Covered in Cordyceps redux

Remember this post?  It's the most-viewed Garamania post of all time; I can only guess that's because of the absolutely stunning originality and quality of the sculpt, and because many people land on the page unintentionally while searching for info on Cordyceps.

Anyway, I was looking at a selection of Ed Godzisewski's photos from WonderFest Summer 2012... when about halfway down the page I spotted a display featuring everbody's favorite mummified, mushroom-sprouting Gara-sculpt!  I had somehow not encountered this in all my various perusings of WF photo wrap-ups, several weeks back.  Ed's pic is captioned, "Truth Modeling 30cm resin Gamera 3 and Garamon, looking like they have a serious skin condition."  I hopped on Google translate and generated several forms of "truth" in Japanese, combined it with "ガラモン", and ran some image searches; hit paydirt on several Japanese-language blogs.  I learned that the sculpt is by longtime GK master Ryu Oyama (his Alien and CFTBL pieces are legendary on these shores); the modeling company reads as "Shin Kai modeling" in several translations.  Here are the pics- and a video!- that I was able to cull:
 

Another Oyama Gara-sculpt was displayed on the table, as well- this smaller, elegant piece depicting Gary either twisting out of the Garadama, or writhing in the earliest stages of the fungal death process.

Needless to say, if anyone has further info, please get in touch!  These are some of the most unique and intense Gara-sculpts I've ever seen, and I would love to know more- especially if these are actually going to be available as kits!

Covered in Cordyceps

Alright, this one blew my mind... love the concept, and the sculptural execution is amazing!
What a freaking great gk this would make....

First shot is the unpainted sculpt, the others are of the finished piece:

Taken from this blog; the description seems to say that the idea behind the piece is that this particular Garamon malfunctioned/failed in its mission, fell on its butt and was eventually overgrown by a Cordyceps-like fungus.

If you're not familiar with Cordyceps, it's an astonishing endoparasitic fungi (see the squicky pic below- Cordyceps sprouting from an insect host), and a broad range of health-enhancing properties have been ascribed to consuming it in extract or dried form.

I love the imagination involved here- the way the piece implies a whole storyline.  I also love rot, decay and fungus, so this one is truly right up my alley.  I may yet try to reach out to the sculptor to see if I can get his comments on the work, so stay tuned.