L is for Looking Spooky, but not in Boots!

More Spooky Spectres' of Undead Ancients, these coming from a Chinese outfit called Ningbo, via Walgreen's in the 'States and to us here at Small Scale World via New York and Brian Berke.

He only sent them the other day and the first thing I did was troll-off to Boots (a subsidiary of Walgreen) to see it they had them this side of the pond, they didn't, I asked the girl of they might have a Halloween section in the bigger stores and she ummed-and-erred, so I tried the website and for the 'Skeleton' search-term found a stick of nail polish, and a Minecraft horse in the Christmas gifts department . . .i.e.; no dice, no banana, no skeleton army!

Walgreen's promise 100% satisfaction; well - I'm 100% satisfied by what I can see (4x4 poses for a total of 16 figures), but I'm 0% satisfied by their subsidiary's stocking-of-skeleton-army's policy! I'll try the bigger stores next year, sometimes these things seem to be tested on the US market and then come over here a season later!

Close-ups of the figures; Shaun covered these about a week ago and everything said by him and the commenter's seems to stick, they are definitely derivative of the Amscan figures which we have yet to look at here.

Which reminds me, the PMS ones (earlier today) were issued here at Christmas, not Halloween? I'll have a bit of a shooftie round the discount store in December, they may yet turn-up sooner rather than later!

I love the chap with a meat-cleaver, I'm guessing a French chef who ate the wrong snail, stuck in limbo until he's paid the Ferrymen in souls! Again - as said on Shauns Fantasy Figure Blog - painted-up they'll make excellent additions to the other sets.

 

Pretty prefect for 54mm gaming or role-play, and with the Crescent 'Khaki Berserker' having Halloween off, we have a painted legionnaire (AIP) as a scaler - looks good with the sand-base as well; you have to get close to kill the undead! Don't worry; I've since taken delivery of more images from Brian and the British Berserker is already back on-station for the winter!

M is for Minus One (Countdown to Halloween)

Found far too late for the countdown, this is Morrison's effort in this year's apparent 'competition' to see who can carry the most of an extended series of bugs and things!

And it's the winner, with 12 items - all the ones we've seen, a frog, a new spider and two snakes! The skeletons looked familiar too, but as the others went straight to recycling, so did these!

Couldn't wait - opened them on the train! But a red background wasn't the best medium for shooting them. Due to the lateness of their being located, I've not done comparisons, but they seem to be the same - or from the same source - as the Sainsbury's ones. I will do a follow-up of all these sets with the Morrison's one's included.

Better picture, but I forgot one of the snakes! The bat is even worse than the first one we saw, being a rigid  polyethylene semi-flat, yellow passes for glow-in the dark, it's another 'colour rule' with this stuff, and we have pumpkin-orange (Halloween) along with black (dark side).

Viper and Cobra types are the obvious additions to the 'oeuvre' and apart for the comedy-tongues, they're not bad.

Z is for Zombie Toy Soldiers!

These came out a couple of years ago; EMCE Toys 'Previews Exclusive, Zombies At War', and come three each of five poses in two colors for a full 30-count, medium hardness PVC and a tad on the small size at around 45/50mm

This was originally going to be it, as far as imagery goes - along with the captioned one at the end - but I was never too happy with it, it enlarges OK but it's a bit grainy and the contrast is all wonky but it shows all the figures, and can stay, as I hate chucking every image from a shoot!

The GI's, placed somewhere between WWII and Vietnam (one's got a M16-alike), they're not heavily equipped and the chap with a pack has one that defies ID'ing as a piece of service kit!

What's more  of a mystery is that two of the figures; 3rd and 5th from the left, appear to have been designed to interact with accessories - which are not present - both having almost 'grippy' hands and poses that need a support of some kind?

The Germans are clearly WWII, with no's 2 and 3 from the left also seeming to need-/be designed for- missing props or scenic items. That second one is also equipped with a similar main pack and utility 'bat-belt' as the GI!

The guy with the Luger/Mauser/Captain Scarlet blaster is doing a good job of balancing on one leg, and while the commander (middle figure) is holding someone else's leg; number five is holding his own arm in a rather macabre fashion!

Kelly's Zero's

As always with this horror/fantasy stuff; Shaun was way ahead of the wave, so there's more here.

D is for Dragon Domain

Just a quick shelfie from TK Maxx for this post, again; not really Halloween'ish per se, but where else do you post dragons this close to Halloween?

'Big Box' set from HGL, very similar to their Megasurs sets (coming soon), and like them I'm guessing there were other sizes of Dragon Domain set, PVC, mixed-to-no-scale, Chinagons!

K is for Killersaurs!

Not really Halloween fodder, but they ARE 'horror' in execution so they've been waiting in the folder for today, and I know absolutely sweet-Fanny-Adams about them!

Dinosaurs with a horror twist, I suspect a larger set, or a blind-bag thing, but they are bigger than most Blind-bag stuff, but no bigger than the Hobbit/LotR's stuff? The red one is missing an arm - probably got in a fight with one of the others down the water-hole!

Close-ups of two of them; 'twistyneck's got a twist in his neck, while the 'tyranoseratops' is the least silly of the bunch, does anyone know what they are or who made them?

Close-ups of the other two; another 'tyranoseratops' and the red one which I like the most as he's the most 'deformed' (not a comment on his missing arm) and it's typical that the damaged one is the nicest! Came in a mixed lot from a charity shop!

Z is for Zombie Figurines

Not often we get a descent zed in the tag-list and this one comes courtesy of Brian Berke, from where it's actually zee-for-zombie, but the effect is the same . . . ZOMBIES! These are the ones Johnny Rockets mentioned in a comment the other day . . .

. . . . and currently for sale in Dollar Tree stores over the pond. The set titled Zombie Figurines and at around 54mm they are ideal for all your Zombie scenarios, planed or future! I particularly like the two zombie-dogs, but you also get a pair of gravestones (which will enhance any Deadstone Valley scenes . . . Ed!) and eight zombies (? I'm working off the photographs!) along with a couple of human 'normals' running away.

The two humans are not the best sculpts, being rather caricaturist in the faces and having cartoony bendy-bodies, but the zombies look fine., except the bloke on the far right who is either coming out of the ground (does that make him technically undead rather that zombie? Risen-dead?!!) or dragging a double-leg amputation torso around? He is also a bit comic in his execution.

Brian has started painting his; with the women felling the brush first and by painting the running 'normal' as a zombie he's cleverly hidden the cartoonishness in a layer of mouldy zombie-flesh . . . all very Halloween - thanks Brian!

Carried-in by Greenbriar/DTSC, Shaun had already found them, more pictures and close-ups here.

F is for Follow-up -Poundworld-Plus Insects

Well . . . I bought them . . . it's funny, a few years ago I never would have bothered with this stuff, and - indeed - have been studiously  not buying the other set since the store opened back in the spring (or was it last year? I can't remember when I first Blogged their stuff?), but after the plethora of insects came together in one day last year (or the year before!) and with the Halloween tat piling-up this year, it's almost like why wouldn't I? And when you follow the traffic-stats per-post; it's funny what people actually want.

Buying the other set the other day obviously triggered a re-stock message back at head office as there were a whole bunch more when I was in the other night, and sure enough the other six of the "12 to collect" are on the other card, so 'two to collect' really!

No spiders in this sample, but we get two longer coffin/ground beetle types, three more hedge/garden beetles (the yellow one is very chafer-like) and a roach-alike.

They still look better dead! Gas! Gas! Gas!

A is for Army; Army of Skeletons!

A Bit of a stop-press post, in that Brian Berke sent me these the other day and they got thrown in the Halloween folder quite late, but I'm publishing them earlier in the day so I can alternate skeletons with other things of a Halloween or horror nature!

I think got them as Funtastic from Poundland or PMS from 99p Stores? A year or two ago now, no matter; in the above guise they are now being peddled in the 'Staes by an outfit called Dolgencorp LLC of Tennessee.

I shot the previous lot again so we'd be reminded of what they look like out of the packaging! Although it could be due to the lighting; the Dolgencorp ones look distinctly greener?

T is for Ticks All the Boxes

I don't know for sure what these are, they may be an earlier run of Zomlings, or Moshlings, or something else entirely, and while I'm not that bothered right now, I will have to find out at some point and if anyone can ID them that'll be appreciated!

The thing about the pair is that they really do tick every box, with their skull removal stitches and bullet-hole Elastoplasts, their metallic finish, bulgy-eyes, giant feet, pipe-work tail et al, they are . . .

• Space Alien
• Undead Zombie
• Super Deform
• Baby Animal
• Robot
• Collectable Minis

. . . and as such are definitely at home on halloween!

S is for Skeleton Sky-divers!

They're skeletons and paratroopers, on Halloween, what's not to love about these, they parachute, and they're skeletons! I thing we had a shelfie of this set last year, courtesy of Brian Berke, he then donated a pack to the Blog, so this year we have them 'in the flesh . . . less'.

One of the reasons we've had so much rack-toy crap in the 'countdown' is because I've been looking out for these; even after receiving this set from Brian in order to confirm the Amscan UK were carrying them here, but no dice. They have a full multi-lingual packaging for the US, Canada and Mexico and I particularly like the French word for Skeleton which is Squelettes!

Parachuting skeletons - brilliant!

Countdown to Halloween - Lift Off! - As Waitrose Glows in the Dark

Well, I got them, the funny thing is my subconscious had convinced me they were two-quid, actually I'd walked-away, last week, at one-fifty, I'm a real tight-arse! But when I took them to the till they were £2 the pair, with no reduced tickets on the rail?

Glow-in-the-dark or fluorescent spiders and cockroaches, apart from the higher advertised price, they are the same as all the others we've looked at in the 'Countdown to Halloween' posts this year, and it's almost as if all the retailers have got together to market a similar range, probably because their buyers got on the blower to their shipping agents, middle-men or manufacturers and said "What's so-and-so [insert name of rival here] carrying next October . . . really? Then we'll have ten-hundred gross of some too!" because that's probably, exactly what happened!

The spiders seem to be the same mouldings as the orange ones from Sainsbury's (who didn't have cockroaches) and Waitrose also seemed to be carrying the same little rings as Tiger, neither of which I've invested in on your behalf, as they are both poorer (in quality) than . . . and copies of - the Poundland one's we looked at on day-one, which were poor enough!

So concludes the 'Countdown to Halloween' [no it doesn't, more came in after I'd finalised the 'spreadsheet!], there's more to come through the day, today, thought and we'll see what turns-up in a year's time; anything small and novelty/figural should appear here at Small Scale World, then?

News, Views etc . . . Stop The Presses!

Confirmed! PW's 2018 Show Date . . .

http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/pw-show-2018.html

Countdown to Halloween - 1 - Asda (Walmart); Look Familiar!

Slightly more interesting than they appear at first glance, these two packs from Asda are to the casual observer the same flies and cockroaches we've already seen this week, but as we know from the comparison of the flies, they aren't quite the same, and at a quid-each, were worth a punt!

I saw very similar stuff in Waitrose on Friday (20th), but being Waitrose, they weren't cheap, I may go back for them in the week, in which case they will appear tomorrow (this is all being done ten days or so before you read it) for comparison with the other sets, but they are literally twice as much** as all their competitors - or more.

Waitrose - where wealthy idiots with more money than sense and status-complexes go to shop with logoed bags-for-life that will help identify them as 'for the gallows' come the revolution!

Fly and 'roach bags, quid-each, nice mix of colours, the green isn't fluorescent, but after the orange rule, comes the 'use puke-green if you haven't got glow in the dark' and the 'purple is like a Vampire's cloak-lining' rules of Halloween colouring!

The clear ones aren't so clear - Halloween colouring rule-wise - maybe you hide them in your mate's Guinness and laugh like drains as he chokes on a rubber cockroach! Like the red food-colouring trick but with more immediate and very real medical consequences!

We have already looked at the fly in comparison with the other two similar sculpts, so it's the turn of the cockroach today. The Asda one is clearly better with full definition of the wing-overlap but nothing else notable as to clues to origins, what's amusing is that as the Poundworld/Sainsbury's centipedes mirror errors, so too has the bent antenna been diligently reproduced.

Accepting that the Asda 'roach is the superior and the Sainsbury's centipede is the poorer the order of copying would seem to be Asda → Poundworld-Poundworld Plus → Sainsbury's, but I still suspect better donors; yet to be turned-up and probably common/available a few years ago?

** They weren't, I did!

B is for Bendy Bones

We have an independent discount store here, not a 'pound' model, but one of these general and home-goods places with carpets and storage bins, giant stuffed tigers and beach toys, gardening, hair-products, wool . . . you know the type of place - a little bit of everything!

About six months ago they expanded their toy section from a few big-box electronic type things from China to a more general any-or-all budgets double aisle, although they seemed to do so through one outlet/supplier, who was obviously a Tobar agent; as all the new cheaper toys are Tobar branded - useful as I can check them a couple of time s a month instead of waiting until I'm passing a Hawkin's Bazaar.

Flexi Frights from the aforementioned Tobar . . . a flexi-skeleton no less, just what you need for Halloween!

"If you get hungry just snack on your own feet" says Skelly the skeleton! Hardly a fright, but definitely flexi!

Countdown to Halloween - 2 - Still with Sainsbury's; Spider

It's a spider, a big PVC-rubber spider, it's quite realistic, apart from the fact that it's had at least six eyes surgically removed, as have most of the spiders we've looked-at recently!

See; told you; PVC-rubber spider; two eyes! Sainsbury's!