Ultraman Victory

Ultraman Victory is certainly one of the more unique designs for an Ultraman in recent years.  With the unusual color scheme and overall V design, it took awhile for me to warm up to. I did eventually get two figures of Victory: the spark doll and the Ultra Change figure. (The Ultra Change figure was bought on my trip to Japan.) There are at least 3 different figures made of Victory and all of them are missing paint apps of some kind.

Now, both of these figures needed quite of bit of touch ups in the paint department, especially the spark doll. You can see the original figure here. I was actually impressed with the Ultra Change version but went ahead and painted the back and other missing paint apps.

The spark doll was one of my first major painting projects after the Luna Mode Ultraman Cosmos figure. It could have been better, with the experience I have now, but it turned out pretty good. Also, painted light colors over black is not fun.

Marvel Legends Wasp

If you ever told me there'd be a wave of figures focusing on Hank Pym / Ant-Man, I'd say you're crazy. While the Ultron wave of Marvel Legends isn't exclusively all Ant-Man related, it's as close as us Ant-Man fans will probably get.



Today, we're focusing on the winsome Wasp. Instead of doing a new costume (which might require actual tooling on the body), Hasbro decided on the black and gold costume from the 2000s. Some people complain about the buck they used for this figure, but it's much nicer than some female bodies I've been on the shelves. (Like Toy Biz's Xtreme Rogue and its toothpick thin arms.) Unfortunately, my figure, purchased online, has a bad eye painted on, ruining the nice sculpt.



At first, I thought about re-painting the eye, but then, I found out the Captain Marvel head fits on the head socket. It actually looks nice on the Wasp body, Especially with the tossed hair giving the illusion of movement. So, I painted the hair brown and my sister applied some black highlights.

I'm rather pleased with the results.

Marvel Legends Hellcat

Hellcat is on my list of superheroes I didn't expect Hasbro to make.  She is in good company with characters like The Black Knight, US Agent, 90s Armored Daredevil, and so on. Why? Because they're all characters that Hasbro has made, much to my surprise.

Now, there isn't a lot of appeal with Hellcat. She looks like another cat-themed martial artist super hero and/or villain.  A lot of her appeal (to me) is her personality (especially when written by Kathryn Immonen) and her history.

Her alter ego, Patsy Walker, started out as a character in a line of romance comics in the 40s & 50s and was revived in 1975 as a the superhero Hellcat by Steve Englehart.

I really love the head sculpt for the figure. Head sculpts seem to be the one thing Hasbro won't reuse a lot, except, of course, for the Age of Ultron Captain America. My one issue was the thin yellow pain on her shins, where the blue plastic is bleeding through.

Using a darker yellow paint, I tried to apply a layer to better hide this.  Here are the before and after photos.

Ultra Monster 500 Series Birdon

In honor of Birdon's appearance in the second episode of the new Ultraman X series, here is my custom paint work on the recent Birdon Spark Doll. The sculpt was really nice, but I really wish Bandai had put more effort into using more paint apps.

The gold paint is a little garish, but the alternative is a sickly yellow-greenish color for Birdon's fur. At least all of the chest torso is complete now, and the beak is completely black now.