One of my more recent glowie projects: the mechanized terror weapon, Mogera, from 1957's The Mysterians!

I dunno what it is about mechanized kaiju, but I just have a soft spot for 'em. I guess it's sort of a marrying of two concepts I absolutely loved growing up: giant robots and giant monsters. My favorite all-time kaiju is definitely showa Mechagodzilla...but Mogera from The Mysterians (1957) is definitely up there, too!

In my opinion, this movie is highly underrated. Sure, it's campy goodness with cheesey special effects, but that camp and those effects are done right! Toho created something special with this flick. It's a classic alien-invasion story, where the Earth needs to fight off a dying, but powerful, race called "the Mysterians". Can't get much better than that!

Well, it just so happens that among this race's super-weapons is a giant tunneling mechanized mole called the "Mogera". Now, it's not too clear in the movie how many Mogera's the Mysterians possess, but it's clear that they have at least two--after the first is destroyed, a second is seen burrowing through the ground during the desperate final battle.

The effects involving this kaiju and other battle scenes in the movie are pretty amazing for the time. Many of the scenes take place in broad daylight, as opposed to more common nocturnal fights in contemporary monster films, where shortcomings in special effects are often conveniently obscured by the darkness. Instead, the makers of The Mysterians opted for clear, well-lit, elaborate effects that involved some of the best miniature work Toho has ever produced.

My buddy, John Groff of KaijuZoo, was seven years old and living in Japan as a USAF brat at the time this film came out. He's got some great memories of this film! In fact, it was his own custom glow Parababy Mogera that inspired me to create mine! Anyway, this fun tokusatsu adventure is definitely worth checking out. [Click here for Amazon.com's page for Tokyo Shock's US dvd release of the film.]

Now, this particular toy started out as Marmit's unpainted glow Parababy Mogera that I picked up from Y!J for short money. Precious few vinyls exist of the final film version of this kaiju. The classic Bullmark sculpt of this character actually depicts the early concept/prototype version that was obviously modified quite a bit by the time the movie was filmed. Finally, earlier this year, Marusan released a standard-sized film version Mogera (including a glow version that you know I picked up!)...but for the longest time, the only non-deformed, standard-ish sized, glow-in-the-dark game in town for movie Mogera was this Parababy.

And I was not to be denied.

This was actually a really fun project for me! Obviously, my love for the subject is pretty clear. The smaller size of the figure (6" or so) made for simpler masking and quick spray sessions. My primary tools included my precious Parafilm M for precision masking, and glow hand- and spraypaints from Ready Set Glo.

I kinda dig the results! Essentially, I wanted to recreate the movie colors of the kaiju as closely as I could with the glow spraypaints--which was NOT easy! The upper portions of the limbs and the back carapace had a greenish hue in the movie, so I obviously hit them with green. The feet, hands, and head were primarily gold/bronze, so I used yellow. The antenna, main body, and circular saw blade on the back were silver....so I gave them a quick, uni-directional spray of blue up from the bottom. The last paint application was aqua hand-paint used on the eyes, surrounded by black acrylic paint (to simulate the look of the kaiju when firing its eye-beams in the movie). Finally, I sealed everything up with Minwax Polycrylic semi-gloss spray.

Believe me when I tell you this: the figure glows bright as hell! And this is coming from a guy who owns well over a hundred glowies. It's pretty crazy--glow paint on glow vinyl is just deadly. The glow paint, itself, adds to the glow of the vinyl...and actually enhances it. Not only does this figure now glow much brighter than a regular glowie, but it actually glows much longer! Unfortunately, it's tough to capture the color difference among the different paints while glowing due to camera limitations, but they really do appear very distinct. The yellow and green paints glow different shades of green, but the blue glows a very vivid medium blue...and obviously, the aqua eyes look absolutely electric!

I actually had to tone down my exposure time for the glow shots! Normally, I use a 15-second exposure time for glowies...I tried that with this figure and the shots ended up looking like a ridiculous, bright-green blob. Cutting down the exposure time to 5 seconds did the trick!

Well, that's pretty much it for this figure. I finally got my movie-style glowie Mogera and all is right with the world! The Mysterians, The Mysterians, The Mysterians!!

Never a horror like it! The Gallery Rodan is a beautiful rendition of the classic Toho monster.

Two years or so ago I was scouring eBay trying to find a "World's Greatest Monsters" Rodan (aka "Radon" or ラドン) for my Jumbo collection. I only had a slight interest in vinyl kaiju at the time but I saw one listed under Rodan that caught my eye. Marmit's Gallery Rodan from their line of vinyl ParaBaies had a look to it that I had not seen in any other Rodan toy. It was somehow cute yet menacing at the same time, a perfect cross between the old school vinyl look of vintage Bullmarks and the later more realistic appearance of Bandai's Move Monster series. I really liked what I saw. Yet, for some reason, mostly my desire to not begin another hobby, I decided not to buy it. The toy sold for $55 and I tried to put it out of my mind.

But alas, in my subsequent searches for the jumbo Rodan, I began to realise that I was looking for this toy as much as that one. I was forced to face the fact. I had to have it. I quickly added Rodan to my Yahoo!Japan search (technically "Radon" as he's called in Japan) and figured it would not be long before I'd corrected my mistake of not buying this guy. Wrong. It turns out this particular version of the toy was an exclusive and didn't seem to show up very much. I began to worry that I'd made a big mistake and that the next time it showed up, I'd have to pay big bucks to get it.

Fortunately, I was wrong again. A few months back another specimen showed up on eBay, with a starting bid of only $29.99. I intently watched the auction and on the day it ended, I could not be home to bid. Panic set in. I did something I'd never done before or since. I went to a total strangers house and asked to use their internet. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all!

I placed the bid and left. To my shock and joy, no one else bid! This beautiful toy for only $30. What makes this toy beautiful? Perhaps it has to do with the position the wings. With the arms held up and the wings coiled in, Rodan has a bat-like look to him, like Dracula hunched over his prey. The gold paint on the claws of both the hands and feet look nice against the red of the body. The sculpt of the head and chest are also quite appealing, imo.

As with all the toys in the ParaBaby line, Rodan comes with a second vinyl, a smaller version of himself in flight mode.

The Marmit Gallery Rodan stands a shade under 7" tall with a 6.5" wingspan. The wingspan on the smaller vinyl is 5.5" and it stands approximately 2.5" tall. Both toys were sold together in a bag and header card.