Introducing the Mudbelly.

Hi, everyone. After years of collecting vinyl monster toys, I am now selling my own. Introducing the Mudbelly!

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The Mudbelly has been two years in the making. Sculpted by Stephen Geddes, Painted by Neil Ewing (@3wing), and now available at http://gardenstatekaiju.com/ - you can also head over to @gardenstatekaiju on Instagram to see how it all came together.

Enjoy!

 

This is super rad! Congrats on the project!

 

Very cool, congrats @Roger !!!!

 

Thank you for the support, I appreciate it.

 

Just saw this on Insta. Pretty killer. I'm hoping to see a Hawaiian paint job on that fella in the future!

 

Heheh cheeky lil fella. Nice one!

 

Great little guy! Congrats!

 

Great work!

 

Great stuff, love the little smile. Top-notch sculpting!

 

Very cool monster indeed,and a lovely sculpt.
Really interesting reading about the process on instagram.

 

He's adorable! Congratulations on your first toy release!

 

Again, thank you for the support, everyone. I was very fortunate to connect with Stephen, Neil, Paul at Mile High, and everyone else who helped me bring this critter to life.

The whole process has been a real learning experience. Today's lesson: I probably should have boxed a bunch of them up before I started selling them...

 

Always remember the 7 P's . . . Preparation and Pre-Planning Prevent Piss-Poor Performance!

 

The cat is out of the bag.
Thanks for the sample at Dcon. I carried it in my pocket the whole time. Skydon mini pose! Love it!

 

Somebody pointed out on FB its similarity to the Patrol Dewback Star Wars toy ... was that intentional?

 

Yes. Stephen sculpted the original Dewback for Kenner back in the 1970s, along with the Dianoga (Death Star trash compactor monster), Walrus Man, the Dagobah playset, the Rancor, and many many more. Eventually I am going to sit down with him and make a list.

 

Nice. That's a very cool connection.

I have to agree, its exactly what you'd want a sofubi version to look like.

 

Thank you, I really do appreciate it. I have ideas for additional Mudbelly colors and other figures but right now I have nothing to announce, I am just focusing on getting this one out the door. I woke up this morning truly shocked (in a positive way) by the response.

As far as how I connected with Stephen Geddes, when I started collecting resin figures several years ago I met his son Andrew, aka Green Plastic Tunnels (see @greenplastictunnels on Instagram). I didn't know about the Kenner connection Andrew had until he introduced us. It was around this time that Stephen had actually relocated to NJ, and while being mostly retired he was still doing freelance sculpts for Super7, and was soon going to start work on the Healeymade Glyos figures. Here he is at Five Points Fest 2018 with a Dewback he autographed for me:

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At the end of 2020 I tallied up how much I had spent on toys for the year and was appalled by the number. I realized many of us were "medicating with stuff" through the pandemic but I thought to myself, "For that kind of money I could be making my own toys," which was something I always wanted to do but the elements never came together. So, I started talking to Paul Schiola (@Zontar) at Mile High Sofubi, who I met in 2019 at DesignerCon to get general ideas of costs. Then I started thinking about subjects for figures.

Originally I had an idea for a playset, similar to David Horvath's Flatwoods vs. Mothman or what Kotorimark is making with those little dinos and the volcano. I had prehistoric mammals in mind for the figures, but then I started thinking more about the first licensed toys I first connected with as a child, and the licensed toys I was collecting as an adult, and thinking about meeting Stephen and what he had worked on for Kenner, and I started looking at the autographed Dewback on my desk and the Bullmark Mini Skydons I had on the shelf:

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I really got into collecting Bullmark minis during the lockdowns and thought about how fun it might be to have a Dewback in that format, with that "action feature" that Skydon has of standing on all fours or on his hind legs. I also thought about other creatures from famous space opera movies that would look fun mashed up with Japanese kaiju. So I thought, maybe this is the playset. At the end of January 2021, I talked with Stephen, he said he was interested in doing the job, and I sent him a a crude "sketch" (really a printout of photos I cut up and taped back together). He sent me pictures of that clay rough form and we were off to the races. What I figured would be the first figure in the playset was underway.

There were many unexpected twists and turns along the way, valuable lessons learned, and after a few of those the two-creature playset got whittled down to just one figure on its own. The whole process, at least for me, involved a series of pauses and reevaluations and navigating various compromises. The old Product Triangle model I learned about in school applied every step of the way: "Do you want it good, fast, or cheap? Pick two." So, for now, it is just the the Mudbelly, but the ideas for the other Space Beasts and some kind of a playset is still rolling around in my head. I really like the idea of a figure being in a "universe" with other similar figures and I don't intend for the Mudbelly to be "alone" if I can help it.

For now I am overjoyed with how the Mudbelly turned out and equally happy with the response to it. I was extremely fortunate to have connected with Andrew, Stephen, Neil, and Paul when I did, as well as Mike Kirchoff who worked on the resin copies, Keith Krick who did that fantastic product photo, and my friend Matt LaRusso who did the graphics for the packaging. They're the actual artists here, I just came up with the silly idea. I really hope it brings out that inner "toy kid" in everyone when they finally get to hold it.

 

It might seem like I only complain about toys these days, but there are some toys I actually like. Like this guy! It was fun to read the story behind its creation, Mudbelly seems like a labor of love. Can’t wait to see more of him!

 

love it, ordered

 

Personally, I’d like to see a red one with similar paint to this M1 Gorgos

Spoiler: M1 Gorgos

 

Very cool! Ordered the little fella.

 

@Roger Congrats on producing a thing of this scope, and also something so impressive.

to that. Coincidentally, the standard Bullmark Kingstron has the same-ish paint scheme as that M1, and can stand on it's hind legs in the same pose (!)