A travel-adventure doll... because I'm crazy!

If you've checked my meager list of Blogs I Read, you'll notice slmka's LSO. This is an example of what I call the Travel-Adventure Doll blog, where the author takes a doll and camera around on their various journeys and records things from the doll's perspective. A variation is where the doll is the supposed author of the blog as well as the star.

I've tried this type of blogging a few times over the years and in a few different formats (Blogger, Live Journal, Facebook, Twitter) but I've never been able to make it work. Even back in the days before I became a father, it was difficult for me to generate enough photos and constantly write in the voice of a fictional character. Honestly, I'm a boring person, I live in Podunk and I never go anywhere interesting. When my in-laws lived a few hours away, my wife and I would travel to visit them a few times a year but again, that never generated much in the way travel content. I even tried to blog about it from a doll's eye POV and it was mind-numbing.

Now, we travel a lot less, we already have a toddler and a new baby is joining the family shortly. I still live in Podunk and do even less of the nothing I used to do. So why not do yet another doll travel-adventure blog? Because, I have so much time and do so much interesting stuff.

Yeah, like the title says, I'm crazy.

But I keep looking at this collection of dolls and action figures and begin thinking "Hey, a doll travel-adventure blog...." Possibly resurrect an existing character or even start over with a new character. And haul around a doll and camera... and a tripod, oh and two small kids. Then write about it all from the doll's POV.

Yep, I have lost my mind!

Neemos of Geektopia pt. 2

Next up in the Geektopian Pure Neemo crew is Lycee. This particular little lady is the Lycee Progression figure that was released back in 2011. I have always really like this girl but I didn't buy her back when she was released due to other financial priorities. I had been searching around for her this past year or so and thanks to a great lead from my pal Iwa Hoshi over at Team Of Dolls, I managed to find one for a pretty decent price. I like Lycee's kind of retro military-vaguely dieselpunk look which is less obvious here since she isn't wearing her garrison cap. I'm hoping to switch out her body for the improved Pure Neemo M like Maya, the girl in my previous post, has.

Sorry again for the mediocre photos. It's been cold and cloudy here, which is actually not bad for outdoor pics. However, just about the time I got a break to go outside, it started raining. Blah....

Neemos of Geektopia

I'm not going into a long explaination of what a "Neemo" is except to say that it's a cute PVC doll that's approximately 1/6 scale from a line called Pure Neemo produced by Azone. The bodies are sold in four sizes and the complete dolls reflect the cute/girlish moe style found in anime and manga.

I've had an interest in these dolls since they first came out but finances and other hobby interests meant that I had never bought any until earlier this year. OK, enough with the background, let's meet the girls!


First up is Maya- Cherry Pie from the Sweets ala Mode series. All the girls so far released in this series are dressed in sort of cafe maid/elegant goth lolita style and are themed around desserts. While the outfit is cute, what really attracted me to this girl was her darling face with bright green eyes and dark, red-brown hair. She has the newer Flection M body, with improved range of movement in the shoulders and hips. Since these photos were taken, she's been playing fit model for some of the other clothes I have around here. The weather's been cold and crappy here recently, so I haven't had a chance to take any more photos outdoors and my indoor photos are rather bad right now.

The 2014 want list

OK, so 2013 still has about five more weeks but I figured I'd get a start on my "end of the year" round up. It's always interesting for me to go back and review this type of post at various points in the future to see how far I've strayed or stuck to my goals. This time out, I'm listing the items I would like to acquire during the coming year. If I don't, that's OK since this merely represents a snapshot of my thinking at this point in time. The main criteria here is not to list things I hope will be made in 2014 but things that already exist and are currently not in my possession.

Azone Pure Neemo Kanata Sorami from Sora No Woto.
Hey, I liked this series in spite of all the grumblings that it was nothing more than K-On with military uniforms. Azone's version of Kanata was readily available in 2010-2011 but I procrastinated and also had some issues coming up with the money, then she was out of production. Oh sure, secondary market sellers still had her for a while but I just couldn't see spending the even higher prices they were asking. I still can't see it, so if I find one of these, it needs to be around the original retail price of ¥14,000 or less... hopefully much less!

Azone ACG series items.

If you know me from various doll/action figure sites or  blogs, you probably know that these items have been a bit of a "grail quest" for me. There's a whole story about missed opportunity and a lack of knowledge about who to order from back when this stuff was available but I won't go in to that here. Basically though, even the secondary market is pretty empty and this quest has been more frustrating than fruitful. I had mostly given up ever finding more than the one piece I already owned until I recently found some other items being sold by a collector who was getting out of 1/6 scale dolls. I'm still not completely optimistic about finding my "most wanted" items from this series (pictured above) but I'm a little less pessimistic than I had been the last few years.


Armoury Anastasia from Paolo Parente's Dust.

I've always kinda liked Paolo Parente's work although I'm not entirely sure that his alt-WW2 setting Dust is exactly the way I'd do things. Many years ago, I received an earlier figure from this line, Koshka, as a gift but for some reason I never bought Anastasia. If anything, Ana seems like a better, more complete figure. Anyway, now she's hard to find and expensive so naturally, I'm kicking myself for not buying her when she was more readily available. That makes her a great candidate for this list!

You might have noticed a definite military leaning in these items and I will plead guilty in that regard. While I like figures in other genres, these are the items that have stayed near the top of my want list over the years. Will any of them come home in 2014? Heck if I know! None of them are "must have" to the point that I'm willing to spend insane amounts of money to obtain them. These are by no means the only items I want, so it's possible that other posts of this nature will appear in the future.

A couple of asides.... First, all the images in this post have been snagged from image searches. They are used for reference only and I've tried to use "official" manufacturer's product photos. However, if I've used someone's artistic masterwork by mistake, let me know so I can remove it.

Second, while composing this blog entry over a period of several days, I actually found two of the items that I planned to include in this list. While this post ended up shorter than I first imagined, I think I'd rather have the items instead.

IT LIVES!!!! (for now)

Wow, this place has been "deader 'n a doornail" for quite a while!

A couple of brief updates, starting with the fact that the son whose upcoming birth I mentioned in my last post is now 15 months old and a bright, active, wonderful little guy that has totally stolen the hearts of his Mom and Dad (and just about everyone else he meets). However, very shortly, he will be joined by a little sister when our newest Geektopian is born in December. So yeah, I'll have even less time for hobbies and blogging than the little-to-no-time I've had for the past year and a half!

The "Under $50" project has continued even though I wasn't posting about it. I've actually found some pretty cool stuff that I had wanted for a long time and feel that my basic premise of being able to enjoy an increasingly expensive hobby for less money was validated. Of course, the down-side is when you see all these $120 USD+ figures that you really want.

Well, I've been weak....

It started innocently enough when I had some Christmas money and a Bandai Ryotsu Kankichi in Summer Uniform turned up on eBay. He was in great shape, had all of his parts and was well under $100 but still over $50.

Then there were the two 1/6 scale 3A N.O.M. figures. One was a birthday gift from my wife and the other was bought with birthday money.

And then the three Azone Pure Neemo girls I've managed to buy this year, the latest one arriving just today.

So yeah, I've given in to temptation.

Who knows, maybe I'll even get a chance to take and post some photos. Or not....

But I'm still around and still active in my hobbies to some degree, so I thought I'd stop in and post an update. 'Til next time- Adios!

Fun for under $50?

With the upcoming birth of my son, the already austere hobby budget I've had the past few years is about to get REALLY austere. Prices on new boxed action figures and new model kits have already exceeded a point that I feel comfortable paying, although there are still some good bargains if you shop around. With a typical modern military 1/6 scale action figure now retailing in the $120- $150 range and media property figures scraping the $200 mark, I've already resorted to bargain hunting and reusing existing pieces in my collection to keep things going. Now, priorities for both finances and physical space have changed, so I'm going to try to keep my hobby running with less money and tighter focus.

Towards that end, I've decided to start an "Under $50" project. Basically, I want to try and avoid paying more than $50 for a boxed figure or model kit whenever I can. I may have to stretch the definition if the item itself is close to $50 before taxes or shipping. However, when I say "under $50" I will as often as possible stick to well under that price. Will it work? Possibly so! One way to do this is to buy older but new to me items that aren't priced at "collector" levels. Some ideas that come to mind include Dragon's earlier 1/6 figures like their Hong Kong police and SDU line that often turn up for less than $25 at on-line vendors and on eBay.

Most importantly, I don't want to turn my house into a "look but don't touch" museum full of "Daddy's toys" which means that eventually, my son will have "dibs" on most of the sturdier, child appropriate stuff. I may have to stash fragile, adult collectible stuff away for a few years, so I want to keep what goes into storage to a minimum. There's also the possibility that some of it might need to be *GULP* sold or traded! 

Anyway, back to today's project which is clearing out the soon-to-not-be spare bedroom that was formerly my storage and hobby space. But when a bargain comes along, I'll be sure to post it here.

A little quiet around here.

Hey, I thought I'd check in since I haven't posted anything in over two months. There's not much hobby activity going on in the Geektopian Republic at the moment as I spend my spare time packing things away and getting the house ready for the birth of my son.

Oh yeah, Mrs. Geektopian and I are expecting a boy, BTW.

Anyway, my hobby room is going to be the baby's room so I'm stowing my gear for now and hoping to have it repainted and furnished within the next two weeks.

All I've got to say is, I hope this kid grows up liking action figures and model kits 'cause there are lots of 'em for him to choose from! LOL