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!