Inane ramblings of an old man!

I'm guessing it's not most people's cup-of-tea (no rotting zombie penis), but I noticed, after months of hype and pre-production teasers that the very first release of this guy (Piggums by Kozik, manufactured in sofubi by Blackbook Toys) dropped as an Exclusive at the Taipei Festival over the weekend.

This was accompanied by a pink-white 'albino' version as an exclusive at another booth and also a 'friends and family' version purely for wedding guests of the lovely couple that run Blackbook Toys.

Two-fold musing/half-assed question . . .

Not related specifically to this specific toy . . . but does this kind of 'splurge' release or an early flurry kinda kill anyone else's collecting instinct? I had a similar experience when the new wave of Headlock Toys showed up. I still dig the toys, but having seen all the variations and pace that those guys are dropping feel it was a bullet dodged.

My other thought was . . . isn't Kozik still 'Creative Director' for KidWobot?

Nice gig if it means that you also get to freelance for the competition whilst still getting the cheque at the end of every month!

 

I'm usually not interested in owning more than a couple of versions of something, so many releases at once won't dampen my enthusiasm by itself. But it does sometimes make me wait for the version that absolutely grabs me, only to see creativity and/or quality suffer under the pace of production. So I'm fine with splurge releases in principle but rarely in practice, because of those side-effects.

Anyway, fun toy. Reminds me of Kid Hunter, although the Looney Tunes-ish style feels like playing it safer. Maybe there's an exception clause in the contract for sufficiently derivative works.

 

I’d say it’s in line with Kozik’s sensibilities. The Asian market is huge right now, and he probably wants to strike while the iron is hot and sell out whatever he can while he can.

So this splurge release style doesn’t surprise me. It’s more a “burn fast, get in a get out” sensibility these days than the slow burn method of toy makers 10 years ago. But that’s more my thoughts about the manufacturer “blackbook toys” than kozik.

If this toy and/or blackbook toys is still around in a year or two, I’d be surprised.

 

Nigo_bbt has been making toys for years. I’ve never wanted to buy any of them though

 

Ahh. Just looked up that name, yeah, I recognize some of those toys, but mostly as things I just breeze by on Instagram. So I guess he’s not a fly by night operation. Good for him.

 

I'm a

He somehow acquired (maybe bought) the Skum-kum mold from ZacPac. It's always been the only real offering from them I've actually bought. they did a nice job with it as first, but lately I haven't been a huge fan of their new colorways, or the Marvel Okinawa paint they keep putting on everything.

I'm not a completionist, so it doesn't really bother me when a company peppers a bunch of initial releases. I think with a company like Blackbook, i feel like their model is make a ton of smaller size runs for a lot of different events and online releases, so you know they will release it regularly until it stops selling, You can probably wait it out for the releases you really want and not feel like you have to grab something, because you won't get a chance for another 6 months. But definitely if you are the type of collector who wants to focus on a few toys and be complete, I would say this probably isn't the company you should collect.

 

what about this? https://www.lootcrate.com/crates/kidrobot-kaiju-battle-set
Sorry, if this is a derail, Andy. It may be worthy of it's own thread...

 

Unsure on the Belchor’s history but pretty certain that the godawful Usagi-gon had nuthin’ to do with KidWobot originally.

Maybe shareholders asked the same WTF? question!

 

Wow totally ignoring these figures have 0 similarity to belong as a set, they haven’t even cut the joints for a Belchor vinyl or sizes up the smaller one. Just using pictures of the existing small figure and fiberglass saying it will be all good. I don’t even think they mention what color ways they will produce. This looks like a total hail marry.

 

If my math is correct - apparently it takes $600,000 USD to produce two 10 inch vinyl figures these days.. fuck people inflating crowdfunding goals but this is a whole other level

 

That's ridiculous. Considering how little work was put into actually presenting what this would look like, I really doubt 3000 people are going to all plunk down $200 for this. Which makes me think Kozik doesn't even plan for this to come to fruition.

 

I feel the same way, but instead of stepping back and thinking 'I'll pick my favourite later' I think 'fuck that shit', check my Paypal/bank account and forget about it!

 

I was turned off by the knife and initial colorway, but looking at more photos I can appreciate how they did the articulation of the arms and he sits well too. But they should have painted the anchor on the hat cleaner to match the rest of the clean paint; it just looks like a black blob right now.

 

"Belchior" is a Magma Taishi kaiju, isn't he? This one:

 

Im just glad it's not another pus-looking, crater-infested toy with skullz everywhere and poorly designed joints.

Its cute, I would like it without the knife and as an actual mascot for something.

 

I love how Frank boosted the pig directly from Preston Blair, just like with a lot of his other work yet Mr. Kozik never ever credits Blair..

Do a google search for “Preston Blair pig” you’ll see what I’m talking about..

 

i see it. but porky pig is drawn in the same poses as well.

 

And does @toybotstudios know that they are using his photos of the Usagi-gon? (Although the watermark at the lower left corner suggests that the actual image was lifted from Toysrevil blog.)

Yes, the original is Baruzasu (or Balzas), figure made by Marmit. Kozik made some minor alterations and called it Belchor.

 

But was it produced at the 10" size quoted? . . . I only remember a huge fibreglass version.

 

Wow! I knew it was kinda familiar but didn't realise how much of a rinse-and-repeat it was . . . probably why I kinda like it!

 

No, it was only the giant fibreglass one. I guess I should have said he made minor alterations and upsized it to make Belchor.

 

So what you're saying is, he should rebrand it as a pachimon and receive the official skullbrain seal of approval