Back in the early 80's, there was a sudden influx of giant robots from Japan. Transformer toys were the vanguard, slipping in unnoticed at first disguised as american Hasbro toys, but gradually importers began to bring in the big guns from Imai, Nitto and Bandai. Very soon, model shops were flooded with the latest releases from importer Amerang and my piggy bank was emptied on a weekly basis. Star Wars had made sci-fi cool again, but it was still a western interpretation of space, the likes of Macross, Robotech and Xabungle brought mecha designs that had previously only appeared in anime and comics. The Imai kits were usually giant 'mobile suits' as opposed to pure robots, i.e a huge suit of exoskeletal armour with a human operator - pretty much as we will see in the summer blockbuster 'Pacific Rim'.
This was still the pre-digital age, so i'd scour the mailing lists in the back of Space Voyager magazine for the latest releases and a lot of the time, buy blindly as the lists didn't include pictures and the incomprehensible japanese names gave no clue to what the kits where. The cartoons and manga that the kits hailed from wouldn't arrive on our shores for another ten years.
The photos shown here are the results of my experimenting with the (then) new Canon Sureshot camera and a handfull of kits in my mums garden. At the time, I was taken with a high speed monochrome film, that if processed in a colour bath, gave beautiful rich sepia tones.Unfortunately for this sequence, Boots had obviously not read the label and just did a standard black and white run!
Very convincing shots, Bill! At the time I bought two or three Macross kits as well, just because those particular models looked as if they -could- exist, much like Star Wars walkers and very much as opposed to the articulated-jet-fighter-on-legs also popular at the time. Gave them the full treatment of scribble camouflage, Zimmerit, weathering, the works and that looked pretty good too. Thanks for reminding me of those. :) -- Paul
ReplyDeleteLovely monochrome pics Bill. Very atmospheric. Like stills from a Toho movie! Personally I think they turned out great in Black and White. Sepia always makes me think of Sutcliffe, the Victorian photographer from Whitby!
ReplyDeleteWell i fpund momochrome hides the crap paint job
ReplyDeleteThey look great. I still remember discovering the Imai Macross kits in a gift shop in York back in 1983. Never seen anything like them before, and bought one of everything that came out. Over the next year or so found Imai kits of Megaro Zamac (even had a Star Wars AT-AT ripoff) and like you searched through the adverts in model mags and bought kits from Orguss,Lensman and Crusher Joe. Great times!
ReplyDeleteYep - got all the zamac kits and a few years later when the ass fell out the market and they turned up in pound shops everywhere, i bought them all again!
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