Flea Market Finds #25

Even after being out late last night for the big Kowl Birthday Party, I set my alarm and got up early to hit up a flea market before heading to the farm to work on stuff for the hay ride. (I work at Haunted Hayride in the Fall, but we start setting up and building new stuff in the Spring) I ran into fellow Kowl Birthday boy Mike at the flea market. I got some pretty good stuff today.

First up, I bought a baggie of random stuff. I could see there few a few figures inside as well as several Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles weapons. I was excited for the BTAS Joker in a trench coat figure, but it turns out his hat was really busted, so he's not staying in my collection.I'm going to have to go though the lot carefully to see what I need. There was a piece to the Triple T Tank from GI Joe and a Battle Beast weapon in there.

The bets are placed and the fans are cheering as Linus and Charlie Brown get ready for an epic knife fight. Who will win?

I picked up a Star Wars Clone Wars Jedi Starfighter. It's missing some missiles, but it displays okay. I'm not sure if this is going into my collection or if I'll let little kids play with it when they come over. I asked how much it was and it was being sold by a little kid. It took me back to my days as a kid, selling toys at yard sales to buy other toys. So I gave the kid the money.

The fighter splits into two different vehicles. One piloted by the Jedi and the other by a Astromech droid. I'm not sure if this is a generic Jedi fighter, or if it belonged to a specific Jedi in the CGI cartoon.

I picked up a bunch of loose Star Wars figures. Biggs as a Tie Pilot, Sprint of Hayden Christensen, Jawa, Female Imperial Officer, Klaatu, and Hoth Luke. I was happy to find this Luke, if you've been reading Action Figure Adventures for a while you may remember I lost his scarf outside one winter while taking photos.

This last group of figures is a random collection. I have no idea who the little dude in the suit is, but I like generic characters for animation purposes. Next up is a figure that looks to me like Flipshot from the New Adventures of He-Man.He's actually the Cryo-Claw Tech from the Demolition Man movie toy line, which shared parts form He-Man. In the middle is Nomad from the Rambo Cartoon toy line. Even though I've never watched Power Rangers Jungle Fury, I always liked their uniforms. So I picked up the Yellow Ranger. Finally is is a repaint of the GI Joe 25th Anniversary AVAC, Firebat Pilot.

I spent $18.25 for this weekends finds. I would love to find s bag of accessories like the one at the top of this post that contained GI Joe weapons or parts from another line that I collect more heavily than Ninja Turtles. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

Birthday Bash

Well, I just got home from a 9 year old's dream party but it was for four adults in their thirties and forties. A big group of fellow toy collectors and convention goers got together becuase four of us have Birthday's in May. We went to Arnold's Family Fun Center, which is right next to the Greater Philly Expo Center where Retro Con is held. The party was Kowl themed and we had cake, presents, and go-kart races!

I'll be posting more about the party soon. It's late and I'd like to go to the flea market in the morning.

Power Girl - DCU Infinite Heroes

Here is Power Girl from the line of 4" DC Superheroes called Infinite Heroes. She's dressed in her typical white outfit with cleavage window. She has a red cape slung over one shoulder. These figures have fairly limited articulation and minimal sculpted detail. Clearly they reused a lot of parts in designing these figures. Still they were fun toys.

Godzilla Flick (stop motion video)

I have a little tradition of posting a stop motion video on my birthday. The past two years they have been videos created by other people, but since Godzilla is coming out tomorrow I decided to re-post a video project by best friend Derek and I made 12+ years ago. It was a very ambitious project at the time. A shorter 10 minute version won 1st place in an international Godzilla Fan Film Festival.


   

The video shows off a huge collection of kaiju monsters. About 15 of them are mine, and the rest belong to the writer/director Derek. The 80's video clip is really from my 7th birthday when  Derek gave me my first Godzilla & King Kong toys. I did all those drawings at the beginning as well over the years until the very last one which was done by a professional artist.

Robin - DC Universe Classics

A while back, when DCUC was still a toy line, I bought every figure from the one wave so I could build the Collect & Connect Bane figure. One of the figures from that wave was this classic looking Robin. He's wearing his red tunic with yellow cape. He's even got his little green elf boots.

Robin came with both a Baterang and a grappling hook gun. I have his accessories stored somewhere else, so when I was photographing him they weren't handy. There was also a variant version that came with a different head. The other head looks more like how Robin appeared in the early years of the comic. He had the two pieces of hair hanging down on each side instead of part on the one side.

Princess Leia Organa in Boushh Disguise

 Princess Leia in Boushh Disguise is one of my favorite vintage Star Wars figures. I really think Kenner was getting good at sculpting these figure by the time Jedi rolled around in '82. The figures had more details sculpted in and often times came with unique accessories (even if the guy from Retroblasting hates that they all came with "sticks"). Her mysterious appearance in the film is an awesome scene. I recently picked up another copy of this figure at a Flea Market, but I took these photos a while ago of another copy of the figure that's been in my collection for a little while. I need to get these two figures together to determine which specimen to keep.

Leia is dressed in interesting bounty hunter combat armor. She is wearing two shades of brown clothing with a silver chest harness. He comes with a bad ass removable helmet. God I loved removable helmets and hats as a kid. Awesome accessories. She also comes with a staff or rifle depending on who you ask. No thermal detonator molded into her hand on this version.

 Leia uses this outfit to sneak into Jabba's palace to rescue Han Solo. Too bad she didn't leaver her helmet on a little longer or start dragging him away as soon as the thawed out. She's a really cool figure, although (like many vintage Star Wars figures) her head sculpt doesn't really scream Carrie Fisher. Up top, we have Boushh turning in the mighty Chewbacca for his Bounty. Below we have Bouschh rescuing Han, about to be discovered.

Puck - Marvel Universe

Puck is a member of the Canadian team Alpha Flight. He's basically a very short but strong athlete/gymnast I don't know much about this guy other than I think he was in an episode or two of the 90's X-Men show with other members of Alpha Flight. I just like that fact that he's an action figure of a smaller stature. Growing up with GI Joes, now I like it when toy lines have different statures of characters. That's one thing I really like about the Marvel Universe line, they have a large, normal, and now small body size for different character.s
.

Puck wears a black singlet with a gold "P" on it. He also wears a black helmet. He looks a bit like a high school wrestler. Puck came with a white bird accessory. This is supposed to be Alpha Flight team member Snow Bird in bird form. The wrist clip is a little bulky unfortunately.

Flea Market Finds #24

It rained like crazy here over night, but it was drying out and warming up this morning so I headed out to two flea markets with my buddies.

We bought some tools, but you are here to hear about the toys I bought.

I'm pretty happy with what I found today. Nothing earth shattering, but a nice haul for $6.

I picked up the 2000's update to April O'Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She's so hip in her low rise pants and belly shirt.  I also picked up Shung, leader of the Sleestacks from the 90's version of Land of the Lost. I bought a bunch of boxed and carded LotL toys at Retro Con last year.

I picked up a batch of vintage Star Wars figures. Here Lando is referring an intergalactic wrestling match between Max Rebo and Boba Fett. I just picked up a Max Rebo last weekend, I think he might be my favorite Star Wars figure. The Boba Fett was really dirty, but I got him cleaned up fairly well. I've been thinking about making a custom figure of Boba Fett in the white prototype armor or Jango Fett out of a vintage figure.

I also picked up this cool 200x Masters of the Universe puzzle. I lucked out and it was complete when I got it home. I like the fact that the art work is made using the actual toys from the line. It's been heavily Photoshopped. The puzzle shows off He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Ram Man, Mechaneck, and Stratos defending Castle Grayskull from Beastman, Skeletor, and Merman.

How to draw Nick TMNT

A couple times of year the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) holds a book fair. Part of the proceeds of all the purchase go to the PTO and they use the money to fund projects around school.

I always try to support the PTO when ever I can. They do a lot for the kids and our school. I like to get a book or two for my classroom, and often times I buy something for myself.

This time I picked up a How to Draw book based on the Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show. The book shows step-by-step how to draw the four turtles, Splinter, and Shredder. I think it's kind of funny they left out April. I guess they don't think boys would't want to draw her.

 Over a couple of pages the book shows how to draw each character.

I always loved the how to draw books by Lee J. Ames when I was a kid. I generally found that I got better results if I use the books as a reference and not really a step-by-step guide. I like to look at the 2nd step to get started then skip to the final step. I'm not sure why that works for me.





I was feeling artsy so I did a few drawings last night.

Leonardo is the leader in blue. He does anything to get his ninjas through.

He's outlined in marker but colored with colored pencils.

 Michelangelo, he's one of a kind, and you know just were to find him when it's party time.

Mikey is outlined and colored with markers.

Blade - MOTUC

The Four Horseman keep knocking the sculpts for the Masters of the Universe Classics figures out of the park. Blade, a villain created for the 80's live action film has been translated into an amazing figure.

 This guy's armor is cover in little details, like the links of chain that make up his armor. He comes with three accessories, a "movie" sword, a "vintage style" sword,and a laser whip.

 This guy is loaded with details and may be one of the coolest looking figures from this year
s subscription. The 2014 sub has been insane.

 

I really like his head sculpt. He's so menacing.