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The Fabulous Owlbear

Friday, May 22nd, 2015

First, read this post Adam did on his blog.

I’ve found a similar example. Here is the owlbear (an owl-bear hybrid monster) as illustrated in the first ever AD&D Monster Manual from 1978:

I have a copy of this book. It’s the 6th printing, from 1980, and was owned by KLS long before I met her. The owlbear in this version of the monster manual looks like this:

Fabulous isn’t it! It’s the only monster in the book that has been coloured in, but we can only dream she had done more as a child 🙂

Speaking of the owlbear… what’s this picture?

Interesting isn’t it? A few years ago it was revealed that some of the unusual monsters in AD&D were based on plastic toys. You can read the full story here (with more wonderful pictures). Based on the toy, and the supposition (which seems reasonable) that the toys were bootleg Ultraman monster toys, it’s obvious the owlbear is nothing more than… a kappa!

The kappa is a japanese water spirit which has a very rich mythology. Here’s an illustration done by Hokusai (famous for his The Great Wave Off Kanagawa) in the early 1800’s:

You can see the resemblance to the toy.

So what of the Ultraman connection? Japanese sentai shows often base their monsters on mythology, and it’s almost certain there is an early Kappa-based foe in one of the first few Ultraman series. I did a search and could only find one before 1978, a kappa-influenced alien named Tepeto in an episode of Ultraseven from 1967:

Not very owlbear-like is he?

So my guess is the original kappa designs (such as Hokusai’s) influenced the chinese toy which influenced the owlbear in AD&D.

What of the owlbear today? Here’s the latest illustration:

A bit literal isn’t it?

Posted in Animals, Art, Books & Comics, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, The Unknown, Toys | Comments Closed

The 30 year old Zoid

Thursday, May 14th, 2015

A few weeks back I went to a local convention and bought this:

I’m sure I don’t have to explain why, but in case you’re having a senior moment…

This, my friends, is a Zoid. Specifically from the series called ‘Robo Strux’, which were the US Zoid rereleases from 1985. Zoids are robot animals (often dinosaurs or predatory cats) and I’ve always liked their design. As a child we were too poor for me to ever own one, but I’ve been remedying that in recent years! I was agog to see such an old one for sale at my local con, and my agog-level doubled when I discovered it was unmade. A quick ebay search told me his price (at which I first baulked) was low, so I snapped it up. I was a very happy man that day.

Unquestionably the value of this product was mostly due to the fact it was still unmade and almost complete (only the sticker sheet was missing). Were I a fanatical collector, I would have put it somewhere safe and been happy in the knowledge I owned it. But I bought it to make it, and this past weekend I did. Here’s what was inside the box:

And this was between the pages of the manual:

So it was purchased in NYC back in March 1987, almost certainly for $9.99. That’s about $21.50 in todays money. Which is much less than I paid 🙂

The basic construction of the kits is remarkably similar to today’s models. There were several runners, molded in 5 different colours. It was snap together, and very easy to assemble with only cutters and a file (to remove the flash). However since the model is motorized and the legs need to move, some pieces were loose against each other and held on by interesting rubber caps:

Even after 30 years, the rubber was still perfectly pliable.

As a kit designed for children, there weren’t nearly as many pieces as one of the ‘High Grade Master Model’ kits I’ve been buying recently, but there were still enough to make it interesting and fun. The design was very clever, especially of the legs. Here he is the first time he was able to stand up:

Assembly took me about an hour, and was great fun. I wish the dude at the con had had more of these buggers for sale!

And here he is finished:

Oooh! Dangerous and mighty he looks, but Gordox (or more correctly Gordos) is apparently a specialized command unit more useful for his long-range sensor and communications than his offensive abilities.

He’s also a bit slow…

Isn’t he cute!

Posted in Animals, Blog, Crafts, Miscellaneous, Models, Otaku, Tech, Time | Comments Closed

Baked Octopus

Tuesday, January 27th, 2015

I purchased KLS a ‘Makit Bakit’ kit for Christmas. Yes this is a kids item, but it’s fun so why not?

It’s just a metal frame that you fill with pellets of plastic and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Here’s a detail pre-bake:

So how did it turn out? Pretty good! The plastic is translucent, and the idea is you hang him up as a sun catcher:

KLS deviated from the instructions a bit by putting some specks of dark blue into his body. He’s like a blue-ringed octopus!

So thumbs up for Makit Bakit. If only they (still) made kits more to my liking…

Posted in Animals, Crafts | 2 Comments »

The Great Bear-Off

Friday, December 19th, 2014

And so we begin the second half of

This is hard work you know! I hope everyone is enjoying the marathon of posts 🙂

The above is a photo taken from Bernard’s blog. He is, as we all know, a master of origami. If you’re unfamiliar with his talents, refresh your memory with some examples of his skill.

But I bet you didn’t know that he was once the student, and I the master?

It’s an undisputed fact that, way back in the days of yore, my brother’s interest in origami was ignited by my very own passion for paper folding. Indeed I was so proficient that people ~~never~~ used to call me ‘The Wizard of Whitebridge‘. In those days I could fold boats and hats and even a crane like a savant.

However I let my talents slip, and haven’t folded in quite some time. I started to wonder: could I still do it? Was I still a master, a wizard even? It was time to find out!

But what to fold? Well here’s where my buddy SFL enters the picture, since she suggested ‘bears’ as a blog topic for this 12-day marathon. Even though she may have been deliberately trying to sabotage me (bears?!?!?!?) all of a sudden it was clear: I would fold a bear!

The rules were simple: make an origami bear without consulting any pattern and instead using a fold that was completely and originally my own. I chose gold paper and started folding, using just the plans in my own head.

There was lots of pre-folding and scoring and initially it started to look more like a boat (or hat) than a bear. But that was not a problem, since I was once the god of folding paper hats! As I continued with my 100% original pattern, I ran into some difficulty when I got to a step that required a type of fold I chose to name a ‘petal fold’. But I soldiered on, and managed to complete the folds by myself and entirely without the assistance of a calmly-spoken Englishman and his channel of origami videos on Youtube.

You can see by this point I was being guided simply by the vision on my own mind, and the paper had started to resemble a bear! To allay the stress, I watched some completely unrelated videos on my iPad as I folded.

The entire process took maybe an hour to finish. I’m proud to say I did a wonderful job, and here is the result:

Magnificent isn’t it! A beautiful golden sun bear, that looks absolutely nothing like a pig! Critics may claim that the choice of paper size suggests the actions of a rank amateur, and that some of the folds leave a bit to be desired. But I can assure you they were intentional, as if to suggest ruggedness and victory against the forces of the wild.

Here’s another artistic shot of my superb creation that doesn’t look anything like a swine:

So as to compare against my skills, I asked my brother to fold a bear as well. He made some blathering claims of not having enough time and not having a suitable pattern, but this morning I received his version accompanied by the comment: “Best I could do given the short notice“:

…

He’s just showing off now isn’t he?

Posted in Animals, Art, Blog, Family, Home, Models, Nature | Comments Closed

White Boomers

Tuesday, November 4th, 2014

My mum asked me to make a post about my favourite animal…

That’s a very rare albino kangaroo, photographed about a year ago near Canberra.

That’s another one in a pack in outback NSW. As you can see, the other roos don’t seem to mind him 🙂

Albino kangaroos are rare for two reasons. First the genetic defect is rare, and secondly their susceptibility to the extreme Australian heat leads to short life expectancy.

Thankfully – and for obvious reasons – zoos and wildlife parks take good care of albinos when they receive them and they can live long and happy lives in captivity. An albino kangaroo in Denmark even became a mother to (non albino) joeys 🙂

Since I’m on the topic, here’s some more albino Australians:

Both the Koala and the Kookaburra are in captivity. The Emu photo looks like it was taken years ago, but there are also albino emu in captivity.

Australia’s (probably the worlds?) most famous albino is of course Migaloo:

He’s a male Humpback Whale, believed to be 28 years old this year, who lives on the east coast of Australia and is sighted every year as he makes his annual migration. Up until 2011 he was believed to be the only albino humpback in the world, but now a second has emerged (‘Migaloo Junior’, although they are unrelated). Migaloo is a national treasure, and protected by Australian law. I’d love to see him one day 🙂

Posted in Animals | 2 Comments »

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