Friday, February 15, 2008

Current obsession

It's been a week or so since I last posted. Not terribly unusual for this blog, as I am prone to periods where I lose motivation. This time I actually had a reason other than being lazy. I just discovered the world of anime. Specifically, Guyver.

I know, I'm behind the times. Life has taught me to avoid trends, which the fascination with Japanese pop culture has definately been. It's not that I've gone out of my way to avoid it, but life has been just fine without it, so I've had no incentive to check it out. And frankly I find all that schoolgirl cosplay carry-on a litte strange.

Anyway, Guyver. I discovered Guyver a few years ago, when I caught the tail end of the second live-action movie on cable. Terrible B-grade scifi, just the sort of thing I like. I could never remember what it was called though, so never looked in to it. Cue to about 3 weeks ago, when I stumble upon a dvd in the discount bin with an oddly familiar picture on the cover. Finally! So I buy it ($2.50!), and it's brilliantly terrible. I must know more about this character!

So I find out (thanks, internet) that it's a manga character, which has also been converted into anime. There's two shops around here with large manga selections, but no Guyver. However, I find a shop with 6 volumes of the cartoon on dvd. I know I just drove a dagger in to some people's hearts by calling anime 'cartoon', but so far in my limited exposure of the last two weeks, I see no difference.

So that's what I've been doing the last week- watching 23 episodes of Guyver. Of course, the final 3 episodes haven't been released here yet, so I'm left hanging...

As per usual with me, an interest can quickly become an obsession. Stopping by the local model shop for unrelated supplies, I breeze past the vinyl model kits. They stopped stocking them years ago, which is a little annoying, I used to love vinyl kits before I discovered wargaming. However, they've still got 6 or 7 kits that haven't sold, and you guessed it, one of them was Guyver.

It's since been undercoated. I had to wait until today to be able to buy some paints, all mine have dried up, which apparently happens when you don't use them for a couple of years. Ooops.

That's not all though. Heh, not by a long shot. I found this on eBay:

A life-size replica of the Guyver helmet. Awesome. I have no willpower, so guess what arrived in the mail yesterday...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee.

It's going to be a major project. Never worked with resin before, but I know a fair bit about it, and I'm not overly looking foward to it. There's lots of cracks in the casting
Still, it should be really fun to paint, so the touching up is a necessary evil. If I knew who to contact, I'd happily pay someone to prepare it for me, but I don't like my chances of that.

I'm struggling to resist the pull of a 1/2 scale Guyver bust. Oh give me strength...

3 comments:

otomoton said...

Those "cracks" you are referring to in your last picture are intentional. The particular resin model you have (I have the same one) is based on the movie Guyver more than the cartoon Guyver, so it has a more "biological" look about it. You could still smooth over them with spot putty and paint it in the style of the cartoon though as the design is essentially the same.

otomoton said...

Those "cracks" you are referring to in your last picture are intentional. The particular resin model you have (I have the same one) is based on the movie Guyver more than the cartoon Guyver, so it has a more "biological" look about it. You could still smooth over them with spot putty and paint it in the style of the cartoon though as the design is essentially the same.

Jon said...

Yeah, I figured out they were meant to be there while I was sanding it down (after filling in the "cracks") heh *slaps forehead* It's ok though, I think I like it more without them :)