Random Toy of the Day: X-Men Minimates (DST)

It's a new year, so how about some new (or at least new-to-me) Minimates?

My first new minimates of 2016 are the X-Men Beast, Storm, Cyclops, Shadowcat and Colossus, and came to me via Gwen of the cooking/AG blog A Peek into the Pantry (Cheers, Gwen!).  As usual, Minimates are pretty standard block figures, so there's not much to say about them, so on with the photos!

Random Toy of the Day: Dragon Age MiniMates

Back in May, I posted about planning to unbox by new Dragon Age MiniMates as soon as a moved - I didn't quite get to them as quickly as I'd intended, but this morning I finally got around to it.

The Dragon Age MiniMates: Alistair, Morrigan, Varric & Leliana

As I'm mentioned a time or two before, I'm a fan of the Dragon Age franchise, but haven't always been happy with the tie-in products that they've released, and this set is no different.  I was looking forward to seeing characters from the franchise in block-figure form, and I wasn't disappointed with the details on the figures themselves, but the character choice and packaging were weak.

Out of the Box: Diamond's Buffy (1999) and Angel (2005) Series

Vampire Angel I, Lorne, Wesley

Since there was some figure-spotting in the comments of my shelving post, I thought I'd give some attention to some more of the action figures.

My Angel figures are a bit of an accidental collection: a coworker of mine was a huge Buffy fan and wanted the Angelus figure for her desk.  But it was 2007, and the figure she wanted had come out in 1999 (a Diamond Select preorder, so it showed up in comic and specialty shops, but not in regular toy stores), and she didn't want to pay the increased prices that were showing up online, so she'd pretty much given up hope.

Lorne's microphone is still
strapped to his hand.

Shortly after she told me this tale of woe, my then-local comic shop (ComiKazi in Calgary, which I've spoken about before) had a massive clearance sale that allowed me to find not just the single Vampire Angel that she wanted, but a second one as well.  In the same box I found the 2005 Wesley and Lorne figures, so I picked up those as well.  My coworker only wanted the single figure, so the rest of the crew came home with me.

The figures are all nicely detailed with sculpts that clearly resemble the characters/actors from the TV series, and whose body sculpts show some fantastic clothing detail.  The 2005 figures also have fantastic accessories - a stage base with Lorne and a weapon cabinet with Wesley - although the same can't be said for Angel, who came with a floppy sword and a human-sized plastic ring.  The later figures are significantly sturdier than the earlier one as my Angel's forearm broke off within a couple of months, but I've heard the argument that the earlier line were intended to be kept in the box, so it's probably my own fault for using him as a display piece.

Wesley (and his cabinet) and Lorne (with his stage, speaker and microphone)
joined by a a few guest stars.

My coworker's Angel at the office.
For nearly a year after giving her the figure my colleague would send me
regular email updates called "The adventures of Angel and Barbie"