Archive for the ‘Anime’ Tag
When Armored Trooper VOTOMS was released, there were toys in a number of different sizes and formats, including the 1/60 scale AT Collection Series diecast minis, which were similar in vein to the 1/144 Dougram figures and the Takatoku 1/144 Macross Destroids. These little guys are sharply molded, nicely detailed, and had a good heft due to the diecast parts. They stand around 3″ tall. Unlike the Dougram and Macross minis, the VOTOMS figures did not feature painted much detail, since the idea was that you would paint them up and apply the stickers yourself, in that classic 80s Dual Model style. I made a few mods to this guy and painted him up. You can see an unpainted out of the box version in Veef’s review on CollectionDX.
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When I posted the finished shots of my Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam painted with Monster Kolor, Matt Walker aka Dead Pre$idents asked me if he could display it at the booth he was sharing with Max Toy Co at Winter Wonder Festival in Japan. Monster Kolor paint has been a huge success for Matt, and he is always looking for demonstrations of its use in new and creative ways. My MK on plastic Gundam model fit the bill, and was shipped off to Japan for display at the show. These pics of the booth come courtesy of Kaiju Korner Andy, who has been providing the best English-language coverage of Japanese shows and festivals out there for a couple of years now. Go check out the rest of his extensive WonderFest coverage here. He took a gazillion photos, and there’s more still to be posted.
Here’s a shot of the whole Max Toy Co and Friends booth! My Gundam was in good company. I think it’s giving Max Toy Co’s new micro Kaiju Negora sculpt a bit of a shakedown!
Bandai’s Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam ver. 2.0 is a heck of a kit. The design is clean and ‘doughy’ in a way that manages to capture the feel of the anime very well. The sharp and clean design made the perfect subject for a Monster Kolor powered airbrushed paint job. I wanted to do something more original than a clean white Gundam, so I followed a scheme similar to the original Clover Gundam toys, which were silver instead of white. Obviously I could not leave it just clean and smooth, because that would be boring, so I proceeded to apply the entire waterslide decal sheet Bandai sells for this kit, making for some interesting contrast against the clean sculpt. Katoki would be proud.
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Just a little something goofy I put together tonight. I’ve had scans of an old vintage Dougram paper model kit book forever, and I finally decided to print them out and put them together. The first up was the Soltic Roundfacer. It is rather primitive by today’s standards, but you have to give the designers credit for trying. The other figures in the book are the Dougram, Blockhead, and Crab Gunner, and I will be trying them out soon.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
My latest package from Japan showed up, filling in some big holes in my collection, including a MIB Metalhawk, Dezaras, and Micromaster Rabbicrater, the figure that was exclusively packed in with the original Zone OVA VHS!
Pics of my shelves seem to have become pretty popular, so here’s an update including much better pics of my vinyl shelves, and the bottom shelf totally redone with my TF big-guns in anticipation of some new stuff coming! Right now I’m loving the Max Toy Co and glow display on my nightstand.
Prometheus Rising Studios 