Welcome!

Prometheus Rising is going to be the one-stop place for my scale modeling work and war gaming miniature work, along with information about commissioning me to do some work for you, along with whatever else I want to put here, hopefully including helpful articles and maybe some technique stuff.  Check out the links on the right for work in whatever genre suits you, or just scroll down and see what’s new!  It’s also host to some toy collecting photos, basically whatever I’m messing with at the time.

 

Incubot Nekosaurus Crystal Sofubi

Incubot Productions is the brainchild of ToyboxDX founder Alen Yen, and is his venue for his original toy designs.  Incubot first released the PVC Nekobot USB Flash drive, with is an excellent little figure, and its USB-ness is a good excuse to leave it in your pocket or backpack.  The Nekosaurus sofubi, however, is all toy, and an expression of Alen’s love and appreciation for classic Japanese toy funk.  The actual figure is sculpted by Kiyoka Ikeda of Gargamel, and produced in the Gargamel factory in Japan, so it is a pure and perfect Japanese vinyl.  This first release is the crystal Nekosaurus, complete with paper inserts featuring mechanical gut detail designed by Alen himself.  The guts are just jammed pack with really well thought out detail, and crystal really is the right word to describe the vinyl… it’s perfectly clear and flawless.  The vinyl and the guts are fantastic, but my favorite part of the toy is hands down the actual sculpt… it is a perfect melding of classic sensibilities and vinyl toy design, and just a phenomenal toy to play with.  It’s bigger than a fight figure, but smaller than a standard sized kaiju, around 6″ tall, and fits in your hand perfectly.

Neko looks good and plays just as well, and there are just a few left after the December preorder, available at the Incubot site here: http://incubot.com/sofubi.html  Nekosaurus triumphs over other vinyl toys, and is just plain fun.  Pick up a Nekobot Flash drive while you’re there!

 

‘Heavy’ Phanost Onell/Glyos

The Glyos series is the brainchild of Matt Doughty, founder of Onell Designs, a small toy company dedicated to making some of the most fun and unique toys on the planet.  Inspired by his childhood love of Micronauts and all things fun, Glyos toys are ~2″ tall PVC figures with completely interchangeable parts and a variety of designs, allowing you to make just about anything you can imagine.  The build-toy aspects of Glyos are really just amazing, but my favorite part comes down to making awesome character figures to match the great character versions Matt has already come up with.  This custom was based around a special light-grey Phanost head I received as a bonus in one of my orders, for which I built and painted a special body.  We have recently been shown, in the awesome 8-bit style Passcodes Matt produces, some of the origin of the Phanosts, and while I won’t spoil anything, I will say that they are quite powerful.  My thinking with this custom was that a Phanost had been captured and experimented on (maybe by the Sincroids?), so I used some Buildman body parts, since the Buildmen are interchangeable mechanical bodies used by everybody in Glyos.  Upgraded with Phase Armor and a heavy Gobon Cannon, this Phanost escaped his captors with his new, more powerful body, and means business.

 

DaJoint 1/6 Zero Metal Defense Capsule

Phil Reed (battlegrip.com)’s latest 1/6 figure push inspired me to pull this figure out, which I bought back in 2004 or 2005 and have basically been sitting on since.  Before Ashley Wood was pushing the 1/6 envelope with his little Hong Kong firm 3A Toys (expect lots more 3A toy pics forthcoming), Da Joint released  small range of really unique sci-fi 1/6 scale figures.  Da Joint is a small graphic design-type firm from Hong Kong that has done many interesting TV commercials and such now-a-days.   The side of the box reads:

“2037 a.d.  An Iron meteor shower rained down from the sky brought the known human civilization to an end.  Years later, inside the enormous crater of Hongkong island.  Some surviving scientists discovered a large meteorite floating in the air.  The phenomenon was caused by the extreme force and temperature generated during the meteor impact, resulting a realignment of matter’s atomic structure.  The scientists named the anti-gravity meteorite as “ZERO METAL”.  2067 a.d.  The new Hongkong declared independence, named itself “Gang Dao”.  A highly mobilized armour unit armed with Zero Metal technology is introduced as a force to police the region’s security.  Anger and fearful Kowloon civilians united to fight these troops for their own sovereignty.”

Engrish aside, Da Joint’s little world sounds pretty slick, and it’s too bad more did not come out of it.  Regardless of the setting, this Jiu Gang Zero Metal Defense Capsule figure is awesome, but was not perfect. Back in 2004, the base 1/6 person body used in this figure was loose and crappy, so the fantastic armored trooper never really stood up well or could his gun arm out, even though the actual armor was really well detailed and designed.  After seeing the new Hot Toys True Type bodies for sale, the inspiration hit me to finally fix my ZMDC trooper, as the first step in expanding a 1/6 sci-fi collection.  The new body fit perfectly, and is tight and articulated enough to finally breath some life into this impressive design.  I also added a second belt with a pistol holster, and new hands.

Da Joint even went so far as to include decals with the figures for buyers to apply, which were really well printed, and happily, still went down great after sitting in the box for 5 years.  Once all the decals were laid down (I used about 2/3 of the sheet, and the rest is just different numbers and artsy stuff to apply to individualize the figures), I did some weathering to beat up this guy a touch.  I drybrushed the armor in just about the same color as the factory used to fade the decals in, and then did some sponge chipping with a few spots enhanced with some brush-applied marks.  An oil wash brought out the details and added some grime, and then the boots (as well as the guy in the suit underneath) received some dirt and mud splatters using layers of both acrylic paints and weathering pigments.  I added some grease leakage to the moving joints of the armor (mostly on the articulated feet) and some grease to the shiny metal pistons on the feet.  Without going too over the top, I’m really happy with how this guy looks, and he’s just a blast to mess around with now that he can actually hold his gun arm up!

 

It Came From Skullbrain II M1GO GID “Sodor” Manda

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 Franciso.  My contribution is a M1GO GID Manda entitled “Sodo” after a particular Chinese Dragon any child should know.  The show opens this Saturday!

 

Max Toy Co & Dream Rockets GID Neo Eyezon and Shelves

Grail time here… I got back to school yesterday, and today went to the mail room to track down an elusive score.  Conspicuously absent from my Neo Eyezon shoot was this Tokyo Magazine exclusive release via Dream Rockets.  This guy has an orange rub and green sprayed accents on GID vinyl, and was actually the first production GID release, which snuck under most people’s radars.  The rub work admittedly is not amazing on this figure when compared to some of the Ream X Head, but the colors are great.

I also snapped a couple shots of the eclectic mix of vinyls that made it to school with me… there’s a few other toys here as well, but there’ll be time for that later.

EDIT:  Added at the end is a shot of the three newest Neo Eyezons I received in the mail today.  The two two-tone figures are the latest release in Japan, and the red with silver and green spray figure is actually one of two Christmas-themed figures painted by the legendary Goto-san himself.  I hadn’t seen the Christmas one before, and was thrilled when I opened the box.  I’m also looking forward to adding the Kikaida colored figure to my slowly growing Kikaida tribute color group.

 

Max Toy Co Neo Eyezons

I finally got around to  taking a family shot of my Neo Eyezon collection so far.  I have every regular release except one (a magazine exclusive in Japan that I am trying to track down), as well as the Max Toy Club Halloween figure and two show-exclusive Mark Nagata handpaints.  I cannot wait to see what new Neo Eyezons show up this year!

 

Wave 1/24 ATM-09-STTC “Berlin Brigade” Scopedog Turbo Custom

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.

 

Bandai 1/20 VOTOMS ATM-09-GC Brutishdog “Phantom Lady Custom”

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.

 

Max Toy Co Red Pontiac Eyezon Revised

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.

 

Real X Head Guiro Seijin Gatchigon

Guiro Seijin is a very cool kaiju from Ultraman Leo, with a very distinctive painted toy:

http://www.clubtokyo.org/listings/itemListingRpt.php?catID=1&subCatID=12&contentID=1722

I love the paint work and figure, but could never afford the vintage figure.  Somehow I thought the Real X Head Gatchigon sculpt kinda, sorta, maybe reminded me of the Guiro Seijin, so I decided to see how the Gatchigon would look in these colors… the end results came out really neat, even if I feel like I cannot have been the first person to think of this custom.  This guy was fun to paint; the loose spray vintage style was very different from the tight and detailed spray work I usually do.