A couple of weeks ago I snagged a Triad Vanity figure with only the hands, costume and sidearm. This is my first Otaku figure; I’ve haven’t bought one before now because I want base bodies with a little more articulation and a little less in the chest. The translucent resin the body is cast in looks a bit strange in certain light. It actually looks pretty good in pictures where I used the flash.

Well, here she is dressed up like a Jedi. She’s wearing Hasbro Anakin’s tunic and sash, a belt from the Triad Harley Chic set, and that’s SS Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. I don’t know if I’ll leave her like this or not.

I took advantage of Triad Toys’ 4th of July sale and picked up a few things:

Chosen One outfit, leather, female – don’t know what I’ll use it for
set of metal sais – ditto
female biker boots – two possible uses
I-Spy outfit, male – use the top for something
female gloved gun hands – I lost a hand under the nightstand, so this replaces it
female Hero-Type suit – all purpose thing, should always have one around for a quick bash
Harley Chic belt – might look good on my Westlander custom

I really need to get some base bodies, so that’s probably what I’ll focus on for the next purchase.

Some bling for my wizard:

The heapiece on the staff is a sterling plated bead set with two Swarovski crystals. (I’ll have better pics of it later.) The chain is…well, a chain, also sterling plated.

This caught my eye while I was at the Sideshow website to read today’s newsletter. Definitely didn’t expect this, but this is welcome news to customizers who have had to look high and low for them. The price is still a bit prohibitive for me; I really don’t have anything coming up that would need a True-Type. Now if they sold a female base body equal to the True-Type, then maybe I might be willing to fork over the cash.

Here’s the product page at the website: Hot Toys True-Type 12-inch Figure Body (Caucasian) – Special Edition

I was always afraid to put the wig on him. Now that it’s on, I think it doesn’t look quite as bad as I thought. Still needs a little work, though. Some hastily snapped pics:

I’m still stuck on his staff, and he’s finally wearing his boots, even though I went through hell to get them on.

Lothiar Westlander is a wizard from the same world that Rhianwyn comes from. I started working on him about the same time I started on Agent Prime. Historically, Lothiar has been giving me no end of fits. He needed a wig, so I got one. Guh. Also, the headsculpt on the Malcolm Parks figure I picked out for him kept throwing me for loops.

When I first got him, I wasn’t very happy. He didn’t quite look the way I had seen him on the website I bought him from. I guess it was the way he was lit that got me. No matter what kind of light I looked at him in, something was off. While stewing over the matter some time ago, I looked at him one more time in his then new duds, by lamp light. His folds, shadows and wrinkles really jumped out. Then I thought about his backstory, how every piece of clothing and everything he carries mean something. Why he looks the way he does. Things started coming together and a lot of the anxiety went away.

The hair, of course, is the major sticking point right now. Second would be his sword. I thought I knew what I wanted, but when I had something in hand, I changed my mind. Several times. These are some of ones I’ve bought:

The top one is Mononofu. The middle one is from a DiD samurai figure. The bottom is from Hot Toys Elizabeth Swann. I wanted something that fell between the swords Men in my world carry (your typical broadswords and hand-and-a-half swords) and what the Kindred, the “elf” incarnations, carry (curved swords with long hilts). For the first sword, the round hand guard sets it apart. The second’s curve I like, but I want to give it a longer hilt. The third one could work, looking exotic, but I really don’t like the very thin plastic blade. I think I’m spoiled by metal blades; Rhianwyn has one, and the first two swords in the pic are metal.

Maybe I might pick up something I’ve had my eye on for a while: a Mononofu samurai sword that comes unassembled with a full tang blade, so I can build whatever kind of hilt I want around it.

Still standing by to get back to work, waiting for the seasons to change (and the gas bill to go down–way down). Despite that, there’s a piece of clothing I need to secure to at least get started on a new custom. For my current stuff, I’m getting a bit apprehensive. The wig I bought for my wizard custom looks like…well, it looks like a wig, and I don’t like it. I really want to glue hair to the head and see how that works. I bought some small doll heads with hair so I could do that. Every time I think I’m getting close to doing the deed, I get scared. You know, “what if I mess up?”, stuff like that. I will have to repaint the hair first because it’s blond and the hair I want to put on it is brown.

Maybe not “had to”, it’s just that I’ve lost interest in collecting SW figures, at least the ones from Sideshow. Money is tight, so I didn’t want to see any surprises on my bank statement or be shocked when try to use my bank card because I was charged for something I had forgotten about. And it’s been a long time since I pre-ordered SS Darth Vader. So he’s canceled, along with a wait list item I’ve been “waiting” on for nearly three years. That leaves me free to pick up stuff for customizing that I didn’t get last year for whatever reason (if the gas bill will allow it).

Starting off 2009 with a number of packages winging their way across the country. Today I just got a Triad Hero Type suit for a future custom, plus a few odds and ends. I wasn’t happy with the swords I bought for my wizard custom, so I bought some more interesting ones yesterday and they should be arriving next week. They look like Chinese swords (one-handed, straight blade, tassels) and are kind of ornate. I was looking to give him a curved bladed sword, but I couldn’t think of how to make it work without looking like a samurai sword (which it is). The long tachi I have won’t work, either. So we’ll see.

I finally figured out what to do with the catsuit I bought last year. I’ve been on a Star Trek kick lately, so I’m leaning toward doing something Borg-ish. Like somebody has been rescued from the collective, has had most of their implants removed and is beginning to look like themselves again. But this is way off in the future.

Also, I don’t think I’ll do anything else for Agent Prime. I was going to cut the hair and repaint the eyes, but I’ve been too lazy to do it. There’s nothing that says I can’t revisit her in the future, so I’ll take some pictures when I’m not lazy and formally present her to the world.

A couple more pics of Agent Prime: