toyboxdx toy blog brog: is graceful art of daily expressing japanese toy  

Nakajima Joe Kaisaka from Groizer X (グロイザーＸ)

Nakajima Miracle 3 (ミラクル3 ) middle size sofubi
from the Tiger Mask series.

Here’s my little christmas holidays restoration project.
I bought two Nakajima standard size sofubis from the Tiger Mask
(タイガーマスク) series  few weeks ago. A Miracle 3 and a Mr. No that looked
pretty “loved” on the auction photos, but I was confident that I could bring
them back to old glory. Well, I’m a pro-wrestler-restorer ;-)

When the two guys arrived I wasn’t really surprised. Mr. No had lots of paint
rubs all over his body, but thank god he wasn’t painted with a magic marker
or something like that. Miracle 3 also had a few paint rubs and the usual wrestle
injuries, paint loss on his face and fingers.

Here are the two heroes before their wellness program began.

Mr.No overall condition wasn’t that bad, but Miracle 3’s missing paint
on face & fingers really didn’t look that good.

Step 1: Extensive cleaning

Lots of Q-Tips with car-paint-polish/cleaner to get rid of the paint rubs.
I don’t have Magic wheel eraser pads that work pretty well too I heard.

Some paint rubs on Mr.No’s body had been pretty resistant. With some very fine
sandpaper I “cleaned” them up easy. Because Mr.No’s overall paintwork isn’t supper
glossy I could use the “sandpaper method”, but you have to be super careful.

Mr.No looked pretty good after the deep clean and was ready to meet his wrestle
colleagues in the glas display. But Miracle 3 needed more thai cosmetics.

Step 2: Painting nose, lips & fingers

This is a premiere for me. I usually won’t do that…don’t need to that, because the
toys I buy are in good condition and there is no necessity for that kind of restoration.
In this special case I think that this figure will look 100% better with a “intact” face
and this is no “high end” toy I could destroy, if my “restoration” gonna fail.

Step 2.1: Mixing the perfect skin tone

This is the most challenging part of the “paint restoration”. Finding the exact
skin tone of Miracle 3’s nose and fingers, because I only want to paint the
parts where the original color is missing. Painting the whole nose would be
too easy and I want to keep as much of original paintwork as possible.

I use water based-based acrylic colors and mix the skin tone from white,
yellow and red. Here are a few photos of the paint process, I needed a few
layers until Miracle looked nice again.

Step 3: Enjoy

The two Luchas came put pretty cool. I’m happy with the result.

Step 4: Ready to Rumble!

So, that was my last DIY Brog for this year.
More pics etc in the BBS.

Some of you may remember this post of mine from way back when: http://toyboxdx.com/phorum/read.php?6,226880,226880#msg-226880 . Well I figured it was high time my capsule robo was able to stand tall, and the only beater sofubi I had was a Bullmark MFV Mecha Godzilla…. a couple mins with a hair dryer and this was the result….

It happened last year. I scanned as usual Tekkaman auctions on Yahoo Japan
and…BANG…there was this strange looking Tekkaman vinyl.
Never seen this guy before, or after this auction again. Nobody bid und him,
so far I remember. No wonder. He looked horrible on the auction fotos.
Well, don’t mean his general styling. He looked super dirty.

When he arrived a few weeks later I could say. YES, he was super dirty!
Looked that he spent the last 20 years in an oil spill. Poor oily, slimy, stinking bastard.
But after a few hours of intensive cleaning he looked pretty nice.
And again: Shit preserves condition.

Here’s the man! He stands 9,45 inches (24 cm) tall, completely vinyl and he could
move his arms & upper part of his body.

He don’t look that bad. Maybe his arms are a “bit” deformed.
But if you photograph him from below, his arms look “ok” ;-)

It seems that my Tekkaman had some serious fights during his long toy life.
His fists are pretty worn and he also lost the tip of one of his “horns”.

Ok…his arms look strange. Non-stop-biceps-posing-style.

Posing with the Nakajima standard size sofubi and the big Talker.

He has no markings on his feet or somewhere else. Poor little no-name bastard!
Lets be generous and give him a cool name: Tekkaman BPKO sofubi

If you know his parents —> BBS

Today my little Mr. Kamikaze story.
Not really an exciting story, but a good example how to turn crap into gold.

As usual, the story starts with a Yahoo Japan auction.
Object of desire was a Nakajima sandard size Mr. Kamikaze sofubi from
the Tiger Mask series. The figure looked bad on the auction fotos.
Dirty, lots of paint rubs and the color of his head and body also looked suspicious.

Here are the original auction fotos.

But even Mr. Kamikaze was looking pretty fucked-up, I thought he has
some “potential”. His face, specially his nose looked pretty good on
the fotos. Often the noses of these sofubis are in bad condition.

Perfect for a restoration project!
Didn’t have a “bid battle” on this guy and won him for a good price.

One week ago he arrived with lots of other stuff rom Japan and I was
a bit shocked when I hold him in my hands for the first time.

I only have this foto of my “first contact” with Mr. Kamikaze.
Something was wrong with him…his entire upper part of the body and both arms
had been repainted with a “flesh-colored” paint. Also his mask been repainted
with white color. Holy crap, this is not the original paint!
At first sight it looked impossible to restore him. Thats the reason why I didn’t took
some detail “before fotos”.

Let’s get rid of the shitty paint, no matter what happens!  No risk, no fun.
This was my job for the next few days.

With tons of Q-Tips soaked with brush cleaner, sandpaper, car paint polish/cleaner,
a super sharp scalpel and lots of patience I really got rid of the paint, without destroying
the figure.

Under the lacquer layer the figure was in perfect condition. It seems that the repaint
protected this figure the last few decades.
Tricky was cleaning the head from the white paint (see fotos). I needed a few hours to do that.
Almost like a surgeon I had to rub down the paint without ruining the orginal paintwork.
Disassemble and reassemble the head, body and arms I did with the “hot water method”.
I think this is the best way to get the vinyl flexible. Using a hair dryer is too dangerous.

“Operation” Mr. Kamikaze was a full success. At the end he really looks great.

Now Mr. Kamikaze is ready to rumble again!

Is Mr. Kamikaze ready to kick some asses?

More in the BBS.

Capsule Robo G missile firing vinyl – Nakajima – 1973

Are you ready to go WAY back?!?! Well hop into the TBDX time machine to read Minister Alt’s article on Nakajima’s Astro Mu Five in our ToyboxDX archives HERE!!

This robot is such a nice guy. Nearly everybody likes him. But why?
Because he’s a bit fatty, has a very long nose and is blue?
Well maybe its a combination of everything. So what…I like him too.

This one here is the ca. 6,6” (17 cm) Missile Firing Sofubi from Nakajima.
I call him “small MFV” because there also is the big MFV-Talker.
Let’s start with the Box. Not so spectacular from the front, but specially
the back is very nice illustrated.
Mr.Fraser “rediscover” the good old animated Gif…so I MUST HAVE one here too ;-)

Sorry, the Gif is ca.500 kb big…but quality needs a frew kb’s.

Here the box “non-animated”.

Pegas comes with 3 missiles, a few cardboard targets and little vinyl “friend”.
Sorry I’m a cretin…is this little “friend” really friend.? What’s his name?
Please tell me the whole story in the BBS.

Here’s Mr.Pegas. Isn’t he cute…

Some close-up’s of his missile launchers.

BANG, BAAAANG…Gansta Pegas.

That’s it for today. More stuff as usual in the BBS.
Don’t forget to tell my how the name of his little alien friend is.

Lets wrestle!

Sofubi, diecast, magnemo, transforming and missile firing… Oh, did I mention it comes in a window box?? This one’s got it all.