A Random Kristoff Sighting

While I was walking the dog yesterday, I came across a random mini figure of Frozen's Kristoff lying along the road in two pieces.  Naturally I took a photo, so now we have a sequel to The Lonely Doll Shoe and The Random Green Army Man.

I left him where he was in the hopes that whatever child dropped him might come back and take him home.

Out of the Box: Titan Vinyl's Mass Effect Mystery Minis

L-R: Wrex, Kaidan, Liara

A year after unboxing Titan's Dragon Age Mystery Minis,  I'm looking at some Titan minis from another Bioware franchise, Mass Effect.  The figures I'll be looking this time are my favourites from the original game: Liara, Wrex and Kaidan (although he's called "Kaiden" on the packaging).

Having learned from all the duplicates in my Game of Thrones blind box collection (all of which have now been sold, luckily), I decided to trade the element of surprise for the certainty of character and picked up these three pre-opened on eBay.

Funko Friday: Dany & Drogo Take to the Garden

Last week I sold the great bulk of my Game of Thrones mystery minis collection - parting with all of them, save two: Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen.  Since I'm hanging onto these ones, I figured they deserved some outdoor photos, so out they went!

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.

Retro Week: E.T. in a Snow Speeder

I'm in Toronto this week and as usual, that means I'm posting less than usual, but I also have access to my mother's basement full of toys.  So to give you a taste of what's to come, here's an ET mini figure riding in a Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back Snow Speeder.

New Blind Bag Minis (and experiments in video)

A Mega Blocks Halo Charlie figure

As part of my plan to do a more extensive cross-line mini figure comparison post in the future, I picked up two new blind bag figures yesterday: one from Mega Bloks' Halo line, and one from the Mighty Minis Batman v. Superman line (which reminded me of a Kinder Surprise toy).

I was impressed at the level of detail and articulation on the Halo figure in particular. And while the Superman figure can't really stand on his own with any ease, his ability to swing his arms goes a long way towards balancing that out (and letting you balance him out!)

A quick comparison: Lego mini figures and DST Mini-Mates

Lego Fly (L) and MiniMate Tali (R)

One of the most common questions around Dimond Select Toys' MiniMates line from people who haven't seen them in real life is how they compare to Lego figures.  To help answer that question, I've taken some comparison photos of a representative from each line.

Our representatives for the day are both blind bag figures. On the Lego side we have The Fly (they call him "Fly Monster", I assume because it's not licenced as a movie tie-in) from the Series 14: Monsters release. On the MiniMate side, we have Tali from the Mass Effect: Series 1 release. Both figures have the standard body from each of their representative lines, although they do have unique head sculpts: the standard heads on both lines are peg-shaped.

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!

December Already?

Wow, where does the time go?

I've been slow with new posts lately for three reasons: travel, pre-holiday planning, and the fact that Fallout 4 has eaten up most of my free time lately. Still, I'm moving forward with my sales list, have taken a few one-off comparison photos, and we're getting closer to the shipment date for a couple of pre-orders, so there are posts dedicated to those things in the pipeline.

In the meantime, enjoy a quite shot of a new Funko mini that I picked up (a Fallout Pip Boy) in a cafe in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (which I was visiting for a wedding a few weeks ago):

The Continued Adventures of Isabela in England

After leaving Liverpool, we drove to Manchester (with a quick stop in Northwich, so my husband could pick up a pastry at his childhood favourite bakery).  We had more rain there, which meant fewer toy photos, but Isabela did get to hang out by the water in front of Media City (across from the Imperial War Museum North).

The Adventures of Isabela in Liverpool

I'm back from my week-and-half in England on the annual "friends, family and football" tour, so how about a few photos?  My travelling figure for this trip was one of Titan's Dragon Age mini figures, Isabela (a ship's captain seemed like the right character to bring along to visit rivers and canals, I thought).

As with the adventures of mini Ivy in Thailand, I'll be breaking this up into a couple of posts to keep it from getting too unwieldy.  Now on with the photos!

Out of the Bag: Punisher & Green Goblin (Hasbro's Marvel 500 Series 1)

From the Marvel 500 line: Green Goblin & the Punisher

It seems like every month I swear off of mystery mini figures, and yet somehow every month I'm back with more.  But at least this time there's one difference: they're micro-mini figures!

The Marvel 500 series is a blind bag micro-mini toy line (they're about a third of the size of Funko's mini figures) that sells for around $2.50USD.  There are 24 figures in series one, and they're sold in single mystery bags.  The figures themselves are very basic - no articulation and limited painting, but for the size and price that shouldn't come as much of  a surprise. The two that I opened turned out to be the Punisher and the Green Goblin.

Retro Week: Cabbage Patch Kids Mini Figures

Four of the Cabbage Patch mini figures

Before I get back to my regular posting schedule, how about one more treasure from my mother's basement?  Up this time is a random bag of vintage Cabbage Patch Kids mini figures.  They're fairly standard for mini figures of the era: nice sculpted detail, decent painting, but no articulation.  This particular collection is about evenly split between the traditional girl dolls, the "Koosas" (anthropomorphic cat dolls), and one of the "preemies" (the bald infant dolls).

Retro Week: Mini Figures of the '80s & Fast Food toys of the '90s

A random assortment of Retro mini figures

I've just come back from another week in Toronto (happily, this visit was for a wedding rather than a funeral), so I was able to snap a few more photos of my mother's basement toy trove.

Out of the Box: Funko's Avengers Age of Ultron Mystery Minis

The Iron Man/Hulkbuster mystery mini

Once again, just days after swearing off mini figures, I'm back with another pair of them.  Up this time are two figures from Funko's Avengers: Age of Ultron tie-in mystery minis.  As with all of Funko's Marvel figures, these minis are bobbleheads rather than the static figures that most of their other lines are (licencing complexities, is apparently the reason for that).

Unlike some of these Mystery Mini lines, there are no chase figures in this release: all of the figures appear in at a 1/12 frequency.  With odds like that, I thought it would be interesting to see who I'd get - unfortunately the two I picked weren't any of my favourites, but hey - that happens with blind boxes.  And the two figures I have are nicely detailed, so at least they're interesting to look at.

Out of the Box: Titans' Dragon Age Mystery Minis

It was just a few days ago that I was saying it would be a while before I added any more vinyl mystery minis to my collection; But those were apparently famous last words, because almost immediately after posting that, I realized that Titan had released their Dragon Age blind bag series.  And given my love of Dragon Age, I had to bring a few of them home.

Titans' Mystery minis. L-R: Fenris, Anders, Isabela, Morrigan

Random Toy of the Day: Funko's Game of Thrones Mystery Minis (Series 1)

Apologies for yesterday's double-post: I was editing tags and accidentally re-published the Forge post.

After posting my "ultimate in lazy packing" photo the other day, I realized that I hadn't shared those Funko Game of Thrones mini figures yet, even though I had taken photos of the lot of them.  There isn't much to say about them: they're standard non-articulated mini-figures, in that stylized Funko-POP style, but they're fun little figures, so I thought I'd share them anyway.

The group shot.