FOE Gallery is hosting an awesome themed show in February.  Mike Nordstrom is undoubtedly the world’s leading Garamon expert and aficionado, and has curated a show that is going to knock socks off.  I was thrilled to get asked to participate alongside guys like Mark Nagata, Bob Conge, and Koji Harmon.  I went for a realistic finish rather than Monster Kolor craziness, going full ‘model kit’ style on this super detailed sculpt.  Show opens February 10th in Northampton!

Chilly Garamon is painted with Monster Kolor and acrylics, sealed for protection, and given a velvety smooth matte finish.  I use airbrush work, washes, drybrushing, and filters to add depth and variation to the details and am super stoked with how it came out.  He’s articulated at the hips, tail, arms, and head, with a ball-jointed neck!  It’s a very expressive sculpt that captures the grossness and doofyness of Garamon perfectly.

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.

Reorganized some shelves while waiting for new arrivals.  Here’s my 1/60 scale mecha lineup, featuring Macross, Dougram, Dorvack, Patlabor, Votoms, Gundam, and Mospeada.  Basically, all of my favorite things.  Click the top image for a bigger panorama.

3A deliveries are the best.  The new portable Dropcloth is insane.  They managed to replicate the 1/6 bot at half the size perfectly, to a fault.  The hands are really too delicate to hold the weapons, so I added a pin to the right palm that hooks into the weapon handles like on Gundam kits.

Fang of the Sun Dougram is one of my favorite mecha series, and the old toys are fantastic.  The 1/144 series manages to strike a great balance of diecast, solid construction, and sharp details into a small size that allows for army building and some nice Real Robot diorama action.  Here’s an Earth Federation patrol on maneuvers in the desert.

Spotted by a recon flyover.

NiStuff recently debuted some fantastic PVC minifigures based on his Glyos-inspired 481 Universe, and they have really inspired me to get to work.  You can check them out at Ni’s site, and I’ll definitely be posting more about them in the near future, but I was having a little fun tonight and wanted to show off.  The first thing I did when I got my set was get out a knife and some rare earth magnets and articulate the shoulders, to great success.  Adamen are the ubiquitous worker species of the 481 setting, and I couldn’t help prep my first one as a support crew member for a very mecha-ey Glyos build I recently finished.  I have a couple more on the way that will be getting the same treatment so I can paint them all at the same time, and will show more then!

Obviously these are used without permission, but I don’t think they’ll mind.

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.

What’s New: Restore’s Debris Japan contest results are up!

The results are:

First Place: ‘Death Trap’ by Toybot Studios

Second Place: ‘The Spirit Who Restores’ by Plaseebo

Third Place: ‘Gikaku’ by Prometheus Rising Studios

Congratulations to everyone who entered!  The overall level of work submitted was incredible, and it can not have been easy to pick any standouts.  I am thrilled to be recognized among among such top-tier work.  Big thanks to Restore for sculpting such an impressive figure, and for running this contest.