Batman - The Dark Knight Rises

I was originally going to try to get the complete collect and connect Batsignal included in the DKR line. I had trouble getting out to the stories to find these figure when they first came out. I only ended up getting a couple of them. Here is the Batman figure from The Dark Knight Rises. He reuses the molds from the figure released for the previous movie. He features nice articulation. Batman doesn't come with any accessories other than the base for the c&c Batsignal.

Batman - Wizard World '95

Wizard World '95 was a pretty awesome event for me. It was my first comic book convention and I was so happy my Dad took me. We went to the con because my best friend's dad was going to be there signing books. Doug Moench was at the time writing the monthly Batman book during the major Knight Fall story line. It was cool hanging out at the con with Doug and his son Derek. Here is a photo of Batman and myself. Note my ultra cool home made Batman Knight Fall shirt. An artist from an indy comic company even gave me a hat from his company after finding out I drew my own shirt.

The Heart of a Giant - He-Man & MOTU

This is an original animation cel from 65th episode of He-Man and the Master of the Universe. The episode is called The Heart of a Giant. This cel features Camdo, the giant, running. This is one of several cels from my animation art collection that I donated to the Toonseum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 

full cel with production numbers

close-up of the art on the cel

Bingo Beaver - Get-Along Gang

In the early 1980's many characters created by the American Greetings Company were sucessfuly markets as cartoons, toys, dolls, books, and greeting cards. A few examples include the Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, and the Get-Along Gang.  My sister and I both liked the Get-Along Gang as kids and we each had a plush doll, some of the poseable figures, and some of the PVC mini figures.

My favorite member of the Gang was Bingo "Be-It-All" Beaver. I had both the plush doll and the poseable figure of him. Each one of the figures from this series came with a piece of cloth clothing. Bingo came with a red long sleeve shirt, which is unlike his usual apearance of just wearing overalls. This probably had something to do with them not wanting to make pants for the toys and having a presculpted torso to use. Many figures has the same arms and torso.

 I'm not sure where his shirt is located. It may have been lost years ago, or be mixed in with other toys. His shoes have nice paint apps, and I'm glad they painted the patch on the knee of his over-alls. I always really liked the fact that he had a poseable tail as a kid. I think the fact that many characters had tails is the reason that they had sculpted pants and cloth shirts.

He-Man PJs

This is a strange photo. I'm in my pajamas and a Disney Goofy hat, while playing a mandolin in my sister's bedroom. Why am I posting it on my action figure blog? Well, I'm wearing He-Man and the Masters of the Universe pajamas. The shirt features Whiplash and Battle Armor He-Man. I don't even remember wearing these as a kid, but laughed when I noticed it looking throw a photo album.

The Creeper - DC Universe

Time to take a look at the DC Universe Creeper figure. Of all the DC heroes Batman is my favorite. So when I was buying an entire wave of DCU figures to build the collect and connect Bane, The Creeper was not a horrible forced purchase. I'm not a huge fan of the Creeper, he's one of my least favorite Batman villains. At least I know who he is, and have other characters that interact with him. He's got a strange look and several weird versions of his origins.

His head sculpt could almost be reused for a Joker figure. The green hair and unusual skin color helps to highlight the similarities. He has a very skinny and lanky build. He also features his signature mane. I don't even know what to call it, a pelt? His hands also look like they are ready to claw someones face off. They have an unusual pose to them. Almost like they are positioned to look like he can climb walls. I don't know if they are new parts of him or reused.

I have no real complaints about the figure, his sculpt and paint are all nicely done. I probably would have skipped him, had he been in any other wave. I don't buy a lot of DCU figures and he's not a top priority character for me.

Home Made Star Wars B-Day Card

One year for my cousin's birthday I made him a home made card. At the time he was really into Star Wars. I took a picture of a bunch of action figures and photoshopped him and his siblings into the picture as Jedi. He really liked it, and even returned the favor. He made me a card for my birthday that year using a picture he took of his Obi-Wan and Emperor figures lightsaber fighting on a railing at his house.

Dominic, who is shaking hands with Luke in his X-Wing outfit, is now out of high school. So, this was a while ago. I'm better at Photoshop now, but I still get a kick out of the pictures.

Toy Room Preview #2

My house is a real fixer-upper. I have been slowly working on doing a lot of different updates to parts of my house. The toy room at this point really just needs carpet. Unfortunately to save some money I'm waiting until the upstairs is ready for carpet at the same time. I previously showed off some shelves I put in the closet to house the GI Joe playsets. I also finally have some of the shelves I bought from Blockbuster video set up. The toys on these shelves will not necessarily be what is displayed on them with the room is finished. I recently got some vintage Master of the Universe toys and so I decided to throw the new stuff along with what I had before on the shelves so I could enjoy them.

Here you can see the shelves in the closet have been finished off with stripes of wood on the fronts to make them more ridged. They have also been painted white. These displays aren't really final, but I added a few vehicles to the shelves. The Mobile Command Center is on the top shelf. The Triple-T is parked in the service bay and the Mad Dog is next to it. The second shelf down houses the original GI Joe Head Quarters. The third shelf down has the Tactical Battle Platform as well as a bunch of aquatic vehicles. Including the Hydrofoil, Water Moccasin, Devil Fish, and Killer Whale Hovercraft  On the floor is the Gantry/Crawler to the Space Complex. The Defiant Space Shuttle and Booster rocket is still in a closet up stairs. The He-Man Space Ship Eternia is leaning against the wall next to the Space Complex. The Space Ship Eternia is from the early 90's He-Man line often refereed to as the New Adventures of He-Man.

 As a kid I had a huge collection of vintage MOTU toys. I eventually sold them off along with my Thundercats to buy more vintage GI Joe and Star Wars toys. Over the years I've occasionally picked up a couple of MOTU figures at yard sales. A few weeks ago a bough a decent lot on ebay. I bough several shelving units from a local Blockbuster when the went out of business. I planned on using them in my toy room. I wasn't sure what would fit exactly when I bought them. It depends some on what other display shelves I build or use in the room. They are decent shelves for figures, but pretty shallow to try to display vehicles on.

Vykron - MOTUC

Vykron was the MOTUC exclusive figure for the San Diego Comic Con in 2012. He is based on three prototype figure that were cobbled together by customizing other Mattel toys during the design process for the vintage Master of the Universe line. The SDCC set contained one body and accessories to dress the figure up in three different costumes.

Check out the AFA Animated Review below. I picked up three sets because I wanted to be able to display all three versions of Vykron at one time.

Cobra IMP - GIJoe

This is a photo from my 6th birthday. My cousin Rick gave me the Cobra IMP. This tank features 3 large missiles that can be taken apart to drop land mines on the battle field. I actually got two IMPs that year for my birthday. We took one back to Toys R Us, but I don't remember what I picked out. The little yellow rings that were supposed to be land mines looked a lot like Cheerios. One time as a kid I was fooling around and had one on the tip of my tongue, I said something to my sister about  eating Cheerios and then accidentally swallowed it. I was so bummed out that my IMP was no longer complete. I made my sister promise she wouldn't tell my mom. I thought I'd be in trouble for swallowing my toy. I was old enough to know not to put that kind of stuff in my mouth.

It's amazing how much things change in 24 years. Obviously all the kids in this photo grew up, but the farm house in the background has been torn down and replaced with a McMansion and all the little pine trees along the driveway are now huge and grown together to the point were you can't see past them.