# # Toys Archives - coreyshead

Brother, I Can See Your Skull.

Brother, I Can See Your Skull. - The Coreyshead Blog

Archive for the ‘Toys’ Category

Gabara

January 26th, 2024 by Corey A. Edwards

GabaraB-Club Bullmark Gabara vinyl kaiju, from the Godzilla universe.

Seen here boarding a gondola at Glenwood Caverns, Glenwood Springs, CO in 2016.

… a few more toy images …

Yamaton

January 19th, 2024 by Corey A. Edwards

YamatonYamanaya Yamaton vinyl kaiju figure, based on a battleship monster from the manga adaptation of Ultraman.

Basking in the bay at Ocho Rios, Jamaica – 2019.

… a few more toy images …

Starbem Guiro

January 12th, 2024 by Corey A. Edwards

starbem guiroB-Club Bullmark reissue Starbem Guiro vinyl kaiju figure from Ultraman Leo.

Attending to the brewery in Alamosa, CO – spring 2016.

… a few more toy images …

Zetton Seijin

January 8th, 2024 by Corey A. Edwards

zettonSeijinB-Club Bullmark reissue Zetton Seijin (Z-Ton) vinyl kaiju figure from Ultraman fame.

Spotted sidling up to the historic grain elevator in downtown Sequim, WA – late 2023.

… a few more toy images …

Attend the Olympic Peninsula Toy and Collectibles Show 2023!

July 17th, 2023 by Corey A. Edwards

The Olympic Peninsula Toy and Collectibles Show
Come on out to the first annual Olympic Peninsula Toy and Collectibles Show, scheduled for September 9th, 2023, 10am to 3pm, at the Guy Cole Event Center in Sequim, WA. If you like vintage toys and collectibles, you’re gonna love the Olympic Peninsula Toy Show. This inaugural event promises 20 or more vendors selling a wide variety of vintage toys and collectibles.

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1:64 Diecast Gravity Racing

July 6th, 2022 by Corey A. Edwards

I’ve spent the bulk of my life almost completely uninterested in both sports and cars. So it is quite the shock to find myself suddenly and happily embroiled in 1:64 diecast gravity racing.

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Up A Creek with Fisher-Price Adventure People

August 19th, 2020 by Corey A. Edwards

The re-discovery of the Fisher-Price Adventure People line and the addition of a water feature compelled me to put this ridiculous video together.

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Last Known Photo

September 13th, 2018 by Corey A. Edwards

Bandai B-Club Bullmark Tsuburaya Pandon reissue Japanese vinyl sofubi Ultraseven kaiju toy monster figure

Chogokin Gimmickry

December 13th, 2017 by Corey A. Edwards

Chogokin Gimmickry
I rediscovered many of my toys while making the Chogokin Gimmickry video. I encourage you to occasionally play with your toys – especially your r@@@re and expensive, super-fragile, antique Japanese diecast toys from companies like Popy, Takatoku, Bullmark, Arklon, Eidi, and Marushin.

Encounter

June 28th, 2015 by Corey A. Edwards

Ultraman Jamaica

Bandai’s 66mm Mini Action Figure Ultraman on the beach at the Iberostar Rose Hall Suites in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Guiro Seijin

January 30th, 2015 by Corey A. Edwards

guiroSeijinB-Club Bullmark reissue Guiro Seijin vinyl kaiju figure.

Up to something unsavory down in the low places.

… a few more toy images …

Strange Toys I Have Known –
Marx Toy Soldier Casualties

November 5th, 2014 by Corey A. Edwards

marx06b

I think most of us who grew up between the 50’s and the 80’s would consider the little, green plastic soldier to be one of the most ubiquitous toys of that world. I know I saw hundreds (if not thousands) of them littering the floors, toy boxes, and playgrounds of my and my peers’ youth. Among them would have to have been some Marx toy soldiers.

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V-color Me Enthused

October 14th, 2014 by Corey A. Edwards

unpainted M-1 Go Lucky Bag Kaiju

Over 6 years ago, I wrote about hoping to paint some vinyl toys I had collected (The Necessary Year – Day 1: Butterflies and Vcolor).

The post in question was made at the very beginning of a major life change for me: divorce, job loss, move, etc. As things changed in my life, my focus shifted away from collecting Japanese toys – or much else besides enough money to stay off the streets and help raise my daughter.

When I did finally become solvent enough to revisit the idea of decorating these blank toys, I discovered that the company I mentioned in the initial post had gone out of business and acquiring Vcolor paints in the US had become a bit of a challenge for the casual consumer.

As a refresher: Vinyl requires a specific kind of paint to cure and adhere to it. Most paints either stay sticky or just flake or scrape right off. Paints that do bind with vinyl do so by creating a chemical bond with it and, consequently, are pretty hazardous. Thus the difficulty in getting it.

Now, there is a paint called Monster Kolor available in the US that has become very popular with the designer-toy community. They produce LOTS of colors and come in markers. spray cans, sprayable colors, etc. It uses a different chemical bond, however and, back when it was first introduced, all I heard was that the colors were great but that the bite on the vinyl was just not as good as Vcolor’s – thus why I never tried it.

There are other paints as well but what attracted me to Vcolor in the first place was its predominance in the Japanese toy industry. What got me interested in the process int he first place was the tradition of Japanese vinyl toys, the overall aesthetic: the subject matter, the sculpt, the color palette, the application. While I have seen some absolutely stunning, custom paint jobs on wonderful, modern designer toys, this is not what I am interested in.

The attraction for me, beyond the mechanics of the medium, is finding the balancing point between my taste and this traditional aesthetic. For some reason, the hankering to do this came on again in June or so of this year and I found myself wondering “gee, it’s been forever since I looked to see if there is another source for Vcolor on the net …

I did a search and, lo and behold, there was one! Gunnzo – and in San Diego, no less! The price of Vcolor through them is pretty intense, I must say, but they also offer “Mad Ape Ninja” vinyl paint which, according to the Gunnzo representative, is manufactured by Vcolor as a kind of art-house color set in response to alternatives like Monster Kolor.

Anyway, I put in an initial order and tok a long, hard look at the blanks I had: where to begin?

Somewhat ironically, the bulk of the toys I have been able to find for this project come from a company operating under a similar ideal: M-1 Go is a modern, Japanese toy company that produces new, vinyl toys of classic, older properties, merging their own tastes with that of the traditional sculpting and decorating aesthetic.

Outside of the M-1 Go toys I have, there is also a blank glow exclusive of a Henshin Cyborg Walder bug alien by Takara I picked up years ago and a glow vinyl kit of the octopus like, Ultra 7, Chiburu alien that, to be honest, is the number one reason why I want to paint my toys. I have a thing for the Chiburu design, to say the least, and having this blank sitting here is killing me: I wanna paint it!

Once the paint arrives I get nervous – I mean *really* nervous. Scared, even.

What if I only manage to screw up the toys? That’s a lot of money, expectation, and pride down the toilet. I’m not gonna do that. Instead, I study up on the basics via this amazing thread at skullbrain.org, then serially harass an artist I know through the toy-collecting community for some tips, which he is incredibly gracious enough to provide (thank you!).

I begin to formulate a plan.

First I take pictures of my blank toys so that I can pull them into Photoshop and do my initial “painting” there. Then I begin looking at existing, finished toys with a more analytical, less fanboy, eye than before.

The big issue I’m facing is that most of the toys are either an off-white color or off-peach. Off-white isn’t *too* bad for coloring but the off-peach is a bit limiting, especially if you’re hoping to use the traditional approach, which means using some – if not a lot – of this base color in your palette. Luckily I have a creative eye, a color wheel, and “ugly” is part of the traditional, vinyl toy aesthetic.

I decide to work on the minis first. I care less about them so, if I screw one or two up learning how to work with the medium, it wont sting as bad.

For an airbrush, I have my old, siphon-feed, single action, Paasche air brush from my patina days. Rather than a compressor, I supply air to the brush by filling an air tank at the gas station with compressed air. Since I’m only running 20 psi through the brush, the tank lasts quite a while – but a compressor would definitely be better – but, then again, so would a gravity feed, dual-action airbrush!

The aforementioned Skullbrain thread convinces me to pre-thin all my paints down into dropper bottles, which I do before considering that I’ll be wanting some unthinned paint to brush – d’oh! Oh, well. My toy-deco mentor tells me the paints will evaporate back down to a pre-thinned consistency in no time flat if exposed to the air. Cool.

Vcolor Me Enthused - all suited up and spraying Vcolor.There’s no time like the present, so I get out my respirator, latex gloves, apron, and wipe my M-1 Annon mini down with rubbing alcohol: here we go!

My idea is to give the little fellow a patch or two of silver but I get excited because of how amazingly fast the paint dries – almost immediately! – and coat the whole thing.

Whoops.

Vcolor Me Enthused - M-1 Annon mini paint progressI decide to blow a little purple over it one way, and then some blue. Hmm – not bad. Now what? well, now I wanna do some thinking because … I started this one with *no* color scheme in mind.

I play around with a few ideas as I wait for another bubble in my schedule big enough for a painting session and decide … that I’m too excited and must try painting the Henshin Cyborg Walder bug alien I’ve come up with a design scheme for in Photoshop – it’ll be a cinch!

Vcolor Me Enthused - unpainted Takara Walder AlienUsing the picture on my iPhone as a guide, I apply my color scheme to the Walder alien, learning the paint and my airbrush as I go. Much as I like how it comes along, I almost immediately realize how foolish I am being. I am no way near ready for the level of this project. When finished, I am pretty damned happy with the results but I’ve applied way more paint than I ever intended to. Though pleased, to my eye the deco is a bit clunky and dry looking in a number of places – it still glows, though!

I decide it’s time to try brushing on the paints, so I take the partially finished Annon out and, this time having pre-decided what to do, apply a pink mouth line and finish up the eyes with a basic white and black pupil approach. The end results are mixed. Brushing Vcolor on evenly is not easy – have I even allowed it to thicken back up enough? I do not know – and I am left unsatisfied and certain that I’ll be coming back to this toy but again.

Another lump of days passes before I find the time (and nerve – the process still makes me nervous) to do some more. By now a number of the toys have been “painted” in Photoshop or my mind, so it’s just a matter of getting out there and doing it.

Vcolor Me Enthused - M-1 Baltan mini unpainted

Vcolor Me Enthused - M-1 glow Namegon mini unpainted

Vcolor Me Enthused - M-1 Semi-Ningen mini unpaintedThis time I am forcing myself back to the M-1 minis and a concentrated effort to paint the toys both minimally and more traditionally. With one exception, I pull it off and am thrilled with the results. The glow Namegon and off-peach Semin-Ningen minis come out looking even better than I had hoped (although the brushed parts of the Namegon – eyes and mouth – still come out uneven). The Baltan is more of a train wreck with, again, more layers of paint than I ever intended but, as I look at it, it begins (and continues) to grow on me.

POINK! Spring-Loaded, Japanese Robot Fists!

April 18th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

Poink! Spring-Loaded, Japanese Robot Fists!

Goofing around with the detail collage for my post on the “Instrucciones” poster inspired me to create a few fun (and totally stupid) products utilizing an iconic graphic from one of the instruction sheets: a spring-loaded, Japanese robot fist flying through the air!

I dunno about you but I’m definitely getting one of the shirts

Poink! Spring-Loaded, Japanese Robot Fists!

http://www.cafepress.com/coreyshead – Enjoy!

Slasher Astronaut

April 11th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

Slasher Astronaut

We received a big tub of cast-off toys for the boys from their grandparents and, going through it to see what to keep for them and what to send off to either Goodwill or the big toybox in the sky, I ran across what I am now referring to as “Slasher Astronaut.”

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Instrucciones – Installment of Robot

March 28th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

Instrucciones - Detail collage

My interest in Japanese toys has very little to do with actually playing with them.

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Strange Toys I Have Known:
Sole of Godzilla’s Gang

March 4th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

Godzilla's Gang

A while back I brought Nokogirin and Godzilla’s Gang to your collective attention. What I didn’t mention is that Nokogirin was not the only of the series I’d managed to round up. Minus the eponymous member, I have managed to “collect them all!”™

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Kaleidosgokin

February 20th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

My Gif To You

February 11th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

Nightmare Before Christmas Hatchet-Head

‘Round about 2005/2006 I discovered the fine art of shaking the hand of the devi … making animated gifs with Photoshop.

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Strange Toys I Have Known:
Yes, we have Nokogirin – we have Nokogirin today!

February 1st, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards

Nokogirin

The Japanese have some fascinating and large bugs on their islands. Is it any wonder these wonderful animals would figure to a noticeable degree in their sci-fi and fantasy?

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