Nausicaa Of the Valley of the Wind

If you're unfamiliar with Hayao Miyazaki's (he's also responsible for Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away among others) Nausicaa manga do your self a favor and buy the DVD or even better buy Viz's collected graphic novels.  The artistry and storytelling are world class.  I consider Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Nausicaa to be the big three in fantasy sagas.  And, I put Nausicaa before Tolkien, since Miyazaki drew the entire manga himself, in addition to the writing. The story takes place a 1000 years in the future, in a world devastated by nuclear apocalypse.  Ecological disaster is at hand in the form of an ever expanding toxic forest and the giant insects that inhabit it.  Mostly, the story concerns a series of wars that the remaining humans wage against each other. Anyway, Nausicaa here is a princess in a small kingdom and the central character.  Her mount is Kai, a Horseclaw. Horseclaws and all the creatures in the series are descendants of genetically designed animals from before the cataclysm.  The small animal on her shoulder is Teto, a fox-squirrel. I found the Japanese model on Ebay about 3 years ago, started it but put it aside until a month ago.  I figured with the upcoming release of the DVD it be a good time to finally finish it.  Its supposed to be 1/24 scale but the horseclaw iseems a little small.  The figure is about right, though, she's actually almost the same scale as Star Wars figures. This is probably the best paint job I've ever done on a figure, I'm very pleased with it.  March 2005

Some shots of Kai without all the equipment