Of late, Bandai has been churning out some
REALLY substandard paint-jobs on their toys - I'm inclined to
believe that it's because they've realised that the toys will
sell anyway, regardless of shoddy workmanship. I've never
repainted a toy in my life, but when I saw how awful the
paint-jobs on the Season Three Digivolving toys were, I just had
to paint 'em up - particularly because it's very aggravating to
see fully-painted versions on the back of the packaging, which
only goes to show that Bandai is consciously making the decision
to not paint these toys in full. So, I took the time to also
paint the toys from previous seasons that had similar problems.
Unless otherwise specified, pictures of the original, unpainted
versions of these toys can be seen in their reviews.
Greymon was the first toy to have a paint-job
problem, but I believe that it was accidental, rather than being
a conscious decision to cut costs, be lazy, and screw fans over,
as the case with the more recent toys has been.
Greymon's problem was the stripes under his chin, and the stripes
on his chest (two of which extended out over his body a little)
were not painted in blue, and were left the base orange colour. A
mixture of blue, white and silver acrylic paint later, and they
were filled in:
A minor cosmetic change, that in honesty really doesn't add anything to the toy, but hey, I was repainting things, so I decided to do 'em all.
Paildramon was not missing too much in the way of paint - mainly, the spikes on his shoulder armour, and the prongs on his forearms were left the base black colour when they should have been silver, and the knuckles for his thumbs and his two middle fingers on each hand were left silver when they should have been black. I painted over them with acrylic paint, et voila:
Another minor change, but it just managed to bring Paildramon that little bit closer to his show appearance.
While Silphymon's missing paint was also rather minor, it affected the appearance of the toy badly, particularly in the Gatomon mode (and let's face it, it would be hard to make THAT look any worse, and yet they managed it). The problem was that the over-sized toes were left in the base yellow colour, instead of being painted grey. A quick application of some grey paint later:
Then, when that had dried, I flipped out the middle toe from its storage position and painted it:
I want to say that this helped the toy, but really, it's way beyond help already...
Growlmon was the first Season Three Digivolver
I bought, and I was utterly disgusted to see that so much of the
areas that should have been black were left unpainted. As noted
in the review of the toy (and shown in
the images accompanying it), I originally filled in the missing
spots where paint should have gone with a permanent marker, but
it decided that it didn't want to be very permanent, and tended
to come off on my fingers when I touched the toy, not to mention
that it smudged rather nastily.
So, before repainting Growlmon, I dampened a cloth with white
spirits, and gave him a good cleaning to remove the majority of
the pen. My specific aim was to remove the smudging, because I
could always paint over the pen, but if I had to paint over the
smudges, it would mean painting the entire toy. This was
successful, and Growlmon was ready to be paint. A fairly standard
procedure, with a reasonably fine brush a tube of black acrylic
paint, produced this:
Hard to tell the difference between this and
the pen-coloured picture on the review page, I know.
Then, once that had dried, I transformed the toy to WarGrowlmon
mode, and continued painting. I actually left the pen-marks on
his face intact, as they had not smudged, and the ink was now
definitely dry enough not to worry about that. There was actually
no black to do on WarGrowlmon - what had to be done instead were
the red tips of his "missiles," and the silver strip on
the side of each of his arm blades. A little work later:
The black is the primary change, and it improves the toy incredibly. I urge anyone with the toy to do the same. The silver and red parts are minor cosmetic changes, but add to the overall look.
The Gargomon Digivolver is definitely the best
of the first three Season Three toys in terms of paint-job
quality - yes, there is some missing, but not nearly as much as
on Growlmon and Taomon. Still, I wanted to improve the look of
the toy as much as possible.
Firstly, with a fine brush, and some silver paint mixed with a
little black, I filled in his belt buckle and the toe claws on
each foot. Then, with some brown, I painted over the hinge on his
body that his belt should overlap. Rather than just painting the
single middle hinge section, like on the back of the packaging, I
painted diagonally across it, to give the belt a less-interrupted
look. Then, with some blue paint mixed with a little while, I
painted in the turn-ups at the bottoms of his pants legs. I'm
very pleased with the result, although my brother insists he sees
no difference:
While that was drying, I mixed up some cream-coloured paint, and painted in the small sections that should be that colour on the Rapidmon side of the ears, which I had removed previously. I had also removed his legs, which I then transformed to Rapidmon mode. I painted the trim of the boots silver, and as much of the base of the foot that I could the same colour - I had to be careful not to paint too much, so it would not show up in Gargomon mode. When the paint was dry on all parts, I reassembled the toy, and put it into Rapidmon mode:
Disappointingly, I noticed that the foot hinge on Rapidmon's left leg is tighter than the other, and scraped a patch of the silver paint away. I tried applying a new layer, but that was scraped off as well. Still, I'm very happy with the outcome.
Kyubimon is possibly missing even more paint
than Growlmon, and yet she carries herself off better, as she is
more than two colours. Still, I was disappointed with the
paint-job, as it drags down what is an already poor toy.
The main colour that was missing was white - so firstly, after
disassembling the toy as much as I could to make the job easier,
I painted in all the areas that should be white - the tips of her
Kyubimon tails, her Kyubimon ears, her Taomon finger claws, the
upper rims of the panels at the tops of her pants legs, and the
white flecks in the black sides of the two painted Tao symbols. I
also painted in the four unpainted Tao symbols on her Kyubimon
hips and shoulders in white completely, to be painted over later.
When that was dry, I painted over the second halves of the
unpainted Tao symbols in black, and added the black flecks into
the white sides of the painted Taos.
While the main body dried, I also painted in several of the
missing stripes on Kyubimon's ornamental band in red.
Once the body was dry, I turned my attention to the biggest
problem the toy has - the ARMS. They were originally a stark
white, while the back of the packaging shows that they should be
a creamy colour - but even this is not entirely correct, as the
shoulders should be silver. Using the cream paint I had mixed up
to do Rapidmon's ears, I painted the sleeves, and set them aside
to dry.
While the sleeves dried, I moved on to the feet. The packaging
shows Kyubimon's front feet painted in yellow - but this is
incorrect for Kyubimon's design, as they should actually be
white. So, I simply left them the way they were. The back feet
were another story, though - for Kyubimon, as with the front
feet, they should be white, but they were clearly designed and
sculpted to be Taomon's feet, rather than Kyubimon's. The toes
were even painted black. So, I mixed up some yellow paint to
match the rest of Kyubimon, and painted the section of the foot
intended to be armour, leaving the toes and heels white
(technically for Taomon, this armour should be gold, but that is
simply too different from the rest of Kyubimon to do).
As the feet were drying, I went back to the sleeves, and painted
the shoulder armouring in the blackish silver colour I had mixed
for Rapidmon, and also painted the white hinge in the middle of
the belt in this colour. Once that was dried, I painted in the
Tao symbols and flame decals on her shoulder panels. Finally, I
painted a black rectangle inside the silver-painted hinge, to
replicate her belt buckle.
Overall, Kyubimon is affected little by this...
...though it does help her to more resemble her
show design. But she's such a jumble of parts that it's hard to
help her.
Taomon, on the other hand, is improved greatly by the paint job,
even though it's mostly on her sleeves. I declined to paint in
her black lips, as I think, and will always think, that they look
really, really dumb. I was VERY pleased with how this came out:
It's just a pity that the toy has so much kibble. The paint is suffering from some nasty scratches when the toy is transformed.
Not merely a touch-up job like the other toys so far, but rather a complete and utter repaint, to transform the toy into it's black counterpart. For the full skinny on this one:
That's all for now... I'll have to see what the paint jobs on the later figures are like...