[Super7] Toxic Catalyst

Last night, Super7 (still located at Post St., btw) held a 'resin invitational' show, Toxic Catalyst. The resin hater ventured back to San Francisco's Japantown to check out the show.

Unlike the high pressure coordination of the Gargamel show earlier this year, Toxic Catalyst was almost casual in its presentation. Visitors arriving early could walk in, grab a beer and peruse the pieces- comfortably placed on a low-slung side table- at their leisure. Although they had to deal with those two jerks who insisted on shooting every piece in the show. The nerve!

On the farthest left were the submissions from Godbeast. The lighting in that spot really did not do them any favors. My favorite was the Gloop robot... who doesn't love slime blobs with googly eyes?

Paul Kaiju sent in a few of his hand-cast Mockbats and a set of the Bad Trees. The Bad Trees seem like they would make a nice backdrop to a Halloween toy diorama.

I think these are made by Velocitron? They don't seem to have been for sale.

This set of 3 small mini-figures was a surprise find at the show. Detailing and sculpt are excellent, particularly given their small size. Made by Monstrehero? I feel like I have seen them somewhere before.

Rich aka LASH aka Mutant Vinyl Hardcore brought in a custom Doji-san for Toxic Catalyst. The paint really sparkles on this one.

A custom Baby Huey from Lamour Supreme made an appearance at the show. Again, great paint work and a very polished sculpt.

Japan toymaker, Nerd One, mailed some very special items to Super7 for Toxic Catalyst. The first was a custom version of their brand-new resin kit of the Soutou no Miira Youkai [双頭のミイラ妖怪] (Two-headed Mummy Creature), which I understand to be a Shigeru Mizuki creation. This item was previously sold as an unbuilt (?) kit at Wonderfestival earlier this summer. The custom Two-head Mummy at the show has a clever reference to Nerd One's Stereogon character built into its dual heads. Someone said it is also a Star Wars reference. Is it? The second Nerd One submission was a custom version of the original resin of Stereogon　[ステレオゴン]. Some might not remember, but Stereogon was first conceptualized as this resin toy after Nerd One had produced several resin accessory kits for Cronic. Development of Stereogon took place over several years, and I was frankly shocked to see it emerge as a giant vinyl toy. I am not sure if this was one of the original casts for the Stereogon prototype (or a special cast for this show), but it is the first time that I have seen this item for sale. Whoever bought this has a fantastic piece of history in their collection.

Ilanena was another big surprise at Toxic Catalyst, as he sent over a bevy of his older resin figures (circa early 2000s). Most were for display only, but Vahine was for sale. Each was blister carded with appropriately eerie backing card art. It is hard to believe that the toymaker behind the popular and colorful Daikaiju 3-packs used to produce these delicate, grotesque resin works.

And finally, the primary objective of my trek into the city: paying tribute to an original urethane hand-cast, hand-painted version of Onell Design's Rig. Take a moment to drink in its painstakingly weathered splendor. Yes. As described on their blog, this is not so much a resin art toy, but one of two hardcopy prototypes and the only paint master for the Glyos Rig (which will be sold very soon in vinyl form).

It was interesting to see the split of items sold before me (I was 8th in line). Some of the resins by GUF (?) went first from the far right of the table. Those of the Skullbrain crowd bought more from the traditional Paul Kaiju, Uamou, etc. pool. And then there was me. What did I buy? You'll have to wait until next time...

And then we ate Korean food next door. Pretty good. Needs more red stuff.