Robert DeCastro’s Combat-R Zero

Robert DeCastro tells us about his upcoming Combat-R Zero vinyl toy:

Adventure

"Combat-R Zero is 9-1/2 “inches tall, features 3 ( shoulders and hip) points of articulation, and a removable rocketpack. He’ll come in a re-closable clamshell style packaging. There are five colors available “MK-1 Mod Zero” (red), “Adventure” (yellow), “Swamp” (green), “Skunkwerks” (black), and the “Superset” (all five colorways) bundle exclusive “Plutonium” (GID). These will be available at our website www.atomicmushroomtoys.com and other retailers. Price is set at US $55.00 for singles and US $265.00 for the “Superset”. Our shipment is nearing U.S. shores and should be ready for sale on the first week of March.”

MK-1 Mod Zero

“I’m a self taught artist. I worked briefly as a comic book illustrator but of course the comic book crash in the 90’s doomed those plans. I got into toy design by accident shortly after that. I collected vintage 12” inch GI Joes and was custom making (from scratch) historically correct uniforms and accessories. I got hired by Don Levine and Kirk Bozigian (inventors of GI Joe back in the 60’s and 80’s) to do a project and it sorta took off from there. I worked for companies like Playmates, Ertle, and 21st Century Toys. It was around then that I was hunting down other toys I had when I was a kid, namely my old kaiju toys and diecast robots. That’s when I ran into the Designer toy scene and was entirely enthralled with this new creative form of expression. I basically took what I learned in the toy industry and got together with some industry contacts I’ve established and took the leap into designing my own vinyl toy.

Plutonium (GID)

Combat-R Zero is here with us today because I love robots plain and simple. As a kid when my favorite Super hero robot shows was on you couldn’t tear me away from the TV if you set the house on fire! All my diecast toys was played with sooo much, most of the paint was worn off. More than anything the design cue for CRZ was inspired by 60’s style animation like Gigantor, 009, Astro Boy and the like. When I was drawing CRZ I had to really pull back on the detail and even had to “dumb down” some of what I had decided to keep. I eventually ended up with a design that I liked and I must say the factory did a splendid job translating my drawings from 2-D to a fully realized 3-D vinyl figure."

Skunkwerks

Swamp