Black Friday finds

If you managed to get out of the turkey induced coma you probably went shopping.
Lucky I did and I finally got a personal mini holy grail. Now you have to understand, I don't scour stores on the reg for new toys, I just walk in on any given day and see what they have. So to find ANYTHING that I'm looking for on a Black Friday is pretty amazing, and my find is pretty amazing.

DOOM!

Yes my personal mini holy grail is the Marvel Universe Secret Wars 2-pack with Dr. Doom. While MOST people seem to have him, I had yet to get him. I've never seen one in the "wild" and I check 2 Toy R Us' whenever I get the chance. Obviously scalpers and kids usually found them before me but that was okay because my patience paid off. I just walked in, saw that TRU had NO new figures other than a Team X Wolverine (yay..., ANOTHER Wolverine... ) and a peg full of 2-packs with a Hulk/ Cyclops in the front. Feeling that they MAY have something I decided to check the peg and there, lo and behold was the mighty Dr. Doom with his pal Absorbing Man. I quickly took him off the peg and I was off to acquire my find. So now not only did I find Dr. Doom but I've completed my Marvel Universe Secret Wars collection, something I'll never do with the Greatest Battle 2-packs. After all I really don't need more Iron Man and Wolverine figures.

Who is this Zod?
Kneel before DOOM!

The evil that lies within

Guess what I got in the mail today?





It's funny but until you actually hold an Inhumanoid figure in your hands you have NO idea how big these figures are. Makes me wish I still had Krusher. Does anyone remember Krusher?

Random pic of the week

Deep Cover update

Awhile back I mentioned that was working on a custom of a
Japanese Transformers exclusive Deepcover.
So I thought I'd share some of the progress.

Here are the pieces I cobbled together from the Sideswipe that I ended up warping when I attempted to dye him black and the currently available Red Alert. As you can see I still had an undyed roof from Sideswipe.



















After applying 91% Isopropyl Alchohol to the red paint areas It came off REALLY easily.
After awhile I got to this point.

Next update: black paint applied.

Blood for the BARON!!!!

After getting the 2010 GI Joe Con Action Force attending exclusives, I figured I need a villain for them. So who better than the Baron himself?

Can't wait for him to show up in the mailbox!

Pity the foo'!

This is a retro post which have been posted back in June but for various reasons I've been sitting on it. 



When Jazwares announced that they were making figures for the new A-Team movie I was pretty excited. I have the original 80's team from Galoob but they used tooling exactly like the 1982 G.I. Joes, no arm swivel and swivel neck. It didn't help that the sculpting was average and were made worse by have all of their lips painted red. Yes. The 80's A-Team figures wear lipstick! All kidding aside these new figures are pretty cool by today's standards.



Unlike the 80's figures these are sculpted really well. While they are not totally spot on with the likenesses of the actors they are done well enough to recognize who is who, and this isn't even for all the figures. The worst figure sculpt-wise is for Murdock and that's because his cheek bones seem rather high. But as I mentioned before the likenesses come really close. Even their clothes details are excellent. Murdock has pockets that have gravitas to them, Hannibal's shirt has folds, Face has suit has buttons and and even the folds and wrinkles in B.A.'s jeans, all little details which help to breath life into these characters. One other minor thing is that all their arms seem a little thin to me but I can work around that.




Now while the sculpting was terrific on these figures the painting is a crap shoot. I say this because the painting is either really good on the whole figure, partially good, or just non-existant. For example, Murdock is painted extremely well and what I believe is drybrushing, really helps to accentuate the details of his jacket and pants, but Hannibal is lacking any of this detailing from the waist down. And his shoes are even the same color as his legs. And to take it even further Face is pretty much naked as far as detailing with paint goes. Even BA has some excellent drybrushing on his jeans but his lacks any depth. Either way overall the painting is pretty good just sure to check the figure before you buy them. My score is a 7.



I'm not gonna say much else because the articulation is pretty standard compared to a Star Wars figure but also borrows swivel wrists from G.I. Joe and ball and socket joints from Marvel Universe. Overall, not bad.



I gotta say, I'm impressed that Jazwares made such excellent figures. Not to knock on them or anything but I've never really bought, let alone looked at (I think) any of their figures, so as a first time purchase of any of their products, I am impressed. I feel as if they put out quality product on par with Hasbro and really hope they put out more like this.

OMG! Have you seen the size of your butt Cosmos?

Happy Birthday America!!

Happy 4th of July. Nothing says patriotic like new GI Joes.
I'd have Gung-Ho stand but he needs a O-ring!

The Sands of Time

So I finally broken down and bought some Prince of Persia figures. I was skeptical when they announced them because they are made by McFarlane Toys, who for most of their lifetime, has made, in my honest opinion, limited articulated statues as opposed to action figures, but with these figures it's quite the opposite.

These figures surprise me as they have 14 points of articulation, which is 9 more points of articulation than any other McFarlane Toy I've ever seen. On a side note; while I know it sounds like I'm bashing McFarlane, I'm not really. I actually have a great deal of respect for the man and the company. I just think they should stop calling their products "action figures". If anything they are more like statues with odd, unnecessary points of articulations. These points of articulation are accompanied by the wonderful, detailed sculpting which they are famous for. See, I can say nice things about McFarlane Toys! The sculpting is very detailed even down to the rubber capes, which are not so heavy that they make it fall back. Though I do have a few quibbles in this department. Prince Dastan's neck seems to be a bit thick, otherwise, a great figure. On all the figures they have a ball and socket hip joint which makes it difficult to position them to sit. So on a scale of 10 I give these figures a 10 for scuplting and a 8 for articulation.

The next category is accessories. While these figures are full of rich sculpted details they are really lacking in department, especially at $7.99 a figure. The prince comes with two swords, different from each other but well detailed and nothing more. I was rather disappointed that the Dagger of Time was NOT included and is only available with Prince Dastan in his desert garb (w/or w/o the horse) and not his warrior version which I purchased. Zolm who is a the lead Hassansin (Idk what this means I just read it off the box), comes with a simple but detailed sword and an odd snake shaped dagger or something of the sort. It doesn't seem like much of a dagger but the details... whoa! I forgot to mention that both figures have scabbards to put away their swords, always a nice touch. And lastly Setam who is also a Hassansin. He is supposed to come with a sword but to be honest, I think someone messed up and he doesn't come with one as it says on the box. There's no molding for a weapon on the plastic tray which hold the figure in the packaging and not scabbard to put a sword away into. VERY disappointing McFarlane... AS far as accessories go, I give them a 5 because they're nice but the fact that one figure has nothing just brings the group score down.

Lastly we have packaging. I know what you're thinking: why packaging? And the answer is simple. The packaging is part of the appeal for any toy. It grabs peoples attention on the shelf or pegs and it helps describe the world that the toy exists in. It explains what a character in the packaging does and what where they are going. Without this explanation it's just a hunk of plastic. Unfortunately, these figures are pretty much that until I see the movie. I mean yes, I've see the trailers, so I know a thing or two about Prince Dastan but Setam and Zolm are absolute mysteries to me. Are they allies, are they villains? Who are these guys in the world of Prince of Persia? As for the design/ attention grabbing of the packaging, it's not so bad. They don't have any information about the characters themselves, the world they exist in or even about the movie itself but it does show you the whole collection of toys. It's a small collection but it's all there. This is the only highlight to the packaging as the blister card and bubble are rather blah. Yes, I just used blah as an adjective. To me it looks like a lazy designer decided to take a standard card and just have cut at angles to make it look more exciting and failing at that objective, same with the bubble. It's kind of a shame since I have seen packaging WAY more visually interesting with their other figures. Perhaps Disney has something to do with this? I don't know. Overall packaging score, a 5.

After all is said and done this line, from what I own, which is most of the line, has an average score of 7. Which means they're not bad figures, they are actually great figures, they just lacking in accessories and in packaging. Which if you take your figures out of the packaging gives the a score of 7.66 (taking out the packing score) but just to make it even I'll say an 8. Well done McFarlane Toys, well done. Now make some Spawn figures like this and we'll be in business!

Memorial Day

Just thought I'd salute, with the newest additions to my GI Joe collection, all the men and women who have fought in the name of liberty and justice for all. Thank you.