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Paint Your Own Tripus
June 22, 2013 from 12pm to 6pm – Monster Kolor Studios
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Locals Only
June 29, 2013 from 7pm to 11pm – monster Kolor Studios
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Meet your fellow monster
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.
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.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by mark nagata on -
Hi Josh !
well to be brief I make toys, I paint toys and most importantly I collect toys ;-) My collecting habits included vintage Ultraman toys, vintage ray guns, original art ( comic related and toy related ) and lately vintage robots. Since I can not read or speak Japanese, my attraction to them at first was purely visually driven ... the wild colors and strange creatures instantly attracted me to them.. and continue to ! Matts paints are a great way to not only make your figures look great, but also to learn from other artists and gain inspiration from them.
It's great hearing how others have found Kaiju and or Japanese toys and evolved into painting or making their own stuff.. DIY the Kaiju way !
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Permalink Reply by Sanjeev on -
"Lately vintage robots", huh, Mark??? Welly, welly, welly, well... We'll have to speak more about this soon! ;)
Anyway, what's up, folks? First off, thanks, Josh, for starting this thread. It's the perfect thing to do on such a young site. My name's Sanjeev and I live in Boston. I'm a toy collector and aspiring toy maker. I'm 31...and that's actually an important point. See...I grew up in the Boston area as what you'd call a latchkey kid in the 80's. Well, in the early 80's, super robot cartoons were at a local peak in New England with Jim Terry's Force Five. Then, you add other cartoons and Creature Double Feature every Saturday morning, featuring a choice selection of showa-era Toho and Daiei kaiju flicks...it was a very ripe time for a 6- or 7-year-old boy to be hooked on tv! :P
Now, my family didn't have much money to afford toys, but I'd always see commercials for local toy stores (from the famous Mr. Big Toyland to bigger chains like Childworld) featuring the mysterious and magical Japanese robots hinted at in shows like Tranzor Z, Robotech, Saber Rider, Voltron, and the rest. So, New England of the early 80's saw a perfect storm, albeit a somewhat localized one, of Japanese pop culture and toy fandom.
Sure I watched Transformers, He-Man, and TMNT...but eventually, I "grew" out of those things. In junior high school, toys were all but forgotten...replaced with girls, violence, eventually drugs...y'know--all the "fun" shit that comes with "growing up". Well, one nice thing in high school was that I had a tight group of friends who got me into comic books. And through comics, besides my usual X-Men and Avengers fixes, I found Eternity's "Robotech II: The Sentinels" comic line...and it triggered a massive recollection of all those robots we used to dig. We started going to comic book shows and conventions, and we found vhs dealers selling these same cartoons and movies! Robots and monsters were back, baby!
By the time I got to college, the GX-04 SoC Grendizer (my favorite robot of all time) came out and it was all over for me. I found the internet...and eventually ToyboxDX, and it was off to the races.
I've since gotten hooked up with the local vintage Japanese robot/monster toy collecting community and have become a regular contributor to both ToyboxDX and her sister site, CollectionDX. The regulars there eventually pushed me to head over to skullbrain to feed my glowie kaiju addiction!
Anyway, the web has been useful for getting entrenched in the nuts and bolts of this hobby...but the community has been really what has fueled the passion. My first East Coast Chogokin Summit back in 2005 was weird for me at first (who're all these weird white guys who met on the internet talking about toys!?), but it would be my first stepping stone to forming some really solid friendships (yes, offline)! Without real connections with people, I don't think I'd be 1/10 involved in this hobby as I am. Toy Karma, baby!
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Permalink Reply by mark nagata on
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not a lot of them 'bots and I refuse to pay thousands .. but here's few in my room :
Sanjeev said:"Lately vintage robots", huh, Mark??? Welly, welly, welly, well... We'll have to speak more about this soon! ;)
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Permalink Reply by Josh Barton on -
Heyya Mark! Thanks for giving insight on what makes you tick. It's always an uber bonus to know what inspires a pro in his art.
Quite welcome Sanjeev. I kind felt that maybe people were approaching the discussions like an AA meeting. No one wanted to be first and have all eyes on him/her so I threw this thread up in hopes to break the ice. Very glad both you and Mark chimed in. Now where's everyone else? :P
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Permalink Reply by Dead Presidents on -
This could be a novel ! .
Well around 15 years ago I started one of my first businesses. It was a custom paint shop that did scale railroad model replicas. From that spawned my other newly found passions , Pinstriping ! , Simultaniously i was working a day job as a auto painter honing my pinstriping & custom painting skills at night & weekends. This led me all over the country studying from some of the pinstriping masters at informal get togethers.
After getting my feet wet little by little i built up quite a customer base for custom painting and pinstriping. Still operate this to this very day ! .
Around 2007 I ordered some blank kaiju figures from Kaiju Taro. I have always painted toys and had a passion for highly detailed objects. From those first few customs that i painted the next few years are a blur ! .
Manufactures and collectors from all over the world started to take notice of what i was doing on the japanese toys. Few before me have pinstriped on a toy before never mind using very exspensive coatings on one as well !.
Kinda fast forward a bit. Custom Painting toys has opened up some great doors for me both in the states and in japan. In spring 2009 i made my first trip over to Japan to release my custom toys and do a live pinstriping demo at Super Festival 49. It was an experience i will never forget.
SDCC every summer is also a good place for me to network with other painters and companys alike. In December 2009 I was involved in a very special kaiju show in San Francisco. Max Toy, Sunguts,Dream Rocket . The show was a great success !. One of the highlights from that trip was the chance to collaborate on a Max Toy Eyezon with Sunguts,Dream Rocket, & Max Toy. This brought thoughts back into my head of when I was learning to pinstripe. I would work with multiple pinstripe artist on a panel and we each would add our design elements to this. The end result ? Awesome !
I could go on for pages but i'm going to stop here....
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Permalink Reply by Joshua Fraser on -
Well.
Started collecting in 1979 when I came down with Diabetes. Was at Children's hospital and pretty ill. My mom went to the gift shop in the lobby and bought me a Gaiking nesser.
http://www.wildtoys.com/shogun/ShogVehicles/nessar.jpg
From there on like many, on the east Coast, watched Force Five and Starblazers and Battle of the Planets.
I went to Mr Bigs Toyland a few times and also had parents who understood my love of the toys to take me to shops that had them. Over the years I then got into tin 50s and 60s robots and space toys, in the late 80s and early 90s.
Went to Risd in 93 to 97 and basically stopped collecting.
Started up again in 97 after meeting Mike from Day Old Antiques and go very serious in 98/99 when Ebay was the new way to find toys I never knew existed.
Has been over a decade of obsessive Gaiking collecting as well as a love for "C10" boxes.
I am a footwear designer for Puma and try to combine my design background with my love of vintage japanese toys. Been a footwear designer for a number of companies in the past 20 years. Lived in Both Tokyo, Japan and Kowloon ,Hong Kong.
Currently I am collecting mainly Bullmark and Popy zenmai walkers. And the random batt op every once in a while. I try to evolve my collection and not be taken over by it by keeping it small and narrowly focussed.
Starting to work on my own projects and hope to makes this site a place to meet and discuss with like minded friends.
;-)
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Permalink Reply by Dead Presidents on
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Josh, thanks for sharing ! . Hopefully others will share there stories too.
Joshua Fraser said:Well.
Started collecting in 1979 when I came down with Diabetes. Was at Children's hospital and pretty ill. My mom went to the gift shop in the lobby and bought me a Gaiking nesser.
http://www.wildtoys.com/shogun/ShogVehicles/nessar.jpg
From there on like many, on the east Coast, watched Force Five and Starblazers and Battle of the Planets.
I went to Mr Bigs Toyland a few times and also had parents who understood my love of the toys to take me to shops that had them. Over the years I then got into tin 50s and 60s robots and space toys, in the late 80s and early 90s.
Went to Risd in 93 to 97 and basically stopped collecting.
Started up again in 97 after meeting Mike from Day Old Antiques and go very serious in 98/99 when Ebay was the new way to find toys I never knew existed.
Has been over a decade of obsessive Gaiking collecting as well as a love for "C10" boxes.
I am a footwear designer for Puma and try to combine my design background with my love of vintage japanese toys. Been a footwear designer for a number of companies in the past 20 years. Lived in Both Tokyo, Japan and Kowloon ,Hong Kong.
Currently I am collecting mainly Bullmark and Popy zenmai walkers. And the random batt op every once in a while. I try to evolve my collection and not be taken over by it by keeping it small and narrowly focussed.
Starting to work on my own projects and hope to makes this site a place to meet and discuss with like minded friends.
;-)
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Permalink Reply by Jack Fields on -
To think that once, one could get a nessar from a hospital, and now there are no decent robots in any major retailers.
Joshua Fraser said:Well.
Started collecting in 1979 when I came down with Diabetes. Was at Children's hospital and pretty ill. My mom went to the gift shop in the lobby and bought me a Gaiking nesser.
http://www.wildtoys.com/shogun/ShogVehicles/nessar.jpg
From there on like many, on the east Coast, watched Force Five and Starblazers and Battle of the Planets.
I went to Mr Bigs Toyland a few times and also had parents who understood my love of the toys to take me to shops that had them. Over the years I then got into tin 50s and 60s robots and space toys, in the late 80s and early 90s.
Went to Risd in 93 to 97 and basically stopped collecting.
Started up again in 97 after meeting Mike from Day Old Antiques and go very serious in 98/99 when Ebay was the new way to find toys I never knew existed.
Has been over a decade of obsessive Gaiking collecting as well as a love for "C10" boxes.
I am a footwear designer for Puma and try to combine my design background with my love of vintage japanese toys. Been a footwear designer for a number of companies in the past 20 years. Lived in Both Tokyo, Japan and Kowloon ,Hong Kong.
Currently I am collecting mainly Bullmark and Popy zenmai walkers. And the random batt op every once in a while. I try to evolve my collection and not be taken over by it by keeping it small and narrowly focussed.
Starting to work on my own projects and hope to makes this site a place to meet and discuss with like minded friends.
;-)
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Permalink Reply by Jack Fields on
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I have this one "random batt op" that has to be seen to be believed. It's a black robot with a golden lion for a head. Furthermore, it a lion that is being ridden by a golden man, and there are light up gold teat lasers and gaping-mouth lion feet.
Joshua Fraser said:Well.
Currently I am collecting mainly Bullmark and Popy zenmai walkers. And the random batt op every once in a while.
;-)
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Permalink Reply by Sanjeev on
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Jack Fields said:I have this one "random batt op" that has to be seen to be believed. It's a black robot with a golden lion for a head. Furthermore, it a lion that is being ridden by a golden man, and there are light up gold teat lasers and gaping-mouth lion feet.
Welcome, Jack!
Dude, that toy sounds crazy! Is it a bootleg? Sounds like an insane Voltron. By all means, post some pics!
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Permalink Reply by Jack Fields on
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He is not even slightly voltronish. I'd say he's quite a bit more awesome than voltron. He seems like a nameless stranger from the awesomverse.
Sanjeev said:Jack Fields said:I have this one "random batt op" that has to be seen to be believed. It's a black robot with a golden lion for a head. Furthermore, it a lion that is being ridden by a golden man, and there are light up gold teat lasers and gaping-mouth lion feet.
Welcome, Jack!
Dude, that toy sounds crazy! Is it a bootleg? Sounds like an insane Voltron. By all means, post some pics!
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Permalink Reply by Josh Barton on
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