Joe's collection

Leyster wrote:

I saw your cetacean collection on ATF and it's truly impressive!

Thank you

Greetings from my semi-hiatus. I return to announce that I am retiring my MDS Sperm whale ornament in my collection.
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It served its purpose for over a year, but it's has outlive its purpose. A replacement is intended to be revealed by tomorrow evening.


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Until then, I proudly announce that the Kaiyodo Aqualand 1/35 Humpback Whale has a new paintjob. This time, I used an airbrush. It not only looks better, but it was done a lot faster than painting by hand.

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The new whale would have been revealed by now, unfortunately, one of the parts for the airbrush gun went down the drain of my sink. It still ''works'' but doesn't operate as precisely as I need it to for adding the finishing touches. The new airbrush gun won't arrive until tomorrow.

Welcome back, Joe!
Collections are made of choices, let's wait and see which new whale is coming.

Congratulations

Ohh, dear ! Drains can be very hungry

The new whale already looks beautyful. It is such an elegant species

I FINALLY GOT IT!

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Yes, I did it. I got my long coveted whale, however, it came at a great cost. I won it for a bid of 150,000 Japanese Yen/1300 USD. In order to meet that demand... I sold off my modded GBA and all my games for it, my Nintendo Switch, and my New 3DS XL... but it was worth it!

So, anyways, here it is. This whale has a total length of 63cm when accounting for the pose. This corresponds to a 22m individual at the marketed 1/35 scale. This may be inaccurate, as the largest excepted by experts is 20.7m. Records of larger individuals exist, but those reports are considered more suspect. On the topic of length-falsification in the whaling record, sperm whales were the greatest target of embellishment for whalers.

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This is how the sperm whale looked upon arrival. There's no hint of the seam across the forehead that's present on other listings of this assembled kit. They filed down the teeth to look more realistic. 4th pic is an example of the seam I mentioned on a another listing. However, I was not a fan of the paintjob. It looked good, but I didn't like it was near-pure black. I don't find that to be a good color for a sperm whale. Something closer to a gray with hint of brown is the best color IMO.

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I whipped out my airbrush and got going. Here's the final result. I wanted this whale badly, so I took many measures to adhere to the strictest attention to detail to ensure this didn't look half-assed and complemented the premium sculpt.

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The main body is colored using a medium-gray mixed with a bit of brown. The ''white'' accents are actually a light gray. My experience painting sperm whale figures and models was excellent experience going into this for my color choices.

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The inside of the mouth was something I'm proud of. I did some studying and knew a flat pale pink wasn't gonna cut it. Layered the roof of the mouth with layers of both pale pink and the ''white'' for the outside of the mouth. (OOH TOOTH SOCKETS!)

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I even brushed the teeth a pale yellow. However I suffered minor casualty of 3 teeth while trying to angle to airbrush right. Kinda sucks, but it's ultimately mitigated because it's very realistic for older sperm whales to have some missing dentition. Maybe I'll fix it later (or not).

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The only deviation from realism I allowed was the extension of the white accents to become full counter-shading. It's a very common aesthetical choice for owners of this model and I grew fond of it. Maybe some sperm whales actually look like this, who knows?

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There really is no substitute for this model for those looking for a large sperm whale as of today. As we're all well aware, the PNSO sculpture's head is too messed up for it to be worth $500 to me and the large one being sold by the Lanatimeshop is too big and has an excessively prominent keel.

I am so glad I found this figure for part of my collection. It drove me insane similarly to how Moby Dick did Ahab. Now I got it. BTW, I updated my collection with little stands. Now they're spatially oriented more interestingly.

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Despite this huge victory, I am not satisfied. I still aim to expand my collection much, much further. Though to be serious, I am gonna put modesty aside. As I currently stand, I am probably already among the most accomplished collectors of commercial whale models in the West.

There's probably not going to be any more whale-purchases for a while, but there's likely plenty of other creatures to further develop my little hall into a full Museum of Natural History.

Wow, that kit is amazing! Great acquisition:

Amazing colletion, amazing repaint, beauuuuuutyful models  


For example I love this comparison.
Perhaps the first time I have seen brilliant models of the same scale

cmj3 wrote:

ry in size, don't they ? )lined up together seen from above
[quote="cmj3"]....
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Congratulation withyou newcommer !!! And thankyou for shaing with us

It is absolutely remarkable all your effort to get this supreme whale!
You're surely a very devoted collector and you're taking your museum project quite seriously.
The most important is that you are really happy with your acquisition at the point that you intend to expand your project. Your excitement and dedication are priceless!

Roger wrote:

It is absolutely remarkable all your effort to get this supreme whale!
You're surely a very devoted collector and you're taking your museum project quite seriously.
The most important is that you are really happy with your acquisition at the point that you intend to expand your project. Your excitement and dedication are priceless!

Yeah, even though my whale collection is pretty immense, I've seen plenty of folks, especially on the DTB forum, with collections that ultimately dwarf mine in sheer taxonomic coverage. I am still trying to map out my path, but right now I am working on getting into PNSO's marine reptiles and sharks.

I have always absolutely adored whales and your collection is so impressive!! I love the comparison with the Blue, humpback, and sperm whales! They are really massive models

Wow those are so large and beautiful! Really more sculpture than figure at this point, maybe.

Very impressive Spermwhale!