Meet your fellow monster

[Josh Barton]

This thread is to act like a virtual party where everyone can get to know everyone. Ascii drinks and 300 dpi cheese cubes are served in abundance. More fun than an AA meeting.

So who are you? What brought you to the hobby? What part of the hobby do you partake in? Fave toys? Etc. Leave the egg shells at the door. If this thread stays alive, it could be a nice way to learn something you didn't know and generally make new friends. Potential, kids. Potential. Since I don't see any hands I'll start.

My name is Josh and I live in Kentucky. Right this very second I am listening to Type O Negative. I like battling my dog, Wolf and eating Thai food. I want to be a Kamen Rider when I grow up.

I've been 'into' toys since I was a kid. I grew up on Transformers and Voltron. I had a Bumblebee cake on my 4th birthday. I have an intense love of robot toys. Growing up, I tried to get a hold of anything robot related. Seriously. The only TMNT fig I owned was Metalhead because he was a robot. I had Robotech underwear when I was real young and I didn't even see Robotech until I was in High School. When Transformers died I graduated to Power Rangers and then back to TF when Beast Wars began airing.

Two particular events brought me to the Japanese scene. Before I graduated HS, my mom came back from a flea market with a robot lion toy. I had no idea what it was at the time. I just knew it wasn't voltron. Later on I did research and discovered it was the lion from Daltanious. This little bit of digging opened up a whole world of Chogokin/ Godaikin. The second event came about because someone on a TF board posted a link to the (new at the time) GaoGaiGar figures. I immediately fell in love with the designs and again with the research, discovered the sweet sweet satisfaction that is Yuusha or the Brave Robot series.

If robot toys are my foundation in this hobby, then Godzilla is the first floor. Another big part of my childhood was the big G. One of my favourite movies growing up was Godzilla VS Megalon. In the late 90's I was introduced to Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Gamera has been my fave kaiju ever since. I even have a big plushie of the guy.

I have since grown to love kaiju of all shapes and found a deep appreciation for the 'modern vinyl' scene and its sub-groups. Bottom line, I love toys. And this love is what drives me to make figures of my own. Well more like 'try', but we all start somewhere. I don't have a specific focus as I am too ADD to decide on what I want to do. I want to hit it all; robots, kaiju, yokai, super heroes, everything.

With all that said, I look forward to this community growing and making new friends. I think what Matt Walker has here is something special and it'd be foolish not to get involved.

[Dead Presidents]

Those sculpts look so cool !. Thank you for sharing. Were all here to help get painting.

[Jim Shea]

Hi Paul,, That's a really great looking figure and the mask is awesome.  I was pretty impressed with it so I did a quick search and really like the "concepts" on your site around.  Look forward to seeing your progress with the figure.

[dogmeatsausage]

Hi Ben, thanks! I will keep everyone posted. I feel like my brain will explode with all the little things to figure out but it's been really fun, and an amazingly supportive community.

Ben Mininberg said:

Holy wow!  Lots of dudes have lots of lavish plans for stuff they hope to do, but you come out of nowhere with an AWESOME idea and awesome stuff to actually show.  Definitely keep us in the look, because this guy looks great.

dogmeatsausage said:

Hi everyone.

My name is Paul Harmon, I'm a storyboard artist in tv animation, I do some comic work as well.

I've been obsessed with toys since childhood, probably starting collecting in high school, trying to get toys I used to own, toys I could never afford at the time. I'm into too many types of toys, from captain action, stretch monster, vintage star wars, transformers, weird 80's cartoon toys, vintage popy and bandai, too many combining robots, henshin cyborg, microman, and a lot of really cool vintage character based vinyl. Any really cool character toy action/figure fascinates me. Anyhow I'm moving into actually making my first toy, based off of a sci-fi yakuza story I planned/plan to do as some form of graphic novel or short. I've just ordered my first airbrush and will get some paints and learn how to paint figures. I was looking through the novice airbrush section but feel free to offer me some advice. Also Mark Nagata has been a HUGE help in getting toy production advice! Thanks Mark. 

[dogmeatsausage]

Thanks, I can't wait to get started painting.

Dead Presidents said:

Those sculpts look so cool !. Thank you for sharing. Were all here to help get painting.

[dogmeatsausage]

Thanks Jim, I really love the masked figures!

Jim Shea said:

Hi Paul,, That's a really great looking figure and the mask is awesome.  I was pretty impressed with it so I did a quick search and really like the "concepts" on your site around.  Look forward to seeing your progress with the figure.

[Seth Longmire]

Great, job, and welcome!

[mark nagata]

I saw Pauls stuff a while back and my eyes bugged out ! A must have when it comes out for sure !!! Hurry up Paul !!! Hahaha !

[Sanjeev]

Welcome, Paul. Way to make a splash! ;)

[Shane Haddy]

Paul, that is awesome!! I can't wait to see more pictures of your beast! The mask pulled me in, I love it :)

[dogmeatsausage]

@ Seth, Mark,Sanjeev and Shane,  

Thanks for the kind words and warm welcome!

[Shea Brittain]

Hi! My name is Shea. I'm a 27 year old lady human and I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. As long as I can remember, I've painted and doodled. I love dark humor, fairy tales, graffiti, animation, ancient stuff, anime, manga, sculpture, architecture, classical arts, etc, and grew up in an area where Asian culture is very prominent. My art style is kind of a mishmash of all of those things. :)

Right now, I am trying to start my own little resin toy and 3D canvas business called FrankenFactory (check me out on Twitter: @FrankenFactory). I plan on using a combo of Monster Kolor and Mr Color on my stuff.  I can't wait to show you guys my first 3D canvas and get your input (Does anyone know of a company/person that does vinyl rotocasting of large pieces for a reasonable price and in small batches? Is that like asking for a Unicorn that poops cupcakes?). I decided to try and start this business because my life kind of imploded several months ago and I wanted to make a big change (which included moving to Las Vegas, NV). I'm still a little culture shocked and I really miss the moist ocean air and Seagulls.

My biggest influences for thinking about getting into sculpture and airbrushing are these fine older fellows (and the designer toy community):

-Sculptor and close friend: http://www.robbrowne.com/
-Really talented airbrush on canvas artist: http://www.bensco.com/holle/painting/default.htm

I'm so glad to meet you all!

[Bryan K Borgman]

Welcome to Monster Kolor discussions Shea! I'm following you on Twitter from @Stratos and @KaijuKaos.

Shea Brittain said:

Hi! My name is Shea. I'm a 27 year old lady human and I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. As long as I can remember, I've painted and doodled. I love dark humor, fairy tales, graffiti, animation, ancient stuff, anime, manga, sculpture, architecture, classical arts, etc, and grew up in an area where Asian culture is very prominent. My art style is kind of a mishmash of all of those things. :)

Right now, I am trying to start my own little resin toy and 3D canvas business called FrankenFactory (check me out on Twitter: @FrankenFactory). I plan on using a combo of Monster Kolor and Mr Color on my stuff.  I can't wait to show you guys my first 3D canvas and get your input (Does anyone know of a company/person that does vinyl rotocasting of large pieces for a reasonable price and in small batches? Is that like asking for a Unicorn that poops cupcakes?). I decided to try and start this business because my life kind of imploded several months ago and I wanted to make a big change (which included moving to Las Vegas, NV). I'm still a little culture shocked and I really miss the moist ocean air and Seagulls.

My biggest influences for thinking about getting into sculpture and airbrushing are these fine older fellows (and the designer toy community):

-Sculptor and close friend: http://www.robbrowne.com/
-Really talented airbrush on canvas artist: http://www.bensco.com/holle/painting/default.htm

I'm so glad to meet you all!