Egon turned up! I heard of a few QA issues and I thought after opening that I’d gotten away with it, but realised the joint on the foot wasn’t sitting quite correctly. Sadly after closer examination (and looking at the soles of the feet), he has/had two right feet! Luckily Mondo have said they’ll fix the issue. The feet are fairly symmetrical so it’s not really a big problem anyway, but glad they’re going to sort it. Anyway, looks great - I’m into uncharted territory now as I only ever had Peter as a kid.
Also got a bit more Kombat. I really like the extra accessories for the ninjas to differentiate them, Scorpion is great, can’t quite decide which accessories to display Reptile with (Sub Zero, Scorpion and Reptile have the distinct honour of going on to the shelf rather than into a storage box). I guess Sub Zero is the most festive because of the ice?! Because of buying the two-packs I ended up with P2 versions, but some lightning accessories for Raiden at least. I like him a lot more than Liu Kang.
I did another Transformers thing, got this on eBay as thought it looked pretty good. Certainly makes Carnivac shine. I wonder if they’ll do anymore pretender beasts? (Presumably not as headmasters.)
I actually did two Transformers things - I made a Browning custom. I went with the toy deco, I generally prefer the toy deco and it saves painting half the figure bronze. Casting the head was a real struggle - three attempts and it’s still a bit iffy in places. Overall, pretty happy though.
The other head I cast was Mace Windu. This was a slightly strange idea but when looking back over my blog I spotted a photo of the vintage collection figure and thought it could work as the Hood! (Not many bald man options in the toy world.) I think it works better than it has any right to. The cast wasn’t brilliant and one side came out a little squished but all things considered, happy.
Whilst casting the heads I also did some thighs for Shao Kahn since the 90’s version is really quite muscly. I used the Storm Collectibles version as a reference - very helpful as there’s not any pictures of him from all angles otherwise. It’s funny, 10 odd years ago I thought it would just be a matter of painting the red a bit darker and making the mask metallic rather than bone. Turned out to be more complicated than Goro. Probably good I didn’t realise. Somewhat appropriately for a boss I feel like I used everything I’ve learnt in the last 15 years - using casts to improve a sculpt (like Groot), making spikes using styrene rods (like the Terrorcons), plus all the painting and sculpting. He’s done! I’ve finished the MKI/II lineup of characters in 3.75” scale. Whoop, it’s been quite the celebration of Kombatness recently.
Feel like I’m running out of energy a little bit on my customs, down to three now (gave up on one to make T30 Jetfire look more G1 toy accurate) - time for a break before switching to some Transformers ideas I have (I’m starting to feel more enthusiastic about them in comparison). There’s also been quite a lot of life admin stuff I’ve been putting off so better get on with that now.
I watched a video on ‘Black Friday Shopping’ and whilst I didn’t buy anything, it made me think, and so I’ve decided to cancel Missing Link Ultra Magnus. I can’t quite explain it, I love G1, the idea behind Missing Link is great, yet somehow, I’m just not feeling it. For me it’s about 20 years too late, it was starting to feel a bit more like an obligation and that’s not a great place to be. I’ll keep Sunstreaker, and will gladly buy Sideswipe, and any cassettes or Dinobots they offer up but I just can’t justify starting another sub-collection.
Speaking of which; I’ve got my plan for slowing down my collecting, which is come up with a list of 10 ‘exceptions’ then stop buying everything unless it’s on that list. The ten is quite easy at the moment: Metroplex, Broadside, Defensor, God Ginrai, Road Caesar, Omnibots, Throttlebots, Thunderclash, Skyquake and Grandus. The more tricky part is if in the next couple of years we get any of those then I need to pick replacements. The replacement list is: Lego Baxter Building, Lego Wayne Manor, 1996 Maximals, Diaclone repaints, G2 Sureshot, G2 Archforce, Thunderwing, Mayhems (Octopunch and Stranglehold), Headmaster Jnrs, Targetmasters, Powermasters, Flamebots, Triggerbots, and Transmetals (Depthcharge and Rampage). I’ve got a couple of years though! (And maybe could cheat a little by grouping a little.)
It’s the end of the year! Eek. It’s been a fairly average year for Transformers, finished a couple of subgroups but nothing that really stands out in Generations. Devastator and Superion were better than expected but not amazingly exciting. My favourite has been Missing Link Sunstreaker - can’t resist a Lamborghini, especially a yellow one. I think the year has been mainly about Marvel Legends though - it has given me just about everything I wanted (I might have said this before): Chameleon, Ms. Marvel and Shanna at the start of the year, and Triton and Werewolf by Night to finish (Gorgon sadly bumped to next year). Plus Yellowjacket and Shuma Gorath in the middle who is my favourite figure for the year - it’s a six armed green inter dimensional creature with a posable eye, what’s not to like?! As well as the aforementioned trio, I also got a new Iceman and Gladiator. I can’t see myself getting too many more Legends figures next year (not really anything on the leak list) but I’ll definitely enjoy what I’ve got now.
I’ve managed to stick to a proper budget this year - partially from selling, but also from almost entirely avoiding buying on eBay. I had a list of planned purchases which I really stuck to, the exceptions have primarily been Marvel Legends and McFarlane Mortal Kombat (which we only found out about this year). My aim is to carry on with this approach next year, though I haven’t got quite so much to sell.
Happy Christmas everyone!!!
