Gentle Giant Archives - Page 5 of 11

Diamond Select Toys Has Marvel Minimates and Marvel Select from Thor: the Dark World

We’re a little over a month away from Thor: the Dark World, and if you’re jonesing for toys, then Diamond Select Toys has got you covered – they’ve got Thor Minimates and Marvel Select figures on the way.

Minimates allows them to go pretty wide – not just the main guys in Thor, Malekith, and Loki, but they’ve got a Dark Elf army builder, Eric Selvig, and and Darcy Lewis represented. Kat Dennings fans rejoice! I’m surprised at Darcy but no Jane Foster – I’m guessing she’ll show up at big box retail, as this series is headed to comic book and specialty retailers.

Jane will definitely make an appearance with Thor in the Marvel Select line. The figures will be sold separately but will each have bases that connect to form a diorama for the figures. Are we supposed to call that BAD (build-a-diorama)?

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Marvel Select The Wolverine Quick Pics by ActionFiguresRule

Our good friend Richard, aka ActionFiguresRule, from the MATRIX Photo Booth and AFR Studio pinged me to see if we’d done anything with the Marvel Select Wolverine from Diamond Select Toys. Not yet, I told him, because I haven’t yet picked him up. He said he’d send me a couple of pics – and before I knew it, I had almost 20 sitting in my email. And he says there’s more to come…

The more I see of the figure, the more I’m convinced it’s the best value from DST’s Marvel Select line yet. The figure has got a great sculpt from Gentle Giant, with probably the best likeness for Hugh Jackman outside Hot Toys. It’s got a ton of articulation. I’ve heard from DST before that they are limited by their license as to how many points of articulation that they can add. I suspect that modern joints that provide multiple axes of movement, like an ab crunch / swivel, must still count as one. On top of that, there’s 3 pairs of hands, 3 heads, and a katana. Looks like I have another purchase to make.

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Hasbro Star Wars Black Series Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 Quick Pic with Backdrop How To

As someone who never got to collect Star Wars action figures as a kid (I was so deprived, right? ;-)), it’s been a real pleasure getting the Hasbro Star Wars Black Series figures. With Gentle Giant acting as the design studio much like the Four Horsemen have from DC Universe Classics, what the first wave has given us is a very good mix of detailed sculpt and articulation, with serviceable paint apps. The result is a group of action figures that look great and are very photogenic, and I’ve enjoyed snapping pictures of them.

One shot I wanted was Luke and Artoo in a flight hangar, before their run at the Death Star. I think the shot of the figures came out nicely, but the backdrop was only a limited success. In this post, I’ll share how this shot was created.

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You Must Check Out the First Issue of Philip Reed’s BattleGrip Magazine

If you’re not familiar with Philip Reed and his site, BattleGrip, you should check it out. When I started AFP, somehow Philip found the site, and he’s been a really great supporter from our early days – and he’s just that way in the collecting community – a terrific guy.

Earlier this year, Philip published a Kickstarter-funded book about 3rd-party Transformers called Transforming Collections. (There are a couple of copies of Transforming Collections available on Amazon.) I guess that massive effort kept him hooked on publishing, because his latest endeavor is a free downloadable magazine. I’m re-hosting BattleGrip – issue 1 here (click to download – 70MB) to help get the issue out there. If you’re an old-timer like me and miss the days when you could go to a magazine store to pick up one related to toys (or if you just want to know what that was like, in this increasingly online world), then you’ll love this.

A couple of tips – you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader or an alternative PDF reader, and the best way to read this magazine is to set it up in 2-page view (View -> Page Display -> Two Page View) and select the option to show the cover page on its own (View -> Page Display -> Show Cover Page in Two Page View). This will let you see some of the beautiful 2-page spreads, like the Predator Trophy Case above, in all their glory.

Great start to the magazine, Philip, and thanks for the link to my moot-fake-rant about the Club Infinite Earths Doomsday. Can’t wait for issue 2!

SDCC 2013: Hasbro Star Wars Black Series

My excitement for the 6-inch Hasbro Star Wars Black Series figures continues unabated – and this is without even having opened and played with a single figure. Sure, I was lucky enough to be able to score an exclusive Boba Fett, but even though my buddy Hiro Nagano took a peek inside the box, I didn’t have the chance to take the bounty hunter out of his cardboard prison before my wife took him to UPS with the rest of our loot from the first couple of days to ship home.

Wave 2 was announced at the Hasbro Star Wars panel today (video to go up shortly) – I had said it would be crazy if Han Solo weren’t in this wave, after Entertainment Earth first revealed Greedo in the wave – I’m glad the Hasbro team isn’t crazy. Slave Leia was also a huge want for so many. And folks who don’t have a shot at the SDCC Boba Fett exclusive will be able to get him in wave 2, with no deco chances.

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