I bought a light-tent

Something that I think every blogger worth his or her salt should do (besides dumping such stock cliche' phrases as "with no further adieu [sic]) is buy themselves a light tent for halfway decent photos.  I finally pulled the trigger on one myself, this one to be exact:

I do not own a digital SLR though, I pretty much stick to my iPhone camera.  Which works for me.  I suppose I should get a DSLR soon though.  Maybe Christmas?  Hey someone want to send me one for review?

These are my FIRST shots with the box, the velvet background did not come with the kit, my wife had that in her fabric storage.

I've been working on this "set" for a while now, it's 25th Anniversary versions of the Original 12 GI JOES (plus Cobras) in a vintage case.   Missing Grunt, Zap and Short Fuze.  

Bought this almost complete case on eBay a couple of months ago, along with a much more battered brother.  Just need to find the weapons locker lid, which is really tough to find.

These are the remnants of my vintage Micronauts collection.  I'm pretty sure that I obtained all three from my buddy Tom way back in the 80's when I bought two very large boxes of Micronauts from him.  I have a lot more Palisades and newer Microman figures, but these are vintage beauts.

So I notice that I need to learn how to light better and to focus on the details better, but I'm sure practice will make perfect.

For $33 total (gotta love Amazon Prime) I'm really happy with this setup.  The lights work perfectly, the Camera Stand is tight and easy to use, and the box itself is easy to setup and take down, and everything stores really easily which is paramount because we just don't have enough room.

McFarlane adding NFL to PlayMakers Line

http://www.spawn.com/news/news6.aspx?id=13706

Series 1 will have 14 figures including:

PEYTON MANNING -- Indianapolis Colts quarterback
ADRIAN PETERSON -- Minnesota Vikings quarterback
TROY POLAMALU -- Pittsburgh Steelers safety
TOM BRADY -- New England Patriots quarterback
DREW BREES -- New Orleans Saints quarterback
LARRY FITZGERALD -- Arizona Cardinals wide receiver
MARK SANCHEZ -- New York Jets quarterback
TONY ROMO -- Dallas Cowboys quarterback
BRETT FAVRE -- Minnesota Vikings quarterback
BEN ROETHLISBERGER -- Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback
AARON RODGERS -- Green Bay Packers quarterback
ELI MANNING -- New York Giants quarterback
JAY CUTLER -- Chicago Bears quarterback
JASON WITTEN -- Dallas Cowboys tight end


Being a toy collector, I've seen their Baseball PlayMakers on pegs at TRU, sitting there, kind of lonely, not selling well. I have to say I've never been overly impressed with McFarlane's toys, most of the ones I've ever held/owned feel like they're made from inferior plastic. I'm also well known as an articulation junkie so the barely poseable plastic statues that McFarlane has pumped out for years in the sports realm has always left me cold. I haven't taken the bite on any of the Baseball figures yet simply because there isn't one player out right now that I even like. Then again McFarlane has always neglected my favorite teams, I guess he just doesn't like me. (The one time I met him at a ComicCon I was nice though, so I dunno).

For the record, McFarlane has done a TOTAL of FIVE Los Angeles Kings in their NHL line and NONE since 2006. To make matters worse they've only done SIX Angels! It doesn't get much better in Football for old Will either, they've only done eight Chargers, but get this FIVE of them are Ladanian Tomlinson (The other three are Brees, Gates and Rivers, so I guess that's not too bad). Pro Basketball wise, I don't really care about the Lakers that much, but at least Todd's shown them some love with 16 figures since 2002, and all the big names are represented.

In any case, I might go ahead and pick up a Favre, Peterson or a Brees if I see them. I'd like to see the line do well, because perhaps that would me a "Classics" line would be possible and I could get some of my faves from years past, like Dan Fouts, Barry Sanders and Marshall Faulk.

Honestly my love of multipoint articulation comes from the great toys of the 70's, mostly Megos, but I also had one of these lads:



I know I had the Chargers figure because I lived in San Diego when I got it. I look for them on eBay every now and then when I remember what they're called. I think I'll remember more often now that I've blogged about it. Any readers out there remember these guys?