herbiehancock

I previously wrote about the Matango ( マタンゴ) by M1Go (Ｍ１号) here about a year ago. I just wanted to show off a new member of the fungal family I received from a boardmember on skullbrain ! I pulled my old category scores from the previous Matango entry and applied them here... then elaborated on the Hawaii paint. I've also added a bit about the headers for these toys, since I did not do so the first time around. And, just for shits and giggles, pictured here is a poster from the movie! Header //4.5 out of 5//: No complaints here. I really like the hand drawn monsters and typeface on here. It advertises for the relatively new company (to the older companies like Bullmark or Marusan for instance) and other products while still feeling vintagey. I would have liked it if it were slightly larger, and if it didn't seem as generic as it does. For someone like me (a non-Japanese reader!), this header would be a little better if it highlighted the fact it was for Matango. As it is now,...

Here's another Dada (ダダ) I had sent to LASH to be painted up. Unlike the previous radioactive Dada, this Dada has the standard face and was made from flesh colored vinyl instead of glow-in-the-dark. This one doesn't have a name as far as I know, but it is quite a drastic change once again from the stark black and white lines of a normal Dada. There are all sorts of colors here... from the warm tones of his skin to the metallic looking purples on top of his head, shoulders, eyes, feet and the "virus" spots. The black serves to really make certain areas pop.

I sent LASH an unpainted glow-in-the-dark Dada (ダダ) by the company M1Go... I got back a Toxic Glow Dada! I've had this for awhile (a few months! gah!), but I have obviously been very lazy about posting anything at all on my little blog here. Dada is an Ultraman character... actually I believe an entire race of aliens that appeared in several Ultraman shows over the years. They look different at times, but always have white faces and black-and-white striped bodies. Dadas have the ability to teleport and can become invisible for short amounts of time. They can also fly and I have seen them with large laser gun looking weapons. I have to admit, Dada was initially one of my favorite kaiju because he is so strange and different from the standard dinosaur themed monster of Japanese TV and films, but I have never actually seen an episode of Ultraman with Dada in it. While my adoration of Dada has faded somewhat lately, I still really like the M1Go takes on this figure which seem to be al...

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

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

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!

Alien Tepeto by M1Go was a figure I bought pretty early on when I started my kaiju craze this year. He was pretty random, but I never really got into him all that much... he's no Dada afterall. Oh but wait..... Enter Paul Kaiju www.paulkaiju.com I thought that if Tepeto looked more like my Dadas that he would fit in a bit better. It turned out really nice I have to say. BEFORE (see how sad he was?) AFTER (pic snagged from Paul) My only instructions were to use Dada (and to a lesser extent the Balzac Skullmerry figure) as inspiration and I really would like to see the hard black and white contrasty scheme maintained.  I think Paul did a great job! The zebra stripes look like they were an absolute bear to mask out, and they are different enough from Dada's geometric pattern to make the figure unique among the similar pieces. He has nice shading underneath folds in the clothing. Unfortunately the paint got a scratch in it somewhere before it got to me, but at least this i...

I have only done my little reviews in the past on action figures... with articulation and weapons and such... so I have not been exactly sure how to do reviews of kaiju figures since they are so different. It is all subjective, of course, but I think kaiju is collected for different reasons. Maybe not... Either way, here we have the M1 sculpt of the Matango monster from the Toho film Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People . I have stated before that this movie was underwhelming to me, but it honestly was not terrible. It was one of those situations where you go into something with certain expectations, and when that something is totally different it feels like a let down. This was an intelligent horror film, honestly (I'll admit when I am wrong!) but I had gone in expecting a campy monster flick, which it is not. Well, it is like the crew of Gilligan's island arguing and killing one another over food and sex.... Regardless, the mushroom monsters in the film are very cool despit...