Dragon*Con Toys

I made it to Dragon*Con for the first time this year. I have to say, it was a lot of fun, but boy was it crowded. Four hotels worth of people is a lot. I met cool new people, got to hang out with people I don't see often, and saw some people I hadn't seen since high school. I ended up wearing four different costumes, too. You can check out all my pictures from the con at my Flickr. I will be returning next year, but I do have to say that this is probably not my favorite convention, simply because I did find it too busy for my tastes, and I'm not into most of the fandoms there (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Firefly, Dr. Who). But regardless, I bought a ton of crap. The dealer's room is my favorite place no matter what con I'm at. Of course, the room was biased toward sci-fi/fantasy, with tons of leather goods, corsets, jewelry, dice, tabletop games, Cthulhu, etc. Again, I'm not into that stuff, which kind of limited my selection. I ended up buying 3 small toys, which I think are quite cute. The two colorful ones are from a series called "Wish Come True." Apparently these are designer toys from a company called Friends With You. They even have little videos made for the characters. The fun thing about the toys is that they're like Weebles, they rock but don't fall over, plus they have a little jingle bell inside them. I have to admit, I can't really decide if they are altogether cute or a little creepy. They get mixed reactions. If I find more, I'll continue to collect them. There's only six in the series. I like how colorful they are, and I really want Mr. TTT-He looks like a rainbow caterpiller. The other little toy I got was from a collection called "Cannibal Funfair." An interesting enough concept for me to buy one (plus, they were really cheap). I should mention that all these toys were in blind boxes, so I couldn't pick which one I wanted, I could only hope for the best. I have never cared for blind boxes, but I went ahead and tried my luck on these. Anyway, I ended up with Rolo, a little cannibal elephant. He's holding two sausages of what I can only assume to be elephant meat. The description says "They are a friendly bunch despite their love for eating people." I should point out, though, that cannibalism is the act of eating members of one's own species, not the act of eating humans. I have no idea why he has two extra feet, or why his nipples are pierced, but an interesting little figure nonetheless. There's 12 in this series, and I only find one or two of the others cute, so I doubt I'll continue to collect these. I will continue to look for other fun toys at the upcoming conventions, though! Two more to go this year!

Latest work

I just got finished with my second commission for the very sweet TrashedBabydoll on Etsy. This seemed like it took forever, just because I've been so busy lately. But it's done, and I think it came out well. She said she was inspired by the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, and luckily that's what everyone said they thought of when they saw the finished product! I'm kind of sad to part with her now. I think the black hair on white body is stunning, I'm going to remember that for the future. The skirt was Cheerilee's cheerleader skirt that was repainted in black and red, and it's detachable. I love being able to reuse pony accessories since I prefer my ponies to be naked. The pom poms are glued to rubber bands so that they can be detachable too. Oh, and I recently got a jeweler's visor, which makes painting those details much easier.

Spawn the Bloodaxe

I did it, I got a new Spawn figure. I had a really hard time deciding between the 3 pack of Spawns and this viking Spawn on a horse, but I thought the horse made this too cool to pass up. Next time I go to Heroes and Dragons, I'll get the three pack. Anyway, this is Spawn the Bloodaxe and Thunderhoof. Spawn is 7 and 3/4 inches tall with 23(!) total points of articulation. Thunderhoof is 8 inches tall with 12 points of articulation. Both the figures have full armor on, and Spawn carries a mace and a shield. Everything is cool about this figure, it's soooo poseable, Spawn comes on and off of the horse, the weapons can come out of his hands, the armor can come off the horse, and Spawn's outfit is kickass (I love the fur). The only, and I mean only, thing that is slightly sad about this figure is that I can't take off Spawn's helmet. A minor complaint. This is my favorite Spawn figure so far.

Current want

For some weird reason, I've really been craving octopus items lately. Especially stuffed animals. I saw this awesome one in RoDoZoO on Etsy.com. Too expensive for me right now, but man, I'm really jonesin' for it. That black and blue one is my favorite, but I also really like the Yum Yum Octopus.
I'm also crazy in love with this little crochet octopus family from Tilda & Filur. Too cute! I don't have the extra money to be spending on toys right now, though. :( Soon, I'm going to get rid of some things and hopefully have space and money for lots of cute things in my house!

Branching out

I like trying new things, and lately I've been looking for more crafty stuff to do. The ponies are fun, but I want to do more. Here's the thing: I get obsessed over things for a while and then I cool off. Right now I'm getting more into the customizing scene, and I want to do it all the time. Well, about a week ago, I was in Atlanta visiting a friend. Another girl that was there had a ball jointed doll. I fell in love with the thing. Dollfie is the biggest brand, but there are many others that are beautiful. The wonderful thing about the ball jointed dolls is the amount of customization that you can do. The back of the head pops right off so you can switch eyes, the hair is a wig that you can switch, you paint your own face/body makeup on it, and of course all the outfits you can switch around. And they are so wonderfully poseable! The pictures look so realistic, I am just astounded by the beauty of these dolls. The sad part is they cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. The cheapest ones are upwards of $275. And that's for a naked unpainted body.
*sigh*
I can't afford that kind of money for a hobby, that's why I like my $5 ponies. So I thought I would start with a cheaper doll. I went to the thrift shop and got some old baby dolls for a dollar each, took 'em home, washed them up and started going to work. I had to order new hair for one, the other one's hair was usable. I sewed her a new dress and fixed her all up. I learned a lot from doing this, and I can't wait until I get the hair to finish my other dolly.
I have a lot of questions still, so hopefully I can talk to an expert and get some answers about some things.

Anime ponies

Well, I haven't been collecting as many ponies lately, mostly because of the bad lineup this year, but I have been making quite a few customs. I started making customs a little less than a year ago, and few and far between at that. But recently I've been doing a lot more customizing. I enjoy it immensely.
A very fun thing that I just did was participate in my first custom swap over at mlparena.com. It was an anime/manga swap. I put out a list of the characters I liked, and I got someone else's list. Unfortunately, I really didn't know any of the characters on my partner's list, so I just had to pick which one I thought I could do the best (They were all pretty complicated). I ended up creating Iria from Iria:Zeiram the Animation. This was the most sculpting I think I've done, with a lot of little details to get right. I had to modify the outfit somewhat to form to a pony body, so that was another challenge. I used Sculpey for the armor, painted it with acrylic paint and then put a gloss varnish on it to make it shiny. The only disappointment I had with this pony was the hair. I don't think it looks great, what I really should have done was rerooted it all over her head to give it more body. But I've never done that and was kind of nervous, plus I had a time constraint and was cutting it close. So I ended up using hair wax to try to get it to stick up correctly. The beads were a bitch, too. I really did not know how to make those beads, I ended up just wrapping some clay around sections of hair and painting it. I couldn't harden the clay, though, so it's not the best job. If I were to do it over, I would use air dry clay for that part. But now I know. I learn new stuff every time I make a custom.
So what did I get in return? REI!
My partner did a GREAT job on her. Everything is perfect. I can't wait to do another swap, it was a lot of fun.

Megacon 08

So I went to Megacon a few weeks ago. It's a convention in Orlando, Florida. This was my first time, and it was different because this was an all around geek convention, not just an anime convention. There were a lot more comic book superheroes and sci-fi people there. Also the population was much older, which was good for me. All my pictures can be found on my Flickr.
The best part was the FREAKING HUGE dealer's room. And so! I ended up getting three new Evangelion toys. I wanted to finish my Revoltech collection, so I got Unit 01
and Unit 02. I got one of them at a real deal, too. The booth I got Eva 02 at had two women who were just watching it for someone else who had stepped away, and they really didn't know how much it was supposed to be, so they just threw out what they thought was a reasonable price, which happened to be $10 less than 01 had been. I wasn't going to argue with them. Thank you nice ladies. ^^

Now I'm really only missing Unit 00 to complete the set; however, I really really want to get the version of the mass produced with the Lance, and they also had a version of 01 which glowed in the dark! But I didn't get it because I wanted to finish my regular set first. (Probably be regretting that at some point.) The other Eva toy was a little bitty Sachiel figure. But I am leaving it in its box for now, until I can get a better display setup. I was scouring the place for a Venom, but no luck, unless I wanted to spend over a hundred. I'm not that rich. I'm trying to take about $200 to the next convention, and my list so far only should cost $50-75 so the rest is just impulse buy money. Woo hoo for irresponsibility!

Pony ranting

There's a lot of disappointment in the pony community lately. It seems that the G3 line is fizzling out. There are less and less variations in the new ponies, and we haven't yet seen any baby ponies, boy ponies, or seaponies. What we keep seeing are earth ponies, with an occasional unicorn or pegasus. Up until recently, I haven't been too bothered by it, I like the earth ponies just fine and there are enough pretty color combinations to keep me happy. The biggest things that have bothered me about the ponies are tinseled hair and the release of Ponyville sets.
Ponyville is like chibi My Little Pony. They come in little playsets and I guess are more fun for little kids. A lot of collectors seem to like them as well. I don't because I don't want a bunch of playsets in my house, they are all molded so there is no hair to fix, and frankly, I think they're kind of ugly. But ok, everyone has their different tastes, so I just don't buy them. Problem is, they are constantly updating and putting out new Ponyville stuff. Not so much for the regular MLPs, though.
Hasbro more recently broke collectors' hearts when they announced that they would be going to a "core 7" line so that little girls could feel connected to the characters. It makes sense, right? Think of any other toy line and there are "main characters." Up until now, only select ponies would be rereleased, so there are hundreds of different ponies to collect. Try remembering all of their names.
Of course, there would be occasional extra ponies, the "best friends" line to go along with the ponies, which could be the new stuff for collectors, at least that is the plan.
Except that the latest line up from Hasbro is their biggest disappointment yet. The core seven turns out to be:
Pinkie Pie
Rainbow Dash
Toola Roola
Cheerilie
Sweetie Belle
Starsong
Scootaloo
One unicorn, one pegasus, several ponies that aren't that common, and 2 that have already been rereleased too many times.
So ok, none of the ponies are my favorite, but at least they'll be released in different poses, with cute outfits and accessories, right? For god's sake, Barbie is still going strong and all she's got is different outfits. So I was expecting like "party ponies" "ballgown ponies" "career ponies" etc. But Hasbro fucked me again, since they decided to start making all the pony outfits rubbery, like Polly Pocket. EW. To accommodate the rubber outfits, all the ponies have to be in the exact same pose, which has prompted the term "My Little Clonies." I don't care for the accessories either, since they just clip on to the leg, as though the pony were "holding" it. I'd like to see more hair accessories and jewelry, personally.
Basically, Hasbro is hoping to draw more little girls away from dolls like Bratz and Barbie and get them onto ponies, but in the process they will probably lose some of their current collector market. I know that I'm not too happy about the new releases. I just hope the next line (which will be several months away) is better. In the meantime, this gives me a chance to backtrack and pick up some older G3s that I missed out on.

Classic Comic Covers Spawn

I just got this Spawn a few days ago at Heroes and Dragons, an AWESOME comic book store in Columbia, SC. They have a lot more Spawns that I want, but I have to wait until I have the funding. Heroes and Dragons has the best selection of action figures I've seen in a comic book store, but sadly they don't have that many anime figures. They have a big selection devoted to McFarlane Toys, with a shitton of Spawns. Whenever I go, I just stand in front of that section lusting over everything for a while.
This series of Spawn is based on comic book covers, and this particular figure was based on the cover of Hellspawn #1. The figure is 7" tall, and it actually does pose a little bit, with 7 points of articulation. No extra parts, but the gun and cape can go on or off. My least favorite part of this figure is the cape. It came in three pieces and had to be put together, and you can see the seams, which for me ruins the effect. Apart from that, this is a dead sexy figure. The painting is AMAZING, it looks so good, my pictures sure don't do it justice. Now, if I only had a place to display my Spawns properly, we'd be in good shape.

Next on my list of figures to buy is a Venom, but I have not been able to find a decent looking one ANYWHERE! And I don't want to buy one online unless I really really have to. They have some shitty ones at Wal-Mart but they're so ugly I wouldn't be able to stand looking at him. They have one that is pretty decent at FYE, the only thing I'm not crazy about is that it's the Spiderman 3 outfit, not the original outfit. I'll probably end up getting him anyway the next time I go, but knowing the way things work out for me, I'll never be able to find it again. I should learn my lesson and do more impulse buying so I won't have to go crazy looking for a figure a month later!

Spawn!

This was another instance of me trying to wait and having it backfire. I saw this Spawn figure at a Toys R Us in Spartanburg (apparently all the cool toys are there), but didn't want to spend the money then so I decided to hold off. Anyways, when I got some money, I desperately wanted this figure. So I went to every TRU, Target, Wal-Mart, Spencers, and Hot Topic in the area with no luck. Well, I finally made it back over to Spartanburg and they had ONE left (thank goodness). I snatched that bitch up and ran with it.
I have to say that I really love McFarlane Toys. The detail on their figures is great, especially for the price. This figure comes with two heads (one without the mask), and lots of guns. The only thing that I don't like is that it isn't poseable, but it's OK because he already comes in an awesome pose. Now if I could only find the Nightmare Spawn from this set...

Kubrick Toys

These are cute, but they aren't really my thing. I happened upon a few boxes of these at a flea market in Greenville, SC, and bought a box just because. They were cheap (1/2 price), so I didn't feel too bad about wasting the money. No, these are not Lego people. They're called Kubrick (as in Stanley). I didn't know that much about them when I bought these, but apparently they are pretty popular. The box I got has Yui, Gendou, Keel, and Adam. I'm not crazy about the way they look, but this line has several things going for it. The packaging is great (although it says on the front "2nd Angel" when that is clearly Adam), it opens up to a window view of the characters. Adam GLOWS IN THE DARK, which easily has to be the best thing about the toys.
The last thing that I really like about this set is that it comes with a background of the Seele "sound only" monoliths. I love backgrounds for my pictures. I think that more toy companies should insert a backdrop (it just has to be a printed paper insert, at the least) for collectors to use for photos. It looks so good, and I don't have to have a boring white background every time or photoshop a background in (which I'm generally too lazy to do anyway.)

Revoltech Mass-Produced Eva

I had my eye on a Mass Produced Eva figure that I saw in a comic book shop in Spartanburg, SC. Of course I didn't buy it right then because I thought "surely they'll have it at Anime Weekend Atlanta." Well they surely did not have ANY MPEs, which was a major disappointment (and why I had to buy 01 instead). So I had to go all the way back over there since I couldn't find it in any other store.
But damn, was it worth it. This has to be my favorite figure of all time. After working with the Revoltech, I am sticking to that line. Eventually I will have the entire set, instead of the mix-n-match set I have now.
This figure is 6" tall, comes with lots of hands, wings, and a stand (which, to mount, the Eva has to take up the butt) The posing is awesome! The joints snap into place, and move so easily.
The only thing I was disappointed about with this figure is that it didn't come with a Lance. Unfortunately, and I didn't realize this, there are TWO separate versions of the Mass Production Unit, one with wings and one with a weapon. Why oh why did they do this to me? I want wings AND a weapon, dammit! I have yet to find the weapon version (it comes with the Lance of Longinus and the Heavy Lance). It's a limited release version, which means I'll eventually have to end up buying it on Ebay. In the meantime, I'll still be looking for it at the comic shops and conventions and definitely start collecting the rest of the Revoltech figures.

Unit 01

So I ended up getting my next Eva toy a few months later, at Anime Weekend Atlanta. This was a Kaiyodo model of Eva Unit 01, a much nicer version. It cost $25, and stands about 7" tall. It comes with two different heads (good thing since the horn broke off first thing!) an assortment of weapons and hands and is poseable, with about 16 point of articulation. I found that it's a little bit hard to pose, she's kind of stiff and heavy, and sometimes the joints don't want to move, and sometimes her limbs fall off. But the absolute best thing about this Eva is that it comes with a little tiny Kaworu!

So that I can do poses like this:

First Eva toy!

I branched out of ponies for the first time less than a year ago, at Animazement. That is why the rest of my toy collection is so sparse right now. And what toy would I buy? Evangelion, of course! My all time favorite anime. So, not being a collector, I convinced a friend to buy the expensive model and I promptly got a $7 toy. It came in a little plastic egg, like the kind you get out of the 25 cent machine. It also came in about a bazillion pieces that I had to put together. It's called Ultimate Action Evangelion, although there's not much Ultimate about it. It's only about 4" tall, and well, looks like it costs $7. I wanted Unit 01, but they only had one broken one, so I ended up with Unit 02. The good thing about it is that it's very poseable, the bad thing is that its limbs often fall off. It came with some weapons that I think I lost, too.

Pony Collection

I guess I should start with my ponies, since that's the majority of my collection. I first got into collecting about 2-3 years ago, just getting one every once in a while. Like most kids growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, I had MLPs as a kid, but not nearly as many as I have now. As soon as I saw the pretty G3s in Wal-Mart, I had to have them. From there, I expanded slowly, and added in some G1s. However, and this is blasphemy to other collectors, I prefer the look of the G3 to the G1, so I'm sticking to them (with a couple select G1 ponies).
My collection stayed at about 5 or 6 for a long time, until a couple things happened.
1. I found the MLP Arena, which pushed me to get more involved in collecting
2. I got a real job, which added funds to the mix.

Now I have a little more than 60, and soon I'll be weeding out my G1s.

The problem is, I have nowhere left to put them. Soon I shall have to buy or build some sort of display case and move the ponies out of my room.

New Blog

All right! Something I've been meaning to do for a while - document my toy collection. The reason for this blog is mainly for me to have a place to ramble on about how awesome my new toys are without annoying all of my friends who have ceased to give a shit. It will also be pros and cons of toys and toy companies, if any other collector happens to stumble upon this. I collect an eclectic mix: mostly My Little Ponies, Evangelion figures, and Spawn figures. But don't worry, I plan on branching out once I have the funds available. I love collecting, but am not hardcore like some collectors (I don't like to cover every inch of space in my room with toys) and I just pick the ones I really like, I don't HAVE TO HAVE THEM ALL ZOMG!!! Well, for the next few days I will backtrack and list all some of the toys I've gotten. With pictures, no less!