Cyclopus (intheyellow ver.)
Review by JoshB
Modern vinyl and I have a sketchy relationship. I can't nail down what I like about a piece, but I know it when I see it. I know it has to be something like a kaiju, reasonably large, and cool as hell.
Sanjeev broke this thing out at the summit and I knew I had to have it, although I had no idea what it was.
Its called Cyclopus and its made by a Japanese vinyl company called BLObPUS. I don't know much about them other than they make some of the most striking vinyls on the market today. I think they have been around since 2005 and are closely tied to Super7.
What I've noticed about BLObPUS is that they tend to recycle parts a lot, with the various combinations being different characters. This one here is Cyclopus, but with winged arms its Dokugan. This makes an almost limitless number of combinations. There's sure to be a design you like.
Cyclopus is 8 inches tall and made out of soft vinyl. There are 6 points of articulation, but that's not really what vinyl is about.
The vinyl is translucent yellow and sprayed with a mix of red, green and black. On top of that the body is sprayed with glitter. That's right, its not in the vinyl, its actually sprayed on. Unfortunately, the glitter will come off if you brush it the wrong way, but if you can manage to keep it carefully, it should be fine.
The head features a cyclopean doll eye (hence the name).
The arms are designed so that the ends can be removed. This furthers the interchangeability of models. The right arm on this particular model has a large appendage with FIVE screaming skulls at the end.
This version of Cyclopus was sold through a Japanese On-Line retailer called intheyellow (http://www.intheyellow-store.com/). I'm sure it was a limited edition, but i'm not sure how many were made. Intheyellow is sold out, so if you want one, you have to find one on the secondary market.
Comments
8 comments postedReminds me of "The Fly" during the final sequence of the Cronenberg remake.
"Dinobots, destroy Devestator!"-Optimus Prime TFTM
This thing is gorgeous, but the only one I can find for sale is pretty far out of my current price range.
Supposedly, only 25 were made. Combine that with the fact that it just looks awesome, and it's almost worth it ($129) in my non-vinyl-collector eyes.
Awww...bummer about the glitter flaking off...
I wish I knew more about these guys, but JoshB pretty much nailed it. There are three different ST (standard-sized, about 9") kaiju heads from Blobpus: Last Kaiju, Dokugan, and Docross. They all share the same body and there are two sets of arms (one with demonic tentacles, as seen above, and the other with bat-like wings). As far as I've seen, Last Kaiju only has been released with the tentacle arms, Dokugan normally has the bat wings, but is called "Cyclopus" with the tentacles, and I've seen Docross still labeled as "Docross" regardless of what arms he's got on (and I've seen official releases of Docross with both sets of arms).
Anyway, I like these guys because their kaiju sculpts tend to be on the more evil and demonic side. I see these kaiju more as signs of the apocalypse than as destructive forces of nature. To complement these nutty sculpts, Blobpus makes some of the nicest colorways out there. They release some glowies, some translucents, and some opaques...but rest assured, they all look BOMB!
Here are a couple glowie Dokugans that were recently released just so y'all can see the bat arms:
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Sanjeev
My goodness, those are great. Where would you recommend I get them? The BLObPUS site doesn't like me :(
Gareth, if you move quick, you can still probably score at least the green gid one above. It was a Tokyocube-Blobpus exclusive, so it was only sold from there (that's where I got mine!).
Generally, I don't think most folks buy vinyls like these from the creators' websites. I know for myself, I get them primarily from eBay, Yahoo!Japan, or from Skullbrain's For Sale board.
Besides those places, I try retail sites like Super7, Rotofugi, ToyTokyo, and Kaiju-Taro.
I know there're a lot of hardcore collectors out there who go to Japanese toy shows, like Superfest, Wondercon and the like. They often know these toy producers personally (and, yes, operations like Blobpus, Shikaruna Koubo, Gargamel, etc., are usually tiny outfits...just a few people running the show!).
The first thing is to lurk on Skullbrain for a while and get to know what's out there. Information is your friend! Good luck finding what you're looking for!
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Sanjeev
Thanks for all the info, Sanjeev! I've honestly never even heard of any of these places, ha. I'm unexpectedly out of cash at the moment, but I'm going to keep a close eye on all of this.
I like how the bat arms still have visible hands in them. It makes it look like the guy-in-suit 70's monsters we all love,even though this is an original idea and not based on a show.
Aw damn, I thought maybe Nor'easter Vegetius would arrive first...that would've been epic.
Cyclopus is great! A bit bigger than I thought, which is good. Not quite as squishy as I thought, which is a small (very small) disappointment. I like squishy things. But of course it's also very good that it's a nice and solid figure. I wouldn't want it too squishy. Also I really like lighting up the clear vinyl from underneath with a bright flashlight, it's so cool.
The glitter flaking off is kind of annoying, I have to be a bit careful how I handle it, but it's not horrible. Still very fun to mess around with, and spectacular to look at. Vegetius, with the glitter actually inside the vinyl (right?), will be more toy-like in that respect.
At one point I popped the head off so I could stick my nose inside, and it smelled AWESOME. Popping the head back on was difficult, and once I got it back on it was kind of loose. So I stuck it in the fridge for a while and then it was fine. Also I got glitter on my face but it was eventually removed without problems.
Wanting glowie Dokugan more than ever!!