Keeping the streets safe for the holiday season.

Thanks to mondocoyote.

GARAFINK!!!

What you're hearing is the sound of my head exploding, 'cause this is
TOO!
FREAKING!
COOL!



I have next to no details on this, other than that it's a garage kit that was released at Wonderfestival Summer '09 this past weekend.

Super-fugly Kaiyodo on a rampage

Dude, what happened to you?



From here.

Remember to tip your Garabarista

From here.

Lego my Gary

From here, where you'll find a host of other great Ultra-kaiju Lego creations, too.

PK shoots AoD

The work of the great PaulKaiju has been featured on Garamania many times before (here, here and here, for example). I'm a huge fan of the guy's work- I have commissioned several pieces from him over the last few years, and they're always amazing. I think highly of him not just as an innovative painter/customizer, but as a synthesist of the old and new toy culture. He really gets it, and you can tell he has a great appreciation of his role in all of it.

When I finished the Ash of Death custom, it hit me like a bolt outta the blue: "I gotta send this to Paul!" Seemed so right- I know he has a love of the character, and I was also psyched to send him a custom piece of my own which I felt so satisfied with.

I was delighted to check in on Paul's Flickr last week to find these super-sweet snaps of AoD!




Cheers, Paul!

Busted

"Look, officer..."

"Sir, again, I am not willing to discuss it with you any further at this time. This is NOT a nude beach. End of story. Now, please keep moving."

From Flickr's Ultra fan group.

Great Semi-Ningen and Garamon build-ups

This person did a smashing job on the Kaiyodo Gary, even plugging in acrylic eyes:


... and equally great work on this Semi-Ningen build-up (not sure of the manufacturer of this kit):

This modeler's full gallery of Ultra-Q beastie build-ups can be accessed here- check it out!

Camping with Pygmon!

Great stuff in a very sweet photoset, found here.

Pygmonic forlornitude

Probably because someone else ate the last Lorna Doon...

Discardamon

From here.

Garaflickrvisions

Two great images, from the photostreams of plover1:

... and geozilla:

Round-up: Gara-graphic Greatness, Vol. III

Funny little graphic from this blog:

Garamonic portrait, found here:

Super-cool drawing... have I posted this one before?

My memory is absolutely horrible, of late... oh well, this drawing's so nice it should be posted twice. Found here.

Papercraft Gary-head on other klassic kaiju bodies:

HA!
From here.

Ash of Death

Handcrafted by the proprietor; started as one of these dark green M1-GO blanks...

Final 8 minutes of Ultra Q episode 16, "The Revenge of Garamon"

Gara-innards & Ash of Death

Some time ago, I consulted with the ever-knowledgeable Alex about a book being offered on YJA which had piqued my curiosity.
Here is his response:

“Yes, you need that. Don't hesitate. Title is Ultra Kaiju Daizukan: Ohtomo Shouji no Sekai (Ultra Monster Pictorial Anatomy: The World of Shouji Ohtomo) Shogakukan Pub, 1995.

Our man Shouji is considered, I'm not entirely sure why, "the Isaac Asimov of Japan" according to ex-Tsuburaya employee Mr. Brad Warner. Shouji-san created the now-familiar convention of showing the monster anatomy in cutaway diagrams. This collection is of his original sketches for the house artists to follow.”

Well, I didn’t hesitate- but I didn’t get the book (outbid by just a tiny amount, if I recall correctly). However, quite delightfully, Alex sent along these two scans from his own copy:

… and soon afterward, thanks to Google and August, two of the more fully-realized versions (the great work of two unknown, unsung house artists) of this cutaway soon came to my inbox! Here they are in chronological order (I believe) of appearance:


Unfortunately, I have lost track of the info regarding which publications these originally appeared in; perhaps someone will chime in with Garaclarification.

Earlier in the year, I shipped the lattermost image to the amazingly kind and formidably talented Akiko and Jack. Using their respective translation and graphic design skills, they produced what you see below- the very first English-language diagram of the innards of our fave meteorite monster!

They also did a clean-up & translation of the other scanned page from the Ohtomo book:

I marveled at the translated cutaway for some time after receiving it; as a hardcore Garamaniac, it was an illuminating thrill to finally (kinda) understand what made him tick. And hiss. And smash. And drool. Seeing this seemingly well-engineered design is a cuteness-countering reminder of the fact that he was indeed intended to be a planet-dominating killing machine. Besides calling to mind Japan’s completely unique cultural relationship to all things atomic, the fact that he was nuclear-powered also brings up a bunch of story-specific ponderables: is a flaming, hollow ball of rock really the best way to deliver such a machine into Earth’s atmosphere? How did the Science Patrol safely dispose of the robotic carcass? How many employees of Chirusonia’s equivalent of Northrop Grumman lost their jobs (or lives) when this high-tech beast turned out to be a fairly monumental dud?

“Ash of Death”- for days afterward, I couldn’t get that seriously stark label- or the idea that Gary had a big toxic waste urn in his gut- outta my head. I had had three unpainted M-1 GO standard-size Garamon figures lying around for weeks, waiting for customization inspiration to strike. “Ash of Death” proved to be that inspiration, and is the name I’ve bestowed upon the custom piece I’ve been slowly working on (crypto-previewed in recent posts here). I am on the cusp, boyce und gurlce, the very cusp, of the big reveal… stay tuned!*

*You’re like, “Yeah, right… just like your big tattoo reveal… what happened to that?”
Well, that’s coming too, smartass.

I only don't have eyes...

... for yoooooouuuuuu...

Geiger counters are used to detect beta radiation and gamma radiation. The sensor is a Geiger-Müller tube, an inert gas-filled tube (usually helium, neon or argon with halogens added) that briefly conducts electricity when a particle or photon of radiation makes the gas conductive. The tube amplifies this conduction by a cascade effect and outputs a current pulse, which is then often displayed by a needle or lamp and/or audible clicks. Modern instruments can report radioactivity over several orders of magnitude. Some Geiger counters can be used to detect gamma radiation, though sensitivity can be lower for high energy gamma radiation than with certain other types of detector, because the density of the gas in the device is usually low, allowing most high energy gamma photons to pass through undetected (lower energy photons are easier to detect, and are better absorbed by the detector. Examples of this are the X-ray Pancake Geiger Tube).

Round-up: Interesting Gara-auction pics

Nicely finished build-up of a Volks Orient Hero Jr. garage kit; these shots really highlight the oddly sloped nature of the head sculpt on this one:




Not sure who produces this funky, timid little pre-paint... packaging makes me think it could be X-Plus...?