Color me shocked, but it really seems to be the case that we don't yet have a dedicated thread here, only the "Shelterbanking" thread in the Show Your Collection section... so... allow me to kick it off by saying... Hi, it's me, Mike. We need to talk about Mike: <innumerable emojis expressing magic, love, yowza, fire etc>
I saw some stories posted by Johnny Akihito from the pop up yesterday and, if I’m not mistaken, this figure had a ¥100,000 price tag at its feet. Amazingly cool, and I’m a huge sucker for clear toys with guts. Love the anatomical build that reminds me of models that are used in classrooms, with an obvious grotesque, horror twist.
Really cool toy indeed but price wise, I don't get this trend... I mean, I can totally understand the maker wants to make money knowing that on the second market, price will skyrocket. But why just don't increase the production run?
thats not going to work if you’re spending hours painting each eye Super cool, another ridiculously expensive toy for collectors with big pockets
I do know that Shelterbank tends to work in some particular type of soft resin, similar in feel to sofubi, and it tends to increase his price. Very hands on all throughout, and solely by his creative process. I have no idea, however, if that’s the case here, or if it’s in sofubi. It could also be a one off; I’ve no info. If it is the soft resin, and a one off, I still think it’s priced high, but it would make more sense.
YIKES. Well, as you say, we don't know the details- I agree, if a one-off, produced via Shelterbank's intensive handmade/garage-style methods, then the price makes absolute sense. But that would be an awful lot of work, esp. in terms of molding and casting, for a one-off... I have to think/hope that it's intended to be a production piece, at some point. Maybe once again Mr. Medicom will want to pick it up and run with, for a factory-produced run of them? Let's hope...
When I first saw this posted on instagram I simultaneously thought it was one of the cooler toys i've ever seen and knew that i'd never get to have it in my collection... For me, it's a perfect balance of weird bootleg 1980's halloween store toy and nicely designed Japanese art toy. I really love this one! I'm with ungawa222, I hope Medicom does an affordable run of MIKE. P.S. I sent Shelterbank a message a few days ago when I first saw this asking if there would be a run of these made, but never heard back. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While this body was originally made in their soft rotocast resin (or whatever they use) they remade it in vinyl for the medicom vinyl runs. But the innards and head could be one-off soft resin casts. If that were the case, it would be a tremendous amount of work to sculpt those guts and head just to cast for a single one-off. and would totally justify the 1000 price. But it's hard to tell with Shelterbank if a piece is vinyl or a garage rotocast from pictures. You often need to see the side and see if a seam line from a silicone mold is visible and most people don't photograph from that angle, just straight on. If these are vinyl pieces, I'm sure more affordable runs will be following in the future.
I wasn't aware there was a standard body they were using for the Medicom releases. So this would have been used for Shado-X and the Frankenstein guy? Any others? It's definitely a different body than the Devilman (which I believe is larger than the others mentioned... but not entirely sure, never seen those in person and don't know the published heights, offhand).
The Medicom Super Furies line is all soft vinyl- Shadow X, and the Devilman, I can't recall if Medicom made a Frankenstein version. That and the red devil guy i know were originaly the hand made rotocast figures. I'm not sure if Medicom scaled the line down, because i didn't buy any of the Medicom figures. But i have the original hand made Shadow X, and it's well over 12" tall.
The only Shelterbank I have is the Medicom Super Furies Devilman- he's about 15" tall. But the body on Mike here is not the same body... Devilman body does not have the sculpted creases at the inner elbows or a belt sculpted as part of the torso.
Yes this seems to be the Shadow-X body. So it sounds like the Medicom figures are the same scale as the originals. Pretty sure the clear body here is a vinyl pull, because I can't see any seams. The shadow X body is actually similar to a henshin cyborg suit, there is a smooth generic body and then the bone details is done as an additional vinyl chest piece that fits on top. This looks like the inside body part, without the outer vinyl chest part.
Ah, yes... they did the same on Devilman, he has a split-sided "vest" piece with all his sculpted chest details and the square peg on back that the wings pop onto. ... aaaand Michael has nailed it! Nice... yeah, that's a match, exactly... even the etched lines in the pelvis and the ridges 'round the boot-tops, neither very discernible in the pic of Mike above, are a match.