Like many mecha fanboys, my jaw hit the floor when photographs began circulating of Studio Halfeye’s perfect transformation Getter. This toy was a revolution in henkei design, a beyond-intricate origami exercise executed in resin and screws, produced in a small shop, and largely the work of one man, Hajime Takashima.

A few caveats:

1. I know very little about Gravion, and have no particular affection for the character or its design.
2. This piece is an older, “entry-level” SHE product, so its quality may vary significantly from the company’s more substantial and current releases.
3. Information about SHE’s products in English is rare, so I may be wrong about some of the particulars.
4. This thing fills me with rage. I will try not to let it slip into the review, but I can’t promise anything.

Like many mecha fanboys, my jaw hit the floor when photographs began circulating of Studio Halfeye’s perfect transformation Getter. This toy was a revolution in henkei design, a beyond-intricate origami exercise executed in resin and screws, produced in a small shop, and largely the work of one man, Hajime Takashima.

More designs have followed, each an apparent wonder of engineering and innovation. The characters are (often) obscure, the photographs breathtaking. Unfortunately, these toys are laughably expensive. The cheap offerings are $80-$200, and a Perfect Change Dancouga Nova will run you $800. And again, we’re talking resin and screws, and small.

God Gravion is one of the "cheap" offerings, a "compact" model intended to appeal to people like me, curious fans who can’t afford the more substantial bots.

Reviewing this piece is really an exercise in futility. I can’t call it a toy. It’s more of a high-end collectible model which resembles a toy, but is somehow junkier than a toy. Josh often likens strange toys to folk art, and I guess that’s as good a descriptor for this as anything. Really expensive folk art. I feel like my usual frames of reference for comparison are useless.

Gravion comes packaged in an anonymous, clear plastic box (7.5" x 10" x 2.5") with photographs and text on the back. Inside, the individual pieces (the Gran Kaiser core figure and four ships), rest in a plastic vacu-formed tray. The box art unfolds to display color photographic instructions, very clear and well designed.

Accessories are packed in small ziplock bags- extra fists, a couple of swords. I believe the purple swords are of a limited edition.

Everything is cast in colored resin, which is surprisingly plasticky and solid. The dark gray resin sparkles slightly. There’s no gumminess or sliminess, and the edges are crisp. Paint apps have been used to add details. While painting has been done by hand, it’s fairly precise, although the wash used on the thigh panel lines looks like a second-rate gun-pla job.

The Gran Kaiser figure is similar in scale to Microman or G.I. Joes, 3.75” tall. It is only adequately articulated. The neck can swivel. The shoulders rotate, the arms can flap and swivel. The thighs are on ball joints, but are limited by the skirt. The knees and ankles bend. It all adds up to surprisingly limited movement. But the figure isn’t the draw here, the God Gravion formation is.

God Gravion

Two identical boxy ships, the G-Attacker and G-Striker, form the boots for god mode. You fold up the wings, slightly retract the cockpit, and fold out a bracket/clip piece from underneath which will lock into Gran Kaiser’s calves.

The G-Driller ship separates into two arm pieces, with the drill bits rotating into the body, the fists out.

The delta shaped G-Shadow unfolds with slick origami action (the best engineering in the whole piece) into a chest/backpack for Gravion.

To prepare the figure, you remove his hands, fold up his arms into his shoulder armor, remove a piece from the back of his head (which has fallen off by this time anyway), and fold back his feet into his calves.

Assembling all of this into God Gravion is not as easy as you might imagine. The arms plug and rotate into the shoulders, but one of mine is fitted so loosely that it barely stays in, and then only in one position. The boots lock onto the calves, but it takes some work and tightening of screws to make it hold. The chest/back attachment just rests on the shoulders, and a new headpiece swivels off of the back and plugs onto the smaller head. If you tip the figure upside-down, or just look at it wrong, it easily falls off. The final figure stands at just under 5 inches.

What next? Not much, really. You do not "pose" God Gravion so much as gently manipulate all of the pieces to look acceptable and then gingerly remove your hands, hoping that it doesn’t fall apart (it usually does).

I feel deeply unsatisfied with God Gravion. Even though I paid a fraction of the retail price, the fact that this was supposed to cost 180 bucks still bothers me. The abstract intellectual appreciation of the product just isn’t worth it. At least on this model, the engineering and design are just average. There is zero play value to this piece, nothing about it is fun.

GG is a good-looking robot, though, and at least photographs well, providing you can get the whole mess to hold together long enough to activate the shutter. After taking these photos, I feel immense sympathy for SHE’s photographer. I imagine he’s a very patient man.

War is still Hell! But now, you can have fun with it in the dark!

Aiight, so check it.

You need to do the research. This toy/art piece/whatever has some history to it. And I'm not just referring to 1954's The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which you should all be familiar with!

First of all, you need to learn about Remco's 1980 "Mini-Monsters" toy line. This early 3-3/4" scale line of Universal Monsters action figures is sick and is totally worth tracking down. Now, specifically, check out the gillman figure in this line.

Nekrodave hooked me up a while back with a link to an eBay auction for the glow version. It was loose but in great shape; scored it for the cost of a sammich and a song (Public Enemy's Cant Truss It, I believe).

Now, what you need to do with get with Suckadelic. Peep the hilarious videos. Check out the even-iller bootleg toys. The mastermind behind all of this, The Sucklord, is a cool muthaluva and one seriously creative cat...with a pretty sick sense of humor. We like that.

And once you've wasted your afternoon on his website, go back and check out Nekrodave's killer coverage of Sucklord's first "The Creature" boot. It sucks. No--wait! It kills. Awww...I'm all confused now...

Just read his review again, damnit.

Basically, Sucklord took one of these:

Mashed it up with one of these:

Sculpted an American WWII-style helmet and base...

And delivered us wrecked souls of forgotten war! Why? Why the hell not?? It's fantastic. Just reading the back of the card of Nekrodave's non-glow version gets me all pant-noodly. But more importantly (what's more important than my pant noodle?), peep that sculpt. It may not be totally obvious by looking at pics of the Remco, but weak paint app aside, the sculpt is actually gods damn brilliant. It's super-sharp, super-detailed, and does a killer job of capturing that gillman flavor we all love.

Sucklord done good when he picked this figure to boot.

Yo, what's up with those buck teeth??

So, obviously, Nekrodave scored a pair (one bagged, one carded) of the non-glows a month ago. Heads immediately started clamouring for a glow version. I know; I was one of 'em. But then a couple weeks ago, Nekrodave posted the news we all wanted to hear.

Not only was Sucklord making a glow version to complement the glow/non-glow Remco set, but he was dropping clear glow on us! That's right: crystal clear resin (urethane) infused with glow powder. I gotta tell ya, I was nervous at first. Mixing toy fetishes like this can lead to disaster. I think the Japanese designer vinyl kaiju company, Gargamel, was one of the first to pursue the clear-glow paradigm. The results weren't so hot. The "clear" wasn't all that clear--you could see the specks of powder in the vinyl...making it look kinda murky under normal light. And the glow wasn't very bright because there just wasn't enough of the stuff in the vinyl (adding more powder would probably have compromised the toughness of the vinyl).

Well, I'm pleased to report that Sucklord not only pulled it off...but Glo Creech is absolutely smokin'! At first, I was mad skeptical of the super-bright pics in announcement Nekrodave posted. But now that I have these suckers in hand...DAMN. They're super-clear with a very slight yellow-ish tinge around the edges...AND THEY GLOW BRIGHT AS HELL.

Sucklord clearly didn't use just *any* glow powder--he used the good stuff: strontium aluminate...not the classical zinc sulphides used in typical glow-in-the-dark toys like most glow vinyl kaiju. [Hey, as the Chief Glowologist, I gotta know this crap.] The glow is *extremely* bright and it lasts for HOURS longer than other gid stuff.

Folks, these pics aren't altered at all. In fact, I actually had to tune down my exposure times (15 seconds to 5!) just to get reasonable pics. This is the real deal.

Seriously, go check out the gallery. Click on the pics to get some hugantic close-ups. It's worth it.

And, of course, I'd be amiss if I didn't include some shots of Sucklord's Creature along with the original Remco glowie gillman...

What can I say? The Remco makes a better action figure...but I think they get along pretty well.

I've only got two beefs with this toy. First, as for the figure itself, the plugs attaching the arms into the torso are a bit too visible. I dunno. It doesn't bother me at all, but ya do notice it. Just scroll up and take a second look. I wonder if it woulda looked better to have no plugs and just super-glue the arms on... Either way, I ain't sweating it.

Second, the packaging. Oh, I've got no problems with simple bags and headers. However, I would have gladly paid extra to get that sick card some of the no-glow's came with. Thing blows my mind! I may just have to scan Nekrodave's and print that sucker out.

Oh. Uh...I guess no articulation could be a complaint..? I'm sure that grinds someone's gears out there. But this is a resin-cast bootleg made in some dude's apartment in Chinatown, NYC. Quit whining. It's pricey for what it is, but for a designer toy, it's classy, creative, and conscious...and it doesn't come with the pretense a *lot* of other such toys out there do!

Oh, and I guess you could complain that they're all sold out now... :(

By the way, that CD in the background is Suckadelic's Supervillains joint. Ill beats y'all need to check out.

Well, that's about all I have to say about this one. You can bet I'll be keeping my eye on what Sucklord drops in the future. This cat's just too sharp!

War is Hell!

I think I first heard of Suckadelic toys around the time of the 2008 Toy Fair when Matt from Onell was showing me a Raiders Of The Lost Ark bootleg figure that Sucklord did. If my memory serves me well, we were at some snooty "art" toy opening nonsense at some gallery whose main attraction was free beer and although the figure was certainly not the sort of thing I was into collecting, it was refreshing at the time to see something that clearly was done in good humor and not some pretentious piece of crap like whatever the hell it was we were supposed to be impressed with that night.

Anyway....flash forward a year and about a month ago Sanjeev sends me a link to the new Suckadelic figure and as strange as it is, I have a pretty good idea right away that I'm gonna end up getting it. Oh, I put up a fight briefly, but within a few hours, the order was placed. Seriously, how could I possibly resist this??

A Creature from the Black Lagoon.....army man? How insane is that? Of course, what really sold me on it was the packaging. Somehow, seeing the Gill Man in army fatigues looks weirdly natural. I really liked the font of the logo and the phrase "Wrecked Souls Of Forgotten War" had a mysteriously ominous tone to it that just seemed awesome to me.

The back of the card is just as good, if not better. There's a great image of a battalion of Creatures going through maneuvers and a classic style data file and other background information.

This carded version is limited to only 20 pieces and contains a figure cast in dark green plastic. A second version was also made that came bagged with a header card and featured a lighter shade of green plastic.

The figure is just like a classic army man, ie; fixed posed. The toy itself is really not the draw here. The character and the novelty is. I know the Creature parts come from the old Remco Mini Creature, but I think I overheard that the rest of the uniform is actually from a Star Wars figure? Major Bren Derlin, maybe?

About the only downside to these are the prices. The limited carded version was a cool $40 while the bagged one was $25. That probably sounds like a lot for an army guy, but even at those prices, these are long sold out. Hopefully we've not seen the last of it though. I know quite a few people are clamoring for a glow in the dark version. Let's hope it happens!

"How could they stop the devouring death...that lived by sucking on living human bones!?"

Island Of Terror was released in 1966 and although it's been a while since I've seen it, I remember it being a rather underrated movie. Or maybe I shouldn't say underrated as much as unknown. It's certainly not one of the movies that immediately comes to mind when you think of Peter Cushing, but maybe that speaks more for his illustrious career than it does against this film.

When I placed my first order with Ultratumba Productions, I decided to have them throw in these little resin figures as well, mostly because they were cheap. I didn't expect to like them as much as I do.

These Creatures of Terror (aka the Silicates) come in a small (approximately 5"x5"x2") cardboard box with a picture of the product on the lid and brief assembly instructions on the side. The figures rest in a styrofoam tray.

The creatures themselves are just these big green blobs that would slither along the ground and attack with their long tentacles. On these figures, the tentacles are flexible and need to be attached, but a small dab of super glue will take care of that. Each piece comes pre-painted. The biggest one (without the tentacle) is a bit shy of 3" in length while the two smaller ones are less than 2" long (not including the tentacles).

One thing that may seem minor, but that impressed me, is that the two little Silicates are actually unique sculpts. You don't really notice it in pictures, but to see them in person confirms it. When I ordered them, I fully expected the same sculpt on both would be used as a cost cutting measure so I was pleasantly surprised to see they they made the extra effort to make them distinguishable from one another, in a way besides just having a differently shape tentacle.

I find that these are great "filler" pieces in my monster display. With their small size, you can fit them just about anywhere and they add a unique flavor to the overall display.

But here's the best part of all.... each individual Silicate has a MAGNET embedded in the bottom!! Yep, if you'd rather not have them on your shelf, you can leave them on your fridge!

The idea of putting magnets in these was a stroke of genius. For a mere $9, these have been one of the better bargains that I've acquired in my monster collection.

"A monstrous nightmare - Terror turned loose in a fight to the Death!"

Well, after successfully completing my first ever model kit, El Baron, I decided to try to hunt down the second release in Ultratumba's line of kits of characters from Mexican monster movies. The second kit was the Aztec Mummy from the third movie in the Aztec Mummy series, "La Momia Azteca contra el robot humano" (aka "The Robot versus The Aztec Mummy") from 1958.

This kit is slightly more complicated than El Baron was, but it's still very easy to assemble. The kit comes in several pieces: body, arms, hands, base and 4 pieces of "wrappings".

The easiest way to assemble it was to glue the arms and hands on first, then paint everything and then attach the wrappings to the body and the whole figure to the base. Actually, before painting, this time I actually made the effort to fill in the seams on the arms with some extra Magic Sculpt I had sitting around. I figured since that area was all exposed flesh, it would look better if it were smooth.

This time around I decided to go with a lighter skin tone, not only to differentiate it from El Baron, but I figured since the character was a mummy, he should have a less life-like appearance.

Although assembly of this kit is still easy, I found it to be a bit more challenging than El Baron to paint. I felt like all of the exposed skin gave you a bit less room for error and the sandals in particular were a challenge. But overall, I think it looks ok.

One area that the Aztec Mummy is definitely an improvement over El Baron is the packaging. The box this time around is a much nicer presentation with a flip top lid. Oddly though, the interior packaging was a step backwards. Whereas all the parts for El Baron were stored in styrofoam, the parts of the Aztec Mummy were just wrapped in plastic and bubble wrap. I got this from someplace other than directly from Ultratumba, so who knows, maybe it wasn't originally sold that way. Makes no difference to me, either way, since once you build it up, it won't be going back into it's box anyway.

Just like El Baron, the Aztec Mummy is a limited release (200 pieces) and comes signed and numbered (mine is #47). It seems a bit strange, but the Aztec Mummy seems to be sold out everywhere, despite being a less popular and more expensive kit than El Baron. Both kits stand about 4.5" tall when completed and on their bases. Unfortunately, the third release in the series, planned to be the "Gilman" from the 1967 film "La Mujer Murcielago" (aka "Batwoman") was never released.

The actual Skull Bunny is made out of glow in the dark resin, hand painted and signed on the bottom. These come in very limited editions (I think the glow was 25 pieces).

Skull Bunny is a creation of artist Ben Seto, who draws a neat little comic called, what else – Skullbunnies.

I met Ben while wandering aimlessly around the vast SDCC floor. I was immediately drawn to the skull motif, and to top it off it glows in the dark!

Ben’s art initially reminds me a lot of the ghibli / miyazaki style, but it has a twist that is all his own. With the purchase of Skull Bunny, I got an issue of his comic and a few pins.

The actual Skull Bunny is made out of glow in the dark resin, hand painted and signed on the bottom. These come in very limited editions (I think the glow was 25 pieces) and stand about 2 inches tall. It glows pretty well for a hand cast piece.

In fact, this isn’t really a toy per-se, this is more of a folk art piece. It’s rough around  the edges, and I don’t think it would survive a fall, but you can feel the love that went into this piece. Skull Bunny has the potential to be an iconic figure, and I hope Ben does well with it.

If you are interested in a Skull Bunny, you can order one at Black Sheep Comics

A cheap and easy to build resin model kit. Great for beginners!

El Baron here represents a landmark occasion for me. I finally gave real model building a try. Honest to god glue and paint type model building. I've mentioned before how common this is for monster collectors so I knew it would only be a matter of time before I had to give it a go myself, and when I saw how cheap this kit from Ultratumba was, I figured it was as good a time as any.

El Baron comes from the movie "El Baron del Terror", which is more widely known in the the US as The Brainiac. This is a movie that I vividly remember seeing clips of on the old late night celebration of cult movies, Reel Wild Cinema, but I never actually saw the entire movie until just recently. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is viewable online.

This kit by Ultratumba is great for beginners like me. Not only is the initial cost cheap, but construction of the main body is very simple. All you need to do is to line up the arms and glue them onto the body. You can fill in the seams at the shoulders if you like, but it really doesn't need it too much and I didn't bother to do that on mine. Both legs and the pelvis are one solid piece and attach easily as well. Then you can choose which tongue you'd like to display and glue that on. I thought the curved one looked a bit more interesting so I chose that over the one that is straight. Lastly, just add a drop of glue to the bottom of the feet and attach to the base, although I thought it was best to paint the figure before doing this.

As with any model kit, you can choose whatever colors suit your fancy. Of course, with the original movie being in black and white, there's really no set color scheme that you need to match, but I chose to stick pretty close to the image on the box. For a first try, I wasn't looking to be very creative here. I just wanted to get it to look good enough to display.

Ok, well maybe that's not entirely true. As you know, we here at CollectionDX love all things glow so I figured I would try to use up some leftover glow paint that I had while I was at it. But where on a piece like this would glow be appropriate? I decided that painting the tongue with red glow paint would be the most obvious place to start. And after having what I considered to be a bit of success with painting this, I guess I decided to get a bit crafty after all and try adding a touch of glow paint to the eyes and teeth. I don't exactly have the hands of a surgeon as they say so I was really afraid I was pushing my luck to try to paint such tiny areas, but overall, I think I did a pretty good job for a first try.

Well, that's all well and good, but really, I felt like having just a small amount of glow on the face was not quite enough. The glow was too localized. So what to do then? Well, as you see in the movie, this character comes to Earth in a meteor so although it's not exactly in the movie, I thought it would be neat to add a touch of glow to the base to represent a sort of "star dust" sprinkled on the ground around himk. So, I decided to mix in a small amount of glow paint with the regular paint for the base in the hopes that it would produce the desired effect. I think it did!

El Baron is limited to only 250 pieces and comes with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity. It was a pretty fun kit to build and great for a beginner like me. I was always too hesitant to try this in the past because so many kits are expensive and I was afraid I would be wasting my money if I tried and failed. This one was not only inexpensive, but it gave me the confidence to try the second in this series of Mexican movie monster kits from Ultratumba, the Aztec Mummy. Coming soon!

I picked a good time to start getting interested in statues...

After a few 12" dolls and a 16" vinyl robot, now Amok Time brings us their first fixed pose statue. And so far I'd say it's my favorite entry in their short existence as a toy maker. This statue is a sure fire winner for monster collectors and Vincent Price fans. It depicts Vincent Price in the guise of a vicious member of the Spanish Inquisition, as he prepares to torture a victim, during the classic 1961 movie The Pit and the Pendulum. This was a great role for Price and one of the best Edgar Allan Poe inspired films that he collaborated on with Roger Corman and A.I.P.

The statue comes packaged safely in a large 2-part styrofoam tray. Unfortunately, this makes the box a bit bigger (16.25"x12.75"x9.5") than I was expecting for a 12" piece, but it's a necessary evil. The box itself is a beautiful presentation showing the statue in closeup on the front and back and in a wide shot on each side. The back also features an image of the original theatrical one sheet poster, in addition to information about the item and it's makers.

BOX FRONT

BOX BACK

BOX SIDE

The statue is limited to only 500 numbered pieces, with mine being number 458. Also, it has the approval of the Vincent Price estate. And why wouldn't it? It's a gorgeous piece and the sculpt is an amazing likeness of the man.

In addition to just looking amazing, this statue also has a couple of unique features that I'd like to touch on. First, it actually incorporates magnets into the design! Both hands need to be attached when you take it out of the box but they simply pop right on (and off later if need be) because there are magnets in the wrists and in the sleeves. This was a really great idea. In fact, in hindsight, I wish it had been included in the Saucer-Men statue from Ultratumba so that you could swap out the alternate hands instead of having to pick which one to glue in. Oh well, maybe next time.

The next thing that I really like about this one is that the cauldron of burning coals actually lights up red! This is a great effect and looks really nice in person. It was a bit hard for me to show it properly both in pictures as well as in the video review, but take my word for it, the effect is superb.

The effect requires 2 AA batteries but those are included in the package. The on/off switch is simply on the back side of the base, out of view, but easily accessible.

Overall, I have absolutely zero complaints with this item, which is rare. There's almost always something that could have been done just a little bit better, but I can't think of anything to improve on this one. Maybe a higher production run so that no one misses out? To be on the safe side, go get yours at Amoktime.com before they sell out!

"Two inch nails
Micro waist
With a pale white feline face
Inclination eyebrows to there.."

Here's another example of me messing up and not heeding the advice of a friend. When this statue was released back in 2002, it was recommended to me that I get it. But again, I wasn't into statues at the time and I passed. And unlike the Uncle Boris statue, I had to pay a premium to get it on the after market later.

Vampira, real name Maila Nurmi, was a TV horror host in the 1950s and generally regarded as the first in that tradition. Unfortunately, there's not much footage remaining from her show, but here's small clip.

Of course, she might be better known to modern audiences for her role in the 1959 camp classic Plan 9 From Outer Space...

...which was in turn made more famous by the movie about it's famous director, Ed Wood.