Day 365

Day 365 December 31^st

            Before getting to the meat of this post, I want to thank everyone who has been following my blog for this 365 stint.  I will NOT be ending at this post however…I have found I love this too much and have some great posts coming up to kick off 2012!

Review of Wave 42 Variant Eric Masterson as Thor

Getting back around to my review of wave 42 finally!  This is the variant of the wave with Eric Masterson in his look of Thor during the time that he was given Thors powers and mantle on Earth.

Packaging – This set has the Marvel box style with bigger window view of the minimates.  The package is red coloured like the rest of the wave.  On the sides is the control art for the minimates and the back has a group picture of the wave as well as bios for the characters in this pack.

Eric Masterson as Thor – I have been on a bit of a Thor kick this year so it makes me very happy to have this minimate.  Some might bemoan the fact that waaaay back in wave 16 the variant was ‘Bearded Thor’ and was in fact the Masterson Thor, but that one cannot even compare to how awesome this one is!  Where to start…well first off Mjolnir is the bigger one that is being used now and has the inscription on it.  The colours really look great, no bleeding, nice and bold and crisp.  The tampos look good and the facial expression is prefect!  Huge props to DST for making sure that the eyes on his face line up to the eye holes on his helmet!  As with the armoured Thor in the wave is one also has the big cape that comes off of shoulder pads.  This looks awesome and surprisingly does not limit the movement of the arms at all!  Another great part is the boots…while using the new design of a half boot to minimize the overall clunky-ness these ones also have sculpted straps on them – a great little detail that really helps elevate the overall look!  This is a great looking minimate all around and I am very happy that they choose to do it.

Kronan Stone Man – This is a great choice for an army builder in a mostly Thor centric wave since they are from a very early part in the Thor comics.  DST goes all out to give us some great looking Stone Men, using many of the new sculpted pieces that they have been working with for various Thing minimates.  They did a great job getting the head shape right and I like that they will not shy away from using fully sculpted heads when needed.  Many fans are pretty excited that the forearms/hands used here were ones that we originally saw on the prototype for one of the newer Thing minimates but the actual production piece did not have these new pieces.  I think these new ones look amazing and look forward to seeing them used on future Thing minimates!  The stone men come with a large and small blaster which is pretty comic accurate.  The one down fall to this minimate is the bulky arms pieces, which can line up to look really seamless but really can restrict the movement of the arms.  This is the catch 22 of the more bulky/sculpted pieces especially in the shoulder/arm and legs; they can sometimes hinder the awesome articulation and possibility of the minimate.  In the end I am happy to have an accurate looking character but it can be a bit frustrating if it limits the playability too much.

            I love this set, as I knew that I would given my Thor collection going right now.  DST really has done an amazing job designing these and I think these variations of Thor make for some great looking minimates!  Despite the issues with the movement restrictions of the Stone Man I still give it a mighty 5 out of 5!

Day 364

Day 364 December 30^th

Galactus

            What would the Heralds of Galactus set be without a Galactus minimate!  I knew this one was a shoe in when the voting was announced and I have to say DST really did a great job with it.  The semi translucent and sparkly look to him helps to give him that cosmic feel.  While some might bemoan the scale I am fine with it, if I need him bigger that’s what photoshop is for lol!  The cherry on top of this sundae of awesome is the teeny tiny Silver Surfer that attaches to his back to fly over his shoulder; it looks amazing!!

Day 363

Day 363 December 29^th

Nova – Frankie Raye

            What an awesome looking minimate, yet very plain for the most part.  Great clean tampo detailing on the body and the slight sculpting modification to the head is great attention to the details to allow for what is the defining part of this minimate; the hair!  The huge translucent fiery hair piece is amazing and spot on to character, but DST goes another step further by putting a removable piece on the bottom tip of it to allow it to connect to a similar base so Novas fiery hair also allows her to be posed flying off the ground!  Great works right there!

Day 362

Day 362 December 28^th

Terrax

            I am slowly getting myself more educated on older Marvel stories so I will eventually get to read more about these characters, but I do like the way Terrax looks.  The fact that DST gave him a ‘floating’ rock to help show his power is way cool!  I really like how they did his beard/hair piece as a separate piece not fully sculpted, and it looks great!  His axe looks pretty good to the source too.  Now the biggest surprise here came with the torso piece.  Looking at it I had thought it was all one piece that started at his shoulders and went down past the crotch but once I had him in hands it was clearly not the case.  It is actually 2 separate pieces, one for the torso and one at the waist!  This allows for nice movement of the figure which is always a good thing!

Day 361

Day 361 December 27^th

Morg

            I did not see it coming when DST and TRU announced what their fan poll box set of this year would be a heralds of Galactus set.  Honestly I had a hard time choosing 4 out of the 6 options they gave us but surprisingly the 4 in the set were on my short list.  Morg here looks awesome; I love how DST did the details on him.  His armoured boots and greaves look great and the tampos are nice and clean!  Instead of making his head and hair one sculpted piece they made it that the hair comes up the back of the head from a piece on the neck which looks good even if it does limit the head movement somewhat.  I love the look of his axe and already have visions of it being used elsewhere.  The purple energy flight base is a nice touch too!

Day 360

Day 360 December 26^th

TRU Back to the Future 2 Hover conversion Delorean with Doc Brown

            I am very happy that DST continued to give us some form of Back to the Future minimates, packed in with the vehicles.  I like how they designed this one with the wheels turned down in flying mode, yet they still included wheels underneath is it can roll on the floor/table top!  Great thinking there!  The Doc minimate looks not too bad, the head looks a little off since it is a reuse of the one from the second box set and has holes for the sunglasses.  I do wish they would have kept the printed shirt look though as I find this plain yellow one to look, well, a little plain.

Day 359

Day 359 December 25^th

Merry Christmas!

            To all my readers, and minimate fans everywhere, Merry Christmas!  The year is ticking closer to the end and it has been an amazing year, thanks for sharing it so far and keep yours eyes peeled for the last few days yet!

And since it is Sunday today…

Sundays with my Son too!

            Merry Christmas everyone from Kye!

Day 358

Day 358 December 24^th

Christmas Eve with the X-Key

            The X-Key is a team I made up for my comic project.  They are underground and constantly on the underside of Norman Osborn’s radar, trying to stay ahead of his goons and take him down however they can.  No matter what kind of lock he puts on the them the X-Key will find a way to open it!

Day 357

Day 357 December 23^rd

TRU Black M.A.X. Stealth Tech Jet with pilot

            It was a sweet idea to make another round of the M.A.X. stealth jets, this time the added bonus of them being translucent!  I love the smokey black/grey colouring and the red screen on the front part of the cockpit.  The extra attention to detail comes along with the same translucent detailing on the pilot too!!  I also love how the pilot now has the sunglasses that we all thought we were getting on the pilot of the red jet from wave one!

Day 356

Day 356 December 22^nd

…and a Spider Man minimate in a treeeeee!

            It only seems fitting that as we decorated the tree this year there would be a minimate in it.  I had to give it quite a bit of thought to pick the one I wanted to use, especially with a portion of the collection sitting in the museum still.  In the end this Spider Man from wave 2 seems to be one of the iconic early minimates so he got this years vote to be in the tree.

Day 355

Day 355 December 21^st

Secret Santa Package

            One thing I have really come to enjoy about the Minimate Multiverse is the annual Secret Santa.  I love seeing what kind of fun stuff everyone gets from their secret Santa.  My ‘child’ got their package last week and was very happy with it, especially the little extra I tossed in there.  Today my package came.  First thing I did was look at the return address and try and see if I could figure out which forum members are from Texas.  So upon opening the package the first thing I find is a folded piece of paper followed by two Ziploc bags with tissue wrapped bundles inside.  Unfolding the paper I am greeted by a photo of World War Hulk holding the T2 chain gun and the Ultimate Green Goblin holding the slab of meat from the first Rocky box set posed a set of Luke’s old dioramas.  It says on the picture “Merry Christmas from Green Dudes with random weapons”.  A very cool looking Christmas card for sure.  I then select one of the bags to open and after unwrapping the first bundle find none other than the World War Hulk minimate holding the chain gun from the picture!  The second bundle in the bag is indeed the Ultimate Green Goblin with the slab of meat!  In the next bag are three bundles to unwrap.  As I open the first one a Thor’s hammer falls out of it, very appropriate as inside is a wicked Spider Thor custom!  In the next bundle is a very cool and creepy zombie snowman custom…love the arms used on it as they really look like gnarled tree branches from spooky cartoons.  Last but certainly not least is a custom of a battle damaged female ninja including a blood stained sword!  I love this package, there is so much awesome in it and the details in the customs are amazing!  A huge thanks to my Santa, whoever you are…once I know who you are I can thank you again!!

Day 354

Day 354 December 20^th

Being sick sucks

            Today’s post is a bit of a cop out and I do apologize for that.  I have been feeling really run down in the last couple weeks and found myself under the weather right before Christmas of course.  I really didn’t want to leave the blog miss a day so close to the one year anniversary so thanks to my obsession with toy photography I found a set up I had done before and would love to have the chance to re-shoot it.  My photography skills are much better as well as my composition skills.  Still I am happy with the over all feel of these pictures!

Day 353

Day 353 December 19^th

A bit behind the scenes

            Today’s post is a look behind the scenes of Portrait of an Addiction/Minijeff Productions.  Mainly it’s just some pics of my overhaul in progress in my mancave/prop house.  Needless to say it is taking me longer then I had hoped to get this place in the shape I want it to be in.  Thankfully I am done interning and teaching and can put some more time back into my family and my hobby.  So for now enjoy a peek behind the madness!