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Showing posts from December, 2007

New Years Resolutions - 2008

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Everyone has these... and they are so often complete bullshit. But I have started on a couple for myself and I hope to hold onto them for a change. The secret - I made them attainable so they would be easier to hold myself to! 1) Control my spending on stuff I don't really need. Reign in those costs! That includes toys! Not much to say here... I've had trouble with my spending habits for years, and this was a particularly bad one. It's more an anxiety thing than anything, so I need to focus my energies on creative outlets instead of pulling out the credit card whenever I get bored/down/etc. 2) Keep a sketchbook/journal. I've tried this one before with little success. But the approach is different this time. Using Chris Ware's Acme Datebooks as inspiration, I want to write and draw in the same book. One problem may have been that I tried to write one place and draw in another. If they happen together, they can feed off one another even. This will help keep m

Toypunks vol. 1

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http://www.toypunks.com/ I was finally able to sit down and watch this new DVD recently, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it. At a runtime of about 45 minutes, it is full of clipped interviews from various influential figures in the street fashion and vinyl toy industry. There is a lot with Hikaru Iwanaga, the founder of Bounty Hunter, which is fitting as it was his toy, the Kid Hunter, that essentially started the designer toy surge way back in 1997. There is a lot of interesting insight from the different interviews about their influences from overseas, old cartoons, etc. I enjoyed seeing the bits with various collectors too... hearing why people like certain toys and why they collect the things they do. Seeing the sweet collections was nice too. One thing that bothered me about the movie was not actually something with the movie, but rather with Frank Kozik's interview clips in the extra features about the "underground"... or in his opinion the lack thereof. I don

Fallout

Fallout is infecting my brain. I am viewing my day-to-day life as turn based. On another note... I took two movies from my work today that were left there for months... basically the lost and found of DVDs. The Big Sleep, which is a pretty good movie, and a double DVD set of A little Princess and the Secret Garden. The latter is in the hope that I have a daughter someday... but I was pleasantly surprised to see that "A Little Princess" was directed mby Alfonso Cuaron who is high on my list of great contemporary directors, if only because of "Children of Men" (which is another story). But now that I think of it, he directed the best Harry Potter film as well.

This Game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_One_Lives_Forever This game was not that good, but I've spent months trying to figure out the title. It's a hard search, and I have to give a lot of credit to Wikipedia... I'm fairly new to that whole scene but I find that it's often better than IMDB or gamespot of any of thoe "official sites". It also reminds me of a time when my brother would look over my shoulder as I played games in complete reverence. Nowadays, tables have turned, but that's another story. .. This game reminds me of Abstract Rude and sitting in my mom's office with my brother for hours on end... NEXT: Diablo II

Fallout 2. Play it.

High on my list of games is Fallout 2. I was shocked when I saw that it was made in 1998. Ten years ago this game was made and it's significantly better than most contemporary games. It's all about breadth, I suppose. When I hone my skills as a reviewer I will go more in depth about the genius and inadequacies of the game, but for now I will recommend the most clever, in depth game that I have ever played... aside from Half-Life... of course.

blogaway my friend

I don't care about my fropile.

My first custom paint job

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I'm moving this article from late November until now to better match up with my Hedoro Kun blog I tried out the new Iwata airbrush on a vinyl toy for the first time on this toy. It's nothing special by any means... I took a my purple Hedoro Kun by Bounty Hunter and made it gloss black. I like how it turned out - I decided not to try anything else since the solid color looks like a Bounty Hunter style color scheme anyway. This was mainly a chance for me to see how the airbrush works on a 3-dimensional surface and to see how v-color paint lays down and dries and stuff like that.

Hedoro Kun by Bounty Hunter

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This is actually the first Bounty Hunter figure I purchased. There is no real reason for it other than it was the first one that became available to me when I went on my BxH buying spree, but it is fitting because Hedorah was in fact the creature that got me hooked on all these Japanese toys in the first place. What I found appealing about Hedorah was the way that different companies would approach his sculpt. It is a free flowing form essentially that has been presented in many different shapes and colors.  As far as I know, there is no story behind this figure other than it is jsut paying homage to the classic smog monster Hedorah from the 70s Toho Godzilla movie. Many Bounty Hunter toys do just that... they aren't trying to be witty and out there... just cool, simple toys that work and show respect to things that Hikaru Iwanaga holds dear. Header //N/A//: The same Bounty Hunter clear plastic bag. Sculpt //4 out of 5//: This figure looks like what you would get if you took the O

Giant Chiteidako Zoromederu by AnrakuAnsaku

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Here's another AnrakuAnsaku! Meet Giant Chiteidako Zoromederu, or Dako as we American guys seem to call him. The name Dako, seen at the end of the word Chiteidako, has something to do with octopus, and you can see that in this figure. And like the Gogamejiras, on www.anrakuansaku.com you can find Flash movies of Dako up to no good as many giant monsters like to do. In these movies, you can see Dako flying around on what appears to be helicopter-like spinning feet, and his tentacles constantly flail about. Also, Dako seems to be able to light up his eyes like flashlights and even shoot what are possibly electrified beams from them. He destroys buildings and airplanes and lives under the sea as any great monster should. Due to the yellow/red color scheme of this particular Dako, I first saw it called the Mustard/Ketchup Dako, but my favorite one is the Hogan Dako. If you know a little about Hulk Hogan, you may remember at a certain point in virtually every Hulk Hogan wrestling match

To '007!

January : Musical. February : Eventful. March : Slipping. April : Recovering. May : Smiling. June : Fretting. July : Cribbing. August : Hoping. September: Thinking. October : Reeling. November : Crashing! December : Halting. 2008...

Mescalgon by AnrakuAnsaku

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From my favorite low-run vinyl toy producer AnrakuAnsaku comes this frightening figure: Mescalgon Like Gogamejiras, there isn't much background provided for Mescalgon... actually there is even less from what i can tell. A theory forwarded to me by miami on the skullbrain.org message board is that Mescalgon is named as such due to his resemblance to the mescal (or peyote) cactus from which mescaline is derived. Mescaline is a hallucinogenic drug for those of you not in the know. :) Miami thinks that Mescalgon also looks like the opium poppy, and I have to say I can agree there. Time for fantasy world! Maybe Mescalgon not only has his bulk and most likely some sort of breath weapon, a water based corrosive acid mixture, but also can unleash hallucinogenic chemicals that will send his opponents into a dreamlike state in which Mescalgon can really do some damage. Those head tentacles could probably do some boring into brains when his opponent is sitting in a lifeless state, dreaming a

Angel Sanda round 2 - I shook up the gold!

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Before then after shots. thanks to LASH for the assist A thorough shaking to the gold made it a completely different paint. The gold looks so much better now. I went back and added to the original yellow layer and gave a light misting to the brick looking areas of his skin for a very pale yellow and the hint of glitter

Angel Sanda

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From the same set as the Demon Gaira. This was also unpainted flesh colored vinyl. flat white with varying shades of gloss gold darkest golds are top of head, shoulders, hips and crotch The Man with the Golden Crotch! The gold doesn't come across perfectly in the photos... it looks yellow even though I used no yellow All in all, I have to say I like the results of silver VColor better than gold for sheen and coverage, and if i were to do it over, I think I would go for a gloss white base on this one as opposed to the matte I was told to try shaking up the gold even better, so I may add more to this one

Demon Gaira

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More custom painting work by yours truly Gaira and Sanda were the two giant monsters from the War of the Gargantuans movie made by Toho in the 1960s This figure started as plain flesh colored vinyl flat black with red/silver fur highlights. eyes are plain silver. I feel like this needs something more - more color? highlights or something on the scaly looking areas? Painted mouth? comments welcome!