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?)

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.

Iron Man

Iron Man! Yritin pitkään vastustaa kiusausta alkaa keräilemään Hasbron Iron Man 2 figuureja mutta jossain vaiheessa oli pakko antautua. Kaikki ostamani IM2 figut ovat tähän mennessä olleet todella hienoja (metallivärit FTW) ja mittakaavakin on sama kuin Star Warsissa. Ainoat ongelmat näiden keräämisessä on uusimpien figujen huono saatavuus Suomessa ja älyttömät hinnat. Toivotaan että asiaan tulisi jossain vaiheessa muutosta.

Nämä kuvat on otettu Jukin kanssa samalla kertaa kuin edellisen tekstin pahiskuvat. Toivottavasti tykkäät!