Super 7 San Diego Comic Con Exclusives!!!!!

Drum roll please!!!! The much anticipated and long awaited Super 7 San Diego Comic Con Exclusives roster has been announced!!! Super 7 is not disappointing either. In a very welcome change of color pace, we seem to have a lot of my favorite colors going on here. Which is great, cause we have enough of the signature Orange and Black toys for now... So without further delay, here are the Super 7 SDCC exclusives in my order of "Must Have" priority:

RealxHead "Bruised Chaos Fighter" Translucent electric-blue vinyl with black and metallic red spray, pink eye and black bandana. $60.



Rumble Monsters "Acid Damnedron" Set: Rumble Monster pair of full size and mini Damnedron. Translucent blue vinyl with silver and red spray. $125.



Secret Base x Super 7 "Inner Demons Ghostfighter: Translucent blue vinyl with inner silkscreened plush and yellow, green and orange spray. $65.




Super7 Original Toy "Snakes of Infinity" Stomp Debut: Glow-in-the-dark vinyl with metallic silver spray or metallic silver, red and orange spray. $55.



Super7 Original Toy "Dusks Fading Light" Dokuwashi: Navy blue vinyl with medium blue, light blue, green and yellow spray. First painted version to be released. $65.



Bwana Spoons "Brown Metal" Steven the Bat: Brown vinyl with tonal brown sprays, glow-in-the-dark accents and drumsticks. $45.



Super7 Original Toy "Ghostland" Series One Release: Tin boxes with one of five different mini ghosts in one of four translucent colors: yellow, orange, blue or grey. $12.



There will also be exclusive signings and secret toy releases with a few of your favorite artists on each day of the convention. More information to follow!!!

Kozik's Latest Custom Real x Head: Bigaro!!!!

Kozik's latest custom RealxHead is the much underated Bigaro. One of my favorite sculps, only recently is it getting the love it so deserves. Frank chose a GID body with a clear hood and went in a completely different color direction with this self titled "Pickle Surprise" colorway. Don't ask what it was called before... I'm just happy that Kozik decided to get away from the "Murder" colorway with the solid white vinyl with bloodsplatter. I think this could be his best RealxHead custom yet.

Takara Microman Votoms Merowlink Military Bike Set

Heres another toy that's been sitting in it's box begging to be displayed and photographed!! I've got a weakness for toy motorcyles. If you don't believe me, check out this Set on Flickr. I used to ride crotch rockets and decided to give them up for fear of killing myself so now I just try to live my riding fantasies out on toy motorcyles. Anyhooo, this Takara Microman Merowlink set is from the Votoms universe and features this vintage Military bike with sidecar ala Hogan's Heroes. Hopefully, you're not so old to remember HH and if so, what the hell are you doing reading a toy blog? ok, you're a geezer toy geek like me. cool. I'm digging the details on this bike. It has a die-cast frame underneath to hold the bike to the sidecar so it's pretty sturdy. There is some nice paint application and tons of little details like working luggage. The figure itself comes with this bad ass rifle and poncho to give you that post-apocalypic feel going on ala Mad Max. What? Never saw Mad Max? What the hell are you doing reading a toy blog?? Please note the Chirico figure is NOT included in the set. That will cost you another $15 bucks but worth getting so you can have a reason to have a sidecar....





Description from Hobby Link Japan

"Armor Hunter Merowlink," the 1988-89 OVA series spun off from "Armored Trooper Votoms," had a fervent following but no toys or kits back in the day. Now Takara makes up for lost time with this Micro Action Plus set of Merowlink Ality and his military bike with sidecar!

Pony-tailed Merowlink has 37 points of articulation, and comes with an optional goggle-wearing head, five pairs of optional arms, a removable nylon mantle, and of course an anti-AT rifle and pile bunker, his weapons of choice to give ATs back a faceful of their own kind of firepower! A lifesize dogtag base is included to display Merowlink standing, but he'll be most at home on his military bike. The motorcycle and its removable sidecar are loaded with details, from brake cables to opening sideboxes (and do not have the dirty splotches on the prototype pictured below). All in a sturdy display box with wide windows fore and aft that let you enjoy seeing the set if you'd rather not open it. Thanks, Takara!

Picture(s) of the Week!!!! Corey A. Edwards

This week, we discover the whimsical Kaiju humor of one Corey A. Edwards also a longtime Skullbrain boardmember with the handle CAE. He shows us what normal, mundane life might be like if we had real life Kaiju running around...all in all, doesn't seem that much out of the ordinary! Self described writer, musician, artist, photographer, web and graphic designer, patineur and dilettante when he finds the time! Check out his site Corey's Head for many more very cool Kaiju photography and even some short stories!!

Robert DeCastro's Combat-R Zero Prototype!!!

Robert DeCastro, one of the Skullbrain boardmembers recently let us know he is in the process of creating his first vinyl toy. I'm totally digging this guy. Big, bulky, with attitude!! I'm loving the huge fists. I want a set on my shelf immediately!! This is his story of it's conception originally posted on Skullbrain. Check back regularly as we will be documenting the process from now until it gets released in about 5 months!!!



Back in the early 90's before there where companies that make those hyper detailed 1/6th scale military and sci fi figures I was already making custom figures. I made the clothes and all the equipment from scratch to fit vintage 12" GI-Joes. My mail order business was known as SPECOPS.



I guess I was pretty OK at it cause I caught the attention of two really cool guys, Don Levine and Kirk Bozigian. Don is the man that invented GI Joe back in the 60's and coined the phrase "action figure". Kirk revived the series in the 80's after the line was cancelled in the mid 70's. Needless to say it was an honor to have worked with the guys that invented my favorite childhood toy. I did several projects with them and even had a couple of write ups in some magazines. After the projects that I did with Don and Kirk, several other oportunities came up from different toy companies needing design work ranging from small weapons and equipments to plush toy designs and such. It was strange to say the least that what started as a hobby became my full time job. For several years atleast. But then I started missing designing and making my own toys but realized that i can't do it anymore because of the labor intensive nature of custom figures. So i looked into how much it would cost to make my own 12" action figure in a factory. I WAS NOT FINANCIALLY READY. The injection molding cost was astronomically expensive. eventually I gave up on the idea. As 1999 rolled into 2000-6 I was rediscovering another childhood love Shogun/machinder robots and vinyl Kaiju (Godzilla,Gamera,Ultraman/Ultra7 stuff). I was buying more of the robots and was more of a spectator with the other.



this eventually lead to the newer "art" vinyl. Something I could really sink my teeth into. Here was something that I can apply my art background as well as my toy design experience to. It was around 2004 when I started looking into the cost of producing vinyl toys using contacts that I established during my stint as a toy designer. It looked promising. I had money saved up for a car and decided to continue adding to that. So forget about a new car for now, I want to make my toy. So for a long time after that I had to do without alot of things specially toys.. Heck I even had to sell some. Anyway after thousands of sketches ranging from cute little monkey guys to mutant evil iguanas I realized I loved Robots....So I drew robots LOTS of em. I finally came up with a design that struck a good balance of detail and simplicity. It is not easy to do. I was inspired by an old favorite of mine from my earliest memories of whatching TV ...Gigantor/Tetsujin. I love that 60's style design and decided to adopt it for the series of robots I was drawing....Winter 06 I started making first contact with several factories in china and narrowed my choice down to 1. I told them what I wanted to do and sent them drawings so they can prep a quote. By this time the noose around the "no buying toys" was starting to loosen up since I had finally socked enough $$$$$ to take care of binezz. I was looking for a place to hang out and talk and learn more about my new vinyl addiction but the KR site was just not cuttin it. Several other sites finally led me here and I've been livin and lovin it ever since.



So finally after doing it for other people for the longest time I'm now doing it for myself. I gone went and done it. I'm making my first toy..a vinyl toy. It's my wifes favorite colorway (havn't decided if I'll ever do it in that color) but you guys have been looking at parts of it for a few weeks now. See my avatar. It will be produced under my new label "Atomic Mushroom". The website has not been constructed yet but should be up way before release day. No press release yet you guys are hearing about it here first. MY RFSO buds. I was thinking of approaching VinylPulse but since I'm a nobody they'd prolly think I was full of BS. I'm kinda low key so I'm still figuring out promotional angles. Anyway I just got the first pictures of the clay model from HK. Tweaks are needed naturally but overall it's lookin real good. Combat-R (combatar) Zero stands 9-1/2" tall. Several colorways planned including a GID. pics will come as soon as I get them preped.

Mystery Solved: Sakura Wars Kits from Wave!!!

I saw these interesting mecha kits in a hobby magazine a while ago and thought they were pretty cool. Then recently saw these pics online somewhere but I don't know what anime they are from and i'm too lazy to dig up the magazine. Anyone know? Please educate this lazy and unknowledgable blogger. Downside is, i'm pretty sure they are kits. You know how I feel about kits. Cool part is that they seemingly transform. but that would mean they are transforming kits which is always a recipe for disaster in my humble experience. You can't build good engineering into a kit. Or at least, I haven't had the pleasure of building one.... I'm drawn to their very bulky and anti-gundam appeal. They kinda have that Votoms sensibility going on, but in a tougher, more armored knight feeling... someone take this license and make an action figure please!! Collectors that wanna buy stuff like this don't have time to put together kits!! No offense to all you crazy talented kit-bashers out there. I bow to your fichtenfoo mad skillz!!

UPDATE: One of those crazy kids from Josh Bernard's cool site www.collectiondx.com was kind enough to drop a note that these come from Sakura Wars and Josh notes they are kits from Wave. Thanks guys!!!

Comet Debris Custom RFSO Smogon!!!

The lengendary Comet Debris will be painting a few Smogons for the Skullbrain Gear Site



A new release coming direct from your favorite website! Koji wanted to do his next release for the users of this real fan message board. Each figure is handpainted with care by Koji in a color scheme he came up with. Pink, light blue, silver, and neon yellow, on flesh soft vinyl.

100% NO PRE SALES/SIDE DEALS OR LISTS! FIGURES WILL GO ON SALE JULY 4TH!

GOES ON SALE JULY 4TH 9AM PDT!

$40
PRICE INCLUDES US SHIPPING.
INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS WILL BE CONTACTED WITH EXTRA COST.

Old Balance BLObPUS and Dokugan Set!!!

Only 30 pieces of each will be released! ack! It's gonna be a bloodbath if any of us can even get close....not looking good, but keeping hope alive. Forgive me if I don't post any of the particulars. If you're a fan of BLObPUS, you already know. If not, wait for another release!!

One-Up @ Taipei Toy Festival!!!!

Ken from One-Up looks like he's gonna represent with many of our favorite niche Japanese vinyl toy makers at this year's Taipei Toy Festival including Cronic!, BLObPUS and Touma just to name a few. I wanna go!!!



















More Cronic goodness, please!!



Check out the TTF Site for a boat load of other toys that I won't be getting....bwah!!!