Snapped some pics of my November haul, and was messing around with the figures that came back to school with me after Thanksgiving.
Elegab Puppet Seijin, Designer Con Evil Bat, GID unpainted Chaos Beast, Unpainted black proto Steven the Bat, Ikarawa Bullmark Legends Gabora, Real x Head mini GID Gatchigon, and “Halloween” Neo Eyezon painted by Mark Nagata on GID vinyl. Also, a pic of my new M1GO pink unpainted Greenmons keeping me company while I slog through a Bio Lab report.
Just messing around with some new acquisitions… Takara’s 1/72 dual-model Dougram figures. Die-cast skeletons with plastic armor parts and fantastic articulation and detail make for a win in my book.
Elegab is the work of a single man in Japan, and is cranking out some of the most original vinyl kaiju available right now. All of Elegab’s stuff has a rougher hand-made feel, and the figures never sacrifice on the fun factor. The Shuttlegon here is a towering monster held into some kind of containment suit with a jetpack and mechanical wrench-arm that can grab and hold mini figures! This custom is painted on the Glow In the Dark blank that was released a few months ago… I also have a blank Monster Patrol Car (another amazing toy) to paint up some day. I wanted to try using more colors than I usually do, and used a shiny finish instead of my usual matte. The metallic bits are all Future shiny and look like candy, and all of the organic bits were hit with a 50/50 Future and Vallejo Satin mix. The eyes were painted to match the production Elegab pieces with a thick and rough white and black combo. The horns and claws and teeth are all the base GID vinyl, and the whole figure still glows really well through the paint. Glow shots to come tonight.
After working through the big Space Troopers group and finishing them earlier this week, I wanted to spend this weekend unwinding on some pet projects. I have accumulated a good number of M1 kaiju blanks, and brought a few to school with me that I was furthest along the planning process with. First up, which I knocked out last night, was this Godzilla. The base figure is the 09 Lucky Bag (I think Wonderfest) red unpainted 1974 Godzilla sculpt based on Goji’s appearance in Godzilla cs. Mechagodzilla. The red vinyl was really vibrant and lovely, and I spent alot of time trying to decide what to do with it. I finally settled on a modified ‘Burning’ scheme, from Godzilla vs Destroyah, the final Hisei-era film, in which Godzilla basically has atomic indigestion/ a heart attack. The Burning/Meltdown scheme is usually much more dark and start, with Godzilla’s body color in that film being very inky and close to black. I am a sucker for classic green Godzilla, however, and decided to use the red vinyl blank as the basis for a much more olive lizard green Godzilla undergoing his atomic meltdown. I also tried using some different metallic paints through my airbrush, Privater Press Paints colors, which I was not sure of the spray-ability of. They went on very thin, but that worked to my advantage in keeping the vibrant red on the spines while sprucing them up. The teeth and eyes were added in with a little brush work, and I am really happy with how this monster came out.
I finished the third and final pair of Space Troopers for my commission yesterday. These two are an eve more drastic departure from the style of the first pair (Soviet) or second pair (Cloud Patrol). These guys were meant to be white with a basic color over spray, shiny, and much more toy-like than the other pairs. I decided that it could not get much more classic toy-style than to freehand spray almost everything on the figure. I was unsure how it would go at first, but once I got into a rhythm handling the airbrush it went really quickly and was a good time. I am really happy with how these guys came out, even though I was unsure of the idea at first. I hand brushed just a few details like the eyes and teeth in a single color each to keep it simple. It was tough to resist the temptation to go nuts with a blood spray all over the chainsaw guy, but I figured for this set he is the ice-clearer guy instead. If I did another set with a chainsaw guy in it, I’d definitely make him the berserker of the group and go hog wild!
On to the pics!
Here’s the second pair of figures in my Space Troopers commission, Cloud patrol Troopers. These are the counterparts to the Soviet guys and have an ‘America’ feel without being too overt… I considered a more Captain America-ey direct enemy to the Soviet squad, but brainstormed trying this cloud camo with my airbrush and really wanted to try it. The heads on these guys are GID so I figured they were ghosts instead of radioactive zombies, so I left their suits cleaner. Glow shots to come later (when it’s dark!)
Space Troopers are a line of figures by vinyl company Toygraph. They feature a modular design with multiple arm weapons and heads, and a classic sci-fi funk. I am currently working on three pairs of Troopers in different paint schemes, and finished these Soviet themed Troopers last night. Troopers usually have a simple masked spray pattern and are kind of boring, but I thought that they could be vastly improved with a matte finish and some proper weathering and detailing. I freehanded the wavy camo over a classic Rooskie red suit, and added brass colored joint work and some yellow trim, looking at my Big Red Large Martin for inspiration.
I’m really happy with how these came out, and might have to whip up some more in this scheme.
I finished up this second Kaiju Eyezon before break, but only finally took good finished photos of it this morning. I painted this clear figure with translucent colors in a similar paint scheme as my ‘Sprouting’ GID one for a customer and painted the guts to match the plant theme. The ‘bones’ are all green in order to look like stalks holding Eyezon together, and the guts are colorful so they contrast with the earth tones of the body. I made the irises much smaller this time so the big clear eyeballs could serve as view-ports into the guts. With some light behind it this guy really shines, and all of the guts are silhouetted. I sprayed a bunch of coats of Future to give the figure a really shiny finish and get the colors as translucent as possible.
Vinyl figures conquer the shelves! Phil Reed’s (from Battlegrip.com) gonna hate this update… he’s currently trying to keep himself from falling off the vinyl cliff, and here I am pushing just about every robot toy I own out of the way for more vinyl! I’ve got standard-sized Kaiju up the wazoo… I’ve got a separate space for unpainted M1 Kaiju, sort of as holding area for them, and then a Max Toy Co shelf, with more Neo Eyezons on the way, and an ‘everything else’ standard-sized shelf. On the bottom is the Real X Head shelf… I’ve been having alot of fun seeing all the different colorways out there… especially in the Chaos family. Of note are the two Mark Nagata handpaints, Toybot Studios Rock and Roll Kemur Seijin, the SDCC Goto-san painted Drazoran, M1 Lucky Bag Red Ultraman, and the awesome Superfest Kikaida paint-scheme Chaos Adult.
Edit: threw a fight pic on the end.
An update on the toys that were waiting for me at the end of this college term… some updated proper shelf shots are in order of my now awesome vinyl collection. Kaiju have muscled Gokin and Transformers out of the way to take over! Lots of M1 Lucky Bag blanks, a ton of RealXHead, including the first Gatchigon (Smokey clear with GID vinyl shards and green baby), and two non-vinyl victories, the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Megazord and Thunderzord, two of my favorite toys! Also note the Marka Nagata handpainted Captain Maxx, as well as my Toy Karma 2 Mark Nagata Neo Eyezon and Toybot Studios Rockin Kemur Seijin show pieces. Transformers-wise, I managed to score another grail piece, Micromaster Sonic, partner to Sonic Bomber, the missing piece of my Zone Powered Masters trio!
Prometheus Rising Studios 