I picked up four figures today, and get this -- all of them suffer from some significant flaw. With three of them it's not too bad, since they were on clearance, but the most expensive one -- the new Batman Movie Masters figure -- just snapped apart at the fucking waist when I tried posing him. Argh! I've still got the receipt, so I should be able to return him, but given how in demand these things are I'm not sure I'll be able to get a replacement. I'm also not sure I care, since I am seriously pissed with the quality of these figures. I suspect that a bit more fiddling would have caused him to lose his leg as well.

I almost don't even want to see The Dark Knight now. 🙁

So after nearly six weeks of waiting (or maybe less, but it felt like at least as long), the additional dual background for my light tent arrived towards the end of last week. I finally broke it out yesterday and lost a good seven hours photographing and repositioning and photographing action figures -- time truly flies when one is shooting little plastic people! -- and continued with the experimenting today. Whereas shooting with the grey background was relatively easy and unproblematic, the new black background (much like the old blue background) shows up very bright for some reason, which meant that I had to fool around with a bunch of settings I'd never previously touched in order to limit the camera's light intake. Very strange.

Anyway, here are the best of the results. I'm also trying out a new plugin for displaying the larger versions of images, which you'll see when you click on the smaller photos below. I'm not sure if I'll keep it (I'm not the biggest fan of javascript and fancy effects, hence my choice of this simpler plugin over the Lightbox JS-based variants), but let me know what you think.

Is this the first time that I've featured Buffy figures on Wesoteric? I forget. Anyway, I've had Spike, Angel, and Willow around for ages, but Cordy and Xander are new! Well, kinda. I got a Cordy for $4.88 a couple of weeks ago with intent to use her as Lois Lane, but a) she was far too tall compared to my previous Superman figure and b) I found an actual Lois Lane figure (albeit a super one) soon afterwards, so she got set aside. Also, her arm had broken right out of the package, which was no fun. But then, this past week, I came across the same Cordy and Xander for $1.88 each, so I picked up two more Cordy figures (one of which is seen here, and yay her arm did not break!) and a Xander. I've always thought this Xander looked really weird, and I'm not the biggest fan of the character anyway -- he's kind of a dick -- but $1.88 is pretty tough to beat.

Now all I need is a Buffy, eh? Not to mention a Faith, an Anya, maybe one of those superarticulated Willows...

I really, really like that Superman figure. Anyway, five down... two to go!

Did I mention how much I like that Superman figure? And here he is surrounded by friends and foes -- note that I have much more of the former group than the latter. Darkseid eyeing Jimmy Olsen is deliberate, btw.

And with the addition of Black Manta and a proper Scarecrow (as opposed to that huge scarecrow from some other toyline), my SuperFriends Legion of Doom now has five official members. Eight more to go!

And that is all for now. 🙂

Rawr!

It is the first of April! Head on over to Scary-Crayon (or visit this page if you visit after April 1) to check out our little goof. As you can see, he's back! 😀

In other news, here are some photos from my ever-expanding DC Comics action figure collection. Some of us have t-shirts, I have toys. 😉

I'm still lovin' Grodd, but I so need a proper Brainiac figure. 😐

You know, you really would not believe how many action figures I've purchased this week. Or maybe you would if you knew that I had a $5 off coupon (off of a purchase of at least $25) for KB Toys and that a local comic shop has an annual Easter sale during which action figures are 50% off -- even though a good chunk of the toys weren't included in either bonus. But with the exception of Orion today, all were discounted (ranging from $3.20 to $7.50), so take heart that I didn't run myself too far into debt.

Speaking of which, I did my taxes on a whim the other day. They're arguably depressing given that I didn't make too much money this year -- far less than I made in 2006, though I think I endured far less work-related headaches in 2007 so consider that my health care payment -- but that meant that I owed the government next to nothing. In fact, given that I made an optimistic estimated payment back when I did my taxes last year, they're giving me money back. Which kinda makes me feel good, since I don't feel like I'm financing this pointless war in Iraq and contributing much in the way of finances to the bombing of innocents and the needless disruption of people's lives on all sides. And the government will supposedly be sending me money as part of this economic stimulus thingy! I'm taking away from the war effort! I'm a crusader for peace, baby.

By the way, for those of you who may or may not have been wondering why I haven't posted too much during the past couple of months, here is the reason that I've been so preoccupied.

More on that later (though if you read the Scary-Crayon blog, you already know about The Gorilla Grodd Project), but yep. 🙂