My G3 Frankie light repaints.
I haven’t sealed anything with Mr. Super Clear yet, so things are a bit shiny. More pictures under the cut.
Basic G3 Frankie I repainted their lips to a more similar pink color used in their outfits, painted their fingernails, and lightly restyled their hair to look more like their show counterpart. I also added real piercings to all of my Frankie’s eyebrows (it looks muuuuch better in my opinion).
Their new skin color and color pallet have grown on me (I really miss their neck bolts though). I love their robotic leg too and their increased height.
Coffin Bean Frankie has an interesting face up (mine had lots of hot pink paint splatters on their face when I got them-luckily acetone fixed that). I feel like their Skulltimate Secrets’ hat went perfectly with this outfit, added some black and silver paint to their finger nails, C+F to their robotic leg’s heart, and then I added a lot more paint to their shoes.
Surprisingly, the Ghoul Spirit dolls have been some of my favorite of Frankie, Cleo, Torelai, and Draculaura (I like Ghoul Spirit Clawdeen’s hair length and center part, but their make-up is meh and their insistent use of poly brings down their doll for me). It would have been perfect if they had flocked their shaved side (if I ever get an electric grass applicator, I’m definitely doing this). I repainted their lips to match I <3 Fashion Frankie’s (my favorite from G1), painted their earring, added black to their nails, and a bit of a black wash to their robotic leg, along with “Cleo” to the inside of their heart doodle on their leg.
Also, the skullete’s on their collar came off the second I handled it. I could add some silver to the studs on it, but it’s fine for now.
I added paint to a bunch of their accessories to help their details pop. Frankie’s newer shoe molds are getting pretty detailed (like the little franken-monster and a bolt of lighting on their Skulltimate Secret shoes). Their bags are meh, but I really like the bolt earrings and their phone case.
Since Coffin Bean Frankie came with a silver, wingless Watzie, I decided to turn it into a Watzit (I might make some wings for him later). I was really happy with how his little stitches came out (especially on his tummy and around his eye), and tried to paint it to look like his mouth was open too.
Watzie also got some additional paint to match his animated/concept drawings a bit closer. I really like the size and stylization of most of the pets in this generation too in comparison to their G1 counterparts (not that I disliked them, these just feel a bit more cohesive to me).
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bug toys!
alright, here’s my mini-guide to getting into the world of Weirdly Articulated, almost entirely Japanese bug toys.
some caveats:
1) most of these toys aren’t great for kids. they have a lot of small lose-able, breakable, poke-able parts and can fall apart pretty easily.
2) i’m in the US, so i’m not quite sure how to acquire these things if ebay and Buyee don’t work for you
3) ‘bugs’ for the purpose of this guide (and entire blog tbh) is any invertebrate
why would i want fake bugs when i can get real bugs?
1) fake bugs don’t die and can be neglected forever. they will never bite, sting, poop on you, or be stinky (unless you make them stinky)
2) fake bugs can be handled constantly, they will not get stressed out or pick up any germs from you
3) fake bugs can be much larger than real bugs, or be species that would be impossible or unethical to own or breed. they can even be fun made up creatures
4) fake bugs don’t require any kind of tank, substrate or food, and they will not breed uncontrollably (or at all)
5) they cannot escape and become an invasive species
6) buying them doesn’t support shady or unethical ‘breeders’ who just take bugs from the wild (not saying all bug breeders do this, but it’s definitely a problem with certain kinds of bugs)
this is not to discourage any responsible bug-culturing you might want to get into, but for me, as a pretty depressed person without a lot of space, these are all big plusses!
onto the fake bugs
ikimono encyclopedia
unfortunately these photos will be some dark toys against dark backgrounds because i am a goth bastard and everything i own is black. sorry.
so, these being Japanese toys, I’m not entirely sure of the correct terms for them. these are pretty much just the search terms I’ve discovered over time that work to find them. as far as I can tell, Japan LOVES bugs and has a very enviable appreciation for them, they don’t seem to be considered nearly as gross or weird or bad as they are in the west.
these are a series gachapon or capsule toys. you can get all kinds of awesome little toys, which are often strangely detailed and often high quality, from vending machines in Japan.
here are some current listings from ebay to give you an idea of the variety and prices:
they also have a lot of cool fish and reptiles in this series. prices can be a bit steep, but you’re usually buying the whole set of toys pictured, not just a one-off. they’re usually a few inches, pretty well painted and articulated, and come as individually wrapped kits you have to put together. i will say, sometimes it is hard to snap the legs into place, so if you have hand/joint issues you might need some help putting them together. usually, a lot of these toys might be the same model but repainted, and sometimes there’s duplicates. the two mantises in my photo are from a set of 6, and there were 3 sets of 2 identical boys, so I could display one with the wings out and another one folded. they’ll also sometimes come with a little piece of clear plastic and a stand you can pose them on top of.
just from the sheer variety they offer, and relative affordability, this would probably be my first recommendation for getting into bug toys. they have beetles, mantids, caterpillars, wasps, ispods, crabs... i’d love some myriapod sets but we’ll see!
i usually grab these guys off ebay. they’re also available on Buyee and there may be more, cheaper options over there, but I’ve noticed with the import/holding fees, buyee and ebay come out to be about the same most of the time. (for anyone confused, Buyee is an English import service that lets you buy stuff off Japanese sites and auctions, since a lot of Japanese sites only want to ship inside Japan)
these are also just the gachapon bug toys from one specific company. there’s OTHER companies making other sets of really good bugs but I’ve had so much luck with just this one term I haven’t branched out much yet.
Fujimi Living Thing Arc
these are slightly bigger models made out of slightly harder plastic (well, the mantis is bigger; beetles are about the same as the ikimono guys) that are a bit more intricate to put together. they come with assembly instructions, but of course they’re in Japanese. you can pretty much follow along with the pictures though. the painting details aren’t quite as nice, but they have a bit more articulation. not as many choices with this set, though they do have a crawfish I wanna snag. they also have some goofy JP style monster dinos.
i bought these guys off hlj.com but it looks like they’re on ebay(and buyee as well I’m sure)
Revoltech RevoGeo
you’ll probably recognize this name if you’re into transformers or other toy collecting. these guys are gonna be by far the most expensive ($90-$120+) but they are extremely large and high quality. this one is super articulated, the individual leg joints and mandibles move, wings move, about the only thing that isn’t articulated are the individual little tarsomeres/feet segments or the abdomen segments. not as much choice here either, I think they have a beetle, ants, crab and a scorpion plus this wasp. these also come mostly assembled, you can usually just snap the wings on or maybe swap out a few parts (iirc this gal’s stinger can be removed)
i got her off bigbadtoystore.com, though they may be available cheaper elsewhere. BBTS is infamously a bit pricier than other toy stores but they’ve always been very reliable and quick for me.
this BIG isopod
this one won’t be as helpful. these may be part of the same series as the ikimono (they were just labeled bandai gachapon) but they are much larger, this guy’s like 5″, came fully assembled and is pretty articulated. they can even roll into a ball! all their little legs move! i’m pretty sure they’re meant to be one of the large deep sea isopods and man, a 1:1 revoltech model of one of those would be a dream.
completely fake bugs!
had to share my little starship trooper warrior bug collection :^) the big one and the one directly under it are 90s kenner toys I believe, the bottom-right one is a funko, the red one is from a tabletop set, and the guy on the left is a figma model that is unfortunately ridiculously expensive nowadays.
one nice thing about fake real bugs: there is not a crazy collectors market for this so this stuff should stay pretty affordable. unless real normal bugs somehow become a huge pop sensation i think it’s just us weird nerds that are into them.
other search terms to try:
bandai insect
insect gachapon (or gashapon)
nature gachapon
that way you may be able to track down listings for individual toys that should be a bit cheaper! here’s a sample what bandai insect got me on ebay:
happy fake bug collecting!
you may noticed I haven’t mentioned one form of bug that has a lot of the same advantages as plastic bugs: dead pinned insects in shadowboxes. i do have some of these, but i am reluctant to support places selling them nowadays because few are ethically or responsibly sourced, and the same sellers often kill and sell endangered bats and other vertebrates for display. plus mites got into half the ones i had and turned them into dead bug dust. if mites ever develop a taste for plastic i will be sad about my collection but the world will be saved from a lot of nasty garbage so it would ultimately be a Plus.
so unless you personally know the person that pinned the insect, i would be very cautious about buying dead things from random online stores or dealers at ‘curiosity’ or ‘oddity’ shows and things like that, since it’s all sourced from alibaba and whatnot anyway. i swear i saw like 5 different people selling the same dead octopuses in orbs at the last curiosity show i went to. they are cool, but i have no idea where those octopuses came from and i doubt the people selling them did either.
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