Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ

Discussion in 'Americans and Other Western Gaijin' started by TattooDougHardy, Nov 7, 2018.

  1. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ
    Some of you know I designed a figure based on my cat Lulu as a witch, and the other year created a resin figure of her. You can see that thread here: http://skullbrain.org/bb/index.php?threads/witch-cat-lulu-figure.51806/

    It was apparent to me that as interesting as it was to do the resin thing, I really wanted her to be in soft vinyl, so over the past year I've made the plunge. I did a redesign so she would work better in vinyl as a first step, and I was put in contact with TTToy's sculptor/creator, Yoshihiko Makino, who has also done a great deal of the Max Toy Sculpts

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    Makino did a great job on the sculpt, and converted it to wax for the molding process.

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    The test pulls came out great, and in June of this year I made a trip to Japan and met Makino in person finally and got the first small batch of Lulus!

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    I put out a Halloween Colorway Lulu last month and am now preparing to have a few other variations ready for Designer Con next week. At this point I'm also saving money to have paint masks made, that's going to be the biggest financial hurdle. Before that I'll have a multi-mold made so it will cut costs of production down a bit. If all goes well I'll have the masks by early next year; I plan to attend Wonder Festival Tokyo in February, so fingers crossed!

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    This is the Autumn Lulu I'll have at DCon

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    The "Golden Experience" Lulu for DCon. She's actually a very light translucent purple. I'm really happy how she came out.

    [​IMG]GoldenExperienceWitchCatLuluDCon3 by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    The Lulus so far around their spiritual "Father", Max Toy's Sofubi Man! The Calico on the left is the planned permanent colorway which is based on my cat Lulu's actual pattern. The one in the photo took tons of tape masks and time, so hopefully the metal paint masks will cut time of painting significantly!

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    All of the colors I've had made so far (except the gold glitter ones) lined up- yesterday and today I am painting the pink ones, and I'll have a few black ones done as well. Michael "Obsessed Panda" Devara is also making a micro-run colorway based on the black ones for my booth at DCon, and Mark Nagata has made a micro-run using the base white figures.

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    It's been a wild ride so far. As much as I love kaiju and showa-era stylings, I wanted to have my first toy show my love of cats and fantasy worlds as well. I have ideas for another 6 characters for the series, but time and money will see how those go. I hope y'all like her and will be in booth 834 at DCon! Hope to see some of you there!

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr
     
  2. Madmax405

    Madmax405 Addicted

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    Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ
    Doug, I absolutely love the last picture... Looks fantastic, and fun!
     
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  3. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    Thanks much!

    Here's the required mold shots-

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    I was hoping to go to the factory to see some pulled and get photos of the mold myself, but they couldn't let me visit due to NDAs and they were busy pulling other figures. Ah well, maybe next time.

    Also in June when I visited Nari San in Nara, he was gracious enough to paint a Lulu for me in his style. I'm super, super stoked to have this one!

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ by Doug Hardy, on Flickr
     
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  4. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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  5. 3wing

    3wing Addicted

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    Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ
    I'm happy to made the vinyl. I know you spent alot of time on the resin ones, and it looked like those were alot of work per unit.
    the paint app on these looks real good!
     
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  6. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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  7. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    animator and Bob like this.
  8. noeleaser

    noeleaser Addicted

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    These are so dope man! I have absolutely loved watching the development process of these. Any chance of a GID blank in the future, or did I already miss out on one that Was released and slipped through my fingers? I’d love to add one to my GID shelf!
     
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  9. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    I do plan to do a GID, but I'm not sure when tbh.
     
  10. animator

    animator Mr. Freshly Smacked Ass Staff Member

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    Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ
    This new 1 is my favorite colorway yet.The blue and pink pop so well on that red-orange vinyl.

     
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  11. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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  12. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    Paint masks! Hellaciously expensive! But boy do they save time! This is 2/3 of the masks for Lulu, they just came today. I'm hoping to get the rest of the masks this summer, but I just wanted to make sure that the most difficult areas to paint were here first!

    [​IMG]Paint Masks! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    They will take a little time to get used to; nonetheless it's amazing how quickly that these things make the painting go by.

    [​IMG]Paint Masks! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Paint Masks! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Paint Masks! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    [​IMG]Paint Masks! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    The rest of the details can be hand painted, but I'm still going to get masks for those as well. It's a really wild ride that this whole thing has been. I'm going to be trying to get a few of these standard colorway Lulus ready for this saturday's Kaiju Con at the JANM museum.

    [​IMG]Paint Masks! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr
     
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  13. Bill

    Bill Fresh Meat

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    Witch Cat Lulu ソフビ
    Can't wait to see these at Kaiju Con this weekend!
     
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  14. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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  15. ungawa222

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    Ah, masking porn!! :razz:
    Awesome, Doug... must feel like a huge advantage to have 'em...
     
  16. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    It really does. It would normally take me ~6 hours of tape masking, painting, re-taping, painting, etc to do a standard style Lulu, and this knocks it down to roughly under an hour to paint one now (including spraying her calico patterns and hand painting the jewelry details). But it was a bit of trial and error when first using the masks here. after doing so-so on around 8 heads and talking to Mark Nagata, he clued me in that it helps to warm up the toy pieces a bit (not to the point of rubberiness) so they slip into the masks easier. That improved my ability greatly.

    Fist batch of open colorway standard Lulus!

    [​IMG]June 2019 JANM Lulus! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    And the colorways for the JANM Kaiju Con tomorrow!

    [​IMG]June 2019 JANM Lulus! by Doug Hardy, on Flickr

    I'm super stoked!
     
  17. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    Now that the insanity of a museum show opening for my father is over, I can start getting ready for Kaiju Paint Party 2 in Tokyo. Starting with a few pastel Lulus to take along.

    [​IMG]Harajuku Lulu progress by Doug Hardy, on Flickr
     
  18. Bill

    Bill Fresh Meat

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    Whoa! Love that pastel purple!
     
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  19. TattooDougHardy

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  20. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    ^ What color(s) is (are) the base vinyl on those two kitties?
     
  21. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    Top one is white, bottom is red
     
  22. TattooDougHardy

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  23. Bill

    Bill Fresh Meat

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    Looks fantastic!
     
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  24. TattooDougHardy

    TattooDougHardy Comment King

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    Thank you! I made five of this one.

    Also I was happy with this photo of the clear Lulu I picked up on my trip.

    [​IMG]Tokyo Sunrise Lulu by Doug Hardy, on Flickr
     
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  25. chimply.kaiju

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