Just Beet It.

I found the second toy in this line (Beet-Gugal, pincer beetle) a long time ago, but had no luck in tracking down nos. 1 and 3. They're around if you stalk the Japan auctions, but after mentally calculating the middleman fees, my desire to own them inevitably waned.

Then I somehow managed to luck into these- virtually case-fresh- at a fairly unlikely joint. Small crush and tear on the Gadol, but the boxes were too pristine for me to turn it down. Not bad for 25 year old toys.

If you are wondering why I am not searching for the obviously missing 4th Beet, it does not exist (except as a Transformer). Sadly, I will never be able to spell out the secret message on the side of the boxes.

BEETR... BEETRO? BEETRAN? Oh, whatever could it be?

[Super7] It Came From Skullbrain!

It Came From Skullbrain!, or ICFSB for short, was held in the fuzzy walls (flocked Stormtroopers, baby!) of Super7's San Francisco Post St. location on Saturday, April 18, 2009. The first of its kind, ICFSB invited the professional, semi-professional and admitted amateur artists of the Skullbrain.org forums to showcase their best photographic and three-dimensional works on the store shelves. These are the same shelves that have hosted many a show of the notables of the soft vinyl world. That is to say, it is something of an honor to participate.

I arrived a bit late to the show due to heavy traffic in The City and other scheduling conflicts. To make a long story short, I took a nap. The party was in full swing at Super7 with KISS (??) mugging for the cameras, out-of-towners in town, the tub of free beer almost empty and the temperature 20 degrees above the outdoors. Truth be told, I have never seen the store more crowded than it was that night, so it can probably be safely said that the event was a success.

On the left as you enter, all of the photographic works were on display. I didn't take shots of these, but Joe (ever the diligent photographer) has them up on his NEW blog. My personal favorites were the two from Hawaii's Zakka, which were done on unframed, raised canvases. Did I mention he is from Hawaii. Da kine?

Toys were displayed at the back of the store on two levels of shelving.



One of my two favorite customs of the night, Hiro Hayashi (aka, Lil' Japan, aka BEYOND) had these smooth Beetlars on display. The colors on these were earthy and subtle, with the feel of traditional Japanese pottery or ironware. The brown 'spattered' Beetlar on the left (photo is not great) would have been my pick of the lot had I some additional cash that night.

The two Madball-esque fellows were from motorbot.



Customs by Skullbrain's hellopike (far left) and scottygee (right). Custom Dream Rocket Doguma... neat!



Customs by Bob Conge (skull in box, and Hedorah?) and Mr. Grzlli Atom (Dragamel, Killer and Smogun).



Can't remember who most of these are from. The "Satan King" Ojo Rojo is by hellopike. How 'bout one on a clear body... hmm?



LASH customs on right (Bawer and Hood Zombie)- there are lots of (better) photos on his blog, so I feel a little less bad about giving them the edge cut of two photos. Don't know who did the Secret Base in the middle.

Fulfilling the neon quotient of the show, VELOCITRON gave us a Kemuru Ningen (what do you call these?) and a custom vintage Garuban. He assured us that no viably collectible vintage pieces were harmed in the process. I feel like I wasted my time sharpening my pitchfork.



Assorted customs...



Paul Kaiju gave us another helping of classic kaiju with his custom M1Go Vira Seijin and Marmit VP Baran customs. Also: Zollmen Monster Parade set up front and a Rumble Monster to the left (it is shown in another photo). I've got to say that a nice, thick clearcoat really does wonders for a custom. Not that Paul K's airbrushing techniques are lacking in any way, but the glossy surface definitely gives customs a professional, finished look.



Killer "Battle-Damaged" Combat-R Zeros from Robert DeCastro (who is also the creator of the toy!). These were just "off the hook" as the youth say, and reminded me of my formative years spent flipping through Hobby Japan. And hey, you can buy the production models on his website: Atomic Mushroom.

The Squirms are custom works from an artist called "Reactor-88," if memory serves. They're clean and well-executed, but I am not a fan of customs that use a toy as a blank canvas. There's lots of platform toys for that kind of thing.



I really have to apologize to whomever entered that Majin Bander into the show- I took two photos and both cut off its head.

My attention was just stolen by the Amapro Mecha-Gonira custom from Grumble Toy Chris. I broke into a bit of a nervous sweat when I saw this one because there was no price tag on it. Had it already been sold? Fortunately, when I inquired about it at the from counter, Josh said that it had just arrived and that there had not been time to prep it for the show. And, yes- it was still for sale! We'll see more of evil Mecha-Gonira in a few weeks.



A handful of customs from Leecifer on the left and some fantastic metallic pieces from Skullbrain's redhanded. I don't know how he does it!



The Mummy Boy and Gorosaurus on the far right are customs by Josh (joshuajh) and Josh/Alex (bannedindc), respectively, both of whom were pulling double-duty that night as Super7 employees and artists.

Joe (or as you may know him, JOE) was responsible for the Rangeas and Gaiking Gachados. I've been told that the reason Gargamel will not produce many paint masked Gachas is the complexity of the sculpt. So yeah, I'm guessing this took a while.

Comic artist / toy guy, Ben Seto (mangakaben), created the custom Secret Base Devil Dog on the far left. The toy that no one wanted is back with adorable, robotic vengeance. Be sure to check out his website- I would love to own a poster or a print from him someday.



Kirkland Jue (aka, Toybotstudios), the man who does not need a link to his website (because it is on the right side of this page) gave us the 4 customs in front. Each of the Space Troopers has a little skeleton inside, exposed through the cracks in their armor. Where do you buy little skeletons like that?

Tan-ki (from France, I think) painted the Kanegon on the far right.



Custom Himalayan (cut off), Globby and Jet Jaguar from Bert Gatchalians (aka, gatchabert). The green Bop Dragon is from a new face, Dustin Cantrell; the patterned Bop in back is from OsirisOrion. Although Rumble Monsters appears to have picked up the style on the left for a future production run, I think I like the less intricate blue-green version by Mr. Cantrell. Good use of the texture and smooth areas on the sculpt. I look forward to seeing more from Dustin.



The two pieces on the left and in the middle are customs from devilboy, who is also the creator of the sculpt! They have a totally different feel when painted with the speckles and stains of stone textures versus a normal, "full color" paint job.



Assorted customs from people whose names I can't remember. Sorry guys. I like the Goga- simple and oceanic.

And two of the other stars of show (in my humble opinion, anyhow):




Up top is custom Jumbo Machinder from artist Jeff Lamm (aka, greasebat), best known for his distinctive kaiju-centric prints and posters. It takes a little bit of nuts (the good kind, that you're gonna love) to customize a freakin' Jumbo, and this thing towered over the other customs at the show. I love the design, which reminds me of what could be an obscure Argentinian bootleg of a Jumbo. I'd totally buy a smaller toy of it.

Bottom is a custom Dempagon from RedYoda. Not only is his kitbashing job admirable, but it is also a functional piece (emitting squealing electronic static is technically a function). Something in the eye is sensitive to light; by shining the light pen into its eye, it translates the intensity of the beam into sound. I don't know how it works- so, hey, it's magic. So he gets "mad propz" for building something in addition to destroying a toy. Wink.

I went into the show with somewhat mixed feelings on the subject matter. In some sense, elevating fan customs to the level of show pieces rubs me in a bad way because it brings out the sharks in the designer toy world. And, true to form, there were a lot of artists there that I had never heard of personally, although they seemed to be well-known (?) in the western world. Did they really "come from Skullbrain (forums)"? I guess I can't blame them for pimping (oops- displaying) their stuff at the store- an eyeball is an eyeball in the end.

But the show did have the effect of bringing folks together who might not normally fly out to SF for a Super7 show. This is really the strength of the hobby- community. The shows at the store are great for getting to know new collectors/faces and reconnecting with old acquaintances. And you know what? Most of the customs were really good, and to see them all displayed together was fascinating in its own way. So damn the opportunists, I'm looking forward to seeing another show like this in the future. Make it happen you creative bastards.

[Max Toy Co. x Dream Rocket] DRAZORAN

Mark Nagata recently unveiled his latest soft vinyl toy at the Kaiju Comrades show in The Ghetto (a gallery, not THE ghetto), which took place at the end of March 2009. Drazoran [ドラゾラン] is the fourth foe of Captain Maxx, following on the heels of Eyezon and Tripus (the second was Alien Xam). Captain Maxx, and the various creatures that inhabit his universe, are all original creations of Nagata.

The story behind Drazoran's appearance is detailed on the back of its beautifully illustrated header card. He is a legendary beast from days past who has been brought forward through time due to the massive battles between Captain Maxx and his alien opponents. It is implied that he is the real-world archetype for dragon and giant lizard myths, which is a clever twist on the cliched science-gone-wrong origin story. Not surprising coming from the guy who designed a giant space potato.

But Drazoran is not only the latest installment to the Captain Maxx tale- he is also the first Max Toy soft vinyl figure to be produced entirely in Japan! Both Eyezon and Tripus, although appearing similar to other neo-kaiju toys, were manufactured in Chinese factories. Vintage kaiju toys by companies such as Bullmark and Marusan were mostly manually produced and hand-painted in Japanese factories. It was a fairly personal manufacturing process in contrast to modern standards; while the term "factories" is used, these were basically guys with tools, molds, airbrushes and giant vats of liquid vinyl in small, poorly-ventilated rooms. The same is generally true of new vinyl toys, although they are no longer the cheap toys children once left out in the garden or took with them into the o-furo. Drazoran returns to this simpler era of craftsmanship, which I feel makes it a true kaiju toy.

Drazoran is also unique in that it brings a western design together with the production expertise of a Japanese vinyl toy company. It is in fact one of only two kaiju toys [EDIT: as of the original date of this article] that has accomplished this collaboration of eastern and western design sensibilities. The other toy is Grumble Toy's Wormrah (released last year), which was sculpted and produced by Amapro based on an original drawing by Grumble Toy (more on Wormrah later!).

Beginning life as an illustration in the sketchbook of Mark Nagata, Drazoran was picked up by Mr. Yajima of Dream Rocket [ドリームロケット] for production as a toy. Mark Nagata and Dream Rocket actually have a long history together, with numerous exclusive Dream Rocket toys released during both Nagata's time at Super7 and his operation of Max Toy Co. So it seemed to be a natural fit. Interestingly, Nagata shows us early sketches of Drazoran on his blog and it looks much more like a western dragon; Yajima actually tweaked the drawing to transform it into "Kaiju Drazoran." Over the course of half a year or so, the base sculpt for Drazoran was previewed (in various stages of refinement) at toy events. Translating the artwork into a three-dimensional sculpt was also handled by Dream Rocket. Finally, at the Art Shocker show in March 2009, photographs of a flesh vinyl test shot of Drazoran surfaced in Kabushiki-Gaisha Link's flickr gallery. My heart skipped a beat when I saw these pictures. Wow! When? When???

Well, 'pretty soon' was the answer. The first version of Drazoran arrived at the end of the month, debuting at Kaiju Comrades in the timeless "Godzilla Blue" color scheme. As additional icing on the cake, it turns out that it was painted by master artist, Goto Hiroshi [EDIT: I didn't know this guy's first name for a long time.]. Mr. Goto (or Goto-sensei, I should say) has been hand-painting toys for around 50 years, so he was around to see the original Marusan Godzilla and Ultra Q toys come out of the factory (and maybe paint them too). He is probably one of only a handful of remaining artisans from the "Made in Japan" era. Anyhow, seeing his hand in this toy completes the circle- east to west and past to present.

Needless to say, I was rather excited to get this toy in my hands. And it arrived just about a couple of weeks after the show! Looking at the sculpt, Dream Rocket's influence on the design is very evident. There is a lot of organic texturing on the shoulders, knees and back, and it weaves in several design elements that should be familiar to vintage soft vinyl collectors or aficionados of the live television shows. The head, however, retains Nagata's distinctive style- maybe it is something in the placement of the eyes. I can't really say how, but when you look at the toy from different angles, it sometimes looks like a vintage kaiju toy and it sometimes has more of a western feeling. The vinyl is surprisingly lightweight. It has similar heft to vintage toys, in contrast to the heavier, thicker vinyl used by most toy companies.

The colors and paint style used on Drazoran is called "Godzilla Blue." What is Godzilla Blue and why does it look like the dark blue and silver paint scheme used by Gargamel (called "55Blue")? Well, the two are similar, but I have been told by a knowledgeable collector that 55Blue is supposed to reference the original Ultra Q toys by Marusan. Godzilla Blue, on the other hand, resembles a paint variation on the original Godzilla vinyl by Marusan, which had a similar color arrangement but with metallic blue spines.

The only fault that I can find with Drazoran is that mine suffers from a manufacturing defect that causes the head to cock to one side. It can probably be corrected with heat, but I kind of like the slight imperfection. A lot of the old patchi-kaiju toys had shortcomings like this because they were not particularly expensive. Plus it gives him an attitude when you turn his head a different ways. See?

Although my expectations were pretty high for Drazoran with two of my favorite artists involved in the project, I am very happy with the toy that I received. I think it was a success in Japan as well, as I have heard that most of them sold quickly during and after the show. Mark Nagata will have a few for sale, however, so keep your eyes open for that. Congratulations to everyone involved in this endeavor as the collaboration of talents made this a very significant toy, and it is just super cool to boot. I hope we see many more of these collaborative projects between western and Japanese artists as this niche area of toy collecting and producing continues to grow.

TIME PASSES... Can you believe that it has been a year and a half since I wrote the post above? The development of Drazoran, Eyezon and Tripus has been relatively quiet since then in terms of production releases. Max Toy has focused heavily on custom paints of its toys (by Mark, Dead Presidents, etc.) and production versions have been limited to mini-runs, often exclusive to events in Japan. They have also been busy with the new set of Max Toy minis- super-deformed versions of the big 5 (Maxx, Xam, Eyezon, Tripus and Drazoran).

In June 2010, Mark unveiled via Twitter (http://twitter.com/maxtoyco) [Oh God I have just linked to Twitter on this blog. I have to wash my hands.] not one, but TWO new head sculpts secretly developed by Dream Rocket for use with the Drazoran body. By interchanging the heads, you can have either Dragigus or Drazoran. The concept behind the design is that the three kaiju are brothers (apparently that family has a lot of recessive genes). On a historical level, the new-head/same-body technique was developed as a cost-savings measure for both live-action monster suits and the associated Bullmark and Marusan toys. [I buy my hyphens in bulk.] As I have commented above, Mark does a masterful job at tying these new toys into the traditions of Japanese vinyl monsters.

Dragigus [ドラギグス] was the first of the two to be revealed, so I consider him to be the middle brother (Drazoran is the oldest). It's like Full House, but with claws and fangs... that you can see. His head sculpt reminds me of a marine iguana with its various nodules and spines. I don't have a Dragigus yet. :( There has been a fantastic Hawaii version with green paint that was released in Japan and limited to 8 pieces (none made it here) and a green version that matches Mark's artwork (sold out here). 'Stephanie' continues to elude me. That came out sounding unintentionally creepy. Like... Full House... y'know. Please don't call NBC.

Drazorus [ドラゾラス] was the third head to be revealed. He has the most sinister appearance of the three designs. I particularly like how the main horn spirals and twists a bit, rather than protruding out straight. Good design choice by Mr. Dream Rocket. He also reminds me of a Jackson's chameleon given his slim, helmet-like head shape. On a complete tangent, I've always TOTALLY wanted a Jackson's chameleon and there was a rumor that you could catch them in Hawaii near where I lived. It involved driving to this desolate highway in the middle of a volcanic forest (which I made my parents drive me to on more than one occasion), but I sadly never saw one. Much to my parents' relief, I expect.

And I made up for my lack of Dragigus by buying two Drazorus. That's some math that I can get behind. This first version is part of a Hawaii set recently released in August 2010. Unlike the earlier Hawaii Dragigus, these were painted in the iconic colors of the Bullmark domestic Hawaii Hedorah. In Japan, these were sold in both red chest and silver chest variants (U.S. domestic sales were red chest only). Each includes an extra matching Drazoran head. Cleverly, I bought the Drazorus in anticipation of one day tracking down the super-limited earlier Hawaii Dragigus. ONE DAY. [Header artwork is cropped from a larger piece done by Mark Nagata.] Goto-san (btw, I hate calling him that because it sounds like Mr. Miyagi) did a stellar job on painting these as well. Sometimes I feel that his touch is a little rough, but he fades the blue and red here very nicely into the flesh base vinyl. You can really do no wrong with flesh vinyl + bright colors on top. And my appreciation for the head sculpt on Drazorus as well. Lots of fine touches that give it its character. Drazorus has a bit of a snakey hunch due to a slightly extended neck. A severe overbite and snaggle-toothed lower jaw also create an 'ancient wyrm' aesthetic. And as I've mentioned earlier, the slight off-angle main horn completes the head.

And then LAST month, Dream Rocket blew me away yet again by releasing a set of small-run Dream Rocket versions of the Draz brothers. Drazoran, Dragigus and Drazorus were each featured in A, B and C paint versions (i.e., 9 total types). Dragigus sold out first (damn it all). Yajima also sold a few one-off customs of these characters at the recent Superfestival 54 in Japan. And failing yet again to buy a Dragigus, I found this Drazorus to be a suitable consolation prize. While all of the paints were extremely nice, I wanted something that would be completely different from any of the Max Toy production counterparts. This regal metallic purple and gold version "C" seemed to fit that bill. [For you packaging geeks, these were bagged with a handwritten Dream Rocket header.] With a touch that makes it seem effortless, Dream Rocket executes his usual array of color blends and fades on Drazorus. While the toy at first glance appears to be purple and gold, there is so much more going on upon closer inspection. For example, there are (at least) three different shades of purple on the toy! But my favorite effect by far, is the darker color applied in the crevices around Drazorus' eye, which really give it a sunken, evil look. The base vinyl color is a deep royal purple.

My closing thought on the new Draz head sculpts is that they have a much stronger resemblance to the source material than Drazoran did; however, they do a fantastic job of differentiating the character despite the shared body sculpt. Strong follow-up hits to the chart topper that Drazoran is and was. Finally, my thanks to Max Toy and Mark Nagata for keeping the prices stable for the Draz brothers... you are definitely getting a lot of toy for your money. Oh, and I almost forgot... mini-Drazoran!

The sum of its parts

In February of this year, Dream Rocket [ドリームロケット] released its first new sculpt since 2007- Gousei Kaiju Kyumaras [合成怪獣キュマラス]. The name essentially translates to "Composite Kaiju," as it incorporates the features of several 'real' creatures. So it is a patchi (patchwork) kaiju in the truest sense of the word.





I hate to use the phrase "best one yet," but this is honestly an outstanding piece. The sculpt has a very distinct form, but is also finely textured, very much like an organic surface. Vintage collectors may note a nod to certain classic kaiju toys made by Bullmark and Ark. As always, Dream Rocket walks the fine line between stylized kaiju and real-type kaiju.





Mr. Yajima also uses both of his distinctive painting styles on this toy. It seems like he has poured the sum total of his experience in toymaking into this creature, making it well worth the wait.



(This Balbagon was released over a year ago at Patchi-Summit. I somehow managed to keep myself from tearing into it for this long.)





Well, if you missed Kyumaras the first time around, do not fear! There were 4 show exclusive versions sold at Kaiju Comrades in Japan, and a yellow mail-order version is on sale tonight.