Break / Fitness.

The last two months or so I have had a bit of a break from art.  The Mumm-Ra painting did not go well at all.  The paint would not take to the card and it just was not going the way I wanted.  But I have learned from my mistakes and I know what to do next time.
Taking advantage of the good summer weather I have mostly been focusig on getting fit again.  At the start of the summer it took a lot out of me do 3 to 4 Km.  I had a goal (16 Km) and through hard work almost everyday I achieved it.  I worked up to doing 5.  Then I did a week of 6 everyday.  I then progressed to 8 every day.  around the end of July/ early August I was doing 10km every session.  after a week or more doing that I knew I was ready.  I knew I could go the distance and do 16 Km.  16 Km is 10 Miles and to be able to go 10 Miles was my goal.  One Friday I dicided to go for it and I did.  I then continued doing this several days in a row.  I am now doing 16 Km in 1 hour, so I am very, very pleased with that.  Although to be honest now I have achieved it my sessions have bee sporadic, but I am going to be doing it daily again soon.

Blitzkreig Combnation Big Dai X review.

This is a review I wrote for CollectionDx about a year ago.  For some reason though I cannot access it to look at it or repl to the comments I got.  I got a friend to copy and paste it to me in an email and I am putting it up here so I can see it when I want....at e end of the day its my review, I wrote it and I took all the pictures.
Here is a link if you wish to read it on their site.  http://www.collectiondx.com/toy_review/1980/blitzkreig_combination_big_daix

Name Blitzkreig Combination Big Dai-X Manufacturer Takatoku Toy Line Number Release Date 1980 Materials Diecast ABS Scale Category Robot Toy Chogokin Series X-Bomber Character Design Go Nagai Toy Design SRP Fetish Combiner Origin Japan Comments Share

Review by Mark M

This is my first review, and I am not totally sure where to start.

I guess the beginning is as good as anything..... 1988, the year we got our first VCR. We went to get some videos. On that day I got 2 videos, one was Fraggle Rock, the other was Star Fleet- Space Quest for F-01 (I still have both videos in immaculate condition). Since then I have had a love of Star Fleet, and in particular, the robot from the series, the Dai-X. Originally called X Bomber in Japan, it was re-named Star Fleet for the UK and it aired in ’82. One notable difference between the UK and Japanese versions is the UK’s superior theme music.

Back then I wanted a toy of Dai-X so much. Flash forward to December 2002, I was starting collecting G1 Transformers, Thundercats, and dabbling with MOTU, G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K. and various other 80’s toy lines. At this time I was getting a UK based magazine called Model and Collectors Mart, which always reviewed figures, and had articles on old toy lines and adverts for various shops around the UK and some State side. To my utter amazement in the advert for Offworld (long since out of business), pictures of their shop and contact information, there it was... Dai-X. Not just Dai X, but ALL the various Star Fleet toys. This set about an internet search finding out all I could about Star Fleet. What I discovered was, it was originally called X Bomber, there were various toys made, and they were far too expensive. At this time I called Offworld and found out the Blitz Krieg Combination Big Dai-X went for around £200 MISB. At the time, for an unemployed 17 year old College Art student, the prices for any of the Dai-X toys were far out of my price range for one toy. I finally bit the bullet and used some cash from selling various Transformers, etc. on eBay to purchase the one robot I always wanted, Blitz Krieg Combination Big Dai-X! Big shout out and thanks to Albert Penello.

Now, enough of my story, and on to the review. For arguments sake I will be referring mostly to the English names.

BRAINCOM/ Brainder - Piloted by Shiro Hagen. 

 

The smallest of the three ships forms the head of the mech. It is pretty light, and aside from the front section, not the most interesting of the group. It has two missile launchers. It also has retractable landing wheels made of metal and plastic. I wish the cockpit had been made of translucent blue like the other ships. Braincom is definitely the least show accurate of the three, but then that is not necessarily a bad thing; otherwise it would just be the head with the face opened up. All in all a nice ship, but not the best of the three.

MAINBODY/ Jumbody - Piloted by Barry Hercules.

 

The second largest ship forms the body for the mech. Packing the most diecast of the three, the entire front and back sections are made of metal, like a metal armor clam shell. It also has metal and plastic landing gear, and boasts a beautiful, ingenious way for the landing gear to retract. It also has two missile launchers on top. Unlike Braincom, this is quite show accurate... having said that, for it to be show accurate it involves kind of being left between ship and body. It is a great ship and definitely my second favorite of the three. Also just to point out the missile launcher canopies, which open to reveal the missiles, are featured in the show.

LEGTRAX/ Legstar - Piloted by John Lee.

 

The largest of the three ships forms the legs. Legtrax also has a lot of diecast, nearly as much as Mainbody. It has two missile launchers on both sides, which can be rotated, and both front sections are also projectiles. Like the other two, it has the metal and plastic landing gears, but Takatoku included the same feature as on the Macross Valkyries, the nail hurting spring loaded landing gear. This is definitely my favorite of the 3 ships.

Now for the Main Event....

DAI-X.

Standing at 12” (well 11.5” to be exact) Dai-X is an impressive robot. Dai-X was designed by Go Nagai, and is caught somewhere in between the classic super robots of the 70’s and the mecha from the 80’s, which just makes him all the more cool, in my opinion.

The head is very reminiscent of the Gundam robots.

First off, he is heavy; the chest, back and lower legs are made of diecast. He also has a lot of nice chrome parts.

He definitely has shelf presence, and unlike a lot of combining robots, he has a unified color scheme much like Transformers Devastator, or Ideon. Articulation is very limited by today’s standard, but has better articulation than many other robots of the time. He has ratchet shoulder joints allowing his arms to do a full 360 degree turn and rise fully out to the side. That is pretty much it.

Like a lot of robots from this time he has the signature firing fists. Having said that, only the right on mine seems to work, but the left fist is definitely designed to be fired like the right. He also packs a lot of fire power with six operational missile launchers.

He also has spinning blades, a large black sword, and a beautiful large chrome sword.

For me this toy has been nothing but so much fun to finally own and play with. The only negative drawback to the whole toy is the price... I would love to own a mint boxed one, but I just can’t bring myself to part with that much money. This cost me £294, then an added £70 for customs charges.

Would I recommend him...Yes, if you are a fan and you can afford him and, like myself, really must have him. Aside from this there are only a few other Dai-X toys on the market and this is by far the best of all of them. He is a big brick of a toy, but a very nice looking, heavy, fun brick of a toy.

I hope this review exposes many more to a somewhat unknown show and amazing robot which dearly deserves a modern update in Bandai’s Soul of Chogokin line or CM’s Corp brave Gokin etc. Judging by Bandai’s S.O.C. Ideon, they could do an amazing job on Big Dai-X.

P.S. X Bomber had a much larger fan base in the UK than most people realized. On TV at the time, it was rivaling Gerry Anderson’s Terrahawks. It was so popular that rock legend and Queen guitarist Brian May did a cover of the theme tune and released an EP with fellow rock legend Eddie Van Halen called Brian May’s Star Fleet Project. How many shows can boast that, and how many robots can claim to have been featured on an EP cover? Exactly.

Star Fleet the complete series is now available in a beautiful collector’s box set in the UK, released by Fabulous Films.

View the full image album

Author Information

Mark M

Country: Northern Ireland

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Mumm-Ra, so far.....

Well thisis the basic outline etc I have done for the Mumm-Ra painting.  I have made a few alterations since this picture was taken but I plan on starting the painting either today or tomorrow morning.  I had done another Mumm-Ra but I was not 100% happy with it but I was working on....but then I made a mistake and undercoated the card with the wrong paint LOL and the acrylic was just not taking to it, every brush stroke was taking more off than it was putting on so I scrapped it started fresh with the drawing above.  I think this drawing captures the look of Mumm-Ra I remember from the cartoon.  I added a little pendant to the robe with his snake logo.....not sure if I will keep it, thats my personal pouch...it might be better to keep it 100% 80's.  I am also not sure about the spirits of evil in the back ground, I might not keep them either. 

Mumm-Ra...started?

The first in my 80's cartoon series is going to be Mumm-Ra from the Thundercats cartoon.  I meant to start him yesterday but had too much on so its going to be today.  At present its in my mind, but on the easle just plain white card LOL....when I get the basic drawing done then I can say its started.  Next update post will have pictures.

The 80's= LOADS of new work :D

As you may or may not know I love animation, especially the cartoons of the 80's.  I used to watch Rolf Harris and he would always draw the cartton characters like Woody Wood Pecker, Elmer Fud and Bugs Bunny etc.  This was one of the biggest influences when I was young as I would do the same.  Even though I was about 4, I was drawing (too the best of my ability at the time) Lion-O and other Thundercats, He-Man and Skeletor and the Masters of the Universe and Bravestar and Optimus Prime and all the other Transformers.
Also growing up I had a good collection of Transformers, G.I. Joe and Thundercats comics.
As you may know the toy packages these toys came in all had very impressive art work on them....and that is the urpose of this post.
Sitting draing those cartoon characters was brilliant fun.  I want to keep my art fun so in between commissions I am going to produce various pieces of art work based on the 80's cartoons I grew up with.  I have loads and loads and I mean buckt loads of ideas to work on.

Daniel and Harry.

The work load is really picking up now.  I got another commission.  This time from my Aunt and Uncle to produce a portrait of their two grandchildren as a suprise for their son.  This took a few hours each day for about four or five days to complete.  My Aunt and Uncle want another one done ths time for them.  :D 

Also just to point out I am extremely happy with the Scooby Doo on the T-shirt.  When I was young and drawing all the variou cartoon characters, I found Scooby a bit dfficult.....but that was probably due to the fact I had no image to look at it was just in my head from having watched the cartoon, but I was only five back then LOL.

Father's Day= Mussenden Temple

My Mum and Dad love my pencil drawings, so to go with the Monk dvd set I did this for my Dad.  He has been at me for ages saying I should do a sketch of the temple.

Commission portrait.

This is a commission potrait I did a few weeks back of a local tenager, Jonathan Cairns, who was murdered in April 1999.  A friend of the family commisioned me to produce tis as t is going to be a Christmas present for them.



Clouds Over Rocky Beach

I completed this piece a couple weeks back buthaven't had thr time to upload it until now.  I usually do landscapes in oil but this is acrylic.  Over all I am very happy with the way it turned out.  I especially love the colours in it.  

Randy Savage Sketch

Following the sad news on Friday night of the death of Randay Savage, one of my all time favourites, I decided to do a sketch of him on Saturday morning.  A larger painting to capture the true essence of 'The Mach Man' is in the works.

Dennis Wilson Sketch

Sat down the other night and did a pencil sketch of Dennis Wilson.

Hello

Hello,
Welcome to my blog.  I am trying to construct a website but it takes time and for some reason its not coming up on google searches so I now have a blog.
The Blog will mainly be to keep you up to date with my art work various other things like film reviews, book reviews, and of course my interest in vintage action figures.
Enjoy.

Mark Moore.