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!!

My very first commission with John Groff of KaijuZoo...and also one of my very first glowies. ...The start of a great friendship and a near-obsessive collection focus!

One obsession of mine that's no secret is my insatiable lust for glowies. The problem with many vintage-style (usually kaiju) glowies, though, is that their paint schemes are...well...either too dull for my tastes or the paint obscures too much of the glow power of the vinyl. I'm no stranger to customizing toys myself, but back in '05, I stumbled across a website advertising expertly-done custom/restoration work for vinyl kaiju figures at reasonable prices. I contacted the owner of the business, John Groff, and a great friendship was born...

His site, KaijuZoo Toys, offered something great for folks either lacking the gumption to take on customizing their own stuff or just not wanting to deal with the hassel of paint supplies, the mess, etc... Now, people can just relax and focus on the color scheme of whatever vinyl figure--glow or not--they want painted. John even offers services to remove old or damaged paint jobs prior to restoration or custom work. Whatever you want, just ask him! Jonee's a bit of a jack-of-all trades when it comes to customizing, and he'll work with you to create a masterpiece!

It's really a great service if you think about it. For example, lots of vinyl kaiju manufacturers these days release unpainted lucky bag versions or other exclusives of their figures--in glow or varying colors of opaque or translucent vinyl. The thing is that most folks may have no desire whatsoever to paint their own figures. I mean, I don't even own an airbrush--let alone have the space to set one up properly! This is where Jonee comes in! Besides being a great guy to chat about daikaiju eiga with, he'll work directly with you via phone or e-mail, and take as long as needed to come up with the perfect paint scheme for your figure. He's an experienced kaiju toy nut, himself, making his feedback in this process invaluable. He's a real fan, a true artist, and it clearly shows in his work.

So as a client, I get to sit back and let my imagination take off. This figure is actually my very first KaijuZoo custom! Sorry it's taken so long to review it properly! ;) It started its life as an unpainted glow M1 Manda figure from Atragon, Destroy All Monsters, and the opening moments of Final Wars. Jonee's transformation of this toy still has me speechless!

This guy's so good, I've gotten into the habit of doing Yahoo!Japan searches for unpainted (glow) vinyls for anything that catches my eye as something that Jonee can transform into a one-of-a-kind work of art.

Now, I've always loved Manda...something about a majestic undersea serpent had me pretty much hooked when I was little. M1's gorgeous sculpt of this monster certainly helped, too! This KaijuZoo custom would actually end up being my 3rd or 4th glowie ever. Ah...the good old days...when my vinyl kaiju could fit on one shelf...or could be counted using just your fingers! (I think at the time of writing of this review, I have somewhere around 120 glowies!)

Anyway, the paint scheme Jonee and I came up with mirrored a previous one he had painted for another client, only this time, he used translucent paints and left more glow vinyl exposed. I was definitely clear about that part: the finished product had to SHINE!! And, oh my head, did Jonee deliver!

Just check out the glow effect on the teeth and eyes--that's all Jonee's handiwork! He came up with this method of hand painting those details to make for an incredible glow effect.

Not much more to say about this piece, really. The pictures speak rather clearly for themselves. Again, this was my first KaijuZoo custom ever. Since then, Jonee's painted three others for me, including this Marmit glow Getter 1--yes, he can do robots, too! Next up? I'm just waiting patiently in queue for him to do a fifth custom for me! Stay tuned!

Yup, the brotha's at it again...another custom glowie!

Hey, all! Sanjeev here, back again with another custom glowie by yours truly! Some of you may remember my first custom glowie, the Marmit Vinyl Paradise Garamon/Garadama piggy bank that I finished in glow spraypaint a while back. Well, when the opportunity to pick up a cheap M1 Giant Sized Garamon in unpainted glow vinyl came up, I hopped right on it knowing it would look great along with the Marmit!

Now, I got the inspiration for this figure from Nekrodave, who picked up the blue spray version of this figure some time ago. And y'know something? He was damn right: this is one creepy figure. The babydoll eyes are just weird! I LOVE IT!!

So, just as before, I grabbed my trusty glow spraypaints from ReadySetGlo and my Parafilm-M (for masking), and went to town!

The results are pretty killer, if I do say so myself! ;)

My creativity was a tad hampered by my previous efforts since I wanted this figure to match the piggy bank in terms of color scheme. If I hadn't painted up the Marmit previously, I would have tried a more daring color scheme (maybe blue or pink and yellow). As it is, however, I still dig it. It came out well, I think, and any experience with these tricksy paints is valuable (you may recall, my only other endeavor with glow spraypaint was Daimajin). The stuff's real tough to work with...

So, sticking with the red color scheme begun with the piggy bank, I tried something I learned with Daimajin: I sprayed down from above with red spraypaint after spraying up from below with purple (this sorta complements the red I used on Garamon and the purple I used on Garadama for the piggy bank).

The overall effect is pretty cool! If you notice, I also masked off the middle of his chest with torn masking tape to make an interesting pattern. Over the gap, I blended in orange glow spraypaint, again to match the piggy bank.

As you can tell, I touched up his nostrils with black acrylic--he kinda didn't look right at this scale without it. And finally, I masked around the face, hands, and feet, and sprayed his lips, toes, and tops of his hands orange.

One of the last steps, of course, was sealing the paint job. As before, I used Minwax Polycrylic: three quick coats and some light brushing to remove excess dust, and I was pretty much done. The only thing I had to be careful about was the eyes. I had to cover just around the eyes with a good seal to protect the mechanisms from getting gummed up with the varnish. Worked out great, see!?

Aiight, aiight...I know what you're saying: enough yappin', let's get to the glowie shots!

Done:

Not a bad effect at all, huh? When fully charged, the red glow color glows just as long and intensely as the bare glow vinyl. The orange and purple, however, last a little bit longer. The effect over time is pretty cool: the green glow vinyl and the red dim a bit after a while, but the orange stays a bit brighter...and the purple undertones on the down-facing surfaces glow a bit brighter blue.

My spray coats were a bit thicker than I would've liked, but it creates a stronger, more contrasting look under normal light. Even a little too thick, the glow effect of the paint matches well against his face and other exposed bits.

Finally, I'll leave you with a group shot! From left to right, we have the Popy/B-Club reissue of the original Bullmark mold, the giant M1, and the Marmit piggy bank:

RAGE OF GOD...!

...just in time for the Holidays! :)

When I was real little, I remember watching Creature Double Feature on tv with my dad every Saturday morning. He worked long hours, so it was a real nice treat to be able to share that experience with him! I remember watching AIP's English-dub of the Daiei classic daikaiju eiga, Majin, Monster of Terror (or "Daimajin", in Japanese). Despite having seen the complete Daimajin trilogy about a million times via bootlegs of the AIP dubs as a teen, and more recently via ADV's DVD releases, I still have one very specific memory from one of the films when my father and I first saw it back on Creature Double Feature.

The baddies end up desecrating the stone statue of the oppressed villagers' God, the Majin...by driving a 3-foot steel pike into its forehead! To make a long story short, the statue comes alive, runs amok--and here's the juicy part!--when he has the main villain cornered, he pulls out the pike, which he'd neglected to remove during his rampage, and impales the sumbitch!!

Divine retribution in the house!!

Needless to say, imagery like that'll stick with a 5-year-old! Lemme tell ya, I'm no theist, but I'd kick ass for this Lord! Yup, this was no kiddie-kaiju flick with a moral at the end like "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster"!

Fast forward to today: avid Japanese robot/glowie monster toy collector and 80's nostalgia geek. Well, I got the dvds covered...now about those toys... There's been some Daimajin love here and there as of late, but nothing by way of standard-sized classic-sculpted glowies. There's one from Marusan of Daimajin as a statue, but nothing so far of him as a fully-awake, pissed-off God.

Time to take matters into my own hands. A thread started by sketcher on ToyboxDX first caught my eye: apparently, Sega had released a 14-inch figure of Daimajin in a very realistic and menacing sculpt. I knew right there that I had to have it. A trip to eBay and $20 later, I had one of the best Daimajin figures out there. While not the largest available, it was certainly the best compromise between size/sculpt, and price!

At the time of purchase, I was heavily into glow-experimentation (or was that drugs?). Well, either way, it didn't take very long for me to grow weary of the non-glowiness of this God. I mean, he IS a God, afterall! Shouldn't he at least glow in the dark!?

Menacing...but not quite there yet...

So, just as with my Garamon/Garadama glowie custom, I went to work...armed with a combination of glow hand- and spraypaints from ReadySetGlo. This was different, though. This time, I was trying something I'd never attempted before. Not only was I messing with a now hard-to-find toy of a childhood icon, but I was trying to create a full glow-in-the-dark toy from a completely non-glowie one.

At first, I just hand-painted the face in green glow paint and the eyes in aqua glow paint (about 3 coats). This resulted in a very craggy, chiselled rock look, which I like.

But with the recent advent of glow spraypaint, and bolstered by my experience with Garamon, I decided to push the envelope. I hand-painted the fists green and parts of the creepy Oni face on his armor aqua (I left the Oni's eyes and teeth unpainted to produce a more ghostly look while glowing...).

After some masking with trusty Parafilm-M, a couple cans of red glow spraypaint, and four coats of spray varnish, I think I can safely say that the gods would be pleased!

I used an interesting spraying technique somewhat similar to what I did with Garamon. I actually suspended the toy horizontally and sprayed in only one direction: from the top (his head), downward towards his feet. Obviously, this deposits a lot of glow paint on the top, raised surfaces, not as much on the flat, vertical surfaces, and very little on the downward-facing surfaces. The effect is that, from the top, he looks bright as a raging sun, while from below, he looks ancient--almost rusted--with malice!

The glow effect is pretty amazing. First of all, it's RED! Ya just don't see too many red glow-in-the-dark toys! Standing among other, traditional glowie toys, he stands out magnificently! Also, because of the uni-directional spraying, it always looks like there are shadowed parts of him while glowing. This faux-shading makes the glow seem more "realistic", as though there is some sort of light source right above him. As far as I know, this effect is pretty unique among glowies, which normally cast out light in every direction from every exposed surface.

Another effect that's clearly noticeable right off the bat is the intensity of the glow. None of these images are altered in any way--I just increased my camera's exposure time to about eight seconds. You can tell right away, though, that the red is far more understated--again, like rust--than the intense green or aqua. I dig this contrast a lot!

One last note about the glow is the duration. Interestingly enough, the red spray glows for about 50% longer than traditional glow vinyl toys. Also, it holds onto its intensity very well (i.e., it doesn't dim much over that time). Meanwhile, the green and aqua paints actually last maybe 5-10 times longer that traditional glowies...often throughout the night!

Light absorption differs as well: if I leave just a cheap desk lamp on in the room for a while, all normal glowies will at least charge a little, while these glow paints remain almost completely dim. These paints require exposure to more intense light to charge any appreciable amount. Direct light from a brighter lamp or, of course, blacklights work great in this regard. And once you get them charged...!

Finally, to help put Daimajin's glow effect into proper perspective, these last pics show Daimajin standing next to the recent Popy/B-Club glowie reissue of the Bullmark Giant-Sized Godzilla, and the two toys' comparative glow effects. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

(Big up to sketcher for letting me use his unmodded Daimajin pics! I never took any pre-mod pics of my own!)

KaijuZoo's take on the iconic Super Robot!

One obsession of mine that's no secret is my insatiable lust for glowies. The problem with many vintage-style (usually kaiju) glowies, though, is that their paint schemes are...well...boring. I'm no stranger to customizing toys myself, but some time ago, I stumbled across a website advertising expertly-done custom/restoration work for vinyl kaiju figures at very reasonable prices. I contacted the owner of the business, John Groff, and a great friendship was born...

His site, KaijuZoo Toys, offered something great for folks like me: not wanting to deal with the hassel of paint supplies, the mess, worrying about wrecking your vinyl(!), etc., clients are able to relax and focus on the paint/color scheme of whatever vinyl figure--glow or not--they want painted. John even offers services to remove old/damaged paint jobs prior to restoration or custom work.

It's really a very cool service if you think about it. Many vinyl kaiju manufacturers these days release unpainted exclusives of their molds...in glow or varying colors of opaque or translucent vinyl. The thing is that most folks may have no desire whatsoever to paint their own figures. I don't own an airbrush, for example--let alone the space to set one up properly! This is where Jonee comes in! Besides being a great guy to chat about Godzilla and other monsters with, he'll work directly with you via phone or e-mail, and take as long as needed to come up with the perfect paint scheme for your figure. He's an experienced kaiju toy collector, himself, making his feedback in this process invaluable. He's a real fan, a true artist, and it clearly shows in his work.

So as a client, I get to sit back, relax, and let my imagination take off. This figure is actually my fourth KaijuZoo custom...and we're even in the process right now of discussing a fifth! I even do searches now for unpainted (glow) vinyls for anything that catches my eye as something that Jonee can transform into a masterpiece.

And that's what led me to this figure. I'd been a pretty big fan of Marmit's Fierce Legend of Super Robots soft vinyl figure line for some time, and I'd already picked up a few over the years.

...And then I saw it: an unpainted Getter 1, the lead robot in Go Nagai's classic, Getter Robo...in glow in the dark vinyl! It didn't take much deliberation to plunk down the cash for it! :P

Didn't take long for Jonee and I to work out the color scheme for this guy, either. Because of my love for vintage robot toys and the considerable size of this figure (15 inches!), we decided on something reminiscent of the 24-inch Getter 1 Jumbo Machinder: pretty much anime-accurate colors except the white parts in the show would be painted light blue.

The results were striking.

The figure now has a translucent, metallic paint application that really needs to be seen in person to appreciate fully! When looking closely at it, the color density seems to shift subtly as you tilt the figure. Very cool!

And the glow really just jumps out of it! The real triumph of this project--something Jonee does amazingly well when it comes to glowies--is the fantastic balance struck between how the figure looks under normal light and in the dark. Whereas many glowies tend to be a little lackluster under normal light in order to maximize the glow effect, this figure identifies itself boldly with its high-contrast metallic red sheen. The characteristic gold of his trunks and green on the chest panels just pop, too, completing the overall look.

Not much articulation in these guys...but just enough to add a little heroism!

So Jonee's first non-kaiju glowie (unless you count Jet Jaguar, Moguera, and Mechagodzilla!) is clearly a resounding success. ...And now, of course, the good part: the glow pics!

Ah, makes ya wanna hear that theme song again, huh!? ;)

Consider yourselves lucky: I was gonna make some awful crack about the figure "glowing with 'Getter Sen'", but the non-geek side of me won out!

Charismatic Ultra-kaiju...glows in the dark...holds your cash...what's not to love!? ...But wait--there's more...!

Some time ago, I picked up this unpainted Marmit Vinyl Paradise glowie of one of Ultraman's classic nemeses, Garamon, along with his pet meteor(!), Garadama. It's actually a glow-in-the-dark piggy bank: there's a removeable plastic cap on the bottom and, of course, he's hollow. Anyway, it was a steal for the price from Kaiju-Taro...and besides, I just fell in love with that fun, goofy sculpt!

Shines like a beacon, no?

Among my other glowies at night, it's like a lighthouse! Still, not terribly interesting on a visual level, under either normal light or while glowing...

So, I had a couple options: either ship it off to a custom painter like my buddy, John Groff of KaijuZoo, or unleash my own imagination (and recently-purchased glow spraypaint!). I went with the latter--I figured this would be a great opportunity to muck around with the various colors of glow spraypaint I'd picked up from ReadySetGlo.

Right now, I have purple, red, orange, pink, and yellow to work with, though green, aqua, and some clear versions that glow in different colors are also currently available (and more products are added to their offerings all the time). With these, I came up with a simple, effective color scheme. First, I've always liked the red Garamon look as opposed to the more traditional(?) green. Besides...I already have a green glowie Garamon: the Popy/B-Club Bullmark reissue!

So, I decided to do a light purple over-spray up from the bottom just on the Garadama meteor, and then a thicker red over-spray from the top over Garamon, himself. This would leave quite a bit of glow vinyl still exposed and just leave the hint of color. When this was done, I would do a quick spray of pink on his lips, orange on his belly, and I would hand-paint his eyes with gloss black acrylic paint. I decided to leave the rest of the face, hands, and tail completely exposed.

After quite a bit of time-consuming masking with Parafilm-M, various stages of spraying, and final sealing using Minwax's "Polycrylic" varnish, the project was complete. It took the better part of this past weekend...and I'm pretty excited with the results!!

And here's how he looks alongside his Bullmark-esque counterpart:

The cool thing is that the glow spraypaint takes a little longer to charge than the bare glow vinyl, but it glows for much longer. This creates different interesting color effects based on different kinds of exposure. Real fun stuff for the glow nut in all of us!

I'll certainly be doing more of these customs and I look forward to sharing them with you. If you're interested in doing your own custom glowies such as this one, there are two important things to keep in mind when working with glow spraypaint from ReadySetGlo (Lebel Enterprises, Inc. products):

1) The spraypaint is actually a very fine glow powder suspended within a traditional acrylic paint matrix. The presence of the powder leads to a LOT of spray nozzle clogging, especially if you start and stop a lot. It definitely helps to have lots of spare nozzles. I recommend completely clearing out the nozzle after each coat by inverting the can and spraying for several seconds. I then simply remove the tip/nozzle and toss it in a container of paint thinner to await the next use.

2) Once your coat dries, you'll notice that there's a fine, sandy texture on the surface of your subject. That's the glow powder. Be very gentle with it as it will rub off under heavy wear. This basically means that you HAVE to seal your work. Any spray varnish will do and it'll work like a charm...just be dilligent about it!

Glow forth and prosper, my children!