Float like a butterfly...

Sting like a BEE!

The Transformers movie has landed on local screens for 2 weeks now, & we're all caught in the robot craze! Michael Bay has delivered the goods! Transformers is totally awesome & has saved a summer of disappointing sequels. Remember I was still missing a component of my TF Movie Toy collection? I got it today after hunting it down for more than a week! All thanks to a buddy of mine, more on that later.

Arise, Bumblebee!
















Those who have watched the movie will know what an important role Bumblebee played, and one of the most memorable battle in the movie was Bumblebee vs. Barricade:














Autobots, Group Shot!












As I was saying, Bumblebee played a important role in the movie, thus the "first-gen" Bumblebee toys vanished off the shelves after the movie opened and that wasn't even as nice or impressive as this "2nd-gen" one. So finding this one was unquestionably going to be even more difficult, where you have to beat a "dreaded group" to it. No, not kids... Scalpers! I want to thank my bro, Dinesh for very graciously letting me have the one he reserved! Now, you're Da Man! I will definitely hunt one down for you, I promise!


My Transformers Movie Toys Collection is now complete!





I'll have another Transformers releated purchase coming soon, & it's not a toy! Watch this space.

The Mighty Thunder God

The Norse God of Thunder has always been one of my favourite Marvel Heroes & I've been wanting to get a cool Thor statue for a while. When I saw Bowen Designs' third full size statue release of the Mighty Thor, I knew that's THE ONE! What I love about this piece is the whole look, simple yet powerful. The first BD Thor statue was in a "action" type pose & the second statue was exactly the same, with the inclusion of interchangeable heads (commonly referred to as the "change-o-head" version), which made me prefer the simple look of the new one. Sky high prices of the earlier statues also left me with little choice. :P All 3 Thor statues were sculpted by the man himself, Randy Bowen.
























Comparison shots with the Mad Titan, (Bowen Designs) Thanos:

Clash of the DC Titans

My first statue from DC Direct, Wonder Woman vs. Superman!
I had a few worries when I was deciding whether to pre-order this piece. One was the face sculpt of Superman reminded me of the dreadful Superman vinyl statue by Kotobukiya. The second worry was DC Direct's poor paint QC on their statues. But in the end, I thought... Heck! Two of DC's most well known Heroes going against each other? No way can I pass up on this! Beautifully sculpted by Ray Villafane (BD Sabertooth statue, SS Wolverine comiquette), based on art by Terry Dodson. My worries were unwarranted when I finally received the actual statue. Superman turned out much better than I expected, Diana was simply gorgeous & the paint was decent all round. The first thing that hit me when I picked up the statue (literally) was the weight, or lack of it to be precise. It's quite light for a statue that size, I guess it could be to prevent breakages due to its design. One of the highlights is the glossy red paint used very appropriately on WW & Supe's boots, also on Supe's chest insignia.




















I was gonna display this with my Sideshow versus dioramas, but too bad the scale is smaller. Size comparison with the awesome Sideshow X-Men vs. Sentinel diorama:






& here's one for fans of Transformers:

Giant F'ing Robots are coming!

As the arrival of the Transformers movie draws near, movie toys started to "flood" local departmental stores from June 2nd onwards. When I first saw pictures of the movie toys, only Optimus Prime caught my eye. As the others were a total departure from what their cartoon versions looked like. A lot of G1 fans were complaining about how their beloved TFs were now fugly looking Lego Bionicle rejects. I however was metally prepared, when the live movie was announced. Unless the new movie is going to be set in the 1980s & targeted at kids, no way can they keep the original look of the Transformers without them turning out like jokes in live action. If I want to see a cute Volkswagon Bumblebee or size-changing tape deck Soundwave, I can just watch the cartoons. What I want to see on the big screen are high tech looking Robots kicking ass, Michael Bay style! Ok, enough rambling. Back to the toys. My initial plan of getting just Optimus flew out the window when I came across this picture:


Now I gotta buy all those in that picture. Aargh!

...& I did (minus the "2008" Bumblebee, which is still unreleased at point of posting)






Optimus Prime










Ironhide








Ratchet








Jazz








Barricade










The Gang








Lastly, here's a shot of my "Blockbusters of Summer 2007" display.
(Pardon the poor-quality-handphone-taken picture)