Saturday, March 28, 2015

Out of the Box: Union Jack (Toy Biz Marvel Universe)

Toy Biz Union Jack.
When the "All New Invaders" series ended a few weeks ago, I found myself in the mood to pick up a couple of tie-in figures.  The first of which was the Hasbro Union Jack that I posted about last month.  Having that purchase in my browsing history lead me to some of the older figures of the same character, and somehow (*cough*) one of them ended up in my cart.

On the opposite size of the size spectrum as the Hasbro figure, this 1998 Union Jack stands just over 10" (25cm)  in height.  The Toy Biz Marvel Universe figures are strangely light weight for their height (they appear to be made of a fairly light plastic), and have fairly minimalistic features.  I think the features would have been a turn-off on a non-masked character, but since Union Jack's look is minimalist on its own, it works for this one.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Random Toy of the Day: Minimates Falcon and Winter Soldier

In the box.
Alright, I'm almost through the Minimates!  Just a few more posts and my whole collection of the little things will be documented.  Of course at that point I'll probably end up picking up a few more (there's a Dragon Age series coming out this summer that I have my eye on), but that's an issue for another day.

Today's pair are Winter Soldier and Falcon.  These two both have the standard Minimate body, but come with more than the average number of accessories - two stands (one standard, one "flight" version), multiple weapons, and even an arm-sitting falcon. I'd say that the stand out piece in this set are the broad wings on Falcon.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Dolls and Dogs

After the impression my German Shorthair (Gunterdog) made after his guest appearance in my Dolls in the Snow post, I thought I'd post a few more photos of him with various members of the doll posse (it's all photos after the break).
"Don't look now, but I believe there's a giant dog behind us."
The dolls are Soom London & Souldoll Rouse

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Dolls in the Snow

I've been sorting through my photo archives, and I've found myself feeling nostalgic about the doll photos I used to take in my garden in Burlington during the winters (if you're not familiar with Southern Ontario, that's along Lake Ontario, halfway between Niagara falls and Toronto).  Having left the snowbelt, it's probably just that I'm just forgetting how much I hate shovelling, but the photos made me smile, so I thought I'd share a few of them.

Volks SD13 Heath, January 2011 

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Random Toy of the Day: Star Trek DS9 Minimates

Sisko & Dukat
Another week, another set of Minimates...

Up this time are Captain Sisko and Gul'Dukat from Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (which is, as an aside, my favourite Star Trek series).

The Star Trek line is no longer in production, but while it lasted DST released several sets (I believe there were 5 series, each of which had at least three sets, although I'm not 100% certain on that - if you know for sure, correct me!).  Most of these figures were of characters from the original series, although there was at least one set for each of the others as well.

Friday, March 6, 2015

Ginny Doll Restoration: one down, two to go...

Ginny "Tropical Adventure"
This morning I finally got back to my Ginny doll restoration project.  I haven't quite decided how to deal with the outfit damage on Sari, so I started with the easiest one first - "Tropical Adventure", who only needed restringing.

One interesting note for anyone planning to restring other Ginny dolls is that there are two different styles of doll design in this size.  Apparently the more common version have all four limbs and heads strung, whereas with the dolls from this series it's only the head and arms.  This is worth noting since most of the tutorials online (and the packages of replacement elastic bands) are designed for the full body stringing.