L is for The Loyal Subjects

Odd name, crazy product, and it was actually a Walmart exclusive for Easter last year, marketed by Wave 2 LLC as The Loyal Subjects, but  not really available to me at the time, in fact I only re-discovered them by accident the other day! And it's been a bit of a merry-go-round getting them here in time, but we managed by the skin of the hairs on our chinny-chin-chins!

Not knowing how things were going to pan-out I helped myself to all last years promotional images, which as they differ from those on the packaging must be from Walmart's own PR department, a campaign which must have been successful, because dozens of blogs, websites, 'zines and so on, covered them in full, at the time!

I actually managed to locate some reasonably-priced mint ones; there are a fair few sellers around and about, but one is considerably cheaper than the others, so I grabbed two sets in the hope of finding a few glow-in-the-dark or rarer ones, but that's now for another day.

The Loyal Subjects' packaging artwork, There are ten basic sculpts with the glowing variants, and metallic rarities to find . . . there's a silver one on evilBay at the moment for silly money, but they will have sold in vast numbers a year ago (why there are still so many on feebleBay) and even the rare ones will still be turning-up, in mixed junk lots, years from now!

Pleased to see that Walmart put three aliens in their egg (you should get two and one 'other stage'), as I had done the same thing while I still had only a few! I refound them by accident, when some chap was selling a few of the same colour (with Lanard space marines as enemy!), and as soon as the first lot arrived, he listed another lot in a different colour, so I bought those, only for the cycle to repeat a third time!

The cavern! And my three tumbling out of their egg - after careful posing! I've missed out on one variant of blue wrap, and there may be a second green design, but it's not clear from the promotional shots. But all packs have two yellow eggs, so they are commoner than the blue or green.

Not knowing if the eggs would have the right mix, I then found a seller who was offering a set of all ten for a decent price, but when they arrived there was two blue and no purple! So I shot them against the hope a rabbit would be pulled from a hat . . . it was!

It was an honest mistake; he's obviously opened loads to make up the sets, and with four of the poses being very similar (red, green, blue and purple), had accidently sent me two alike, however he then fired-off the purple one in the mail (with a spare egg!) and it arrived earlier in the week, so I could get them finished in time for today! Happy Xenomorphic Easter!

[I'm sending him a UK food parcel (Marmite, Gold Bars, Tunnock's and Jaffa cakes) by way of a 'thank-you'!]

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And this bears a digression - The originals, like most evilBay stuff these days (which really should be called EVILbay) were sent via the 'Global Shipping Program', which 1) isn't global, there's only a few countries signed up to it. 2) Makes everything 8-14 days slower than if they are sent through the normal mail channels, and 3) seems to be a revenue generating scam for eBay, Pitney Bowes and Hermes (UK) while 4) possibly defrauding HMRC (?) as well as hideously overcharging the buyer (and short-changing the seller?), so all three 'agencies' can have a slice of purely invented pie!

Literally everything through the program is taking 10-14 days or longer, with an endless wait at "Global Shipping Center, Erlanger, Kentucky", while everything sent through normal, national, mail systems takes about 5 or 6 days. And while they sit in Erlanger, spurious and nonsensical 'tracking' notes are added every other day or so, dated to a day or two earlier; when there was no note on that date!

Now - I have been told that there's a way of opting out of the Global Shipping Program, but I can't find the button, so any help/thoughts on the subject would be appreciated by me and probably a lot of other readers?

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Facehuggers and Chest Bursters! There are two of each, so a decent set of four eggs should, could, might contain all four! Like the adult Aliens, both Facehuggers are similar, it's really only the tails that differ, These are not in scale with the fully-grown Xenomorphs, but - following the [fictional] 'science' - if the donor/infected . . . inseminated is an elephant or a rhino . . . !

I can't ever get the Spaceballs tap-dancing Burster out of my mind, despite having seen the Alien one may more times! The fact that John Hurt reprises his role "OH no, not again" might have something to do with it!

I was hoping to use the eggs to do an 'opening' video, and might have if the glitch with the purple one hadn't been sorted out, but it was, and I really am pushed for time at the moment (real life stuff), so I'll hold them sealed for now and get it sorted in a year or two, probably for Easter Day again. But; here's promo' shots with both the glowers and a silver Alien.

As I mentioned, the initial seller was including random Lanard troops (also a Walmart exclusive - in the 'States!) and they do make for the best enemy, although Previews Exclusive (PX) / DST (Diamond Select Toys) carried similar sized Colonial Marine troopers from EMCE's 'Nanotoys' design range. For the Facehuggers you'll need an Action Man/G.I.Joe!

Initial shot up at the gravel works a few weeks ago, and a full Xenomorph line-up, taken in the garden this week! The yellow one is a nice sculpt, but hard to get to stand up, while the Orange one is the most menacing, the others all look more curious, or surprised!

Oh! That's me on the radar, I'd better scoot . . . now where's the damn cat gone?!!

C is for Coronations . . . Don'cha Just Lov'em!

We're about to have another one you know! Hopefully the last, and yes, I know I did a couple of Royalist posts ten or twelve years ago, but I know now, what I didn't know then, or didn't fully understand!

Found in the garage yesterday and taken straight to storage, but I fired off a quick shot. Somehow I doubt there will be the same plethora of die-casts issued this time, and most of the issuers (some of whom reused tools from previous coronations - we had four or five (going on the stamp-faces) in less than fifty years!) have long gone, along with their tool-banks.

I think there are elements of Hill, Benbros, Britains and Lesney here? I'm tagging them all anyway! It's a whole box of metal, from the small-scale only collector-days!

S is for [Mostly] Seen Elsewhere - Combat Types

So, a quick round-up of WWII'ey or Modernish stuff most of which I've posted elsewhere in the last twelve months or so, but a couple of which are here for the first time.

A couple more Polish figures, I've actually scored three lots, which we will look at in other posts, but this pair were my first two of the 'Four Tankers & a Dog', Polish TV/Movie related set from PZG, so they were posted with pride a while ago!

Flying West we find this chap (pink) as a Portuguese cereal premium, now, I thought I'd posted these here, but I can't find them, neither can I find any group shots in Picasa, or from the Faceplant Group where I posted this shot, so I don't know what happened to them, but there are more to come (four I think?), currently in storage . . . un-photographed?

Heading South on the same continent finds us in Italy where these could be Jumbo, but are more likely to be Dulcop given the lack of paint. I have Jumbo (or Jumbotoys) marked Wild West with paint, these - unpainted - are just marked Italy and were, I suspect, used by both brand-marks.

Staying in Italy, and we're back with Co-Ma (Coma, CO'MA), for their smaller Alpini, also available in a 60mm'ish size and various bright colours (white and red in my case), and a vary diminutive '20mm' closer to HO, these are a smallish 50mm and more realistic in polymer shade.

Returning home to the UK and we have the shooting targets from Kleeware/Ideal, courtesy of Chris Smith, we've seen them before, and on that occasion I also showed the Ideal catalogue image, but now I've found the Kleeware one . . .

. . . which has not been seen elsewhere, so is a 'blog exclusive'! I mean; it's just a scan and I seem to recal it's been seen in Plastic Warrior magazine, but it closes the circle on these, since their first appearance here!

Also not seen before, I shot the full Britains Deetail 'Battle Group' while they were on their way to the storage unit, we saw most of them when I cleaned them up a decade ago, but there are a few additions, and they nicely fill a 4-litre Really Useful Box. I've left the painted Afrika Korps officer with them, but he's a bit shy!

These two only came-in the other day; a quick feeBay snaffle, you may remember (it's on the Airfix Blog) that my existing bazooka man was cobbled together from a kit of parts and a lot of 'superglue', these two are nice, clean and still flexible, so complete. And here compared with the HO-OO figure.

These are just for fun, I don't have a brand, brand-mark or set name yet, probably late 1980's, Hong Kong 'army men', I just love the colours! The same outfit seems to have been responsible for the 25mm clones, where you find the Japanese are commonest, in the same whacky colours.

Found! They were in a different folder!

Portuguese cereal premiums! The radio operator is a smoother/cleaner finished sculpt - so two issues? And maybe Japanese . . . or generic post war 'army men'?

 

Apparently they are by/for Farinha Amparo, a flour-miller?

T is for Two - Current Dinosaurs

Just a quickie, I bought a set from don't-know-where (probably Asda?) back in January, and Brian Berke had bought some stand-alone's, also in January, so lets have a quick look.

A nice medium to large pair of the new style hollow in two halves dinosaurs, a Parasaurolophus and an over-sized Velociraptor, available the other side of the pond in Target Stores for a dollar, just a measly $1, so worth a punt. Branded to Anko Development and brand-marked '1 Count' . . . because they're sold singly?

Meanwhile I'd grabbed these, but I can't remember where, I think "it 'as to be Asda", I didn't go anywhere else around then? But there's a chance it was my local independent toy shop, they have a small range of rack toys including the HTI 'army men' stuff we've looked at here in the past. They would have been less than a fiver as I won't go over that on rack-toys!

The supporting bumpf for the Target dinosaurs and a close-up of the dino's. That's it, out there now for a few shekels if you're a dinosaur fan, and thanks to Brian for the US examples.

K is for Knock, Knock, Knockin' on a Corporal's Jaw!

It's been an odd 14-months, and while the light is at the end of the tunnel, I'm still uncovering things, despite thinking I've checked everything - I found four hedgehogs (of the silver-neff and chalkware variety) behind a curtain the other day, while another interesting thing I've found is this . . .

. . . door knocker, which I found in a drawer in the front room a while back, it's obviously Mr. the Lord Vice-Admiral Horatio,1st Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, Knight Bachelor and All Round Jolly Good Fellow! I will have it fixed on the front-door of what's likely to be my eventual last home, but I had an inspired idea for the knocker plate, which looks a bit plain . . .

. . . this piece of originally - probably - hideously overpriced tat from Atlas Editions (think Franklin or Danbury Mint, but remove any residual or perceived - they don't have much, if you dig - class) which I picked-up on evilBay for pennies - it's Napoleon Blownapart!

It will have to be domed which I will do myself, I have also inherited smithing tools including a sand-filled leather pad and fine silver-smith's round-peen hammers which should do the job (the eagle will have to 'buy it'!), although it's probably some shite base-metal alloy so I'll have to be careful! A few knocks might actually improve that etching - he looks like a shop-dummy!

Then it can be braised (like welding) or claw-clamped to the curved knocker and the Corporal will receive Nelson's boots to the snoz every time someone comes to the door - bargain! I shall invite random Frenchmen to the house!

S is for 'The' Shark!

It's been a funny day, I awoke convinced it was Tuesday (so I got most of the right letters), but as the day progressed I sort of grudgingly admitted to myself in a sub-concious manner that it was Tuesday yesterday, so came to accept Wednesday as the day, only for someone to start announcing special programes for the Radio tomorrow, and the dawning realisation that a long weekend starts at midnight and if I wanted milk I'd better get my skates on and get to town!

Image courtesy of The News Elephant

So I don't know where the week's gone, but half of it snuck-by while I was doing something else! Anyway, what I was going to post at tea-time took a back seat, and, as I'd scanned these last night before their box went to storage, we'll have a bit of self-indulgence!

Back around '98, I had cause to design a shark, the main parameters being that A) it had to be executable on a vinyl-cutter and B) no one in the studio would show a mere fitter (for that is what I was!) how to use the CorelDRAW software! The irony there being that now I can 3D in Autodesk and the studio bods are probably still doing 2D signage!

The above are early efforts to 'get' a shark, not as easy as I'd thought it would be when I started, also - an additional parameter - I was trying to get there from the Christian fish, but sharks 'aint fishes! As you can see, far left bottom; I got closer to barracuda and tuna at one point!

Using the tracing-over-the-previous-image technique, a seven stage process lead to something I was happy with, although the final stage (with teeth) is missing, it must have been lost in the final scanning-to-PC and cutting phase, where I did get help from Jason in the studio and when the gills and eye were added from punctuation.

Once I was happy with the design, I had 12 printed-off in three colours, of which I have six left, the others having gone on various vehicles I have owned over the intervening 25 years . . . never mind this week, where the fuck has my life gone?!! Anyway, it became 'the shark' among my friends, and when I got a new vehicle it was always "You haven't put the shark on it yet then?"

In case you're still wondering . . . this was going to go on the opposite side of the boot/tailgate, but I never got round to finalising the design or getting it cut! It's alright; they raise again on the third day, apparently, although the way I'm counting days at the moment, that'll probably be next Saturday!

H is for How They Come In - Peter Evans March

I've rather lost all track of the 'H is for . . .' trope, with the Autumn's chronological catch-up, usurped by some up-to-date clearance, then another hiatus, while all, or some . . . most of the Charity shop stuff went in one folder except the stuff which isn't while a found objects (generated by clearing the house) folder is filling with esoteric shite from high quality to the broken Thunderbird Two leg I found yesterday, it's all gone a bit Pete Tong, so I'll just throw them up here regularly until they are cleared in whatever order!

This little lot came in the other day, courtesy of Peter Evans, and as I'd captioned it for publishing elsewhere, it might as well be blurb-lite after the above waffle, so in short-order with notes . . .

Unpacking; the fishy-fish will be saved for a future round-up, in a Rack Toy Month probably, we've now seen the dino'set and there were some blister-carded 'Army Men' (close-up below) which will also be saved for an RTM.

Apparently someone has since ID'd these as Blue Box, they are definitely not the quality of any Blue Box production and while I haven't seen the comment, so won't name him, he's probably making it up as he goes along?

'Nuff said!
(that's a bit of bubble-wrap stuck to his armpit I think?)

The relief!

Late-production Britains swivel troops, not the best, but . . . Toy soldier! We looked at the 'chocolate drops' here. This is the slightly more realistic colourway.

That hidden blister!

I think this is a re-issue of a Charbens piece, I have a vintage painted white one somewhere (sans sails) which I always thought was theirs, but the Toy Soldier Co. don't list it and they have stock of both farm and scenic reissues? Anyway, it's sort of chunky but it's semi-flat!

Very, very small, and not clear what it is, but certainly Hong Kong rack toy/gum-ball fodder.

Not Marx/MPC and not Phidal, but copy of the former and similar to the latter!

We did fishermen in a couple of posts a year or two ago, one on mine, one on Mr Smith's, and this is a fine addition to that sub-branch of the pile, it's a magnetic novelty, possibly a tourist thing (destination sticker missing) or cake decoration.

A couple of new to me and newish looking die-cast vehicle accessories.

Also new on me, but with a bit of age, not as old as the accumulated fluff might suggest, early Safari or K&M? If not another die-cast vehicle/play-set accessory.

Many thanks to Peter for an eclectic mix of odd, unusual, new or fun figures. And apologies to those who saw these elsewhere a week or so ago, but the nature of the Internet as a place of duplication is - to a certain extent - its present I'm afraid, and yes, I know it represents a fragmenting and dilution of the canon, but that's why it will all, always come back here in the end.

F is for Follow-up - Fresh Fellows from B&M Stores

These arrived in my inbox within the hour (at time of writing] this evening, but as I was clearing follow-ups today, they can go up right away! Cheers to Chris Smith for sending these, which are a follow up to this shelfie post of last Christmas. Chris's blub will more than suffice, after the shots;

"... you had these as a shelfie Dec 21st in a tub from B&M. Already appearing in mixed lots! 8 poses in two colours, yes some based on Matchbox, the crawling figure the most obvious and then 3 based on German and Afrika Korps that retain the cylindrical gas mask canister. One officer in my lot has a sticker  on the underside of the base. Possibly useful as military Junta or mercenaries? Better quality than a lot of cheapo stuff but weapons a bit cartoonish."

And it just remains for me to thank Chris for the update and close-ups - out there now and already cheaper than the not-much B&M Stores were charging three months ago (£5) . . . and probably still are!

F is for Follow-up - Phidel Busy Princesses!

The stream of Phidal has rather run to a trickle, in part because both WHSmith and TKMaxx seem to have stopped carrying them, but the website's still up and running with new titles, there's a Minions one I'm going to keep an eye out for, along with a Disney Raya set which looks like it will have useful figures, including Asian ner'do'wells of the Sumurai or PotC pirate type?

Anyway picked this up complete for a quid in a charity shop the other day, we've seen some of the contents in one of  the two previous 'Princesses' set, although this has a different mix with all ten of the contents being princesses, but the  old 'standards' are all present. "3 years and up" - I think that covers me!

From top left to bottom right we have; Cinderella, Tiana, Merida (seen here in a mixed lot, and as a different sculpt in her own set, recently), Snow White, Belle, Rapunzel, Mulan, Ariel, Jasmine and Pocahontas, and as I've pointed out before, some of these will paint-up nicely for Napoleonic ballrooms, Wild West saloons, Plantation House garden-parties and etcetera.