OK, photos came out better in a little less light so we’re good!
This is the insect-kaiju Gumos, sculpted by Dream Rockets, released in unpainted green vinyl as part of the Battle Pack with Max Toy Co’s unpainted flesh Captain Maxx, used for my Maxx-vell custom. This is the first kaiju I airbrushed, and it was very different from doing Maxx-vell. The colors were applied much more roughly, and free-handed, rather than the handpainting and masking and shading of Captain Maxx. I used a dark green to shade the sculpt, a light green to highlight it, and used the awesome green of the vinyl for the midtones. Browns and reds for the spines/spikes, and yellow greens for the claws. The eyes were a bit of an experiment, and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. I painted the eyes a very dark silver, and then applied dots of much lighter (GW Mithril) silver in a semi-organized pattern. I then applied Tamiya Clear Red in a few thin coats, topped off with some Future for shininess, in an attempt to represent iridescent segmented compound insect eyes.
Here’s a teaser shot for the Gumos kaiju I finished the other day, the second member of the Max Toy Co and Dream Rockets collaborative Battle Pack I purchased, which came with the unpainted flesh Captain Maxx, and an unpainted green Gumos. I’ve gotta take some better photos of Gumos before I upload anything, as my fluorescent lighting washed out all the shading and made most of the figure look unpainted.
This big guy is a recast of an older WonderFest kit (I think!) of the Zentraedi Glaug officer’s battlepod from Super Dimensional Fortress: Macross. The Glaug is a tough design to render due to the spindly arms, and I had to use alot of pins on the parts to keep it stable. I actually finished this kit a year ago, but only finally took it back off the shelf to re-fix the arms the other day, and figured it was time to finally photograph it all finished. The decals were made by me in Photoshop, using a scan of the decal sheet from a 1/72 Glaug plastic kit (either an Arii kit or Imai I assume), printed on clear decal stock. This was the first time I made my own decals, and I’m pretty happy with how they came out… I think the clear backing worked really well with the gunship greys of the machine, and gave it a bit more subdued look, instead of totally bright stand out colors all over the mech. I replaced the antenna on the side of the cockpit with a piece cut from thin Plasticard. Painted with a couple of random Tamiya and Testor’s rattle cans I had on hand, and then detailed with acrylics and a brush. I did all those yellow stencils on the legs by hand, and it took a long time to get them to where I was happy with them. An oil wash and weathering pigments rounded out the package, along with clear red on silver for all the sensor lights.
Finished photos of Captain Maxx-vel, besides from painting the inner head. Airbrush compressor showed up the other day and worked like a charm! The blue guy in the fight scene is the Max Toy Co Alien Xam GID, painted by Deadpreisdents to look like Alien Baltan, and the pink guy is the Pachi Summit MTC Drazoran.
Eyriss is an elven Mage Hunter in the WARMACHINE universe. She is a popular character and often-used model due to her anti-magic utility. Unfortunately the original Eyriss model is pretty much awful, so I never bought one. I newer special release Eyriss model was released more recently which looks much better, but this has been my Eyriss model from the start. It is a conversion based off a Reaper mini, converted using Reaper weapons, as well as removing some ‘evil’ stylings from the armor. This figure is pretty old at this point, but was a new highpoint in my blending and color techniques. The face is still one of my best, and the custom base was alot of fun to put together.
Captain Maxx is the original creation of Mark Nagata, founder of Max Toy Co, as a combination of his love of Ultraman and his son Max. Since his initial release a few years ago, Captain Maxx has developed a small menagerie of fantastically original enemy Kaiju. An unpainted flesh Captain Maxx was released in a Battle Pack with an unpainted Gumos insect kaiju, and the set was one of my first major vinyl purchases. I couldn’t decide which of the available Captain Maxx figures I liked best, so I decided to get the unpainted figure and make my own! When I saw the Captain Maxx design, the Ultraman influence was apparent, but my first thought was ‘Captain Mar-vell’. The figure reminds me of Captain Mar-vell (from Marvel Comics, not DC’s Shazam!) original Kree battle suit, which he wore in his early comic career. Mar-vell Maxx here is also the first figure I have used my new airbrush on… I did the initial base coat with the brush, and then the highlighting of the base suit color (I went for a mintier base color than the pale in the comics). I had a good time doing the fine highlighting on the light color, but could not replicate the results on the darker green yet… I am using Cel-Vinyl paint from the company Cartoon Color, and it sprays well, but works best at low pressure for the fine point way I use the airbrush. Right now all I have is canned air, which has poor pressure regulation… the only reason I was able to get the results I got the first time was because the can was freezing over and running out of air, so I am working on picking out a compressor so I can start using the airbrush more. The figure is shiny right now because it has multiple coats of Future on it as I finish sections, so that I can do any hand painting work without risking messing up anything airbrushed. I’m going to add highlighting to the dark green sections, as well as some other details and hand paint the Kree planet logo on his chest in another green so it stands out.
Marmit is one of the leading modern vinyl kaiju manufacturers today. The Sky Deviler is a design from the stage troupe Big Battel from what I understand, out of Boston. I bought the purple vinyl with green spray colorway the other day. The claws and eye and top pincers were flat colors, and kind of bland, and the eye was not painted too cleanly. I decided to make all the teeth and claws bone colored, instead of the flat silver they were before. I’m still waiting for parts for my airbrush, so everything here is hand painted with acrylics. I did alot of layering on the teeth and claws to get the bone texture down, and then added some cavities and whatnot to them. I Used some reddish colors to blend in where the claws grow out of, as well as redoing the lips on the big sucker mouth, around the eye, and in what I decided were gills on the front of the monster. The eye was done using a picture online for reference, and I used yellow for the iris so it would stand out against the other colors on the figure.
My current shelf setup… a combination of real robots in scale and the vintage super robots I’ve been accumulating lately, along with some vinyls and vintage Transformers.
Just messing around with some various things that have come in on a lazy Saturday morning before work… I went to wrok on a big model the other day and found that my spray-gun’s air hose was broken, so I’m spinning my wheels until the replacement hose shows up, and since I was ordering I ended up buying the Badger 200-20 single-action fine detail airbrush, which works just like the spray gun, and hopefully will open a number of new techniques to me once I get a handle on it!
Got some packages in the mail today… the Lemon Kirby Mad Baron, molded by Zollmen, painted by King Bee, limited to 30 pieces, and my package from Max Toy Co of Captain Maxx figures… flesh blank Captain Maxx (to be painted like Captain Mar-vell’s original Kree soilder costume), Glittery Drazoran Max Toy Club exclusive, and the Dream Rockets Gumos green blank (to be painted and detailed all bug-like) which came packaged with Cap. Maxx as an exclusive Battle Set. As you can see I wasted no time playing with them!
Prometheus Rising Studios 