Day 555

Day 555 June 19^th

Arts and Culture Day

Part 1

Here is the set up for the day plus the first batch of pages done by the students who visited my workshop during the day.

 

And now here are the first of the students pages...

Day 554

Day 554 June 18^th

Prelude to Arts and Culture Day

Part 2

Here is the second part of the lead up to the Arts and Culture Day…enjoy!

Day 553

Day 553 June 17^th

Prelude to Arts and Culture Day

So last fall there was a nation wide event called Arts and Culture Days, which was planned to help promote the arts across Canada, with the main focus to help increase the public’s exposure to different art types as well as increase multicultural awareness in every province.  Many different things happened all across the country and it was deemed a resounding success!  Locally I got to play a part in that success.  The Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery planned their participation in this by hosting a 2 day event.  Day 1 was an artists workshop day with various artists to demonstrate various things such as stained glass mosaics, stop motion and my part in this…using Minimates and photography to make comics!  Over the next few blog posts I will showcase what all happened that Friday and the work that came out of it.  Today’s post has to do with the arrival of a package that helped me prep for the event!

Day 552

Day 552 June 16^th

A big package hints to BIG plans

Please excuse the lower quality of the pictures but this is just a little teaser of a couple bigger projects I have on the go involving Minimates later this summer/fall.

Day 551

Day 551 June 15^th

USA Today Debuts “Thief of Thieves” Minimates!

USA Today got the first scoop of a new set of Minimates set to debut this fall, based off of creator Robert Kirkman’s “Thief of Thieves”.  Honestly I have not heard of this property before this spring but it sounds interesting enough to check in to and the parts on the Minimates could lead to some interesting re-uses for sure.  Read the USA Todayarticle here.

Day 550

                                                                     Day 550 June 14th
                                                   The Walking Dead Minimates get animated!

 Earlier this month DST posted this great Walking Dead Minimates animated movie and it is awesome! This property is fast becoming my second most favourite line of Minimates out there.

DST Credits: “A short Walking Dead Minimates film by Alex Kropinak. Voiceover by Chris Ward. Music by Matt Takacs.”

Day 549

Day 549 June 13^th

CBR exclusive reveal of Invincible Design art

So slightly before DST revealed that they were in fact working with Robert Kirkman’s Skybound/Image Comics “Invincible” for Minimates I had decided to check this book out.  I really enjoy “The Walking Dead” and also loved Kirkman’s “Astounding Wolf-Man” so this was really not too much of a stretch for me to check out.  No surprise here as I found I loved the book, well written and fun to read!  So I will be all too happy to add these guys to my Minimates collection, hopefully they carry onward with what they make as there are soooo many great characters in the book.  Over on CBR today there was an exclusive reveal of the design art for the box set.  I am sharing their images here and you can read their article here.

 

Day 548

                                                            Day 548 June 11th

                                       Guest Review – Alpha Flight part 2 by Mini-Myte
                                                       Alpha Flight review #2

MINI-MYTE here again with a few follow up reviews of the complementing Alpha Flight boxed sets. Specifically, the TRU exclusive Box and Vindicator 2-pack from Marvel wave 14 and the second Alpha Flight 4-pack, exclusive to Action Figure Xpress (NYCC 2012) featuring Sasquatch, Snowbird, Aurora and Shaman.

 
 Packaging: First up is the Box and Vindicator exclusive 2-pack from TRU wave 14. The packaging is the standard Marvel window boxed format. The main cardboard color is green and features a star burst pattern on the front along with headshot control art of the two minimates contained within. The Minimate 10th anniversary logo is also featured near the top left of the window. The backside of the box also has the star burst pattern behind pics of the other minimates featured in wave 14 along with brief descriptions of Box and Vindicator.

Box: This minimate represents the second version of the robot named Box. He features a metallic red and silver paint job on his removable armor. Underneath Box's helmet is a clear yellow plastic head (that of Madison Jeffries). Not totally sure of the reasoning behind a holographic head / hairpiece for Madison Jeffries. Box also comes packed with a box shaped hand blaster and a flaming rocket blast accessory.

Vindicator: Clad in red and white and prominently displaying the maple leaf, Vindicator is the spitting image of her husband Guardian (James Hudson). Along with her patriotic costume, Vindicator comes with not one, but two removable masks. Both masks feature ponytails and one has a blue visor while the other has an alternate red one. One downside to the red visored mask is that white paint used on the accessory did not hide the red plastic all that well and the mask itself appears pink in hand. Take the mask off and pop on the bonus hairpiece included to reveal Vindicator secret identity of Heather Hudson. Also included with Vindicator is a standard clear flight base.

Packaging: The second AFX exclusive Alpha Flight minimates come packaged in the typical 4-pack box. Each minimate contained within can be seen through their respective window. The team’s name is splashed across the front of the box in brightly coloured, bold lettering emphasized with a star burst pattern behind it. Near the top of the box is art work depicting Sasquatch, the Minimate 10th anniversary logo as well as the New York Comic Con logo. The back side of the box feature a group shot of the team along with the team’s name, star burst pattern and a brief description of the minimates included in the set. Also shown is a picture of the first Alpha Flight boxed set depicted near the bottom of the packaging. Shown are Guardian, Northstar, Puck and Marrina.

 

Sasquatch: Up first in this set is the furry orange powerhouse Sasquatch. He comes clad in a bevy of tailor made parts. Sasquatch feature exclusive feet, hands / arms and a massive one piece head / chest / crotch piece. While the minimate is beautiful to look at, Sasquatch's articulation / pose-ability suffers because of his massive parts. I'm not even sure if DST could have created a more maneuverable Sasquatch without compromising the look of the character.

 

Aurora: Aurora is twin sister of the mutant known as Northstar. Adorned with strategically placed star decals, this mate captures the look of Aurora’s original costume perfectly. Pop on the cool "hand holding" accessory and you can pose Aurora along with her brother to recreate them manifesting their light making power. For all you Alpha Flight purists out there, Aurora comes with not one, but two hairpieces (one black and one white). Over the years, Aurora has been depicted in the comic book world with black hair, but has popped up with a whiter look a few times. Kudos again to DST for paying homage to this little known fact. Like her brother, Aurora comes packed with the slimmer flight base.

 

Shaman: The mystic warrior of Alpha Flight is featured in his original green and orange costume. He comes equipped with flared boots and belt / medicine pouch accessory. Shaman also comes with an original headband / hairpiece specific to him as well as a blue energy accessory to replicate his mystical powers. The one accessory that would have made this mate 100% perfect would have been a sculpted pair of crossed legs to recreate Shaman in one of his meditative states. Thanks to a little Photoshopping, I was able to achieve that look.

 

Snowbird: The half human half goddess known as Snowbird comes adorned in her character specific cape and headgear/ hairpiece. Personally I found that Snowbird's cape limits her poseability, but with a little dunking in some boiling water, you can reshape it ever so effectively to give her arms and legs a little more maneuverability. She also comes equipped with a flight base and a blue lightning accessory. Yet another "wish" accessory of mine would have been the inclusion of a flying snowy owl accessory to better represent Snowbird animal shape shifting powers.

Overview / Final word: Both of these sets were perfect additions to the Alpha Flight minimate family last year. With the exception of Talisman, all us Marvel collectors were able to amass the entire AF roster in the same year. Not bad considering there are still a lot of character gaps in other existing Marvel teams.

Day 547

Day 547 May 14^th

My Birthday Elephant packages

So this is the second year now that there has been a Birthday Elephant event organized over on the Minimate Multiverse.  Think Secret Santa but more specific to the birthdays of the partakers.  I joined again this year and had a blast getting the gifts for my ‘child’ which just happened to be my good buddy Luke.

So May rolls in and my birthday looms on the very early horizon.  I know I have a package coming just no idea from whom and where and honestly pay no mind if it makes it on/before my birthday or not, just knowing that it will get here is all good by me!  So I get this package, don’t recognize the return address on it and there are no clues on the invoice inside either.  Inside are 2 variant cover issues of X-Factor, both of which feature Multiple Man.  My mind is racing as I know I have looked at these on Ebay many times but don’t recall actually making the purchase and a quick check of my Ebay account shows that I am not wrong.  Very cool to get but no idea who it is from.

Skip ahead a few more days to yesterday and I get home to a package.  Now anyone who knows me even a little knows that I generally have stuff arriving sometimes very regularly so it isn’t really a big surprise but as habit is the first thing I look for is the return address, National Library of Australia.  This makes me jump a bit as I know that Multiverse member Nessex works there and I also know that I have not had a deal with him so this package is an unknown!  The biggest shocker was coming yet as I opened this box of wonders!

Inside there were some yummy Carmello Koala chocolates (love getting candy from other countries!), a Spider Man dangler (always fun to have stuff like this around), a Walking Dead zombie 2 – pack (can never have enough zombies), and Canberra magnet (very cool addition to the magnet collection) and then the mother load – the old Toyfare exclusive ToyBiz Multiple Man figure (back in my early toy days I was so into the ToyBiz X-Men figures and this was one I always wanted to have but somehow never did get), not 1 but 4(!!!!) Marvel Universe Multiple Man figures (again one I have been on the fence getting but have always said I would only buy if I could get more than one since what better way to have Madrox using his powers lol) and last but most certainly not least Giant Sized Fantastic Four number 4 – the first appearance of Multiple Man!!! 

I checked with him and the variant covers were indeed part of the gift too.  Matt you really went above and beyond with these gifts and totally made my day, thank you so much!!