PEGIRA FROM ULTRA-Q (1989)
The walrus-headed,
frost-breathing, wind-whipping, object-levitating, & black smoke-generating
Pegira first appeared in episode 5 of Ultra-Q, set in the frozen Antarctic.
The clever protagonists figure out that he's vulnerable to a substance derived
from a moss (Pegamin-H), and deliver a dose packed in a missile. He reappears
in episode 14, set in an unseasonably frozen Tokyo. Once again, Pegamin-H
comes to the rescue (there's also a subplot involving a kid, a down-on-his-luck
thief who used to be a pilot, etc., etc...) He was briefly resurrected as
Chandora in Ultraman (with the addition of ears), and gets gruesomely whupped
by Red King in the episode, "The Lawless Monster Zone" (where "lawless"
means that it's okay to tear off your opponent's wings).
Before starting my remodeling, I had lots of questions. It felt slightly
heavy for vinyl, the vinyl seemed very stiff, and the frontal detail seemed
a little soft. I wondered what was behind the paint: was it was a thick,
detail-obliterating accretion of paint layers and putty? Or was it just
the way that Billiken made things in 1989? I was hoping it was the latter
since I wasn't up for the tedious and messy job of stripping all the paint.
I stripped a small section from the bottom of a foot, and the paint seemed
to be a single coat. I did one more test-- I had decided to restore the
model back to Pegira, and had to remove paint and putty from the head.
This is what convinced me that the paint coat wasn't objectionably thick.
That's not a definitive test, but it's what I wanted to see. That meant
that I could treat the brown as a primer coat and paint over it. If there
were gobs of putty elsewhere under the paint, I didn't want to know about
it!
I decided to change the paint scheme to gray because I believe that this
is closer to the monster suit's color-- at least it seems to be true for
Chandora, from what I can tell from my poor quality video and a single
tiny color photo.
I haven't had very many
pleasant experiences with airbrushes, so this was a real shocker-- I actually
enjoyed airbrushing this! This was probably the first time that I haven't
had problems with paints instantly congealing in the nozzle, nasty spatters/spitting,
& apocalyptic spills. From start to finish, it was as easy as adding paints
to the color cup to change blends, with a little thinner added between
colors, and a final cleaning when I'd finished painting. I think that's
the way it's supposed to be. If I'd been a little more optimistic, I'd
probably have masked the nails, so that I wouldn't have had to clean them
up afterwards. Nevertheless, I'm pleased-- the paint's got some nice gradations
of gray and white over the brown, with a greenish and yellowish cast in
certain areas. It seems to bring out details that weren't apparent before.
This was another
reconditioning/repainting project from eBay. The original modeler had
added the Milliput ears and anchored them with piano wire (but apparently
they'd broken off and hadn't been reputtied/painted). The overall paint
job was strange-- it looked "hard" with a candy-like sheen.
Although it had lots of different shades, they seemed to be applied randomly
in patches, and as a result the features and detail were concealed in
the randomness. The eyes were crudely painted with too-thick paint and
the pupils had ragged edges, so at the very least, these would need to
be redone. The part that I really liked were the nails. These were far
yellower than any I'd ever seen or done, with a fantastic gradation of
brown to orange to yellow. I don't know why the tusks weren't painted
that way, but it makes me wonder about the history of this model: How
many hands had this thing gone through?
