Flea Martet Finds #30

Well After two days at Too Many Games I hit up the flea markets with my usual buddies. I bought a dado blade for my table saw, the first two seasons of Entourage on DVD and three great toys. I spent $7 for the three toys. I picked up two Sandtroopers from Star Wars and Bionatops from Master of the Universe. I felt like this was a great pairings of toy finds, since Bionatops looks kind of like a Dewback.

 

Bionatops is one of the dinosaur beasts released as part of the Powers of Grayskull series at the end of the original Masters of the Universe toy line. Unfortunatly he's missing two of his horns and his guns. I'm still happy to have him in my collection, and five bucks isn't bad for a basic body in good shape.

One of the Sandtroopers is from a more modern line of Star Wars figures like the Vintage Collection. The second Sandtrooper is from the Power of the Force 2 line from the 90's. He's got knee joint articulation because he original came with the Dewback from that line.

Too Many Games 2014 - Convention

Giant 8-bit Megaman built out of Lego

This weekend was the Too Many Games convention which focuses on video games as well as table top, collectable, and board games.

If you've read much of my blog you may have noticed there really isn't much about video games on here, but I do love a good convention and hanging out with my friends. My buddy Paul is one of the organizers and a vendor at the show. My friends Rose and Tony from Retro Con were also going to be there to promote their show since it's at the same convention hall.

Sketchy-Sketch

 So I went to the Greater Philly

Expo Center in Oaks PA on both Friday and Saturday. I helped out with signing in pre-registered attendies at the start of the show both days. Then most of the rest of the time I hung out with Rose & Tony at their table.

On Friday I created a dozen or so sketch cards of different popculture charcters including super heroes, ninja turtles, and video game characters.

I drew Bane, Mario, Pac Man, Spiro, Kowl, Luke Skywalker, and a many other characters.

 The convection included an arcade, vendors, panels, guests, and tournaments. Several of the panels included youtube stars like the Angry Video Game Nerd. One of the more unique things on display at the show was a cool Mario themed car.

Friday night the show concluded with a video game themed burlesque show for quests 18 and over. The show room floor was very empty during the show. It seemed to be a very popular feature of the show. Here you can see people standing in line for the show to start. Square Painter's booth is in the background. I love his pixel video game paintings. They are really cool.

  I found Waldo in the arcade area. They had arcade machines, concols, and old computers set up so people could play just about any game you can imagine. In another area there were tables for people to play card games and board games.

I saw surprised by the number of independent video game designers they had at the show.

During the show there were several tournaments that attendees could participate in. Magic: The Gathering, Super Smash Bros., and Golden Eye to name a few. The competition was pretty fierce.

The vendor area had everything from vintage video games to 8-bit art created out of all sorts of different materials. I saw a few toys and action figures, but they weren't the focus of the vendor space. There were many very creative artists. Including a girl who makes console dust covers out of vintage bedsheets called Wreto Wrappers.

Attendees playing video games

Baby Skeletor and myself in the truck just before leaving to head to Too Many Games on Saturday

Justin from Silvermania on YouTude doesn't look to happy with Baby Skelly

 Pac Man and One Piece

 Where's Waldo and Super Mario

 Misty, Ash, and Proto Man

 Hitman didn't appreciate Baby Skeletor's comment about his mother.

Baby Skeletor spent a lot of time hanging out at the Retro Con table, but he did get a chance to hang out with a lot of the Cos-players as well. Baby Skeletor found some pretty awesome Hamtaro slippers that he really wanted to bring home with him. Unfortunately he forgot to bring his piggy bank with him.



The show was a lot of fun and very busy. Hopefully everyone at Too Many Games is having a good time again today. If you want to see photos of some additional cos-players check out the short video Baby Skeletor and I put together last night.

Vikor - He-Man of the North - MOTUC

I'm getting ready to head back to the Too Many Games show for day two. I'll hold off on reporting on the show until I get back from both of the days that I plan to attend. Last night was fun, so I expect today to be more of the same. I leave you all with a snow picture of Vikor the He-Man of the North. I took this photo back during the winter. Vikor is based on some concept art drawn up for He-Man. In the Masters of the Universe Classics storyline Vikor is one of the people that helped keep the Power Sword safe during the time between King Grayskull and Prince Adam's life times.

Custom Unmasked Snake Eyes v3

In the early 90's I was so intregied by the story line comic scribe Larry Hama was writing for Snake Eyes and his fellow GI Joes. I enjoyed learning about his history in Vietnam with Stalker and StormSshadow. I enjoyed learning about how he's face and voice was lost. I also enjoyed the struggles he went through as he had reconstructive surgery on his face. Based on the images in the comics and a limited number of custom fodder parts I created my own unmasked Snake Eyes. Basically he's just a v3 Snake Eyes with a head from Blizzard. I painted Blizzard's hair yellow and then using a dark peach color paint, I applied two large scares to his face with the end of a toothpick.

 

 Later I had an idea for an animation project (which was never completed) in which Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow would be fighting and yank each others masks off. So in the process of the animation I would cut from the real v3 Snake Eyes to my custom SE. The one problem would be that I'd need a little mask accessory for Storm Shadow to hold. So I stitched up a little mask and applied silver paint to represent his mask. Unfortunately it just looks like he's wearing a paper bag over his head, but it wasn't really meant to ever be displayed on his head.

I know it's pretty goofy, but I was in Elementary school when I created the figure and then in High School when I made the mask. I'll be posting my unmasked Storm Shadow v2 soon. His mask was slightly more successful/

Me and Ulraman - Comicfest '93

With Wizard World 2014 behind me I decided to look back to my first comic con. Philadelphia Comicfest 1993 was a magical event for me. My Dad took me to the show to hang out with my best friend Derek, whose father was a guest at the show. When we saw the line of people trying to get autographed issues of Batman: Knightfall by my buddy's dad, Doug Moench, my Dad finally admitted that he must be famous. Anyway today's post is a throwback photo my Dad took at the show of myself (wearing a homemade Knightfall t-shirt) with Ultraman! I was really at my height of loving Ultraman and Godzilla at the time.

This weekend on Friday and Staruday I'm heading out to the Greater Philly Expo Center to the Too Many Games convetion that another one of my Elementay school friends runs. If you are into vintage or modern video games you've got to check this convention out. They also cater to collectable and board games as well as video games. I'll be hanging out quite a bit with my friends Rose & Tony from Retro Con as well.

Action Figure Adventures will it the 100,000 view mark this weekend, so this is kind of like last call for the contest. Good luck to everyone who has entered so far.

Batman tAS - McDonalds

In 1993 McDonalds released a series of Batman: the Animated Series Happy Meal toys. The series consisted of 8 toys. Four were little action figures and the other four were little cars. They did a very similar line for the 90's Spider-Man cartoon.

I have the complete set of toys, but today I am only focusing on the action figures from the series. The four figures were only a couple of inches tall and featured limited articulation.

First up is the Riddler, dressed in his green suit with wide necktie and bowler hat that made his animated appearance so iconic. He has swivels at his shoulders and neck.  He's got a great face sculpts with large chin and big grin. His hand is positioned almost like he should have an accessory like his cane hold. He came with not accessory and would have no way of holding one.



The main figure from the set of course is Batman. He has a could two tone costume with removable cape. Batman has articulation at the neck, shoulders, and waist. Just enough allow him to beat up the Riddler. It's amazing looking back on these toys now from the age of super articulation, I had a blast with these simple figures.

 Catwoman is dressed her gray jumpsuit with black details. She is articulated at the neck, shoulders, and waist. She also came with a sold yellow plastic panther/leopard/cougar large cat.

The last of the little action figures from this series is Batgirl. He's dressed in a gray uniform with a blue cape. She has articulation points at the shoulders and waist. Due to the design of the figure to accommodate her hair she has now neck articulation.

In case you were wondering the four vehicles included Two-Face's car, the Joker's roadster, Poison Ivy's plant mobile, and Robin's motorcycle. Each one has the upper half of the character sticking out out of the top of their vehicle. Robin was the only vehicle close to being in scale with the action figures.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man - Funko

Funko keeps cranking out great cartoony vinyl figures of characters from almost any property you can think of. I just picked up this Pop! Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. I've always really loved this character, he caught my imagination as a child. When I saw this little plastic version I had to have him.

Don't forget to enter the 100,000 Views Contest!

RAM Motorcyle - GIJoe '82/'83

The RAM (Rapid Fire Motorcycle) is my favorite GI Joe land vehicle and my 2nd favorite vehicle from the entire line. I got my first RAM in a box of toys a neighbor kid gave me because he out grew them. The box had a bunch of '83 figures and several early vehicles including a RAM. I played with that motorcycle like crazy until it broke. I was playing with it on the sofa of a beach house we had rented with some of my aunts and uncles and cousins and I pretend it went off a ramp. I must of brought it down to hard on the floor because the front fork broke off at the swivel point. My Dad tried gluing it when we got back from vacation, but it didn't hold up. Now I buy every RAM I see. When I part out toys for my friend Paul to resell, he knows I always take any and all RAM parts in the lots he buys at yard sales as payment for my services.

I paid $5 a piece for these two cycles at the It's a Toy Show event I was at a few weeks ago. (This is the last post from that show by the way... finally got all those purchases posted about) They both are in nice shape and came with the sidecar gatling gun. One the one included the often lost saddle bags.

Flint and Brazil Mission Leatherneck are going on a mission. This photo is over exposed. I didn't notice when I took the photo. Oh well. One of these days I'm going to dig out my RAM collection and post it so everyone can see them all.

*** Don't forget to enter the 100,000 Views Contest!

Flea Market Finds #29

Today's flea market haul was pretty small, but so was the price. I paid $3 for everything pictured below. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cheapskate, Commander Dog Star from Bucky O'Hare, ROC Motor-Viper with Flint's head from GI Joe, and a Combat Hero Snake Eyes also from GI Joe.

I really like the vintage Motor-Viper figure, but I didn't buy the Rise of Cobra (ROC) vehicle he was the driver for. Even though he has the wrong head I couldn't leave that cool removable Motor-Viper vest behind. I don't have many Combat Heroes, but I love Snake-Eyes. I already have Dog Star, but I figured I'd check to see if this one was in better shape than mine.

If you haven't entered the 100,000 Views Contest yet, what are you waiting for? I'm giving away toys!

Wizard World 2014 - Philly Comic Con

Wizard World Comic Con is in Philadelphia again this year. A couple of the girls I work with at the Haunted Hay Ride were riding the train down so I decided to go with them. I knew I bunch of my friends from Retro Con would be there.

Both girls weren't quite sure what to expect since this was their first comic con. Casie used some latex make-up to add wounds to her face and neck and cosplayed as a Walker (zombie). Big stretch since she works at a hay ride. Here she is with a guy dressed as Darryl. She got stopped for photo ops pretty often.

 Monica is a big Transformers fan. She bought almost everything we saw with Soundwave on it. Here she is showing off the Encore Soundwave figure she bought today. She also bought the Decepticon hat she is wearing at the show.

The rest of Monica's Transformer wardrobe came with her to the show. Will there today she bought a Soundwave t-shirt and a hoodie. You can't tell from the photo, but she also wore Transformers pants and a string bag to the show.

After about a half hour Monica told me I needed to be the adult and not let her spend more money on Transformers stuff.

 I knew my friends Rose, Tony, Mike, and Jen would all be at the Retro Con table promoting my favorite con, which is coming up at the end of September in Oaks, PA. Jen and Mike were manning the table when I first spotted them. Unfortunately, the photo is a little fuzzy. From what I saw on Facebook, Jen has been busy buying up all kinds of Strawberry Shortcake items.

 I saw a lot of cosplayers this year, but I didn't feel like there were as many crazy, over the top, large costumes as in the past. Here are some Super Megaforce Power Rangers as well as Batman Beyond.

 The most drool worthy vintage toy I saw at the show was a Wonder Bread He-Man. The Indiana Jones figures next to him are pretty cool as well.

This chick's costume is an interesting take on a female version of the Green Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger. I really liked this giant Pikachu. He should have been walking around with on of the several sets of Ash and Misty I saw today.

 Dick Tracy and Flat-Top kind of surprised me. Seems like an old and forgotten series, but these guys did a great job. Jesus on a dinosaur was one of the weirder costumes I saw today.

 

Earlier in the day I saw these guys doing a photo shoot outside where there was some scaffolding set up. There were more villains at the photo shoot including Toad and Strife.

I took this issue of Avengers vs X-Men with me. It was previously signed by inker Scott Hanna, but today I got it signed by Jim Cheung who did the cover. I didn't know that Mike Manley was going to be at the show, but I enjoyed his work on the end of the Knight Fall story lines. Mike basically drew all the issues once Jean Paul Valley turned the Bat-Suit into a suit of armor. I bought a copy of Batman 505 off him, which he signed. It would have been cool to get the copy I already have signed by author Doug Moench but of well.
 

 

I got issues #1,2, and 0 of the New 52 Superboy signed by the artist and inker team of RB Silva and Rob Lean. I had to stand in line a while because Mr. Silva was being interviewed while I was in line. I wanted to got New 52 Batman issues #1,2, and 0 signed by Greg Capullo, but his line was outrageous. So I skipped it.

I got to meet animator and director Tom Cook today. He worked on many cartoons including He-Man, Super Friends, and Scooby Doo. I got him to sign this He-Man cel that I have framed.

I really didn't buy much today, but I did find the new DC Multiverse Penguin and Unmasked Batman for $10 a piece. That's Target price and I haven't seen them at Toys R Us or Target here locally. I was happy to buy them at that price. I'll be cracking these open and reviewing them before long.

The final thing I brought how with me is something I didn't buy, although I would have loved to have. My buddies Rose and Tony from Retro Con are lending me their vintage Panthro and Thundertank. What would Tony and I possibly be plotting?