D Day Special, pt. 3

After I finished the photo session for the previous entries, I started scouting around for what else I had in my collection that would tie in to my D Day theme. And while I'm not an avid completist collector of WW2 figures, it turns out I have a nice little selection. This isn't everything but for my next D Day tribute installment, I wanted to show a couple of my older figures and one in progress.

Here we have Dragon's 1st Infantry Division "Sgt. Dave" and a GI Joe Collector's Club 2nd Ranger Regiment figure. I have left them both as close to out of the box as possible and while Sgt. Dave still holds up pretty well, Joe could use some changes and upgrades to his gear. At the least, he needs a smaller helmet and more to-scale weapons, although I will probably switch his body for the later Super Articulated style I normally use.

Here are my normal four-view shots; sorry, no "in action" shots this time! First up, Ranger Joe-

Next we have 1st Infantry Sgt. Dave-

Dave is special to me because he was a birthday gift from my wife some years ago and was my first Dragon WW2 figure.

Finally, a brief look at BBI's 101st Airborne paratrooper, Cpl. Bud Norris-

Cpl. Norris is a really nice figure in spite of some early-2000s era details but I haven't been able to get much work done on him recently. Also, to be honest, I'm getting a little done with the D Day theme right now (Short Attention Span Theatre!) and I want to switch out some of his gear and weapons before I consider him finished.

I hope you've all enjoyed this D Day tribute and that you'll stick around for more bloggy adventures in the coming months. My wife has managed to convince me to stick with this format at least for the near future and so I've started compiling a list of possible subjects to post here during the next six months.

D Day Special, pt. 2

Continuing with the the US D Day theme as promised, our next subject is a 101st Airborne paratrooper.  Like the previous entry, this guy is a "neo-retro" GI Joe style figure. In this case, the entire figure was produced some years ago (early 2000s?) by Cotswold. The one change I had to make was replacing his rifle, a folding stock M1 carbine, with an item from 21st Century Toys after two cast metal   Cotswold rifles broke in transit.

A couple of close ups of our trooper's headsculpt and face up. You'll notice the Mohawk haircut and warpaint worn by some units of the 101st Airborne.

Finally, a few "in action" shots:

I realized there are no actual German soldiers for this guy to fight against. The closest thing I have are my East German-inspired troops but that wouldn't really work. Oh well!

A bonus "buddy" shot with infantry sergeant Joe from the previous entry:

D-Day Special- Photoblog June 2016

June 6, 2016 marks the 72nd anniversary of the Allied invasion of France, better known as D-Day. One of the most significant invasions in military history, it would mark the beginning of nearly a year of intense bloody fighting in Europe leading to the defeat of Nazi Germany and her allies. While I am well aware of the contributions and actions of all Allied nations, I have chosen to focus on US forces simply because these are the figures I have in my collection. Nothing more complex than that.

First, we have a retro-vintage style GI Joe (really, Action Man) dressed as a US Army infantry sergeant from mid-1944. One small but unavoidable error is the unit patch on his shoulder. This is from the Kiska Task Force that fought in Alaska's Aleutian Islands nearly a year earlier. This unit wasn't involved in the D Day invasion, as far as I know but the insignia was already on the jacket when I bought it!

This is about as close to a typical grunt rifleman as I could get with the parts I had on hand. Everything here aside from the base figure is from Cotswold's Elite Brigade and Gearbox lines. I borrowed the pants and boots/leggings from a Cotswold Ranger, so eventually, this guy will be pantsless and shoeless again. I swapped the hard hands with reproduction Action Man action hands, Palitoy's original version of what became known as Kung Fu Grip. These repro-vintage Action Man figures have so far proven to be among my favorites of the new/old style Joes.

Now for a few action shots which turned out pretty cool but reminded me of why I don't get down in the dirt and play anymore.

While this entry is running long, there's still more to come. Please stay tuned!

Quick status update.

Just to let you all know, the June photoblog entries will be delayed until June 6 in order to coincide with the 72nd anniversary of D Day. And yes, I said entries…. I'm hoping to make it a multi-day, multi-post issue, depending on how much time I have for photo sessions.

Here's a preview I posted on Instagram recently:

Beyond this, I'm not sure what's in store for this blog. Including the year I participated in Heather's (littlebearries) Adventurers Club, I've been doing this same format for nearly 2 1/2 years and I'm thinking it might be time for a format change. I'm not sure yet what I would do differently since this works well enough for me as an old guy with young kids. It feels a little stale though and maybe a bit predictable, although predictable isn't really a bad thing for me. I had hoped to make a definite decision by now but June is here and no ideas have crept forth. Unless something brilliant occurs to me, I'll start working on ideas for at least the third quarter of 2016 and reassess things after that.

Utaha Kasumigaoka- Photoblog May 2016

So, since I've beaten the crap out of all my loyal readers with a steady diet of military subjects the past few months, I decided to mix things up with… a Japanese schoolgirl! I haven't been following any anime series recently and Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata isn't on my "must watch" list but when I saw this Azone Pure Neemo doll of Utaha Kasumigaoka, I knew I had to add her to my PN crew. The short version of Utaha's story is that she's a brilliant student who is already a published popular author. She gets involved in creating a dating sim game with some fellow students and there you have it. You can read more about it HERE because, naturally, there's a Wikia! Anyway, on the the photos.

A few more shots, previously posted to Instagram.

 The Christopher Moore and Peter Green books belong to my wife. I haven't posted the blonde "fuzz head" Joe here yet.

 Utaha with two guys you've previously seen posted here. A last moment pose change created a safety situation with the British Para's rifle. Sorry Utaha!

An in-the-box shot trying to defeat the dreaded Glare Monster.

That's all for now, see you again soon!

Super Secret Hobby Secrets Which Are Secret!

I'm in a grumpy, bitch and moan mode so pardon me. I've been in the 1/6 scale doll-action figure hobby for nearly 20 years, 19 years this April to be exact. Before that, I had been a scale modeler since first grade and in fact, I'm still dabbling in that hobby more than four decades later. The thing is, I've never had any "hobby secrets" and I've always disliked when people did. Let me back up and say that I totally understand if you have a business that relies on some sort of "trade secret" to keep getting paid. Generally though, touting your finished projects while refusing to answer questions about it always annoys me. You didn't learn most skills sets entirely on your own and if you'd rather not share your super secret special methods, don't taunt people with them either. No, I don't believe you have any obligation to pass along methods, materials and techniques to the hobby community but you can avoid being a jerk about not doing it.

I bring this up because I've had some encounters recently with an individual in an online doll community who gets very snitty and testy whenever someone asks about a doll or accessory this person has posted. The response is always something like "why don't you use Google?" You'll notice that I generally post a list of parts used and their manufacturers. I'll always try to clarify if something is confusing and admit that sometimes, I just don't know. Most of my 'bashes are dead simple but I don't expect my readers to have encyclopedic knowledge of subject matter and manufacturers past and present. If you want to know where the shoes or jacket on one of my figures came from, I will endeavor to answer you. The only time it gets annoying is if a person expects me to do the legwork of finding something for them or repeatedly badgers me to sell or give something to them. But if you say "where did that pair of pants come from?" I'll never say "why don't you just Google it?" In the few cases that I've genuinely worried about causing a run on an item I needed for a project, I've kept it quiet until I have my supply laid in. I've done that maybe twice in the past decade.

These recent episodes with this particular doll collector have reminded me of how much I dislike this attitude. I hasten to mention that this didn't happen to me personally but was something I witnessed. I've already learned not to ask this person any "how'd yo do that-where'd you get that?" type questions. Like I said above, there's no OBLIGATION to answer such questions, it's simply nice when people do it.


 I don't know, maybe I'm totally off-base here. Is this just me or do you feel the same way? I would love to hear some thoughts from my readers on this.

British Para- Photoblog April 2016

This month, we'll take a look at a modern-ish British paratrooper, better know as a Para. To be honest, while I've always found these guys a fascinating subject, I won't claim any sort of expertise on them. Nice way of say that yeah, he's probably wrong but that's just how it is! In fact, the uniform represents an earlier style of the famous DPM camouflage while the load bearing gear is post-1995 but I thought it looked cool. As usual, I managed to lose my small stash of bayonets while working on this guy.

The basic breakdown is: Base figure is a super articulated GI Joe; uniform, boots and web gear from Dragon; beret from BBI and SA80 rifle from 21st Century Toys.

The uniform looks more like an early (~1970s) version of the DPM camo.

Close up without the rifle to show uniform and gear detail.

The famous red para beret.

SA-80 5.56x45mm rifle.

Sorry for the late update this month but as they say here on the 'net, "life got in the way"! A combination of wretched weather, having my house repainted and dealing with some plumbing issues conspired with the usual family and life obligations to delay my photo shoots until now. May's entry should be back on schedule and I'm hoping to have June's entry ready in time as well. Beyond that, I haven't decided where to go with the blog. At the once a month snail's pace I'm posting, I could basically never run out  of subjects. On the other hand, I think it's getting a bit stale. Maybe short, random entries more frequently? I dunno….