Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Custom Glyos: The Electric Light Delphi

The Electric Light Delphi.
It's much easier to blog when I have interesting things to talk about, for example, the Electric Light Delphi, pictured above.  It's my latest and greatest custom Glyos toy.  Build details and overlong write-up after the jump.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Monseter Kolor: The Right Way

Monster Kolor is Awesome


A follow up, and mea culpa to this post: How Not to Use Monster Kolor.  I bought an airbrush a few months back, and it's completely changed my view of MonsterKolor.  The paint was designed for an airbrush, and it is the finest airbrush paint I have found.  No thinning required, sprays smooth and consistent right from the bottle.  I've tried other airbrush paints as well, and nothing I've used even comes close.

Glyos Gobon with Monster Kolor C-Thru paint.

Monster Kolor is almost too easy.  I've been knocking out custom toys that actually look decent, and feature effects (color change, pearls, auto-paint worthy metallics) that I couldn't even approximate with a brush and hobby paint.

Now that I'm more familiar with the Monster Kolor's properties, I've been brushing it on as well.  In small areas, with a good brush, the results are excellent, for example the iris on Mini Xam, and gold highlights on Mini Eyezon below.  The paint provides smooth, vibrant colors with great consistency:

Left to right: My first Mini  Eyezon with MK brushed on. Mini Xam and Eyezon Airbrushed.

I've barely plumbed the depths of what Monster Kolor can do, and now my only gripe is that there aren't more colors (a standard, non-metallic purple would be great)!

Glyos Buildmen with very little MK color, and lots of MK clearcoat!

This is fantastic paint, and there's an active, helpful community growing up, at the Monster Kolor website to take care of newbies and veterans alike.  I would recommend it to anyone with an airbrush, or who is interested in starting with an airbrush.

New products like the just-introduced aerosol cans, and upcoming Monster Kolor Brushable should make an excellent product even more accessible.

Trekathalon TOS: 2-6 The Doomsday Machine

I have nothing snarky to say, this is a great shot.
For once I'm going to praise the updated effects.  They look great, while preserving the spirit of the original models.  A seminal episode, and still great.  James Lileks writes lovingly about this episode all the time, and does it well.  One of his best is here (start reading about halfway through for the Doomsday relevant bits, but it's all good).  I can't add anything to that, other then praise the updated effects again.

Trekathalon goes on hiatus after this ep, but will return!

Trekathalon TOS: 2-5 The Apple

Powered by Biomass!
Anvilicious episode, but fun none the less.  Modern series have not realized the potential for red backdrops, and giant Papier-mâché snake heads.  Like I said before, I love it when Trek gets weird.  If the allegory wasn't beaten home throughout the episode, it's summed up with a laugh in the final minutes on the Enterprise.  Subtlety!

Friday, May 13, 2011

Blogkeeping: 5/13/2011

Looks like my laziness pays off, as I had nothing new that would have been struck down by Blogger's little disaster.  Otherwise, Trekathalon has moved to indefinite hiatus.  There's a bunch of stuff in my Netflix que that is disc-only, and at this rate, I'll never get to it.

More customs up soon.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Custom Toys for sale!



SALE! I dropped the price to $15, and I'll ship free!  Also refunded anyone who purchased at the $25+ shipping price.

I put some of my custom toys up for sale at the October toys forum.  $25 each, plus shipping.  The dice are from Gamescience, and the bodies are Onell Design Glyos Glow-in-the-dark buildmen.  Painted with acrylics, and coated with Monster Kolor Pearls and Ultragloss.  They really shine!

If you want one, send an email to sjlongmire at juno dot com.

Trekathalon TOS: 2-4 Mirror, Mirror

The exact moment goatees became eeevil.
Never beam up in an ion storm, got that?  Much more to this episode then I remembered.  Especially the intrigue on the Mirrorverse enterprise.  Disappointed though we never saw the alt-Bones, was he good natured and friendly, but with a heart of EVIL!? Fun episode.

Mystery Science Theater did a great parody in the episode, Last of the Wild Horses

Always keep fresh batteries in your agonizer!