New Diorama in a new scale

A few nights ago it was window frame building night. Lots of windows in those old brownstones. My MiniMate diorama has begun.

I have been working this time to create a more multi-dimensional diorama for my figures. Since I am making this one for MiniMates, a lot of the pieces are smaller than I have been building in the 6 inch scale. Since I started the window frames, I have moved onto the stairs. I wanted this particular house to have a set of curved stairs to a landing and then a second set of stairs up to the front door. I think it is a cool architectural touch, and a potential for some fun photography in the future…if I ever get this thing built. I have since added the side railing, which is drying in the garage.

Road Trip – 5310 miles and an uncountable number of toy stops

I went on a 3 1/2 week road trip across America. We started here in California, went the northern route across Montana and North Dakota. We ended up in Wisconsin to see some friends before turning back and going across Nebraska and Iowa to see some friends in Colorado. From there it was a hard push home back to California. In all is was 5310 miles towing a travel trailer. There were lots of breaks along the way, mostly at Walmarts. Most of them were bust, but when I hit it big, It was really worth the stop.

In Star Wars, I was able to find the much desired Ashoka Tano. Along with her, I found the new Luke, Jango, and Kanan Jarrus.

In Colorado, there were clearance Halo 5 figures I didn’t yet have at Target. Looks like Target is clearing out most of their toy departments here at summer.

Marvel Legends proved to be very good. I first only found Iron Man for the Giant Man series. Then I hit it big time and found the rest of the wave. I also found Agent Venom at a Walgreens. I went in looking for the new figure, Namor, but came away with a super figure. It was also on sale, listed as Ant-Man, so that was an extra bonus.

In Transformers, I found the first wave of Legends figures in the Titan’s Return. Later I found the First wave of the Deluxe figures. They are so sweet looking. I also found a couple of Robots in Disguise figures. Quillfire was the first figure I found on the trip, early on just a few days in.

In Power Rangers, I found some great stuff, including Titano Charge Megazord, and the Archelon Zord. I found the missing charger I needed to complete the numbered part of the charges, and I found yellow ranger from Super Megaforce.

Then there were the randoms. Planes – Tractor Buck, TMNT – Dire Beaver, a couple of Hot Wheels, and two packs of MiniMates that were exclusive to Walgreens.

It was a great 3 1/2 weeks of travel. And getting to stop often to stretch the legs and look for good stuff in random states made some of the boring driving better.  I left in the middle of reviewing the Marvel Legends Absorbing Man series, and had more in Transformers I was ready to look at.   Not to mention some of the Japanese figures I have gotten my hands on right before I left.   There is a lot of stuff I was ready to tackle, and now the pile is huge.   Glad I have a few more weeks before school starts up again, and my life is sucked up with teaching.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles MiniMates – Wave 2

I love the number of accessories these guys come with.   Pizza in every box.  Weapons galore.   Don’t forget about the pets, Ice Cream Kitty and Spike.  What a great set of Turtles and secondary characters.  All of the figures come with a stand and a key chain.  I had so much fun taking pictures of these guys that I had way more pictures than I wanted to post here.  Check out the special album on my Flickr account for looks at the head swaps and more.

Leo comes with his standard head, along with scared face and Pizza Mask. Take off the pizza mask, and he has an unmasked face underneath.  He also comes with his two Katana as well as a grappling hook. He also comes with a pizza box.

Splinter has his cane and katana blade.

Casey and Mikey come with so much fun stuff. Casey comes with all of his sports gear including two hockey gloves, two hockey sticks, a baseball bat, and his scary mask. He comes with a painted face alternate head with his bandana wrapped around his head. If you take off his mask, you get a clean face Casey. You also get a set of hands to allow Casey to walk around in his normal street clothes.

Mikey comes with his nunchucks, happy face, smiling face, full pizza, skateboard, and Ice Cream Kitty.

Donatello come with a bladed version of his bo staff, as well as a grimacing face, love face, two slices of pizza, a mutigen finder, and a mutigen storage tank.

The Krang comes with a Krang, and a Krang’s gun. When you remove the Krang’s suit jacket, it reveals the Krang painted on the torso underneath.

This Donnie is the same version as the full color version, but you can see through him. He comes with his staff, but is missing the rest of the accessories.

The Krang in the set is the same as the Krang that comes in the standard set, but really, you need more than one Krang. It is a must for more bad guys.

Raph comes with his grimace face (standard for Raph), as well as a startled face. He also comes with two sais, three throwing stars, two slices of pizza, and Spike (before he went and got giant and mean).

Anton Zeck is decked out in his pre-Beebop gear. Someday he will be an ugly pig, but not quite yet. He does not come with any accessories, but he sports his awesome see-through mohawk.

I really like how they are all slightly different shades of green with different colors for their shells.  Even their pads and wraps differ.

Lots of good guys, some bad guys, and a lot of pint sized fun.

If you are looking for more pictures of these great figures, visit my TMNT Flickr Album Here. Click on my Flickr folder on the right menu bar for even more pictures.

Marvel MiniMates – Iron Man 3 (Wave 49)

Iron Man 3.  I really liked the movie.  I thought it was a lot of fun, and really moved Tony Stark forward in the Marvel (movie) Universe as well as looking back and connecting from Iron Man 2 through The Avengers to get to Iron Man 3.  There is a very nice linear approach Marvel is taking to really tie their movies all together.

The Marvel MiniMates have not really been on my radar as of late.   I was walking down the super hero section of a Toys R Us to see if I could find the remaining figures to complete my Marvel Legends Iron Monger.   No luck there, but they did have a nice collection of Iron Man 3 figures by our friends at Diamond Select.  What we end up with are two bad guys, 4 Iron Men, Tony Stark, and Iron Patriot.  It is not as if I need another Iron Man MiniMate, but these are new, the design is well executed, and there are some special surprises in there too.

Mark 42 and Mandarin:

There are a lot of bumps and color all over the Mark 42.   A really well done figure.  With the armor we get Tony hair and an extra helmet that has a removable face plate (more on that in a moment).   The Mandarin is in his evil Mandarin garb, with his short beard.  Fear not, he also comes with the long beard for easy swap for his onscreen time.

Back to the Mark 42 extra head.   Great for taking pictures of:

Tony in the snow. Mark 42 is out of power.

 

Iron Patriot and Extremis Soldier:

Iron Patriot looks bright and colorful with his new paint job.  He comes in his new slimmed-down appearance after shedding most of the weapons from War Machine.   He has the nice shoulder mounted cannon that can be removed.    Look down there.  It’s Rhody’s head.  So, whose head is under the helmet?  A little surprise I am not going to ruin for the people who have yet to go to the movie.  The Extremis Soldier is just starting to warm up.   Getting hotter!   He comes with a vest and a hand gun that can go in the holster on his leg.

Heartbreaker Iron Man and Tony Stark:

The Heartbreaker is one of the armors we see in the big battle at the end of the movie.  This Mark 17 can create quite a powerful blast out of the over-sized chest plate as well as creating shield.  He is a pretty menacing looking Mark of the Iron Man armor.

Along with Heartbreaker, we get Tony, while he was trying to perfect the Mark 42 in the movie.  He comes wearing the Mark 42 gloves and boots.  He comes with alternate shoes as well as hands.  One hand is bandaged.

Silver Centurion Iron Man and Skeleton Armor Iron Man:

Two more Iron Man suits.  Mark 33 and 41.  The Silver Centurion Suit creates pulse blasts that increase in strength the further they travel.  It also has some force fielding.  The Skeleton Armor is made for maneuverability.   Very light weight in design.  Both come with yet more Tony hair.

All that Tony hair leads to…

5 Tony Starks.  I guess he really is Iron Man.   The fun part is that we get 4 Tony heads.  The Mark 42 and Skeleton Armor heads are the same, but the other three are different.  Not that they would be displayed too often with their helmets off.

All 8 figures for the Iron Man 3 wave.  Really nice figures.  A couple of bad guys, and more armor for Tony’s Hall of Armor.  No repeats in this wave.  Nicely done!

The box features the Avengers Initiative logo.  I am thinking the Initiative of the Avengers was not what Tony did at the end of the movie, but maybe that is just me.  It will be really fun to see how we get to the next Avengers movie from here.

The Amazing Spider-Man MiniMates

The movie turned out to be great.  I was hoping it was, and ended up with the Toys R Us wave of Marvel MiniMates featuring The Amazing Spider-Man.

That’s what we need right?  Another Spider-Man.  Add in Battle-Damaged SM, Peter, and Vigilante SM, and we get 4 new Spider-Man figures this time around.  These are really nice figures.   They have great details. It is fun to look back at the really early Spider-Man figure, and see just how far the MiniMates lines have come, featuring some really great paint, and they are very accurate.   The Battle-Damaged Spider-Man actually has the scratches across his chest from his battle with Lizard.   Oops, did I give that away for you?  Of course not.  You knew that SM and Lizard had to mix it up at some point.

All right, down to the figures in pairs.

Battle-Damaged Spider-Man and Lizard

Pretty standard for a Spider-Man figure.  He comes with the removable mask, his hair to replace the mask, and his backpack. A backpack?  Well, yeah.  The backpack actually makes a few appearances in the movie.   Torn to shreds by this time, Spider-Man will need to hone his sewing skills to get this suit back into shape.

As for Lizard, he looks great.  He has the big chest plate to give him some extra muscle on the upper part of the body.   He has the great reptilian legs.  Don’t forget the tail, which does have some slight movement, but best is that the tip comes off.  See the movie.  You will appreciate this part.   The paint is fantastic.   His face looks just like the movie version.   I won’t say the movie face is the best Reptile face they could have done, but since this is a movie figure, Art Asylum did a fantastic job matching the face to the movie.

Spider-Man and Peter Parker

This was an interesting choice for them to put together.  Peter and SM in the same pack.  This is one of the best Peter’s made to date.  His clothes are great.  He comes with his backpack and a skateboard.   This is an all new skateboard.  For you Back to the Future MiniMate fans, this is not Marty’s skateboard.  I checked.  😉

Spider-Man is in all his clean and ready to lay the beatdown glory.   A really nice figure.  We get an alternate head for Peter, to use with the costume.  No glasses on this one.

Vigilante Spider-Man and Captain Stacy

“Who do I look like, the mayor of Tokyo?”  Best line of the movie.   Captain Stacy Rocked.  His figure is just what you want with a MiniMate.   The figure looks really close to Denis Leary.  He comes dressed in is uniform.  They gave him tactical gear, as well as a handgun and a machine gun.  I would have liked to see him with a shotgun since that is what he had in the big battle at the end of the movie.

I think they were kinda hurting for characters in the Toys R Us Exclusive sets, and the best we got was Vigilante Spider-Man.   Not really all that important, and not really the best character in the set.  He does have a beanie, which we do not see too often in MiniMates.  Change the head and you have a nice Luke Cage figure.

Gwen Stacy and Dr. Connors

Gwen looks awesome… as she should.  A major part of the comic Peter’s life, it is good to see her represented as such in the first movie of the new franchise.  Hair up, or hair down?  You choose.  She comes equipped with the ponytail, but she comes with a second hairdo that allows for her flowing blond locks to hand around her shoulders.   Don’t like the jacket?  That’s okay, because she comes with a second set of arms that allows for her to be in her shirt.  She does not look that much different from the MiniMate that was made from the last movie’s version of Gwen, but come on this Gwen was just better.  I am sure Bryce Dallas Howard could have done a fine job with Gwen, but she was not given much to work with.  Emma Stone was given the better Gwen.

Dr. Connors.   Art Asylum cheaped out on this one.  They have him the arm we already have, with the sleeve wrapped up.  In the movie, Dr. Connors let everyone see his mangled stump, as more of a reminder to himself as to what he was trying to accomplish.  He does have OSCORP on his jacket, which is a nice touch.

 

In all, a very nice collection of 8 figures.   These are the available figures from Toys R Us.  There are two other sets that were sent out to Comic Stores.  They include Uncle Ben and Aunt May, each with a SWAT figure.