Berlin finds, September 2011

Last month me and the band went back to Berlin for another gig and lots of shopping. This time was much better than our first visit there and I ended up going a bit crazy at TRU in Neukölln. Here are some cellphone pictures of what I found...

Up first is the new Star Wars: Republic Commando battlepack with all-new commandos from the game and books along with a Geonosian warrior. I would have fancied Kal Skirata instead but at least now collectors have another chance to get the commandos without paying top dollar to scalpers. The commandos are also new sculpts which should make the old ones obsolete.

Next is the 4th(?) battlepack from The Force Unleashed game which I had to have because of Darth Phobos. Darth who? That´s what I was asking but who cares, there is always room for a new sexy female villain in my collection. Starkiller looks a lot more game-accurate than the one that was released in the first TFU battlepack. It´s also nice to get more Imperial troopers. Nice set even though the character choices are a bit strange.

Last but not least, here´s a few Iron Man 2 figures I found plus two other Marvel figures that were waiting for me when I got home. The Iron Spider Man is a nice cross-over figure with cool extra arms/legs. The comic series Stealth Iron Man looks just as good as the movie concept version with it´s amazing deep blue paint. Weapon X (AKA semi-naked Wolverine) with his stasis chamber is a cool novelty figure to add to my Marvel Universe collection. You can even make Logan break the glass and escape his chamber, yay! Crimson Dynamo is a cool villain to have and impossible to find in Finland (uhh, show me a Marvel action figure that isn´t). My only gripe with the figure is it´s loose leg joints. Oh well. Iron Man Mk1 (comic version) is a figure I´ve been hunting for ages and now I finally found it! The armor looks like industrial quality brushed steel and all in all the figure is very much like in the old Iron Man comics. Now if only I could find the movie version of the Mk1 armor...

Anyway, great trip and great finds. Can´t wait for next March...

(It´s a good start, right?)

It´s been a while...

Sorry about that.

Stuff that has kept me from blogging...

1. A new job

2. Divorce proceedings (Yeah yeah, I know...)

3. No camera

4. Buying more Marvel Universe stuff than SW since the selections here are still shite

5. Can´t be arsed

P.S. My Galactus variant is just dying to meet you...

My astromech droids

Despite the freezing cold wind that has been tormenting us for months here in Helsinki spring seems to be on it´s way. At least I hope so! As part of our spring cleaning here at home I have been slightly reorganizing my display cabinets and whatnot. Yesterday was time to clear out my bounty hunter display and put in all my astromechs. Why? Just for fun, man.

At this point these are all the domeheads I have but of course I plan to get more. Everyone loves these little droids and if you don´t you are a rotten bad person. You know this makes sense.

This is awesome.

Wow. Where do I start? My good friend Tuomas donated all of his vintage Star Wars figures to me yesterday. All 23 of them PLUS the Speeder Bike. I´m still pretty much speechless!

Here are six figures that I never had as a kid. Now I finally got Ree-Yees and Bespin Luke, nice! As you can imagine, I am very happy right now!

Tuomas, you´re the man! Thank you.

Moscow Madness (Nerd Edition)

Hi and welcome to the first Droidikorjaamo blog entry in English!

This time I´ll be limelighting my Moscow haul from earlier this month. Our band, Silent Scream, visited the Russian capitol for the first time late last month and naturally I was excited about finding stuff I can´t get here in Finland or maybe even some cool bootlegs while we´re there.

Ironically, the first figure I found was Colossus from the Marvel Universe line. As some of you know, Colossus was one of the X-Men and born in the Soviet Union way back in the day. I always liked him in the classic Jim Byrne X-Men comics so naturally I got him despite the slightly expensive price tag. The only other Marvel Universe figure I saw there was the AIM Trooper and not much else besides very expensive Iron Man 2 and Spider-Man figures.

And speak of the devil! I found these absolutely craptastic Iron Man bootleg figures at a kiosk inside the Leningradskaya railway station, fifteen minutes before we left back to Finland. I was originally looking forward to finding some cool Star Wars bootlegs but these were a cool find also! They cost only 450 rubles which is pretty much 11 euros. Not bad.

As you can see, the scale is somewhere between the 4" and 6" scales (Mark 2 added for comparison) but the details... Well... Just look at them.

Both unmasked Tonys look like they had the shit beat out of them and the accessories vary from rocket launchers without rockets to He-Man style swords and blades. Correct me if I´m wrong, but last time I checked Iron Man didn´t really need them.

"HOT WARRIOR! YEAH!"

The cardback is a hilarious example of doing it wrong. Gotta love those Chinese bootleggers! I have no idea what I should do with this set. Open it? Trade them for some official figures?

Last and definitely least are the two Tron: Legacy figures I found on our last day in Moscow. I guess Spinmaster really went the cheap way with these 4" figures. The Black Guard (left) is ok but Rinzler (right) broke mere minutes after I opened the package at home. The head snapped off when I tried to turn it around! I had to glue it back on so it wouldn´t look so stupid on display. Sure the light-up function is really neat but still I can´t help feeling let down by this line. Luckily they were quite cheap so I didn´t end up feeling totally ripped off.

So that was my Moscow haul, hope you enjoyed the pictures! If you´re interested in the band-related stuff from Moscow then check out the Silent Scream Helsinki page on Facebook. Yeah, the one with all the grim black & white pictures.

Hyvää joulua!

Ei kai tässä ihmeempää? Hyvää joulua kaikille lukijoille!

Nightgaunt Squad!

Kyseessä on siis allekirjoittaneen ensimmäinen SW-aiheinen custom projekti, Nightgaunt Squad. Hahmoihin on käytetty perus Clone Wars figuja ja Citadelin maaleja/siveltimiä. Porukan nimi tulee H.P. Lovecraftin monstereista, kuten tarkimmat lukijat arvasivatkin. Hommaan meni kokonaisuudessaan kolme iltaa rauhalliseen tahtiin maalatessa ja glögiä ryystäessä. Itse olen ihan tyytyväinen lopputulokseen vaikka olisinkin halunnut lisätä figuille lisää varusteita ja muita kiinnostavia yksityiskohtia. Mitäs tykkäätte?

Pakkohan se on sanoa suoraan, Clone Wars figuurit ovat ihan kammottavan rumia. Jossain vaiheessa yritin uskotella itselleni, että kyllähän nuo sopivat taustalle realististen figujen joukkoon. Eikä sovi. Ne nyt vaan näyttävät kalsaripukuisilta kuikeleilta perus SW figujen vieressä ja se on helvetin noloa. Uskoisin, että nämä kyseiset figut näyttävät nyt paljon paremmilta kuin alunperin. Eikö vain?