I went on Amazon the other day, and was surprised to find a bunch of things that I wanted on sale. Lots of them were going for 50% off. I don't think it was Prime Day or anything.
I was actually irritated, because there were so many good deals that I couldn't buy it all. It would have been too much money. In this day and age of rampant inflation, that's not a problem many run into very often. "And what is this newfound restraint you're evidencing?" you might be asking, well I don't know. I probably should have just gone all out, but I held back.
I got what I could, and hoped that maybe later I could come back and find them still on sale and buy them then.
So, here's the new recruits:
They're pretty cool.
First up there's the Fortnite Jules.
She comes with this big bomb thing called Bombs Away!
I think it's a glider-type thing that you start the Fortnite game out on, flying down to Fortnite Island to spend a lovely fortnight there...I don't know. I've still never played the game. I didn't really care about the bomb. It would probably go to the little guy to play with as he pleased.
I saw her at Ross for $10 the other day, and considered buying it. It originally sold for about $20, so that's a pretty good deal. But, because of the dumb bomb thing, it cost a lot more than a single figure did. So, I passed on it, but then I saw it on Amazon for $6.68, and I thought that is more like it.
I thought she could be the town mechanic, fixing up those spaceships, speeder bikes, and mech walkers. I thought the other Fortnite figure I got could be her assistant. He is called A.I.M.
He cost the most of everything that I got, but he is an older figure that you can only find for about double his original retail price. So, when I saw it on for 50% off on Amazon, which made it its original retail price again, I figured I should jump on it. Ankletown Station has to have a lot of droids roaming about, an this guy is a pretty original looking one, what with the fact that he's wearing sweat pants and everything.
Can you think of a good name for them? I don't want to call them by
their Fortnite names. Jules and A.I.M. can stay in the Fortnite world,
and on my station they can be called Julie and RoboMechanic...or
something way better than either of those two.
I thought that maybe my first building on the station could be their mechanic's garage. I wanted to do something like the one that I saw at Galaxy's Edge.
Sadly, because of the rain, that's the best picture I got of it. Here's one somebody else took that shows the whole garage:
It's pretty cool. Could be a lot of fun. I just imagine the two of them back there, working on ships, and Jules yelling at A.I.M. saying, "That's not it, bring me the Hydrospanner."
I feel like I need to get started on some buildings before I buy anything else, but we're in the middle of tearing out our kitchen and renovating it right now, so I'll probably have to wait until that's all over before I can really think about that.
That's kind of a bummer. I guess I'll have to be satisfied with customizing the figures that I have a little more.
So, I did a little of that. Both Jules and A.I.M. looked a little too neat and clean to be mechanics. They needed a blackwash to give them a little bit more detail and weathering. So, I painted up Jules and wiped away the excess. Here's what she looks like now.
She's a lot messier and more realistic. I probably ought to do a little something to hive her more realism in the face as well, but I just don't trust myself on faces yet. Here's a comparison of the before and the after.
Not a huge difference. Just enough to give her a little more realism. Nice grunginess on her shirt and apron, jeans and boots. I also think the wrench looks a lot cooler like that.
I did A.I.M. too, and he looks pretty good.
Here's the side-by-side:
It's funny how you don't really notice it, but the one on the left, the untreated one, looks almost cartoonish in its purity of color, but the one on the right looks realistic. I love doing blackwashes. It makes all toys look better...or at least mostly. Rish Outfield claimed he did one that made his figure look worse, but I haven't seen pictures or anything, so I can't confirm that.
Anyway, with the mechanics set up, lets move on to the other two guys I got from Amazon. There's the Mythrol.
Whoops, I guess I moved when I took his picture. That is going to make his before and after picture a little more challenging. I guess I should have checked that before I did the blackwash on him. Here's the after.
Truthfully, this guy looks like he's exactly the same to me...I wonder if I can do a before and after with the group picture version up above.
Yeah, I don't really see anything. I think maybe there's a little bit in his face, but I'm not even sure if that's an improvement. All in all, he looks the same. I guess his clothes are too dark to make much of a difference. Either that, or I just got too excited when I was wiping off the excess.
Lastly, there's Kuill.
I love this figure. It's such a tiny little thing, yet they made it so super posable. It can get into all sorts of positions. It's rad. I did a blackwash on it too. Here's the results.
It's pretty good. His color palette is so muted that it didn't make a huge difference, but it did do a little.
It feels like the majority of the difference is due to the lighting difference and not the wash, but that's okay. It's a cool looking figure either way. It would probably be good to do a brownwash on his face to give him a little more detail there...of course, as I already said, I'm afraid to do that kind of stuff.
I considered buying several more of the Kuill figures while they were on sale. I saw a guy who made custom highly-posable jawas using the Kuill body, and I considered it for a while before deciding I couldn't afford it.
I guess I chose wrong.
Because the Jules and the A.I.M. are still on at the sale price, but the Kuill went back up to full price right away. I'll have to watch for it to come down I guess. If it did it once, it might do it again. I do quite enjoy the cool jawa pictures that Empire Toy Works sometimes does.
No comments:
Post a Comment