Red, White and Blue!

It's time again for a Photo Assignment reveal! This time I asked for some Red, White and Blue. It could be a Captain America Figure ( I got a few, not as many as I thought), a red figure, a white figure and a blue figure. A toy that had all three colors on it. It just had to be a toy(s) and had to have the theme on it somewhere.

I was expecting an avalanche of Captain America toys, I mean the movie is being released soon right? The toy aisles are flooded with Captain America everything right?

So with that let's go, three cheers for the Red, White and Blue!

Reis had this to add to his photo, "You know you're going to get a gazillion shots of Captain America toys, right? ;)"

Matt "Still no website" sent in this with this explanation, "This time I have Darth Maul in a lightsaber battle with a Smurf and a white robot trying to break up the fight. I think DM will defeat both of them. Happy 4th of July!"

Logan sent this via Mock's email, "My dad told me what the next thing with the toys was. I looked through my toys and found some toys that were red, white, and blue. I also did a rainbow but I put that on my blog."

Colin (Super-D!) dropped in with this awesome pair of heroes, "I realize Captain America would be the obvious choice, but these 3 3/4" figures are new for me and I'm particularly excited about them :) Hasbro Marvel Universe Iron Patriot & Hasbro Paratrooper Dive Captain America! Happy 4th of July, Chunky!"

Jason rocked it with mix of characters, " only picked toys that had all 3 colors present. Jazz and Spider-Man(along with Panthro, Tracks and Mr. Sinister) are chaperones for their kids' class party. :)"

Victor sent this in "Since I have a bunch of Captain Americas, I thought I'd send in a collection of figures that AREN'T Cap.
Wasn't that hard, just had to go though some boxes to find something.
I think the most interesting find was the Lone Ranger who is RWB, he's just old and worn. I've had him since I was a kid.
Also interesting is that all the British Marvel figures are RWB, but that makes sense since the US was UK colonies.
Power Girl was a surprise since I didn't expect to find a fig from DCIH, but there she was.
Oddest RWB find was R5-D4 since I opened my "new toy" drawer and there he was. lol
Hope you enjoy the pic!"

Brian stole my thunder and left me scrambling for a new subject, ha ha, "Nothing like getting something in just under the wire.... :)"
Funny his pictures never look like they are under the wire.

Last and least, ha, my "Plan B", when world's collide. Red (Helboy from Mezco), White (The legs of my Super 7 Stormtrooper and Blue (non other than Spock), Happy 4th of July everyone!

Don't forget the Red, White and Blue!

Today was the deadline to get something in for the Red, White and Blue photo assignment, but Captain America(s) convinced me to give you a little extra time, so if you can have your picture to me by Friday, I will post it. After that and not even a motorcycle full of Captain Americas can save you!

Not My Toys!

Not a lot of participation for this one, which I totally understand as we all have lives, mater of fact I sort of phoned this one in myself, ha ha. Still the ones I received are awesome and need to be shown! I am also using the text that each person sent as an explanation which makes the story complete.

Remember at the bottom of this post will be the next Photo Assignment! So here we go... these are Not My Toys!

Colin sent in this awesome shot, smooth as velvet and with some toy history.

"Found in my pal/bandmate Jackhammer's basement: These Mattel toy cars were called "Zowees", and they are about 1/2 the size of a Hot Wheels car. Fourteen of them were produced in 1972 (the year of my birth), the initial eight as promotion with the Shell Oil Company, free with a gasoline purchase or 49 cents alone. Later on in 1972, these cars (in slightly variant form) along with six new cars were made available retail, as well but as a variation of the Shell Oil versions. From left to right: Numb Skull, Shifty, Good Knight (Shell Oil promo version), & Goin' Fishin'"

Here's Reis' entry, which made me laugh pretty hard when I saw the email, you know I have run across a few of these type of scenes in the toy aisle, but this one is just too perfect.

"While trolling through TRU the other day I spotted this lovely little scene near the Schleich toys in which someone carefully placed what appears to be a Bernese Mountain Dog into a scene with a rather large dragon, thus making me imagine what could very well be one of the strangest Disney movies ever. I'm calling the movie "Barney & Scales" and it will be rated G."

Last but not least is my entry, like I said I may have phoned this one in. These are technically not my toys... yet anyway. I am working on some DC Comics projects at work and Warner Bros. sent these over for inspiration. So they are in my office and to be used on the project, but not really mine. After the project and if I am good I may be able to assimilate them into the Bat Shelf and give them official numbers.

As you can see I already opened one up and was checking him out. The Unicorn is from Despicable Me, it was left on my desk for some reference shots and now as a joke I keep it around, besides "It's so fluffy!" well, not really, but still funny to have staring at you while you work.

That wasn't so bad, you know it was not a lot, but what I got was really worth it. I think even my phoned in one wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, ha ha. So, what's next? Glad you asked.

The next Photo Assignment is "Let's hear it for the Red, White and Blue!"... get it? July... Red, White and Blue? Okay the photo does not have to be patriotic in nature, it can be but it can also be of any toy or toys, just use all three colors in the picture.

Here's the details...

1) Submit one JPG image to me by Wednesday, June 29, 2011 of some Red, White and Blue Toys. They can be any combination, but lets face it if you send in a Captain America you obviously have it made... oh and that would be way to easy. This is open to every one, not just people in the USA, every one has some sort of Red, White and Blue Toys! It can be patriotic themed or just a Red toy, a White toy and a Blue toy. It just has to be all in one picture.

2) Include your first name and if you have a website you want linked to.

3) Send your picture and info (see above) to eclectorama [at] studiohowell [dot] com, with "Some RWB for ya!" in the subject.

4) I will post all the photos on Monday, July 4, 2011, like that? I knew you would. So be back here then to see what people sent in.

This isn't a contest and I don't want too much trouble put into your picture, line them up, snap a pic and send it in! I am not collecting email to spam you, I don't have that much time,it's just for fun!

Hey Ladies!

All right it's ladies night and the feelin's right... oh hey didn't see you there. That's right it's time for another Eclectorama Photo Assignment! Well, the part were I post all the photos you my fine Eclectomaniacs have submitted. Stay tuned because at the end of this post I will announce the next assignment and I think it's going to be a fun one!

I thought I would drop my photo first this time, so here you have my original Princess Leia figures from when I was a wee lad.



I cannot tell you how or when I acquired these, most likely from different birthday hauls and holiday presents, but as you can see I did take care of my ladies. My favorite is the Hoth Leia front and center. To this day when someone mentions Princess Leia, this is pretty much the first thing that pops in my mind, I think the Hoth outfit trumps even the Jabba's Prisoner outfit, lets be truthful that one is so over done now, I don't know if it's the way she wore her hair or the snow bunny aspect that I dig, but Hoth Leia will always be my number one.

I have to tell you also it was difficult to decide what to shoot, I tend to collect a lot of the female action figures for various lines, and by the looks of things so do you. So lets see what you sent in.

Matt, who I have an ongoing joke that he has no website, sent in this mix, here's what Matt has to say "Padme Amidala is my favorite Star Wars female character. In this photo she has found a couple of friends to go fight bad guys with."

This impressive sampling of lady action figure form is from non other than Reis. He added "I had this big pile of 1:18 scale female figures collected and was planning this big scene of them all hanging out, maybe having a wedding shower or something, and then I spotted my DCUC Powergirl and my MOTUC Teela and decided that I needed to show my few larger ladies some love. ;)"

Ron had a great idea of doing a mix of all his figures, something from all the different lines he has on hand, "I coulda done a whole pic with just Star Wars ladies or Simpsons ladies, but settled on one from each line and even then Star Wars kinda cheated with one figure from the original vintage line and a prequel figure"

Mock had this to contribute "... is of the ladies who sit on my desk. I admit I moved Hourman but other than that it is pretty much how things look."
But wait, check this next one out, one of my favorites...

Now how cool is this... Mock's son, Logan (who has his own blog) had to send his and his sister's figures! "...my 7 year old son Logan. He saw me organizing my figures and wanted to set up some too. He says "Here is a picture of all the little girls that me and my sister bought. I decided to take a picture. They are mostly Super Hero Squad. Some of them are Star Wars and some of them are GI Joe. :-) "

Bubbashelby, who is no stranger to the ladies... but has a thing against dolls for some odd reason, sent in this mix. "one of these ladies just isn't like the others". Bubba sent in a whole slew of images, I picked my favorite though he has been posting the rest on all his sites, go check them out.

Chrisman sent in this awesome batch of ladies from his collection and as always he makes toy photography look awesome! "This time i wanna participate XD... i’m pretty sure at least 30% of my collection is represented by beautiful girls & i’m doing a great effort to achieve a 50/50... just for the gender equity!"

Colin had this to say about this amazing toy. "One of my favorite female action figures is the DC Direct New Krypton Superwoman- I have a few female Mattel DCUCs, but DC Direct does a more artful job with their females, in my humble opinion. This little lady loved the camera during my shoot for her blogpost at the Super-DuperToyBox this past February 14th- it was a labor of love..."


iok went all GI Jane on us with this sample of his collection, I think he covered all the favorites... wait where's Lady Jay? "My piece - Ladies of the Joeniverse - features (from left to right) Scarlett, Baroness (the less-ugly version) and Courtney ''Cover Girl'' Krieger from the GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie tie-in line. Personally I think Cover Girl looks more like David St. Hubbins but you gotta work with what you've got...
"

Brian sent in this wonderful Father, Daughter piece. I told Brian that the Sideshow Princess Leia is simply amazing, it looks so much like Carrie Fisher. Makes me want to go to Ebay and find one... or open up my POTF one from Hasbro. Thanks Brian for sending this in!

This is cool, I have been posting the photos in the order I have received them and I was getting worried that I would have just a bunch of dudes and their little plastic ladies, not good for nerd or geek kind, but then I received this next email from Alexa of Pop Elegantiarum..."Here's a portrait of my old Batgirl doll from the 70s. She lost her helmet and boots through years of play."
She still has her Batgirl! We need to pull together and get her the parts to complete her figure!

And as if that wasn't cool enough...

Long time blogger, who has been missed as of late, A. Pants sends in her photo of all her ladies "duking it out over Spock-Elvis". That is too funny!

This Ladies and Gentlemen was one of my favorite Photo Assignments to date, how can I top this one??? How about a picture of someone else's toys?

That's right the next Eclectorama Photo Assignment is a photo of someone else's toys! I will give you a little time on this one and I will no doubt have to remind some of you : ) So, go take a picture of your son's or daughter's favorite toys, how about a fellow collector that you marvel at their collection, or have a family member that has a collection of stuffed animals... take a picture of that. You could even go into a toy store and take a photo of toys you wish you could have, but just don't have in your collection. That's really it, it cannot be in your collection.

Here's the details...

1) Submit one JPG image to me by Wednesday, June 8, 2011 of someone else's toys (with their permission of course... well unless you are going all commando and shooting pictures in stores).

2) Include your first name and if you have a website you want linked to.

3) Send your picture and info (see above) to eclectorama [at] studiohowell [dot] com, with "Not My Toys!" in the subject.

4) I will post all the photos on Friday, June 10, 2011, so be back here then to see what people sent in.

5) Remember these toys cannot be in your collection! Yet, anyway.

This isn't a contest and I don't want too much trouble put into your picture, line them up, snap a pic and send it in! I am not collecting email to spam you, I don't have that much time,it's just for fun!

Hey Ladies Reminder!

Today's the deadline to get your picture in for the "Hey Ladies" post on Friday!

Next Photo Assignment: Hey Ladies!

I don't know if I will have a lot for this one... That's right I want to see all those action figures of the ladies in your collections. Dig through those totes, go to your shelves and gather them up and shoot a picture. You know you have them. Pick a favorite or shoot a group but have them sent in by no later than May 11th so I can post them that Friday.

Why the ladies? I don't think they get enough exposure in the "Action Figure" world. Sure we have seen more and more being released over the years, but I get the feeling they are still regulated as the damsel in distress in many a collection.

To announce this photo assignment I went no father than my drawing desk and shot a picture of this fine example of action figure form, my favorite from when I was a kid, my original Leia.



So, ladies AND gentlemen send in your pics, here's the particulars:

1) Submit one JPG image to me by Wednesday, May 11, 2011 of your action figure ladies.

2) Include your first name and if you have a website you want linked to.

3) Send your picture and info (see above) to eclectorama [at] studiohowell [dot] com, with "Hey Ladies!" in the subject.

4) I will post all the photos on Friday, May 13, 2011, so be back here then to see what people sent in.

5) Last but not least, and this should have to go unsaid, but let's keep it decent oaky, I mean you all have mothers, sisters, wives or girlfriends (this is for the guys, ladies I am sure you will take this assignment seriously).

This isn't a contest and I don't want too much trouble put into your picture, line them up, snap a pic and send it in! I am not collecting email to spam you, I don't have that much time,it's just for fun!

Oh yeah, this will be a monthly thing so if you miss this one there will be more photo assignments to come.

It's time for a Cantina Crawl!

Making your way in the galaxy takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all the wookies , sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to go far, far away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where no one can pronounce your name (bumm, bumm, bumm)

and the drinks all look the same. (bumm, bumm, bumm)

You wanna be where droids can't go,
and some aliens have big fangs,
You wanna go where no one can pronounce your name.


Cantina Crawl is filmed in front of a live audience...

Reis sent his in almost the next day! I am really digging the vintage look to the photo on this one, when I asked if Reis was working some Photoshop magic here he sent me this cool link to the app he used to create this!

Matt once again sends in this great picture of all his aliens, he mentioned that he at one time had more Star Wars based aliens but they were out drinking at another bar when shot this photo. He did throw in a few other Star Wars characters and I have to say I am a little jealous of that Thanos.

Colin sends in this one he titled "The Stranger" (getting all artsy on us here) I have to say this is my favorite of the bunch, it looks like the Star Warriors were totally taken off guard with the Martian Manhunter's entrance.You can here the record skip...brrrrrrrrp.... when the door swings open. Or did he just phase through it?

The next five pictures were sent in by Victor. Actually Victor sent in a lot of pictures, so many that they crashed my phone when I casually checked it in the morning, but no big deal, there was a lot of good pictures to look at when I got it working again. I narrowed down the selection to my top five from all the ones he sent in, I like how he has all these little "conversations" going on at the local cantina. Looks like the Rodians have taken over duty as bartenders as well.







Next Doc Atomic sent in DROIDS! Your droids we don't serve their kind here!

I'm kidding, I know these are aliens but Brian explains it better... you know something I just realized I do not have any Doctor Who in my collection...

"This is my collection of vintage Daleks, ca. 1964-1975, all hailing from the U.K.

The two in back are talking Daleks by a company called Palitoy; the one large and two small ones in front are by Marx's British division. The large one is battery operated while the small ones have a friction mechanism.

Finally, the Dalek in the middle is a wind up version by the company Cowan de Groot -- a.k.a. Codeg. It's the rarest of the lot, and definitely my favorite. When it's wound up, the toy rolls around, changing direction, while the eye stalk swings side to side in an eerily life-like way. Cool!

For anyone who doesn't watch Doctor Who, the Daleks are aliens, not robots. The outer mechanical part is sort of like an armored suit; inside it sits a small, shriveled up mutant of an alien, one that's hell bent on taking out everything in the universe. :)"

Finally here's my submission. I tried to keep it simple this time, plus for some reason I kept putting off my photo shoot till the last minute and failed to drag out ALL my aliens... Oh well.



I am sure like everyone else there are scenes in the original Star Wars that stick in your brain, the Star Destroyer fly over, the first ignition of a lightsaber, Stormtroopers blasting through a hallway of Rebels, the list goes on and on. To me the Cantina is one of those scenes, I will admit until about age twelve I honestly believed that all bars will filled with these wonderful creatures, imagine my surprise when I was old enough to actually go into a bar and discover there were just people in them... who knew. Back to scenes sticking with you, when I saw Hammerhead's appearance on screen (even though it was a quick one) I was floored. "What the heck was that my eyes just saw?" My mind couldn't grasp what he or she was, I just knew it was the most awesome alien I had ever seen.

To this day when someone mentions the Cantina scene Hammerhead is the first image that pops into my mind. So, when I picked up my first cantina alien it was that fellow in the middle "Hammerhead" and immediately he was my go to alien. I took a shoebox and built my own cantina so he and his buddies could have a place to drink. I would take my little 45 record player and place it behind the box and play the Cantina song over and over again, must have drove my parents crazy. I was all about creating the atmosphere when I played Cantina. Isn't it weird that we got a set of Bar Flies and not one but two Cantina playsets back then. I always wanted a proper Cantina playset, but I settled for the shoe box. I may have to rectify that.

Next, the guy standing picture left recounting his day to his fellow Ithorians was a Christmas present from my wife back in 1996. It was a big deal at the time because they just released the series that included him and they were going to phase out the orange cards. I opened him up on Christmas Eve, weird how you remember that stuff. The one on the right was a later purchase and is pretty much the best Momaw Nadon out at the moment. Highlights with this guy include his favorite drinking glass and he came with an Ithorian Staff and a small Cantina table.

I cannot tell you how excited I will be to see a new version, if it is ever released, on the new vintage cards, my fingers are crossed that we get one. That was fun and keeping it simple by spotlighting my favorite Cantina Alien brought back some nice memories. Lets raise a glass to all the aliens above! Great job everyone and thanks for participating!

What's next? I am thinking this will be a monthly feature from here on out, the next one being in May. I will announce the theme and deadlines around the first week of each month. So keep checking in for the next theme and due date. Happy Friday everyone, be safe flying home from the Cantina and remember to tip your waitress.

Aye Carumba!

I still need to shoot my Cantina Crawl photo! Where does the time go?

Cantina Crawl

Making your way in the galaxy takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all the wookies , sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to go far, far away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where no one can pronounce your name (bumm, bumm, bumm)

and the drinks all look the same. (bumm, bumm, bumm)

You wanna be where droids can't go,
and some aliens have big fangs,
You wanna go where no one can pronounce your name.

I think you will like this next photo assignment, I know I am excited. We are going on a good old fashioned Cantina Crawl! So dig out your Hammerheads, assorted Aliens and Cantina denizens we are going to kick back with something stronger than blue milk. Here's the cool part, they can be from any franchise! Star Wars?... of course, Star Trek?... they had Quark's on Deep Space Nine (Moooooorn!), heck even Superman is an alien. So if you have any Aliens or other weirdness that looks like it belongs in the Cantina send it in. I'm even giving you a little time with this one, deadline will be almost three weeks form now on Wednesday, April 13th 2011.

As usual here's the skinny...

1) Submit one JPG image to me by Wednesday, April 13, 2011 of your favorite alien(s).

2) Include your first name and if you have a website you want linked to, include that. Funny caption if you want.

3) Send your picture and info (see above) to eclectorama [at] studiohowell [dot] com, with "No Blasters, No Blasters!" in the subject.

4) I will post all the photos on Friday, April 15, 2011, so be back here then to see what people sent in.

5) Last but not least NO DROIDS! We don't serve their kind here at this photo assignment. They had their own.

This isn't a contest and I don't want too much trouble put into your picture, line them up, snap a pic and send it in! I am not collecting email to spam you, I don't have that much time,it's just for fun!

Also, since this is my game I will not be posting mine on the 15th, I will be peppering my usual posts with my favorites starting next week, I might have one a week or a few, who knows.

UPDATE: A little clarification. I will be posting everyone's on April 15th, 2011 and posting mine leading up to the 15th, it's my blog so I may pick several of my own to post, this will also act as a reminder of the deadline.

Let's See Some Green!

It's that time, and I thought I would post my pic first this time. I realized while I was pulling all my green stuff out and getting ready for pictures that I tend to collect a lot of the same character, over and over again, not very exciting now that I think about it. Believe me I also had a tough time with this one, where is the cut off? Aquaman has green pants, Kirk owns a green shirt, I finally settled on these green characters and not using all the versions I had on hand. I tried to mix it up a bit. So here we go.

LET'S SEE SOME GREEN!

So, this is my green... well most of it. Click the image to super size it, I put stuff in there for everyone. See what you can recognize!

John aka Jboypacman from Revenge from the Cosmic Ark sent in the first submission this time.

Reis from Hey! Look at my toys sent in more awesome green stuff. Seriously Reis has some of the best toys.

Matt, a loyal reader, sent in his Yoda collection... very nice. Matt needs to do a Star Wars blog.

Not to be out done, by no one, Erick from Wonderful Wonderblog blew me away with his Hulk Shrine... speechless.

Iok from That figures sent in this awesome photo with this explanation " I know not everything here is green but the light effect - which I caught purely by accident - more than makes up for it.It's a display of some Microman Command Replica figures from Takara's 1999 re-issue run, with an M142 Hudson Spy Magician (also from 1999) at the fore." Thanks and yes it does make up for it.

Ruben, a newcomer who's blog/website I didn't catch, hit us up with this motley crew of green dudes. How cool is this setup?

Brian from Cool and Collected sent i three pics, this one shot for the Green Project here and the next two with the largest group of TMNT I have ever seen and what I think is a Hulk Coin Bank...





Eric aka BubbaShelby from Toyriffic! shows off his collection of Green at work!

LEon from Open the Toy shows off his Green from his collection with the hopes that he did not leave anything out.

Jason from Jasonvorhee's Blog Has some stuff I haven't seen in a long time with his Green collection, thanks for the trip down memory lane with this one.

Colin from Super-Duper Toy Box sent his in with this explanation:

"As a kid, I never paid any attention to Martian Manhunter, but I'm absolutely fascinated with J'onn J'onzz as an adult. His intellect & thoughtful nature combined with enormous power appeal to me greatly. While sharing "sole survivor" status of his race with Superman, J'onn was not raised on Earth within our culture- he also witnessed the death of his homeworld. He is truly a "stranger in a strange land", something I can often identify with. *Clockwise, from the left: DC Direct New Frontier MM, Mattel DCUC MM, DC Direct 13" Deluxe MM, Hasbro 9" MM, and front/center DC Direct History of DC Universe MM."

Doc Atomic over at Attic of Astounding Artifacts and
Galactic Awesome Brings us these with this explanation:

"Oddly enough, I don't have many green toys in my collection. However, here are two that I really love -- and that have a connection to each other.
First, the Flash Gordon Signal Gun, which was made by Marx in 1938. When I first started collecting ray guns, this was a holy grail... And when I finally got one, I felt like my collection took a huge leap forward. Fun fact: For what I think are pretty obvious reasons, it's sometimes known as the Martian Boob.
The second toy is my Return of the Jedi Force Lightsaber, made by Kenner in 1983. I've been looking for one of these for a while now, but could only find the more common red one -- and since I'm a huge Luke Skywalker fan, that just wasn't gonna do. Besides, I had the green one as a kid and I really wanted it back!
So, the connection? Well... Before George Lucas sat down to write Star Wars, his plan was to license the Flash Gordon character! Yep, we almost had Flash fighting Ming the Merciless in a galaxy far, far away. Instead, we got Luke versus Darth Vader... AND Mike Hodges' version of Flash Gordon a couple years later. Score!"

Brian from Yesterville Toy Room sent this great pic of his favorite Hulk toy just being a toy!


How fun was that, I actually received more than I thought and very little overlap of green I might add, not like we were looking at a bunch of turtles at a pizza party... wait, never mind.

I'm having such a blast with this I have another one in the works, not sure when I will make the announcement for it so stay tuned.