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So I recently have become interested in another giant money pit hobby and that's sofubi. On top of the figures costing way too much I want to do my own paint applications on blank figures too. Any one else around here a fan or collector of these things???

I already collect Ninja Turtle figures, why not add more to it. I want some of the old Godzilla, Hedorah and Mecha Godzilla figures but they are so expensive

Here are two I recently painted

Ragnar - Last Bastion Studio

Lucky Devil - Wonder Goblin

These next two I did not paint and are just sofubi I picked up

Shin Eyezon - MaxToyCo
Painted by Max Nagata

Hedorah - Mondo

@inks - Nice paintwork. It looks like you are no stranger to an airbrush or painting toys.

If you are just getting started with collecting Japanese sofubi then there is still time to stop before it's too late. ;) I am into vintage Godzilla/Toho kaiju:


I have some modern figures as well including a few created by @monsterworship

damn...
I always loved how these creatures looked but I am very happy to have never started collecting those. I simply couldn't afford it.

deafmetal wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:34 am @inks - Nice paintwork. It looks like you are no stranger to an airbrush or painting toys.

If you are just getting started with collecting Japanese sofubi then there is still time to stop before it's too late. ;) I am into vintage Godzilla/Toho kaiju:

I have some modern figures as well including a few created by @monsterworship

Thanks, I'm actually very new to airbrushing. I've only airbrushed these two figures, a TMNT figure and a Gundam kit. So I'm still very much a novice but I really enjoy it and I've been pretty happy with what I've done so far.

I'm very envious of those figures you have, especially the Hedorah's. I really love the colors on that Garamon. That baby Godzilla is horrifying even in sofubi form. You have any tips for buying these things? Do you mostly use ebay or are there some US based stores that carry some of the older figures?

What's your favorite figure that you have?

i have been making sofubi figures here and there since 2008 with my company monsterworship , check us out on instagram.

i'm sitting on a ton of blank figures to paint. the weather has not been kind.

i also have a dumb personal collection.

monsterworship wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 5:47 pm i have been making sofubi figures here and there since 2008 with my company monsterworship , check us out on instagram.

i'm sitting on a ton of blank figures to paint. the weather has not been kind.

i also have a dumb personal collection.

Yeah, you're located in the NE right? It's been humid almost non stop this summer. Not ideal for painting at all.

The blanks you have waiting for paint, are they your own figures or some one else's?

inksb wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 12:44 pm You have any tips for buying these things? Do you mostly use ebay or are there some US based stores that carry some of the older figures?

What's your favorite figure that you have?

Rarely from eBay especially for toys from Japan. Nearly all the imports are highly marked up beyond even top of retail prices. For vintage it's even worse. The US-based shops are sparse and usually have modern stuff. I find things almost exclusively from Yahoo Japan Auctions using a proxy service or from Mandarake. Sometimes, I will ask a friend or middleman in Japan for help with finding a really difficult item. There have been a couple of large US-based collection liquidation auctions over the years but they are rare. There was possibly the largest Godzilla collectible/toy auction in the US a couple years ago that was catalogued in this book here. If you want to discuss in more detail, feel free to send me a pm.

Anyway, my favorite is tough to choose, but either the first Godzilla soft vinyl toy ever made (Marusan Godzilla from 1966) or the Bullmark Mechagodzilla. The first Japanese sofubi I ever found was a mid-sized MechaG here in the US ages ago and it was what got me started collecting vintage.

I never even thought to check Mandarake, guess I'll have to start searching on there. Thanks for the info. That book looks interesting. I may have to pick that up eventually.

inksb nice painting! What kind of paints are used? And do you have to seal it?

EvanCampbell wrote: ↑Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:10 am inksb nice painting! What kind of paints are used? And do you have to seal it?

I use paint that is designed for vinyl application, I assume it's a lacquer, it is quite flammable and smells awful. I wear a respirator while spraying.

I think you can get away with out using a top coat on it, supposedly after it cures for 48 hours it is not supposed to scratch or chip but I still spray a clear coat on top to protect it.

Here's where I buy it
https://www.vinylwonder.com/

The "Ready-Spray" paint works really well, it sprays very easily with my setup and I get great coverage. Prior to this paint when I painted some other figures I was using acrylic paint and that stuff clogged my gun constantly, it may be due to my lack of knowledge on how to properly spray acrylic paint but it dried on my tip regardless of how I mixed the paint or if I used stuff that was meant to stop tip drying. Drove me nuts as I spent more time cleaning than spraying.

I assume in your field you have done your fair share of airbrushing

inksb wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 11:21 pm I never even thought to check Mandarake, guess I'll have to start searching on there. Thanks for the info. That book looks interesting. I may have to pick that up eventually.

Just a note that Mandarake does halfway decent with their English-based searches, but I always recommend searching using Japanese romaji characters. I keep a translation sheet handy of my favorite searches for this purpose, and you might notice that Manda will auto-fill some English-based searches with romaji translations as well. YJA is going to require romaji or kana searches to find anything.

deafmetal wrote: ↑Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:10 pm

inksb wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 11:21 pm I never even thought to check Mandarake, guess I'll have to start searching on there. Thanks for the info. That book looks interesting. I may have to pick that up eventually.

Just a note that Mandarake does halfway decent with their English-based searches, but I always recommend searching using Japanese romaji characters. I keep a translation sheet handy of my favorite searches for this purpose, and you might notice that Manda will auto-fill some English-based searches with romaji translations as well. YJA is going to require romaji or kana searches to find anything.

Yeah I do that a lot with record searching, Osamu Shoji records in particular rarely show up with out using his kanji as the search. Good to know though as I probably would have defaulted to English at first.

Newest addition to the collection

Shin Eyezon w/ glow guts

Painted by me.

Looks excellent @inksb!

Haven't painted anything this year and the painting season is almost over. I pulled out my airbrush and started working on this. Didn't quite work out how I anticipated but it still looks decent. Have some additional stuff to add like some highlights and I need to paint his mouth and eyes but it's progress

Nice, looks like a good start. I like the Muck Marshman.

Finished Muck Man. Pretty happy with how it turned out in the end