I am obsessed, I had to go back and take individual pictures of all the Hedorahs at the Beams x M1GO Exhibition, I figured it was a food idea for posterity as yesterday they all went to thier new homes. I Ned to sorry to Stew for not meeting him there too, sorry Stew, I didn't know if I was gonna go back until I was there Sunday. :(. Oh yeah, you won the one I wouldve picked you lucky bastard.
So here are 101 Hedo, it was a 100 customs painted by Yuji Nishimura of M1GO, the 101st is the ring toss prize someone put on the shelf with the customs. I was freaking out trying to figure out why I kept counting 101 and couldn't find the doulbe I thought was there, then I realized there were 26 on one shelf and 25 on the other three. Whew, I was sweating for a minute. Now I just hope I won one.
That title about sums it up, but it doesnt say how amazing it really was. Just walking in to the show I stopped from a huge shock, all I could think was how nice it all looked and then the hours it must have taken to set up, I hadnt even looked at the toys and I was already thinking "best show ever", and what made it better is that is was for a company I love beyond all others, well except one that starts with a "G". And then I pulled the typical Dumb Dennis, I asked Yuji if they just got there! Of course he and and everyone else had come the day before, I am stoopido. I arrived a little early and talked with him for a bit and then gave my friend a present I had painted, he then shows it to Yuji and Yuji gives me his assessment and thoughts on what I should have done, basically the master was giving a free lesson that was much appreciated! I have been lucky that alot of what I know has come from him and another awesome toy master that lives over here, learning from the best is the best for sure.
But what about the toys??? If you dont know me I can just say this, I was in heaven. If you grew up with Ultraman and Godzilla and you like Bullmark and Marusan and beautifully made and painted toys you can do no better. I am not joking at all, I sometimes think to stop buying anything but M1号, its all I really need. But I digress, the place was packed with toys from the early days of M1号 to the newest. So much great stuff jammed together how I like it, just like my house. I cant really do it justice writing about it, check out my Flickr, even better, go to the show if you can. You will go crazy just staring at all the colors and wonderful designs, old and new.
But what about the Hedorahs? 100 1 offs all done by Yuji, and not one that would be a stinker. His sense of color and application is never below top notch. I am amazed at his ability to make a gorgeous toy everytime he pulls out the airbrush, I cant think of anyone else that has done that. Plus, all 100 are for sale, but by lottery only so everyone has to wait and hope for the best. I wanted to take pictures of all 100 but my arm was getting tired! The contrast of the regimented Hedorah layout and the rest of the place looked great also.
Thanks to M1号 for a great show and a great time and thanks to all the Beams staff for putting this show on and putting up with the crazy white guy.
I made it to Thrash Out yesterday for the event which was great as usual. The only bummer for me was that I didnt know there would be customs and didnt budget for it. Naoya came out with the lottery bags for getting the ticket number for your place in line. I only took the regular release ticket at first but then a guy I know said you should grab a custom ticket just in case, so I did and got numer 10, he had a no chance number so I gave it to him. He was happy and so I was I, I knew whatever he got it was going to a good home. Later when I saw him he had bought the one I would have chosen, the orange standard Zag. So it worked out in the end, I got to hang out with friends and did get some nice toys too. The regular big Zag release is awesome in the Hawaii Kanegon colors.
Yes, as many of you know I am always late for one reason or another. I can just never seem to do things ahead of time and here is me at my finest once again. So I finished these today for the Toy Karma II event at Rotofugi in Chicago, if you are going and can manage to find mine in the myriad of artists entires please enjoy the fruits of my sweat, and thats not a joke, summers here with no AC are brutal!
Thats what I though at first and ran off at the mouth then Yuji told me its the T-Rex from "The Last Dinosaur", known as "ポーラーボーラ" (Polar Borer) in Japan, released in 1977 as all things a television movie in the US and in the theaters in Japan, weird. I guess the studio thought it was just too cheesy to risk a theatrical release. Yuji asked if I remembered the movie and I didnt, not until I came home that is and checked YouTube, how did I forget. The main guy that wants to kill the T-Rex is a classic 70's bad movie actor named Richard Boone, he was in tons of crappy movies I watched as a kid. And the part where the borer is tossed into the bone pile is pretty awesome. But I digress, M1GO is releasing 2 colorways of the usual M1GO amazing quality vinyl of a standard size T-Rex figure in the next couple months, included will be a signed 8 x 10 glossy of "Hazel" , great name choice for a Japanese cavewoman, I am not sure about her real name, I need to go watch the movie again.
Hazel, yeah for cavewomen costumes!
Here is the Japanese poster for the movie, the DVD version anyway, its the same as the original but with the DVD logo, classic monster movie awesomeness.
And if you are really adventerous here is a link to YouTube so you can see the amazing special effects and men in suits for yourself.
And a sidenote, this was co-produced by the people who made the "Animagic" classics, "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" , "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and others, Rankin and Bass, they even made "Thundercats" which I was stoked on in high school!
So, you should buy this if you are a freak who likes really bad dinosuar movies and then can't remember them, they will probably be pretty killer toys like they always are from M1GO.
Daiogusokumushi is the new mini figure from YAMOMARK. There was a couple colorways released last Sunday at Wonder Fest, one in black and one in pink, I bought the pink one as I usually go for the cute colors first, especially when I spent all my money at the M1GO booth already. If you don't know what a Daiogusokumushi is dont worry, I didn't either until a wierd coincidence, a couple weeks before I saw this toy was being made I saw a picture of one on the news here, its pretty crazy and looks like an ancient huge undersea potato bug, which is nice as I like potato bugs too but these live on the botton of the ocean instead of your yard. They are known in english as deep sea Giant isopods, here is some info, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_isopod.
Also, available were Zariking minis in the same colors and the Nasura mini, which is a japanese eggplant which is actually the same as the eggplant in the US but they pick it while its still small and has taste, unlike the purple shoe leather egg vegetable we get back home. Uhg. The watermelon looking Nasura was killer, but I was on a budget, that and my better half woulda killed me. Oh yeah, a standard Kinoko Jiru Otoko was avialable too, I like that the name translates to Mushroom Juice Man.
Yamomark has been releasing a series of minis that are reminicent of the old Kamen Rider kaijin mini figures from the 70's, all of them well worth picking up as once you hold them they are irresistable! They have done a bunch of Silver Kamen enemies too which are awesome. And the price and size makes them even more easy to take home, if you can find them though which is the problem as most sell out pretty fast at the events when released. Actually I was lucky, my wife was walking by the booth and saw it and called me to say it was there and I freaked and she bought it for me so I could add more toxic material to the collection.
If you dont know Yamomark here is a link to thier blog, http://yamomark.blog19.fc2.com/ , its in Japanese but there are plenty of pictures to give you a taste of whats out there to track down! Especially any version of Yamo-Bazooka.
