I’m really not entirely sure where this obsession has come from, but I’m kind of obsessed with the UN’s paint schemes of white with black markings for hardware and blue helms with white markings for soldiers. This ‘bot head, taken from one of ThreeA’s Tomorrow King figures, has been bugging me though – it’s a soldier, but it’s also hardware? What should it be, white or blue? I’m in two minds, and tempted to overspray the helm blue, and put some white markings on, or the UN symbol, but part of me likes the whiteness of it. That’s subject to change, though, once I start weathering the helm, and it will be weathered, since it’s heavily damaged.

Two surprising/exciting (delete as applicable or keep ‘em both) images on the ThreeA toys production blog.  First there’s Kojima x Three A, this Kojima being Hideo of Metal Gear Solid fame.  And then Coarse + Ashley Wood hints at a collaboration between Mark Landwehr’s CoarseToys and Ashley’s ThreeA, with an obvious reference to Coarse’s PAW figure in the bunny ears on the helm.

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Super7 have released a list of exclusive vinyl they have for sale at SDCC.  The obvious choice for awesomeness is L’amour Supreme’s jade Mongolion (shown here), a figure that I’ve been in awe of since its release.  Most curious of the announcements is that they will be releasing a 3 pack of unpainted vinyl for a mere $50 as part of the Monster Family event they’re holding on the Saturday.  That’s some choice vinyl being made available for a ridiculously low price – were I going I’d be half tempted to purchase them, but since I’m not I am in a quandry as to whether I should hit up a friend who’s attending or just add it to that perpetually growing list of ‘Stuff I Haven’t Been Able to Purchase and Am Gutted About Missing Out On’.  Of course, if I did hit someone up for grabbing me some vinyl from Super7 I’d be stuck choosing from the Jade Mongolion or the 3-pack, and that’s not a healthy decision to suffer.

In a way I’m glad I’ve never attended an SDCC, as with these exclusives, the yearly GI Joe exclusives, and various other items (the gunmetal MkIII Iron Man for one) I don’t imagine I could ever afford the experience.  At least not without running up a seriously unhealthy credit card bill.

Click image to view more pics of Woosra

I wasn’t entirely sure how to restart this blog, so I thought I’d start with my latest figure acquisition.  CoolRain is an artist that I’ve been keeping an eye on for some time now.  He started off producing his own copies of Michael Lau’s Gardener figures, but over the years has progressed into one of the most interesting figure artists currently around, occupying a bracket that includes luminaries such as Paul Leung and the former Brothersworkers Kenny Wong, William Tsang and Winson Ma.  His most recent human creation (his Dunkeys are a sight to behold) is Woosra, based on a photographer friend of CoolRain.  The figure itself uses a similar body type to Michael Lau’s, which has kind of been a signature of CoolRain as an homage to his favourite artist.  More important is the clothing, which is pretty much 100% accurate and, although I’m not generally a fan of Nike clothing, is nonetheless highly impressive.

What’s most shocking about the figure is how it actually surpasses Lau’s work.  Leafing through my copy of the Gardenergala book you can see the rawness of Lau’s work, which is generally missing from CoolRain’s.  It just goes to show how far CoolRain has come, that he’s finally stepped out from the shadow he constructed for himself by being so devoted to Lau.  I can only hope that he continues to excel in this field, and I really hope there will come a time when I can grab myself another one of his figures.