikaida tribute color group.
Max Toy Co Neo Eyezons Leave a comment
I finally got around to taking a family shot of my Neo Eyezon collection so far. I have every regular release except one (a magazine exclusive in Japan that I am trying to track down), as well as the Max Toy Club Halloween figure and two show-exclusive Mark Nagata handpaints. I cannot wait to see what new Neo Eyezons show up this year!
Wave 1/24 ATM-09-STTC “Berlin Brigade” Scopedog Turbo Custom 2 comments
The Wave 1/24 VOTOMS kits are some seriously venerable pieces of plastic, reissued throughout the years with some occasional improvements. Out of the box, they are decently posable and have a bit chubby proportions, but are easy to build and can be vastly improved with a little TLC. I have seen many Scopedogs kitted out in Hobby Japan magazine with new articulation, adjustments to the proportions, and serious detail upgrades, so I wanted to try such an affair for myself. Adler’s Nest is a small firm that makes turned brass and aluminum gun barrels and hardware for scale models (tanks), and they for some reason also make a Scopedog gun barrel from turned brass and aluminum, as well as replacement machined aluminum eye cameras in the main VOTOMS scales (1/24, 1/18, 1/12 I think). I used the gun barrels and eye camera on this build, as well as a set of brass tubing smoke dischargers I made myself, and turned aluminum jet exhausts for the roller dash boosters. I also rebuilt most of the articulation from new parts to improve the articulation on the kit, especially on the shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles. By the time I was done I also added some extra sensor bits to the visor (to work in a tight urban environment), some non-canon weld beads, stowage, and some etched metal details. With the new articulation, the Scopedog can hold its rifle realistically and be in some convincing ‘roller skating’ poses like the Turbo Customs do in the anime.
The paint scheme is a really ugly one I found while doing tank research, an urban disruptive scheme known as the ‘Berlin Brigade’ scheme. It features rectangular drab colors, and black paint straight across the lower portions of the machine (typically the running gear on an AFV) to try and blend in with both the urban structures and road. I filled out my Scopedog with a gamut of decals, and marked this guy as a special Red Shoulder unit, and threw in some battle damage to indicate he’s been campaigning for a while and has seen some heat.
Bandai 1/20 VOTOMS ATM-09-GC Brutishdog “Phantom Lady Custom” Leave a comment
In Armored Troopers: VOTOMS (Vertical One-man Tank for Offensive Maneuvers), Fyana is the early show antagonist and mysterious Phantom Lady, who pilots the powerful Brutishdog custom machine. The Brutishdog is a fearsome design, armed with its massive rotary cannon and brutal shearing claw, with an upgraded roller dash system for enhanced speed and maneuverability.
I finished this kit about a year ago and somehow never got around to photographing it (and a companion piece to come later). I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the excellent Bandai 1/20 VOTOMS plamo kits. On one hand, they are the most detailed and best articulated VOTOMS kits ever produced, but at the same time, they have a dearth of moving parts and are a bit delicate when painted up without care. I have broken a couple of the armor flaps after handling this kit for a year, but it is still one of my favorite models, and the kit really is solid, even if there is a large amount of stuff on the kit that got painted and will never be seen again on the interior and structural skeleton.
The regular pink and off-white Brutishdog has always seemed a bit boring to me, so I wanted to spice up the design with this kit. I added a two-tone pink disruptive scheme to add some interest, along with a large number of decals and some really controlled weathering to depict Fyana in her element, blowing up machines and roller-dashing rings around her enemies. If I ever get around to detailing up my Yamato 1/12 Brutishdog, I will finish it the exact same way.
Max Toy Co Red Pontiac Eyezon Revised Leave a comment
The Red clear Eyezon I was working on needed a little revision, and here is the final result. The new brighter eyes really pop alongside the shiny colors, and the blacked out back eyes add some interesting contrast.
Real X Head Guiro Seijin Gatchigon Leave a comment
Guiro Seijin is a very cool kaiju from Ultraman Leo, with a very distinctive painted toy:
http://www.clubtokyo.org/listings/itemListingRpt.php?catID=1&subCatID=12&contentID=1722
I love the paint work and figure, but could never afford the vintage figure. Somehow I thought the Real X Head Gatchigon sculpt kinda, sorta, maybe reminded me of the Guiro Seijin, so I decided to see how the Gatchigon would look in these colors… the end results came out really neat, even if I feel like I cannot have been the first person to think of this custom. This guy was fun to paint; the loose spray vintage style was very different from the tight and detailed spray work I usually do.
Max Toy Co ‘Red Pontiac’ Clear Kaiju Eyezon Leave a comment
I finished this latest Kaiju Eyezon over the weekend and snapped some nice bright pictures today. The goal for this figure was to change it up from the earthy potato palette of the first two Eyezons, and go with some much brighter colors, and a much greater emphasis on the clear and the visible guts. I’m really happy with how this one came out… the colors have a great deal more subtlety than my other figures, with many layers, while still retaining a surprising amount of clarity. The silhouette of the guts can be made out with the figure in your hands, and up against the light, this figure goes up like a Christmas tree. I cleaned off a few critical spots of paint so that the guts could really be seen in-hand.
M1GO Oozing Hedorah GFW 1 comment
Hedorah the Smog Monster is one of the most iconic of the Godzilla enemy kaiju, even if Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster is one of the most divisive of the Godzilla films. With his many forms, Hedorah brings destruction to Japan as revenge for their polluting ways. This particular sculpt is by M1GO, representing the most recent Godzilla: Final Wars version of Hedorah, in lovely brown chocolate-ey vinyl from the latest Lucky Bag. The color was so fantastic and made Hedorah look like a giant sewage monster, so I wanted to keep most of the base vinyl color and run with the sewage palette. The green ooze is shiny on a matte figure, with wet looking dark brown in he crevices of Hedorah’s body, giving it a wet and dry ‘made of poop’ look that I think really works for the monster.
Max Toy Co Clear Eyezon With Guts 2 WIP Leave a comment
Working on another clear Eyezon with guts… this time, the colors are going to be much more wild, starting with the guts. There is going to be a much greater focus on the guts this time, so the paint work is more extravagant, and I tried something new on the clear body. I sprayed the body with multiple coats of Future, inside and out, before I put any paint on it, so it should be much more clear than the first clear Eyezon I did. I will update with some pics of the guts installed once I do it.
Prometheus Rising Studios 