These bad boys were part of veteran Cosmic Squadron painted by Dead Pre$idents for the Kaiju Bazaar show at Doubple Punch. More pics to follow, but here’s a shot of Troopers Gary “Heat Death” and Steve “Infernus” on patrol.
The other members of the squad are not available at the Cosmic Squadron Store!
Max Toy Co unveiled its new line of mini vinyl sculpts a few months back, and the first release was of unpainted pink vinyl. Each of the Max Toy Co characters was sculpted in around 3″ scale by different Japanese artists that Mark has worked with, lending each figure a unique flare and style, while still forming a cohesive and really cool line.
I painted this Drazoran to match (sort of) my pet in World of Warcraft, because I named my Devilsaur pet ‘Drazoran’, and I am a dork. Sharp-eyed observers will notice the colors are similar to my Blobpus painting contest blob… these colors are a favorite of mine, and will likely be popping up more often 😉 I made sure to use the bright pink vinyl in crevices and joint areas to represent softer flexible flesh in between the thick hide, like a real reptile (or dinosaur!) The figure was painted using Monster Kolor, and because it’s a mini, I got to really work on my tight airbrushing skills using only the Super Fine tip I have. I may end up having to grab some more minis to paint, because they are a great size to paint in an afternoon and try new things on, and are pretty easy to find.
Kaiju Big Battel is an awesome idea. Dudes dress up in kaiju costumes of their own design and duke it out live on stage. A few of the more popular creatures have been made into figures, courtesy of Marmit. The Big Battel figures have the ‘fun’ factor turned up to 11, and are really creative designs that make pretty sweet figures. Vegetius here is a giant turtle, but not the coolest figure. His giant pointy head and little stubby arms make him silly looking, but not as much fun as an actual toy. The design is still really interesting, and proved really fun to paint. If you’re looking for a Vegetius, look no further than CollectionDX! Josh Bernard’s killer Nor’easter colorway is still available in limited quantities, and features squishy blue vinyl with glitter embedded in it, and a great cold-themed paint job.
This ‘Real-type’ Vegetius is my vision of what the big, pointy turtle would look like if it were actually emerging from the ocean! Painted completely with Monster Kolor, it features the gloss coat for a ‘wet’ look, and different pearl effects on different areas to complete the wet effect. I worked in some fades, as well as some finer details and free-hand work to get more practice, and am really happy with how it turned out!
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!
Finished the Desert Armodoc today! He’s been on the trail of a traveler for what seems like eons, both of them trapped on a world of endless desert. The Armodoc’s been blasted by winds and scorched by suns, and caked with dust. I left the eyes, gun tip, and top head ‘vents’ GID vinyl to add a little interest, and the color of the glow vinyl fits right in with the desert faded colors. The weathering is a combination of oil washes, filters, acrylic chipping, airbrushed paint fading, and dry pigments, all done in layers to give him some history and depth.
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!
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!
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!
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.
Prometheus Rising Studios 