The First Resident Of My Space Port

My obsession with imitating Empire Toy Works persists. Today, I swung by Ross, and I saw that they had a Bone Wasp figure for $5.99.

Normally I wouldn't look twice at this figure. I think the head sucks so bad, but wait...the body is basically just street clothes...maybe street clothes with a little more flair than most, I guess. I could use that body for a kitbash, maybe with one of the Star Wars aliens that I have.

So, I grabbed it, took it home, and merged it with a Squid Head. Here we go, DJ Squid Head.

I think it looks really fun. I probably need to trade the hands out too. Squid Heads (I know they have some kind of canonical alien name like Trandoshians or something, but I'm old school, and I call them Squid Heads, because that's what the card back to my figure said), have long creepy fingers, not regular old human hands like these.

I think I might have the first resident of my own Rotgut Station...or whatever it is that I decide to build when I finally go there.

Biker Scouts?

While looking at my favorite Instagram channel, Empire Toy Works, I saw this photo, and loved it.

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It's an Acid Rain figure and bike that costs $150 right now at the online store that I could find it at. I just can't afford Acid Rain stuff, as awesome as it is, it's toys for the one percent or something.

Us plebs, us serfs, we shop at Walmart and eat hamburgers straight from the McDonald's drive through, we do. So, when we're looking for a similar bike to put in a possible future cityscape, we gotta find other, cheaper arrangements.

At the lowdown, dirty old Walmart right now, they have these exclusive four-inch scale motorcycles from the Batman movie. Batman's solo bike, which is only $15:

And Catwoman's bike, for if you want to recreate their chase scenes, which is $20:

I also suspect that they might end up on clearance eventually too, because there's a lot of them, and there doesn't seem to be a big rush to lay hands on them.

They would both need some serious paintwork to make them look more interesting (especially the Batcycle--half of the work would be removing the ugly mud spatter paint job that they already put on there in a failed attempt to make it look good), and less like cheap Walmart toys, but that's what us ninety-nine percenters have, our labor. We can put in the time to make something look beautiful, and also feel the satisfaction that comes from such a workmanlike, yet also artistic endeavor.

I think I may try to pick one of each of these up over the next while. And I suppose that when I do, I'll share the photos of the paint job that I give it.

Sophie's Choice

Rish sent me out a dinosaur for Christmas that he had painted especially for me in winter colors.  I immediately thought it would be cool if the dinosaur was a mount for some kind of knight, but I didn't have the right size figure. The dino was too small to handle a six-inch figure. I was going to need a smaller one.

That llama piñata that I got came with two four-inch figures that are both winter-themed, and, while they're not knights--my original preference, I was thinking that they might be good as the dino-riders.

What do you think? And which one is best? Here's the Ice King:

Or, Frozen Raven:

I want to make a saddle for them to sit on, and probably turn a barbecue skewer into a big lance for them to hold. I think it'll look pretty fun when I'm done.

Easter Wha?

I wished you a Happy Easter yesterday, because I thought it was Easter Sunday. I may have jumped the gun, though, because a few hours later, I got one of those little calendar reminder popups in the top corner of my screen telling me to get ready because Easter Monday was tomorrow?

Umm...Happy Easter Monday, I guess.

I mentioned it to my wife, and she thought it must be reminding us of that because it's a Canadian thing, and she's a Canadian. I guess it was a holiday in Canada when she was growing up. My kids had Good Friday off, but they don't get Easter Monday.

I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it had a list of places where it is celebrated. Mostly not the USA. I guess it's just a thing that's not part of my culture that my Apple calendar decided to drop on me and see how I would react.

Do you celebrate Easter Monday? Tell me more.

The Squad

When I was out and about (pronounced oot and aboot), I found a couple of Fortnite figures that I thought I could use to put together a Halloween crew. One of the figures was another Raptor (Glow) like the one I talked about in this blog post. I converted his backpack into his head, just like I did last time.

The other was a character called Raven, which is a kind of creepy, hooded guy with no face, just glowing eyes you can see in the hood.

I figured the Raptors can be Raven's henchmen, and bam! Halloween crew. I fished around in my accessories box to get them each their own thing to hold, and here they are.

Fun, huh? They look pretty good together. I think I may make a cape for Raven to wear. No big baddie is complete without a cape, right?

Happy Easter!

Hope your day is wonderful for you and all of those you hold dear.

This guy is enjoying his last day on the shelf.

Dance Off

Constable Zuvio is down for a breakdancing battle any time any place.

This boombox came in my llama piñata thing that I blogged about back when I got it. However, before I discovered Empire Toy Works' Rotgut Station, I was of a mind that I had no use for it at all. I didn't do much in the way of collecting four-inch figures, only six-inchers. Now I'm thinking maybe I should hang onto it, because I'm really thinking that someday I'll be doing something similar to that guy's display. I like it too much.

Now I wonder how much I'll regret not grabbing the other llama piñatas I've seen...