Robot Claw

Retro Wax Packs (Part 2)

April 23rd, 2022

It’s time for the second entry about opening old trading card wax packs!

Jaws 2 (Topps, 1978)

In 2020 the pandemic delayed most new release films and as a result our drive in played mostly older movies. We got to see the original Jaws on the big screen and it was incredibly good. At the time I felt I’d never actually seen the sequel and looking at these cards I’m now sure of this.

As far as trading cards go this is a competent set, but it’s an early one from Topps and they had yet to learn the lessons from the success of their Star Wars cards. This means no plot summaries, no die-cut stickers, and a poor puzzle on the backs of select cards.

As kids it was always fun to read the ‘movie facts’ on the backs of cards, since it wasn’t like we’d get that info elsewhere. But based on the imagery on the cards Jaws 2 was a film that perhaps didn’t need a trading card set 🙂

Here’s Bo (Fleer, 1981)

This is just a perplexing set. It purports to be a set of Bo Derek photocards, but the photos are all taken by her husband on what seems to be the set of the Tarzan film they made in the early 1980s.

It’s a bizarre selection of photos, especially since at the time she was a famous sex symbol selling lots of pinup posters. Surely they could/should have included a few of those images in this set?

The included poster is folded up many times and in this case had a sticker of flour-coated gum absolutely adhered to it. When unfolded it’s biggish considering the delivery system, but who would ever want to hang this on a wall?

Oh and the text on the back of the cards is very abbreviated and – to be blunt – creepy:

I can’t see who the audience for this set was!

Ghostbusters II (Topps, 1989)

I’m not a big fan of Ghostbusters, and don’t see the film as iconic as some people do. It was fun enough at the time, but I don’t recall ever being enthusiastic about a sequel, and when one finally arrived several years later I recall seeing it but remember nothing of the experience.

This card set is one of the latter ones that Topps released in wax pack form, and much like Robocop 2 (see the last wax pack post) is a by-the-books set with decent design and good print quality. The choice of a ‘wide screen SFX shot’ card is novel, but is the aspect ratio even different from the others?! The sticker card is shown in the middle, but there’s no explanation what the image is. As with other latter sets, by this time they’d stopped die-cutting the stickers which is a shame.

The film plot is summarized on the backs of the cards, which reminds me this was a baby-intensive film. Here’s a message to Hollywood: if you’re making a film in a franchise aimed at teenage boys, perhaps think twice about basing the plot around a baby 🙂

Howard The Duck (Topps, 1986)

A George Lucas film using a Marvel character?!? When this one came out in 1986 we went to see it with our cousins (Troy and Ryan) and I daresay we left the film even more confused than when we’d seen Caravan of Courage a year prior. This is a strange film for many reasons.

The card set is quite good, with a lot of nice shots of Howard and a well written plot summary on the reverse. But did anyone enjoy the film enough to actually buy these cards?

What stands out from this set is the quality of the stickers! These packs were very cheap so I bought two and both stickers are amazing:

I’m tempted to even try to stick these on something! Overall this is a fairly good set for a distinctly weird film that is worth a watch if you haven’t yet seen it.

Black Hole (Topps, 1979)

From one weird film to another! I believe we saw Black Hole at the Gateshead drive in when we were grasshoppers, and I’m sure we enjoyed the robot scenes but were bored mindless by the lengthy exposition and insane ending. This is a relic of the era of rushing out anything with science fiction content to cash in on Star Wars mania!

Faults aside, the film is visually strong, and lends itself well to trading cards. I recall buying a few packs of these as a kid, and tossing all but the cards showing Vincent and Maximillian!

There’s a well written summary on the backs of some cards, and as usual with Topps in those days we get a subset of die-cut stickers:

Oh and I almost got enough cards in the pack to make a jigsaw puzzle:

Overall this is one of the better sets I’ve opened recently, and I think would have been worth collecting had I had they been available to me as a kid. And as a bonus – since I haven’t shown any this post – here’s a shot of the 43-year-old gum I found in this pack:

There’s one more installment of this mini-blog-series forthcoming, with six more weird and wonderful wax packs from the 1980s. Watch for it in a couple of weeks!

Posted in Blog, Collecting, History, Miscellaneous, Movies, Otaku, Retro, Trading Cards | Comments Closed

‘Imaginary Skeleton’

April 17th, 2022

It’s time for another model kit, and yes I know this means two in two days.

This is a new Bandai Imaginary Skeleton kit of a tyrannosaurus. As soon as I saw this I knew I had to have it! (The omission of ‘rex’ from the name is likely due to this kit being an imaginative depiction of what may have been three separate species.)

The kit is notable for almost every piece being the same colour! It also has the biggest piece I’ve ever seen in a model kit (the base, see photos below) and is also one of the biggest kits I’ve ever made.

In addition to an instruction manual (in colour and with English instructions as well as Japanese) the kit also contains this 10-page booklet with the latest science about the tyrannosaurus. For instance, it shows how back in the 1900s we thought tyrannosaurus stood up like kangaroos but now we know they more likely lean forward and are feathered.

The head shown above contains ten individual pieces. While the kit doesn’t need glue, I used a bit here and there to keep the connections nice and tight.

From the booklet I learned that the head of a living tyrannosaur weighed about 500 kg, and had a brain that was unusual large compared to mammals. From this scientists believe they were more intelligent than most mammals, especially related to hunting since they had well developed vision and smell. Their longest teeth were 30 cm and had a serrated inside edge like a steak knife.

Look how long that tail is (and the kit in general)! The tail itself was nine pieces, but the rib cage was many more since each rib pair was a separate piece.

On the underside of the ribcage is a smaller inverted riblike structure called a ‘gastralium’. This supported the internal organs and itself was connected to a bone called the pubis which was likely used for support when the tyrannosaur lowered itself to the ground, since it was probably unable to lie down.

It was once believed that the tyrannosaur was clumsy and even slow, and as a result probably ate carrion. But these days we have a better understanding of the physics of the skeleton, and most researchers agree that tyrannosaurs were in fact agile, and could possibly even leap to attack prey (which this kit depicts). This was a creature up over three times the mass of an elephant that may have been agile and intelligent!

These beasts lived in North America about 66 million years ago. This was the last days of the reign of the dinosaurs, and some theorize that the tyrannosaurs were ultimately unable to achieve their full potential due to premature extinction. In other words, for as fierce a predator as this thing was, it may have only been a prototype of something even more deadly!

I love this kit. It’s easy to build, looks great when assembled and comes with a lot of interesting information. For a dinosaur-loving child, this would be an incredible gift.

Posted in Animals, Crafts, Models, Nature, Otaku, Science, Time | Comments Closed

Models

April 16th, 2022

I bought the above model kit at Kinokuniya a while back, mostly based on the lovely art. It’s a schoolgirl model kit; one in a range that includes not only the girls themselves, but also various furniture items! I don’t think it’s based on an anime or manga, and is instead an original line.

The kit had a large range of face and hairstyle options, and several skirt and leg poses. As is usual with kits from Kotobukiya, the quality was extremely high, and the kit included a few nice touches that added detail without the need for painting.

It was an easy build, taking maybe 2 hours. Here’s the finished product:

She came with several accessories, but I used only the schoolbag (the bubble tea is nice, but you need to buy the ‘After school cafe‘ set for that!). But before I put her in my glass case I felt she could be improved….

Much better!

And since I’m showcasing cute models, here’s two Nendoroids I’ve recently bought:

The left is Akane Shinjo from SSSS Gridman, an astonishing anime that will feature in more detail on this blog one day. And on the right is Nino Nakano, who will always be my favourite of the Quintessential Quintuplets. Probably 😉

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Crafts, Models, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

Animal Contest: Results!

April 14th, 2022

At the halfway point of our animal painting postcard contest, we were tied at 3 wins apiece and it was anyones game. All the paintings are now complete, sent, received and judged. It’s time for the final results! With no further ado…

Anglerfish

The judges (who were picking the subjects) began to get creative here, and this pick was one that would test our ability to paint lighting effects! Mine is on the right and Bernard’s on the left, and you can see our approaches are quite different. Mine seems cartoony, but I learned doing research that there are quite a few different types of anglerfish and I did my best to reproduce one of the more unusual breeds.

The judges had trouble with this one, and three split their votes. In the end I won with my fish 3.1 – 1.9, with many judges citing my light as being the decider. Here’s some specific comments:

“The fish on the right because of how well the glowing orb has been rendered.”
“The fish on the left looks a bit like something else – an orc or goblin. I think that’s because the surrounding murk looks like hair and a neck.”
“I like how dark the one on the right is and the creepy eyes.”

One judge may have said Bernard’s looks like an orc, but I can’t unsee what Bernard himself said his fish resembles: Mr T!

Porg

And here’s a judge giving us a not-real animal! Mine is on the left and Bernard’s on the right, and… well oh dear. I made a critical error in rendering the rainbow in the background (for no reason other than to use my new neon paints) and Bernard himself cited his method was to produce a portrait in the shortest time possible. Overall, the judges weren’t too impressed with either of these and it seems they were mostly choosing the one they felt least unimpressive!

Bernard won 3 – 2, and my two votes – both for the rainbow – were countered by three votes against the rainbow! It seems the judges had difficulty seeing past my the rainbow when evaluating these:

“The rainbow looks a bit half-hearted.”
“The one on the right looks like a spaniel.”
“I haven’t thought too much about the size of these artworks up to this point. I have always known that they are on postcards so in fact quite small. I can appreciate the difficulty of creating a detailed and interesting artwork in such a small space, especially in watercolour. Still the one on the right feels a bit lazy. Has the artist become bored with the competition. Is he lacking inspiration? Perhaps he is not inspired by the subject? Perhaps, like my hated of Minions, he despises the supposed cuteness of the fictional creature whose existence seems completely worthless. The banality of the subject has been rescued in the artwork on the left by the splashy rainbow, and this artwork therefore wins.”
“I LOVE the right. That porg pout. Holy bajesus!”

Quokka

Mine is on the right, and Bernard’s on the left. Do these paintings even depict the same creature? If you’re wondering, I had attempted – and utterly failed – to paint a fur texture freehand. Even before the paint had dried on mine I said to KLS “This is Bernard’s to lose” but in the back of my mind I hadn’t forgotten the judge’s comment on the his porg and thought perhaps I could sneak a win?

It turns out I had no chance, and his painting blew mine away. The only surprise was I got any votes at all, and that his win was only 3.5 – 1.5. And yet this shouldn’t have been a surprise, since the judges continued to be as unpredictable as ever! Their comments:

“These are both delightful but the one on the right wins.”
“This is a tie. I think left presents the subject a little bit better but fundamentally it looks quite derpy. Also the nose looks weird. The right has an evil look on its face… I don’t trust the right quokka!”
“Having seem them up close in real life when I visited Rottnest Island, I feel confident in selecting the artwork on the left as the one which most accurately captures the quokka’s stupidly happy spirit“

Frog

The very first thing that entered my mind when frog was given to us as the next subject was a frog prince. I rejected it as too whimsical, and instead planned to paint a poison dart frog. But black paints are problematic (see my gorilla…) and I couldn’t get the prince out of my mind. Plus I did have some metallic watercolour paint…

Mine is on the left and Bernard’s on the right, and this one gave the judges quite a bit of trouble! Both approaches are fundamentally different, both striking in their own way and neither easily dismissable due to technical faults. Judging for this one was easily the longest of the entire contest, but in the end I won 3-2. Here’s what the judges had to say:

“King frog is best frog!”
“I love the gold crown on left, but I adore the slight leftward angle of the right head.”
“I like the color contrast of poisonous frog on mushroom. I like the eyes and soft feel of the painted frog, a little bit like Monet, but the coloring is too weak.”
“Left seems crafted to appeal to the supposed preferences of the judge. One might find the bright pretty colors and shiny baubles somewhat obvious and patronizing but I hate to admit I love this picture. Simple, balanced, well-crafter. The crown is magical. While this artwork is largely fairytale it’s as charming as a prince.”

Spider

There’s over 45,000 different types of spider on Earth and yet – with no collaboration – we both chose the same one! To Americans this is a black widow, but to both of us this was a redback spider. Going into this one I had a comfortable 6 – 4 lead, so I knew at least the contest would be a tie, and as such perhaps the pressure was off. But I redoubled my efforts, and in this case that meant I put extra effort into the web and perhaps not as much into the spider: mine is on the right and Bernard’s on the left.

As soon as I saw Bernard’s I knew the win would be his, and yet I was once again surprised when the judges agreed, albeit with a slight 2.9 – 2.1 victory. It turns out my web was impressive enough to score me a few points! Here’s the comments:

“The left spider is superb. How the artist was able to create such dimension with just two colours is genius. The natural stance of the spider is perfectly captured. The legs are well defined and the abdomen beautifully bulbous, ready to devour her mate.”
“The one on the right has a cartoon quality. The spider is cute but harmless. The colours are bright and the definition in the artwork belies the medium. The web is particularly well done.
“A tie. The shadow on the left is pretty nice. The web on the right I appreciate because it looks like it took a bit of effort. In the end though they both need to die in a fire because spiders!”

Scarlet Macaw

Mum chose the first subject (Panda) and it was finally time for her second choice. We were expecting squirrel but for our last animal she chose a colorful parrot! Bernard’s is on the left and mine on the right, and once again our efforts confounded the judges.

This was the third time three judges split their votes, and perhaps fittingly this was the result with the closest final score. In the end I squeaked in with a 2.7 – 2.3 win, and it literally came down to the very last vote of the contest! Here’s what the judges had to say:

“I vote for the one on the left, which has the best watercolor technique.”
“Left has more depth.”
“The colours are done well in both birds. The face gave each of you trouble. The winner is the one on the right; I love the composition.”
“The one on the right sparked the most joy.”
“Left is the better watercolour but right has better colours.”

Final Results!

Twelve animals over three months, and 60 individual evaluations by our panel of judges. It’s time for the final results…

I won, with 7 wins to Bernard’s 5!

Looking at total points, I scored 33.8 to Bernard’s 26.2, which means the final decision came down to only 4 votes. Looking at individual entries, it could be argued that Snake won the entire contest for me (since I swept that 5 – 0).

Looking back on the contest as a whole, here’s our opinions on our work, and the results:

Bernard felt his best piece was his cat, and while I agree it was superb, I think his very best was his spider.
I felt my best piece was my eagle, and Bernard agreed.
Bernard felt his worst was his Porg, but I believe his snake was weaker.
I felt my worst piece was my quokka, but he thought it was my cat.
Bernard believes he should have won cat instead of me, and that I should have won eagle instead of him, and I agree with him on both of these.
When asked for a statement on the judging, Bernard said this: “My win was clearly stolen by a panel of judges easily distracted by bold colors and metallic paints!“
My comment on the judging is: “My win was harder than it should have been due to judges overlooking blatant rules violations by an opponent who brought pencil sketches to a watercolour contest!“

Jesting aside, thanks very much to all the judges for your valued and wise critique. Watch your mailboxes for a special reward from an award-winning artist…

We didn’t take as many work-in-progress pictures this time around, but here’s a few of mine:

I used washi tape for my spider web, which I cut lengthwise before applying to the postcard and then painting over with a grey wash before removing the tape. I did this three times in fact (for practice), and the other two are in the mail on the way to lucky recipients. Of course while this looks good, the problem was the web was too small to paint a large spider on, and that it was extraordinarily difficult to find a reference photo posed correctly so I just made up the spider 🙂

The above shows my anglerfish, which used only two colors. As you can see by this point I had mostly eschewed sketches and was applying the paint from a sort-of palette.

The size of the images sent to judges made detail difficult, and I was especially concerned (for no reason, as it turned out) that the metallic paint for the crown on my frog wouldn’t be visible. The above is a detailed photo showing how fancy that paint looks!

So another annual contest has ended. If you’re keeping track I won Postcards (in 2020), Bernard won Portraits (in 2021) and now I have my second win for Animals in 2022. What will the 2023 contest be? Perhaps we already know… but you’ll have to come back next year to find out 🙂

Posted in Animals, Art, Blog, Crafts, Family, Miscellaneous, Postcards | Comments Closed

Retro Wax Packs (Part 1)

April 10th, 2022

In the 1970s and 80s, trading cards were packaged in waxed paper that was folded and heat-sealed. The term for such packaging is ‘wax packs’ and generally refers these days to any package of trading cards sold before 1991 (when the last wax pack was used). Importantly to me, all the cards of my youth were sold in wax packs, so these are very nostalgic for me.

Recently I bought a bunch of unopened wax packs from the 1980s, and over the next month or so I’m going to open and blog them all. Let’s start!

Robot Wars (Fleer, 1985)

This is a set of game cards, cashing in on transformers and scratch-off lottery tickets, and conceptually similar to the Super Mario and Zelda cards I have previously blogged.

The pack contains three game cards that no longer work since the scratch-off material has solidified (and I mean solidified; it’s like obsidian)! I expect children would have enjoyed these back in the day though. There’s also a sticker in the pack, but it’s in less-than-perfect condition due to a quirk of wax packs – the gum:

Almost every wax pack – and certainly all of them targeted at kids – contained a stick of gum. Over the 35+ years the gum has at worst become brittle and cracked to pieces or at worst become greasy and moldy. In most cases it’s just a solid inedible stick that has cemented itself to the card it was adjacent to. Removing it usually causes damage, as you can see above.

Incidentally there’s an internet rumour that this ancient gum has become poisonous and dangerous to eat. This is nonsense: it’s mostly just distasteful or extremely bitter. I’ve eaten some before, and I learned then never to eat it again 🙂

What about the ‘win a robot’ contest? Well it was a write-in, as detailed above. I wonder if anyone actually did this and won, and if so what happened to the robot?

Superman III (Topps, 1983)

This is the one with Richard Prior, and definitely not one of the better Superman flicks. But Topps, which had enjoyed in the years before massive success with the Star Wars cards, followed their formula and made a great set here.

The cards are nicely designed with good printing and a lot of action scene for the kids (from a film with a lot of ‘boring’ comedy scenes). The backs are nicely written too:

In addition the pack includes the usual sticker, and these were the days when Topps die-cut their stickers, which from a kid point of view made them just that bit better:

The gum in this pack hadn’t stuck as much to the card, and the pack itself was very easy to open, so I can show just what one of these wrappers looked like unsealed:

Unsurprisingly the wrappers themselves are collectible, and some of the rarer ones are worth big bucks these days in good condition.

Robocop 2 (Topps 1990)

We’re close to the end of the wax pack era, since 1990 was when Topps both moved to plastic and abandoned the gum. We’re also more than ten years after the first Star Wars set, but Topps was still following their standard formula here with Robocop 2:

The eagle-eyed amongst you will note scenes from the first film amongst these cards, and this is explained on the back with a little comment that the set ‘Includes highlights from Robocop’s first adventure‘.

Ah, the 1980’s, where companies didn’t think twice about releasing trading cards for kids based on ultra-violent R-rated films 🙂

Cyndi Lauper (Topps, 1985)

In 1985 Cynthia Lauper was 32 years old and at the peak of her fame. I wonder what it was like for her to open a pack of trading cards all about herself?

The cards themselves are just ok, with underwhelming photos and the usual Smash Hits level factoids on the back. For fans though, I expect these were a real treat.

The stickers are die-cut but a bit ugly (or maybe just very 1980s). That said I’d still love to stick one on a postcard now, but I know from experience that if you peel a 35+ year old Topps sticker off the backing it’ll never restick! As with most sets of that era the backs of the stickers can be used to form a large picture: a nice use for the card even if you remove the sticker.

The gum in here was very unusual. This is the first time I’ve seen a wrapped piece of gum in a wax pack, and it was branded as well! I’ve included the joke from the wrapper to give you a belly laugh…

Indiana Jones (Topps, 1984)

While generically named, these cards are based on Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, the second film in the series. This is the only pack I’m showing here today that I remember buying as a kid. And just as I’m sure I did then, I’m very impressed with these now.

The cards are wonderfully designed with great stills and the adventure style font compliments the pictures well. The backs all describe the action and preview the name of the next card (once again following the formula they perfected with the Star Wars sets):

Back in our Australian youth we often got the cards before the films, so almost everything in the movie was ‘spoiled’ for us. But it didn’t matter, and in some ways made the films even better since we were seeing the pics from the cards in motion. And afterwards, in an era without internet or video, our cards were a convenient way to relive the movies.

I bought two packs of these cards (and they weren’t cheap at $8 each, but unopened packs from Raiders are much harder to find and often more expensive) and in my second pack got the title card shown above.

The stickers from this set are amazing and once again I wish they still worked. I wonder what I did with the ones I got as a kid? The picture you can assemble from the sticker backs is shown at the right: and as a child if I collected the cards I would have made this and glued (yes glued) the cards onto cardboard to turn them into a sort of mini-poster!

What do you think of these sets? As I said there’ll be more in future weeks. I wonder what other treasures I managed to get my hands on…?

Posted in Blog, Celebrity, Collecting, History, Miscellaneous, Movies, Music, Otaku, Retro, Time, Trading Cards | 3 Comments »