22 years.

Celebrated my birthday last week in Hong Kong ( gonna talk about that in a different post) last week and brought home a lot of neat stuff, mostly for my 1/18 collection. Sadly, no Joes were found, but my rider ranks just doubled a bit. 

First up, a complete set of Motion Revive Kamen Rider: Best Selection series. I FINALLY have my most wanted 1/18 scaled kuuga and its the form I wanted as well. On a related note, I'm getting a 1/18ish scaled Beat Chaser next week so yay, Kuuga now has a ride! I really dig all of these guys but I'm only keeping Hibiki, Kuuga, and Kiva. Before I give the rest to my friends though, Expect a week of Motion Revive Reviews from me lol. 

I also found these dudes, the Module On Fourze candy toy figures. Aside from having really cool swappable modules and fairly good articulation, these guys are about the same size as Micromen and Motion Revive. Something that kept me from buying the OOO combo change candy toys from a year back. All in all, I was so impressed by these guys that I decided to paint some of their details. 

This one though, was a total surprise. Albeit incomplete I still love the fact that I managed to buy a Revoltech Chun-Li for a cheap price (30 HKD or 160 PHP). Hell yeah!

This is one figure I also love. By default, my first Hot Toys figure, the Snap-Kit Deunan Knute from Appleseed Ex Machina (which is scaled at 1/20) was fun to build. It has a sturdy, hard PVC feel to it and is very well-detailed. Surprisingly it's almost similar to the Yujin 1/18 version except better looking. 

Ah, probably one of my most pleasant hauls, is this Figma Drossel (Fireball Charming Ver.). She comes with an array of parts and accessories which I'll discuss in a later review.  

Dat Ass...

There are a few other things I got here and there while I was on vacation, but they'll probably get mentioned another time.

Looking forward to a good week ahead!

First post for the new year, managed to get some stuff while on my short vacation:

Through sheer luck i was able to find this Yujin Briareos figure(same line from where I got Deunan), and now my Deunan has her husbando. Since the neck joint didn't really help keep the head in place I got rid of it and replaced it with a cut revoljoint. Also in the picture is the current status of my Motoko Kusanagi custom, which is almost finished in terms of sculpting (just the detail on the other boot now).

The other thing that I bought but not for myself is this:

Was quite surprised at finding this, the molding quality of the bootleg is remarkably good, the print of the instructions  is well done too.  Got this for a friend though who still hasn't bought  one, but wants it pretty bad. Makes me wonder if there's a Deathsaurer kit bootleg out there as well. 

Deunaneunaneunaneunan

She definitely needs Briareos to keep her company. 

Check out more figures at the Works Page. 

Things and more things.

Whew! Okay, I think I'm calling this side-kitbash of Happy Lemon/ Kikay Asuka (friends of mine suggested the names. Happy Lemon because she looks like one of the types of customers there, and Kikay because... well she's kikay.)

As for other projects, the build on Ibuki is almost done, just gotta fix her bracers, and Deunan is pretty much finished. I'm just not motivated right now to make a full gallery for her.

Over the weekend as well, another friend donated a Kiwami Tamashii Zanki for a project, gonna attempt to make a KT Ichigo to pal around with this dude down here:

Now I need fifty more Superhero Showdown Daredevil figures and sofubi mooks to make an army of combatmen... or Shocker riders

Speaking of Shocker riders here's the current state of their Heisei Equivalent, my S.I.C. Kiwami Tamashii Riotrooper (first of my target of six units).Still a lot of work to be done but the look is there.

Oh yeah, since I did some partswapping to complete Asuka, I'm left with another spare microlady to work on. So far I don't have a definite idea what I want to turn her into but that cycling shorts look is kind of neat looking. I wonder what character wears shorts like that.

Hmmm...

OH YEAH.

messy, messy palette

I am completely a noob when it comes to painting with a palette instead of  my regular paint pots.

Anyway, Deunan is pretty much finished, and just needs an inkwash, but man she's pretty aquamarine. I used only four main colors to paint up her body armor (three Vallejo and one Citadel), namely-

Vallejo:

Goblin Green

Dark Blue

Silver Grey

Citadel:

Chaos Black

You can see the shades I mixed up below, 

(those are different shades, I swear.)

And as for the flesh for the neck and fingers it was just light flesh and cadmium flesh mixed to match the plastic color of her face which was left unpainted.

I did this in under two nights and it felt like my paint was going to dry at any moment, which is why I'm motivated to buy or make my own Wet palette to preserve some of my  mixed colors because I ended up mixing colors twice and switching around the colors on parts of the body. I'm at least glad the paints I used can self-level themselves.

final pics will be up soonish. 

that 5%

Will make it's way to her build soon. I just need to add her knee pads then clean up what's left to be cleaned and it's off to a new paint job for her.

simple shapes

in between dong papers i'm trying to learn how to do more even sculpts by practicing on simple shapes and lots of sanding to sharpen the lines. here's the attempt on Deunan's shoulder pads:

I sculpted them so that they won't pop off so easily. they have these little nubs on the inside that pegs into these small holes on the side of the shoulder joints:

Plastic Surgery

So today I came across this Yujin mini scaled Deunan Knute:

When I went around playing with it I noticed it was.... well, shitty. The shoulderpads kept popping off, the pistol holster wouldn't stay in place (even with glue!) and there was a crack in the left thigh along the seamline where the two parts that make up the sockets are glued together so it was really loose. Then in no fewer than a couple of hours the bond completely broke and split the thigh open.

That's it, I thought. It's time for some surgery:

Things I thought about giving this figure: shoulder ball swivels, new hips, a sturdier trigger hand, and a new paintjob for the body. Boy, this'll be fun.

UPDATE:

Knee surgery went without a hitch, now the kneepads need to be done, and the hips modded more.