"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away"

Flea Market Finds and Something Kreepy This Way Komes

Two-part blog day!!!!

Part One:

Flea Market Finds

I went to flea market today (I needed to get out... I'm starting to grow to the house like coral) and found all this junk for 5 bucks!!!





I cannot wait to chop those Clone and Storm Troopers up for customs... WOOOOOOO!!!!!

The Doomsday has some scuffed up paint, but I'll just touch it up a bit... The guy is MASSIVE. He'll look great next to my animated Darkseid figure. I'm starting to build a little collection of guys who hate Superman. So weird.

Part Two:

Something Kreepy This Way Komes

On the October Toys Forum member Mad-Hatter's-Neverland asked us toy goons if we'd be willing to make some toy cars based on the "Kub Kar Kit," the Canadian version of the Pinewood Derby held for Boy Scouts. These kits have a chunk of wood, some stickers, 4 wheels and 4 nails with which to attach the wheels. It's a really simple kit that requires some creativity on the part of the kids to make into something fun and neat to goof around with.



The pieces are for an art show he's putting on for his Cub Scouts to encourage them to be creative and inventive. At the end of the show, all the pieces are being auctioned off with the proceeds going to help underprivileged kids afford scouting programs. Such a cool idea!!! I loved it as soon as i read about it!

So here's my little Kreeper! Yes-- there's actually a chunk of wood in there... somewhere...

Attack of the $5 Robots!!!!

So I was in town today mailing packages (again) and ran across these guys in my local Dollar General:



They're from a line of toys called M.A.R.S. Heroes from a company called Hap-P-Kid Toy. I've purchased a few of these M.A.R.S. figures before, but this is a new kinda deal.

The figures come in a set of 3 with assorted accessories for $5.00



A fiver for all this aint bad at all:



You get 3 handguns, 6 shoulder attachments, and 4 bases that are interchangeable. The bases are soft, translucent vinyl with painted details. The guns are PVC and are a bit harder than the bases, but both are pretty flexible. They are nowhere near as bad as the floppy guns Hasbro has been using with their figures in the last few years.



Each figure is made up of 9 pieces, and each piece is connected by a common ball and socket joint.



This means you can interchange the parts between the figures to make cust9om built figures. The torsos and the upper thighs are made of harder ABS plastic, and all the other parts are softer PVC. This means the joints probably won't wear out as easily as the older M.A.R.S. figures. The only major differences between these and the older figures is the size and the loss of the elbow joint. The older figures' arms were made in two parts with a ball joint at the elbow. These have one-piece arms, but the ball jointed shoulders allow for enough flexibility that the figures can double grip weapons.



They're a smidge shorter than Star Wars figures, but since they could be used as droids it could work out.



They fit in rather nicely with Glyos figures and would look great in a display with them.



As an added bonus, the weapons fit in Glyos figure hands, so you now have cheap handguns for your Glyos guys!



All in all these guys are pretty nice figures!



Even if they were selling for 5 bucks each they'd be a very, very good buy in today's toy marketplace. The fact that you can get 3 of them for that price plus extra accessories is excellent beyond words! Sure they don't have ball jointed elbows, but if that's the biggest complaint I can find with them, then everything's Kool and the Gang, baby.

ARF! ARF! ARF!!!!!

This...



...is an ARF Trooper. He is super-rad. I will now tell you why:



These are the standard Clone Trooper action figures from the animated Clone Wars series. Every figure in this series of action figures is stylized to match the look of the CGI cartoon. They are AWESOME. I don't really care too much for the rest of the figures in the series mainly because I'm not fond of the cartoon designs, but the Clone Troopers are so darn close to looking like the actual Clones from the movies that they work for me quite nicely. That, and these are some excellent figures in almost every category.



These guys are articulated out the wazoo. Ball-joints are present at almost every articulation point. They are super expressive and can hold their weapons and look pretty much like real people holding weapons.

There's just one thing that they can't do:



The Splits.

All these super awesome ball-joints everywhere and no ball-jointed hips. These guys can't even sit down worth a darn. The first Star Wars figures came out in 1977. It has been over 30 years, and we're still dealing with action figures with simple cut-articulated hips. GI Joe figured this little hitch out from day one. Hasbro's long-standing defense of this practice was always "Giving these characters ball-jointed hips would damage the aesthetic of the character design." Yeah. Right.

Hasbro just made up for a LOT of sins with the ARF Trooper.



Do I know what an ARF Trooper is? Not really. From the packaging it says that these guys ride some kind of two-legged un armored scout vehicle. Who gives a crap... all I know is...



These guys have all the articulation and design qualities that I value in the standard Clone Troopers and...



BALL-JOINTED HIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Did you ever have a 3.75 inch tall Stormtrooper that could do that? Me neither!!! HEEEEYAH!



He stands much, much more naturally than the regular troopers and you can pose him in some pretty darn awesome stances:



I'm not the biggest fan of the helmet on this monkey, but thankfully...



The heads are interchangeable!

So... if you like Stormtroopers/Clonetroopers, smaller scaled figures, and awesome articulation... go grab an ARF Trooper while they are still on the shelves.

It costs too darn much to buy a 3.75 inch figure these days, but you can't really do anything about that-- the price will never be going down again now that they know dorks like us will buy them for that much. However, this is one of those rare cases where I bought something at retail price and didn't feel a bit let-down.

Swamp Thing!

Finished this guy today (I already had him about 99% done from a while back... just needed to slap some sealer on him. I'm working on so many things right now, that every once in a while I need to look back and see if there's anything I missed. I missed this guy.

He's an Imperial Swamp Trooper-- basically the guys who have to slog through swamps when the crusty old man tells them to. I just posted it on Ebay, so if anyone wants him, have a go!

Have a look:











He's thrown together from a few different Stormtroopers, a few GI JOE guys, and an old CORPS space figure. It was really fun to paint and then distress his armor. Hope everyone enjoys him!