Orange Goodness

Around the second worst week in my life, first being the week I lost my beloved P-Chan, Bwana dropped his Autumnal Offerings. It was a nice way to end a horrid week.

I haven't been blogging as much due to all the stuff that's happened this month. The most traumatic being P-Chan's sudden death which my family and I are still coping with. I still have my moments where I would break down and cry every time I see her things and her pictures. I've been planning to write a long eulogy of sorts to remember her. I don't want to lose my memories of her and I want to write it down for posterity. I just couldn't do it with her birthday looming in front of me. She would have been 16 on the 23rd of this month. Now that it has passed and I am not as distraught I think I'll be able to accomplish that goal.

Dealing with that plus a horrible work week I was pretty much in a rotten mood as the weekend approached. I saw the pictures Bwana posted and the #13 caught my eye. I loved the color and the eyes were cute. I thought I was too late for it but managed to score and here he is:

I got him a couple of hours ago and I just had to take pics. I just love the spray work and the hand painted embellishments on the figure. The colors all blend and work well with each other. All in all I was quite pleased with this one.

It'll be a long time before I feel like my usual self again and seeing this in hand makes me feel like the old times and I am slowly moving away from mourning and walking the path to healing.

SDCC 2009 Day 3: On a mission.

I know this post is long overdue, but I've just been busy with school, work, xbox and addicted to netflix lately that I haven't had time to blog. Haha Either way, let's get started before I end up forgetting what happened on our last day at SDCC.

When we got to the con on Friday, I had only one thing in mind that day. I wasn't leaving SDCC without buying a one-off custom. For the past three days at SDCC, I had several in mind that I would pick up if I didn't manage to score a Pushead HP. There were several nice customs by Le Merde at the Grasshut booth. I was considering either one of his custom Tango resins or Bangals that were available. There were also some cool Gargamel customs still leftover from Preview night's madness. Indeed I still had a hard decision to make.

Before making my decision, there were still a few signings I wanted to check out before deciding on what to buy. There was Kazu-san's signing and Joel's signing happening on Friday at S7. Their signings weren't happening for awhile, so Maddie and I wandered around the convention hall until the time came.

Maddie and I have always loved collected things. Before Japanese soft vinyl, we collected a lot of Japanese anime collectibles. Maddie still has a big collection of Anime Plush, while I was more into Anime Gashapon figures and DVD's. Although I don't collect much Anime anymore, I still love to watch anime whenever I have time to. Some of my favorites are still One Piece and Naruto.(Yes, I am a Naru-tard. XD) When we pass booths that have some Anime displays or toys, we usually stop by to look because we still have some interest in them.

We also got a chance to stop by other booths that weren't around the normal toy area. The Mindstyle booth which was showcasing many of the custom Stitch figures wasn't too far, but it wasn't exactly in the Toygrower's area. I'm not a big fan of the platform, but there were some interesting customs that many artist's submitted. I believe Maddie took a pic of some of the ones that we really liked.

I wasn't all that impressed with Tim's submission for this showcase, but I still love his work. I love more of the customs he does with his own figures, but I've never liked any platform customs he's done.

This was probably my favorite custom in the Stitch showcase. I'm a big fan of Camilla D'Errico's work, and I thought what she did with the Stitch platform was great. I think the reason I love her work is because it has some Anime characteristics, such as big eyes.

After checking out the Mindstyle booth, I decided to head back to the S7 booth to see if they were setting up for Kazu-san's signing. Maddie wanted to go on ahead and head over to the other side of the convention hall. She too was also on a mission. She was hunting for some NECA action figures mainly of Resident Evil and Gears of War.

Nodame's 1st Birthday

On a cold Sunday morning, sometime last year, MomCat was huddled on top of a nest of twigs and leaves in our backyard. My mom found her and lifted her gingerly and discovered kittens!

Three large kittens. BoyCat, Nodame and Marley. I do not know the order of who came out first but Nodame was definitely the smallest one. We immediately relocated the lot into our guest bathroom. MomCat did not resist as I think she knew she would be safer in our house.

Months pass by, MomCat was fixed and released, BoyCat and Marley found homes and we opened our house to our first ever cat.

Today is his first birthday. We celebrated it with bubbles. His favorite toy. Nodame and the cats have been a great comfort for us especially since we are dealing with the loss of P-Chan. I am trying not to focus on her so much but it's hard and today is a bitter sweet day.

Red Metallic Rub Bop Dragon by LASH (MutantVinylHardcore)

Our first custom from LASH! The Bop Dragon arrived in the middle of the week but with Nate's fall semester starting and preparing for survey at work, I really didn't have time to take pictures till now.

He is gorgeous. The colors of the Bop Dragon blend well together. One thing we noticed about LASH's work is that when he wants toys to look metallic it really does look natural, metallic and light.

It's hard to explain.

I've seen metallic that look thick and heavy, it looks like the paint is on top of the toy thickly but his handiwork is smooth. I am not afraid to turn the head or joints. It's playable!

We only have these three Bop Dragons but they kick so much ass it's insane. Just need a Sutfin custom to round it out.

Just wanted to add to Maddie's post that I agree about everything she said about LASH's paint jobs. You can easily see his skill with metallic paints on a lot of his customs and also some of the limited run figures. You can definitely see how well he blends the metallic blue and purple on the Invading Virus Popsoda.

I'm really excited for the MVH figure he is sculpting. The initial body and head sculpts look great. Oh yeah, the Red Metallic Rub Bop Dragon was a such a great treat at the end of the day, especially after a day of bullshit "serving" for jury duty. Haha

I got wood!

Well...faux wood but they look awesome! I'm asking Nate what was the last 8 inch dunny we bought and he thinks it was the Tristan Eaton Tag Team Dunny. He eventually sold it. After that no big dunnys came through our doors. Until Amanda owned the platform with this release.

She completely made the dunny figure her own. When I first saw this I told Nate we're buying a dunny and after looking at it for a bit he agreed. The box for this thing was huge! Love the smiling stump with the little leaf!

We also managed to get the Wood Labbit. We were supposed to back on Saturday during SDCC but seeing how the lines were for Kidrobot's releases we decided to just pass.

My cousin April had this as a grail and she was determined to get it. Her determination yielded her an extra which she traded for some choice dunnys from our collection. Thanks April!