Friday, April 29, 2016

Funko Friday: Jaime Lannister (Game of Thrones)

In the box.
Another week is coming to a close, so let's open up another Funko POP! In honour of the new season of Game of Thrones starting up last week, let's open a figure from that line, shall we?

Today's figure is the second release of Jaime Lannister - there was an earlier release that was meant to look like the character as he was earlier in the show - that one had golden armour, longer hair and two hands, while this one has a simpler outfit and the golden hand (making this the third week in a row that I'm opening a one-handed character figure - that wasn't intentional, but it's funny how that happened!).  

Unfortunately the simpler outfit means this figure has less detail to talk about, but he still manages to look like the character which is good enough for me.

Now let's open the box!


Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Thinning the herd: An update and a question

After six years of thinking "I should either paint
or sell this guy", I finally sold this one two months ago.
I spend a lot of time posting about incoming dolls, but not so much about the outgoing ones. That might lead you to believe that despite my New Year's resolution, I hadn't cleared anything out.  That however is not true: since January two BJDs have been sold ( a Bobobie Ariel and LoongSoul XanBing head), as well as three AG paper doll sets (Rebecca, MG&C and Josefina), a couple of AG outfits, and MH Draculaura.

And I've listed a few others: my MiroDoll Lele and Angel Street Zazean are now listed over on DoA (at discounts, if anyone is interested!), and I have a number of other AG items up on AGC.  I haven't started listing anything on eBay, but I've been thinking about it - if you have any hints or tips, I'd love to hear them!

I'm also still debating what other dolls and figures are worth holding onto versus selling versus donating, and I'd love to hear more about other people's thought processes when it comes do doing the same. How do you decide which ones to sell or give away? And how do you decide which sales sites or forums to use as a platform for it?

And if you've hosted a giveaway on your blog, how did you decide on what to offer and what parameters to set?  Because that's something I'm thinking about as well. :)

Friday, April 22, 2016

Funko Friday: Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time)

In the box.
It's Friday, so it's time to unbox another Funko POP!

Up this time around is Captain Hook from the Once Upon a Time line. I confess, I'm not a huge fan of the show, but there's something about the intentionally cheesiness of it that means that I've watched about a third of each season (full seasons are a little too much cheese for me).  It might seem odd to pick up a figure from a franchise I'm not a huge fan of, but I just really love Hook's coat - I just love a nice flowing trench coat/ greatcoat (if someone ever got the license for figures of the characters from Black Sails, I would pick those up in a second - that show has some great coats!).

The figure is a fairly standard POP figure, although by having one arm raised, that at least gives he a slightly more dynamic pose than a lot of them do. The paint is decent, although there are a few chips on the head.  And most importantly for me (since it's the whole reason I picked this up), the coat has some great detailing.

On with the photos!

Monday, April 18, 2016

Out of the Box: Batwoman (Tonner's DC Bombshells Series)

Batwoman
Even though I'm always complaining about the hinge-jointed knees on dolls from Tonner, every now and then they release something that overrides my aversion.  This time the exception is Batwoman from their DC Bomshells line.  While the original retail price ($179.99 USD) struck me as being too high, when the doll popped up on Zulily at a decent discount I decided to pick her up.

The DC Bombshells line included three characters (Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn and Supergirl), each designed to have a 1940s pin-up style version of their traditional costume. For whatever reason, Batwoman's outfit is baseball themed, which seems a bit like a silly pun (she has a baseball bat, because she's the bat-woman, buh da bump!), but at least it got her some interesting accessories.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Funko Friday: Winter Solider (Captain America: Civil War edition)

Thanks to a recent sale I've picked up a number of new Funko Pop figures. In the interests of not boring non-Funko fans, instead of spending a couple of weeks posting nothing but them, I'm going to save them for Fridays only. Since these figures are fairly standard, barring something unusually unique I won't be doing a full review for each one, which means that after these posts will all be primarily photo posts.

First up in this series is Winter Soldier from the upcoming movie Captain America: Civil War.  Let's open up the box and see what he's like!
In the box
.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Projects for Lazy People (and general project updates)

I already have quite a few projects on the go: I've only finished one of the three Ginny dolls that I bought with plans to restore, and my Jade Empire custom still isn't past the planning stage. But that's not stopping me from being tempted by other projects.

First up are two projects aimed at kids that I think would also be fun for lazy adults (like myself!): The Sew Your Own Friend doll-making kit (which includes pre-cut fabric) and the Create Your Own Action Figure set:
Create your best friend or your comic book hero.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

200th Post Party! (and plans for the future)

200 posts calls for a cake!
I was just looking at my blog stats last week and realized that I was only a couple of posts away from this one, number 200!  It feels like my introductory post only just went up, but somehow that was more than two years ago: time flies!

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Out of the Box: Dhara (Prettie Girls Tween Scene)

Pretty Girls Tween Scene Dhara
Back in November of 2014, I posted about Dahlia from the then-new Prettie Girls fashion doll line. In 2015, thanks to a collaboration with Robert Tonner, the same set of characters were released in the style of Tonner's Little Miss Matched line (although this time around Dahlia has been renamed Dhara - she still has the dual braids and the South Asian designation though).  Although they were released in October 2015, I'm not a huge fan of this particular stylized face sculpt, so I held off on picking one of these up  until a recent price drop (they normally retail for around $30 USD, but are now offered at Wal-Mart for $23 USD).

Unlike the first series which were fairly standard 12" fashion dolls, this line is on a taller 15.5" (almost 40cm) body. Although I don't own a Little Miss Matched doll, from photos I've seen, this body is similar but not identical to that line (the face style on the other hand is very much in the same style).

Because of the size difference, it actually took me an embarrassingly long time to find these dolls in store - due to the large boxes, they turned out to have been shelved with baby dolls rather than fashion dolls. So if you're like me and have been looking in the wrong section, now you know!




Friday, April 1, 2016

Retro Week: Mini Figures of the 80s

I'm down to my final batch of retro week shots: up these time are a variety of mini figures.  There's never much to say about these guys, so let's get on with the photos!
A pair of ETs.