Autumn Falls

With Autumn starting this past week in the northern hemisphere, I decided to do a brief photo shoot to acknowledge the season. This is also a good way for me to check in and keep the blog going. I'm not sure how "fall-like" the green grass seems but hey, that's how we roll around here! At least there are acorns on the ground, albeit six times larger than in real life.

I realized that these are the first new photos I've taken of Meg in quite a while. I've had most of her outfit for several years but I was really happy to find her Azone denim jacket on eBay at some point during the past year. I finally got to photograph her wearing it.

Leona's Problem- Adventurers Club August 2014

So, the Adventurers Club challenge for August is Transportation. Normally, there are plenty of transports for the various folks in the doll and action figure crew here but finding the time to set up the shoot has proven challenging to say the least. Anyway....

If you are familiar with Dominion: Tank Police, you know lead character Leona commands a tiny tank named Bonaparte. My 1/6 scale Leona doesn't have a tank (or her partner Al to drive it) so she went looking around to see what she could find. She heard there was a tiny tank available but upon seeing it in person, she was a bit disappointed!

Leona: "Yeeeaaah, I just don't think this is gonna work for me."

Well, hang in there Leona and good luck with your search!

Geektopian's Hobby Wish List

Some of you may recall that I posted a Want List entry back in November 2013 LINK. This isn't the same thing since I'm now focusing on items which, as far as I know, haven't been made or announced for future production. A couple things to keep in mind are that not everything here is doll/action figure related and that I realize some of this will likely never happen. In some cases, the subject is too obscure or tangential, the media franchise has played out or was never all that all that popular to begin with, or the hobby market has moved on other areas of interest. In other cases, the absence of an item from the market is hard to understand and may have more to do with the priorities or interests of manufacturers rather than a lack of demand in the market. As always, this is purely subjective and only reflects my personal wants and needs.

Azone Pure Neemo Flection LL/M body:

I think Azone offered this body separately as a doll show exclusive in 2013 but to my knowledge, it has never been sold through normal retail channels except as part of a "full set" doll. I have Mio and yes, this is a really cute body, so I'd love to upgrade a couple other PN girls in my crew. An LL/M would be almost a must for the "other" Mio... as in Mio Akiyama from K-On and I'd like one for my Minami sensei as well. I would try to resist the urge to give my entire PN crew this body but I'm a guy and there are big boobs involved so, yeah....

US T23/ T23E3 medium tank series, 1/35 scale injection molded:

If you're a fan or player of World Of Tanks, you are probably familiar with the T23, which has gained near-mythical status due to its brief inclusion during the early era of the game. Apparently, the improved T23E3, as seen in the four-view above, is coming back. That isn't important to me since I don't play the game but I would like to see a model of this vehicle. I'm aware of two models of the T23, one in 1/100 scale and the other in 1/35 but the former is a miniature gaming piece while the later is a small production resin kit and neither are of the version pictured above. With all of the other injection molded kits of various WW2 prototypes and paper projects already on the market, this significant ancestor of the post-WW2 Western main battle tank should not be ignored. If a vehicle like the Hungarian 44M Tas can be produced as an injection molded kit, a tank for which only one incomplete mild steel prototype was built, the T23 series, of which over 200 were produced, should be a no-brainer. Besides, I think it looks cool and *WHINE* I want one!!!! LOL

Cute, 1/6 scale female military figure(s) and/or clothing:

Yes, this sort of thing has been done before but it often seems a bit "hit or miss" to me. Often, these dolls and outfit sets seem more cosplay or sexy than the cute but serious style you see in a lot of military moe. What I'm thinking of here is not mecha musume, school girls with guns/tanks/planes/etc. or the ubiquitous camouflage "battle bikini" but something more like the illustration above. In my ideal world, the clothes would be made to fit either Obitsu 27cm (fat chance, I know) or Azone PNM dolls. A full set doll would be OK but I would prefer just a separate uniform set. Maybe a Japanese Ground Self Defense Force camo uniform to fit Azone PNS-PNM bodies? Perhaps the full set doll could be a PNM character in a JGSDF dress uniform.Yes, I remember Jiei-tan but her uniform was somewhat fanciful. Given the apparent popularity of military moe, I'm surprised it's not more common in the doll hobby.

Those OTHER girls from Sora No Woto:

I know, I know.... This is pretty unlikely to ever happen but I'm just posting a wish list. I was a fan of Sora no Woto and was really hoping to see more products come out of it but it never happened. I would like to have seen Azone continue to release dolls of the other members of the 1121st Platoon after Kanata Sorami but apparently the series just didn't have the popularity to justify it. Of course, the fact that Kanata was one of the more expensive PN dolls at the time probably didn't help either. I have no skills as a seamster or painter so a DIY custom set of dolls is beyond my abilities and a commission is probably beyond my financial means. Still, it would be cool to have a complete set of these girls as 1/6 scale dolls.

On that note, I think I'll end this post right here and pick up the thread again in a future post (or posts). Keep checking back for further installments and if it inspires you, I'd love to read what some of you have on your wish lists too.

Ridin' In Style.... Or Not!

The Adventures Club photo challenge theme for July is "Travel Case" and Mio decided that she needs a case of her own rather than always getting stuffed in the big guy's cargo pocket. A disused camera bag seemed to be just the thing, with plenty of padding and lots of extra pockets to store her stuff. This would be a far more secure and comfortable way to travel.

Unfortunately, she didn't notice one rather major problem with the camera bag.

*sounds of a child's laughter and the stomp of running feet.*

*CLUNK* Stomp Stomp Stomp.... "Hehehehehe...."
Mio's voice: "Uuuuuuuugh! What happened?"

Mio: "Crap, I'm stuck! I need to push this thing over.... UUUUURRRRRRGH!"
*KERPLOP!*

KICK KICK (sound of Velcro ripping) RRRRRRRIIIIIP!
Mio: "WHOOOOOAAAAA!" *CRASH-THUMP* "Ouuuuch!"

Mio: *pant pant groooaaan* "Got to get out of this damn thing... feel like I've been hit by a truck... entire body hurts...."

(A little while later.)
Mio: "Use an old camera bag for a travel case!" "That had to be one of the stupidest ideas I've ever had! This thing is a death trap! It's hot, dark and not very comfortable. There's no way to see out of it and I could easily get locked inside."
"But that's not the worst part...."

Mio: "How did I fail to notice that this old camera bag was now the plaything of a giant two-year-old? I mean, it's not like I don't see him run through here all the time. How could I not see that one very major detail?"
"NEVER AGAIN! Man, I am so flippin' stupid!"
"At least he didn't realize I was in there and try to rescue me.... Geez!"


Editorial note: Normally, the local Adventurers Club travels by various exotic and mundane means. They aren't aware of the "big people" or that they're dolls. For the monthly photo challenges though, I've decided to lower the fourth wall to make things easier for me to handle. If I ever get around to doing an actual story line for them, I have a vague notion of a sort of fantasy dieselpunk-style world for them to inhabit. But yeah, not sure when I'll get around to working on that!

Well crap...! X2

A couple of brief laments. First of all, it appears that the Pure Neemo Sweets ala Mode Yuzuha 1.1 appeared on the various Japanese retail sites sometime in the last day or so and disappeared just as quickly as before. So once again, I've missed out on Yuzuha. Well crap....

Next, as I believe I've previously stated here, I was hoping someone would put a 1/6 version of Miho Nishizumi from Girls und Panzer. Actually, my wish was for the entire Team Anglerfish crew but I digress. Anyway, I got my wish in that Medicom has a 1/6 version of Miho on the way and she's now available for pre-order. Being from Medicom, I have two problems with this. First, she's somewhere around $220-$230 USD, which is way beyond what I will pay for a single 1/6 scale doll. Second, Medicom's frequent quality control problems make me skittish about buying anything from them, even at a reduced cost. So there's a 1/6 scale Miho on the market and she's not coming home with me. Well crap.... 

More old stuff- Desert edition

Going through my photo files, I came across a number of interesting things I did back about 5 years ago or so. Since about 99% of my photography nowadays consist of iPhone pics of my kids, it's a good thing I used to photograph stuff that's relevant to this blog!

Anyway, back in 2009, I had this idea for a story involving a military unit operating in the desert. I was considering the idea of perhaps a near-future Post Apocalypse setting. I did several 'bashes of various figures before the idea puttered out in the face of the reality that I live in a completely green, sub-tropical environment. Oh well, I was still pretty happy with the figures!

The base figure is a super Articulated GI Joe while the uniform, gear and weapon are a mix of Dragon, BBI and Soldier Story. I like him enough that I'm considering rebuilding him at some point.

More from the archives.

Once again, it's time to fuel up the DeLorean's Mr. Fusion, make sure the Flux Capacitor is, uh... fluxing and with the necessary 1.21 gigawatts charging the system, step on the accelerator and hit 88 miles per hour.

In other words, I haven't had time to create new content so you get recycled photos from the past. ;)

Claire is another of my Obitsu "muses" who, for a time, was the official voice of the doll/action figure crew here in Geektopia. She even had her own first-person blog for a while but things kind of puttered out around the time we discovered my wife was pregnant with our son. There was some other stuff going on in real life that took the wind out of my sails and I eventually decided to concentrate on just one blog. Writing first-person, in-character proved to be grinding when I wasn't in a creative frame of mind although I might try it again someday. Meanwhile, here are a few photos from "back in the day".

For those who are curious, Claire is made from an Obitsu SB-2 (large bust) 27cm body and a W-02 pre-painted head. She sometimes seen using various 27cm option hands, which don't come with these bodies unlike 21-23 and 25cm sizes.

There are some photos in the archives where she's using a large bust 25cm body but none of those are in this photo set.

In the last photo, she's posing with a couple of GI Joes who were regular characters in the back story I had created for her.

I'm not sure about this but I think Claire may have to make a new appearance here in the near future. Perhaps in an Adventurers Club photo shoot? We'll see!