Eye of the Crow

tap out!!

2009-11-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

'bustin makes me feel good

2009-10-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the den...

2009-10-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

Jason does Hamlet

2009-10-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

scream

2009-10-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

Naughty camper....

2009-10-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

ka ka ka... kill kill kill.....

2009-10-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Mourning Cap...

2009-09-28T20:07:00.001-07:00

does whatever a spider can....

2009-09-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

Introspective Spidey.

2009-09-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

-click-

2009-09-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

KIYA!!

2009-09-18T19:33:00.001-07:00

Put em up... put em up....

2009-09-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

Bring me the heads of my enemies...

2009-09-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

I love my job...

2009-09-15T16:48:00.001-07:00

WINNER! Akuma...

2009-09-14T20:14:00.001-07:00

Always studying

2009-09-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here kitty, kitty, kitty...

2009-09-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

...but I just wanted a pizza.

2009-09-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

Marvel & DC's shield slingers...

2009-09-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

FIREBALL!!!!

2009-09-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

FIGHT!!

2009-09-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

One bullseye coming up...

2009-09-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

The dead speak in whispers..

2009-09-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

Come get some...

2009-09-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hard Traveling Heroes

2009-09-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

Akuma's moment of reflection

2009-09-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Look at those...guns...

2009-09-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Made for speed....

2009-08-31T15:09:00.001-07:00

Wonder Twin powers activate! Form of...

2009-08-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

A tender moment between crime fighting...

2009-08-29T20:35:00.001-07:00

Time for a nice, relaxing read.

2009-08-28T20:24:00.001-07:00

Auto-buddies

2009-08-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

What? This is all mine...

2009-08-26T19:32:00.001-07:00

Let's see what's on tv Clunk...

2009-08-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Get to da choppa!!

2009-08-24T19:46:00.001-07:00

More than meets the eye...

2009-08-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Move out...

2009-08-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Working them guns....

2009-08-21T13:12:00.001-07:00

Rockin' in the free world !!!!

2009-08-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Open wide, ugly!

2009-08-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

"It's a......tank"

2009-08-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Transform, and roll out...

2009-08-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

A custom repaint of this figure.

People are going to start talking....

2009-08-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

What are you looking at ugly?

2009-08-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

And I ran. I ran so far away

2009-08-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

Heeeeeeelp!

2009-08-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!!!!

2009-08-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

Come here, bats...

2009-08-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

One from the vaults...

Something doesn't feel right...

2009-08-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Pull this thing over!

2009-08-07T20:58:00.001-07:00

You have a problem?

2009-08-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

Time for some zen meditation.

2009-08-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

Not just good, Terrific.

2009-08-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Every rose has it's thorn....

2009-08-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

Say hello to my little friend.

2009-08-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

I think we're lost.

2009-07-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

We fight, but first, a moment of silence...

2009-07-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

cue church bells tolling...

2009-07-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

Ready for action, master....

2009-07-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

You're so sweet, bats...

2009-07-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

Turtles in the wild.

2009-07-25T19:02:00.001-07:00

The crossover Hollywood is waiting for

2009-07-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

We need reinforcements. I repeat, we need.....

2009-07-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

Are you ready to rock?

2009-07-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm a child of the 80's

2009-07-21T18:04:00.000-07:00

Human Alliance Bumblebee from ROTF TF line, and Matt Trakker from the 80's M.A.S.K line

Indiana Jones and the Quest for a good sequel

2009-07-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

For Mike.

2009-07-19T19:58:00.001-07:00

We miss you.

Here comes the Ax, here comes the Smasher...

2009-07-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

Rollin'

2009-07-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hey "bub", your movie stunk.

2009-07-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

...and I'll form the head.

2009-07-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

The original Lion Voltron from my youth.

Surrender Megatron!

2009-07-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

All hail Megatron

2009-07-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Strike a pose!

2009-07-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

By the power of Grayskull.

2009-07-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

Tell me again that my movies stunk.

2009-07-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Dark Knight

2009-07-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

The name is Beetle, Blue Beetle

2009-07-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm king of the world!

2009-07-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

Ruuuuuuuuuuunnn!!!!!

2009-07-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

In a Flash

2009-07-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

One photo with some Photoshop trickery.

Happy 4th of July

2009-07-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Gear up

2009-07-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Eeeeeeva

2009-07-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

Cowabunga dude!

2009-06-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Look behind you

2009-06-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

another Hulk

2009-06-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

HULK SMASH!!!

2009-06-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

"Come with me if you want to live."

2009-06-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

I recently got the two T-800 Terminator figures from NECA based on Terminator 2.

With this entry, I'm going to alter the general theme of the blog to one or two photos a day, using my collection of action figure pictures to get started.

So enjoy a series of Terminator pictures.

Hasbro Marvel Universe/Fury Files

2009-03-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

Hasbro has released the first two waves of their new 3 3/4" line of figures. The first waves of the X-men Origins: Wolverine are also out a few months before the film comes out in May 2009.

I've picked up Captain America and Ronin from the MU line, and Deadpool and plain clothes Wolverine from the comic part of the Wolverine line. Plenty of other places have done reviews of the figures in these lines so far, so I thought I would just throw some pictures out there for consumption.

First: a shot of Cap, Ronin and Logan (before I found Deadpool)

Next we have Cap on the cammo TDK 4" Tumbler

Cap after thrashing some Cobra troops

Cap, Logan and Hellboy after trashing some Nazi scum

Cap with some gear I got last year with the intent of of giving it to my 25th Anniversary Joes

and last, but not least, The Merc with a Mouth

Overall, I'm very pleased with this line. I'll be cherry picking the characters I like to add to my 3 3/4" display.

Salem’s San Diego Comic Con 08 experience

2008-08-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

I’ll start off by saying that I’m glad I was able to make it this year, that’s largely in part to my wife letting me spend our tax rebate check on the airfare to get out there. I knew there was a reason I married her.

I’ll skip all the other small talk and get to my experience at the con itself. Upon arriving at the convention center on Wednesday afternoon to pick up my four day pass, I was amazed at the sheer size of the building outside. I’d seen the pictures from past years of course, but seeing it in person was breathtaking. My friends and I made our way down to the line to get into the building, and then did our best cattle impressions following the roped lines to get our badges and free swag for the day.

Once I officially had my badge for the event, we made our way across the upper level of the center to get in line for the doors to open two hours from that point. I regret not having some sort of hand held game system to keep me occupied while I sat against a wall, but my trusty IPod did help pass the time. Once we were finally allowed to enter the hall, it was like watching a scene from any number of zombie movies with people rushing to get ahead of everyone else.

My first impression upon entering the hall on preview night was one of awe. I knew it was big from looking at the hall layouts on the con website, but seeing it from the floor was breathtaking for a newbie to cons of this size like me. I have been to the Baltimore Comic Con before, but it pales in comparison to SDCC. I headed straight for the NECA booth so I could get my Mousers first, and found there was already a line. Not the first time I would experience this at the con either. I left the booth a few minutes later with my 2 Mouser sets in hand and proceeded to wander around the floor for a bit before I headed to the Mattel booth try my hand at scoring Lobo and King Greyskull. After wasting half an hour in line only to find out they wouldn’t be for sale until Thursday morning, I decided to head over to the AFX booth and check on the 4 Horsemen’s Gothtropolis Time Keeper figures. I got to talk to one of the guys for a few minutes, and I got some pictures of their amazing 2 Ups of the next Fan Ex figure with variants, and the next 7th Kingdom Queen figure and her amazing variants. These guys are truly fans of action figures, and truly do their best to please their fans with everything they do.

Thursday morning brought the chance to get my Mattel exclusives, but by the time I got to the booth, a little after the doors opened, the line had been closed already. I was told to come back in about 45 minutes when the line would be open again, which ended up being closed by the time I got back there again. I made one last attempt to catch the line while I wandered around the floor close by, but when I missed it that time, I just hung around the booth until they opened the next time. I spent from about two and a half hours in that line, only to find out that they had sold out of the Greyskull stock they had on hand, and were waiting on more to arrive. That led to those of us who wanted anything other than Greyskull to get shifted to another line. At that point I had resigned myself to not getting both of the Mattel figures I wanted, but I did manage to get my Lobo and another for a friend. One of the plusses of waiting in that line was meeting the fiancé of another board member of the Fwoosh, aceofknaves, whom I enjoyed talking toys with while we killed time waiting on Mattel to get their act together.

The rest of the con is pretty much a blur. I managed to attend some panels I wanted to, including the Marvel Toys/Toybiz panel where Jesse Falcon got to shed some light on the behind the scenes workings of one of the best toy companies in recent memory. I got to talk with Todd Nauck, artist of Wildguard and Spiderman among others, as he did a sketch for me and another fan. I got to say hello to Steve Niles in person as I passed him the Image comics booth, after being a member of his message board for so many years. I chatted with the folks from Rooster Teeth productions (Red vs. Blue fame). I also met SDcomics, and the talented customizer carl, of Fwoosh fame, on Sunday afternoon, and got to talk to him for a little while at the SOTA booth. Talking to someone of his caliber about customs was helpful beyond belief for me, and I hope he enjoys the customs I will eventually post that he so graciously let me tell him about..

Overall, I’m thrilled I decided to make the trek from the East Coast of New York, to the sunny West Coast of San Diego for an experience I will not soon forget. I got to see plenty of eye candy women in various stages of undress, and some men who should have definitely put a few more pieces of clothing on. It was a pop culture/comic/movie event for sure, but I enjoyed all the personal interaction I had with friends I met for the first time, Fwoosh members I happened to bump into, and the celebrities I got the chance to chat with even more.

To see pics of my con experience check out my gallery here.

random digital sketch

2008-02-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

Here's another random digital sketch with my tablet. This was done in reverse. In other words I started with the black background and added the white, blue and grays on top.

Total time about 15 minutes. There are issues I can see, but overall I'm happy with the result.

Coming up: I'm working on something for my wife for Valentines Day, and working on a vinyl Munny custom that I'll be posting in progress shots of.

Mattel's 'The Batman' Justice League figures

2008-01-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of the WB's 'The Batman' show for a few years now, but have managed to hold off purchasing any of the toys that Mattel has released thus far.

After seeing the new figures based on the Justice League characters appearing on the show this season though, my resolve dissolved, and I snatched them up with the help of a friend locally.

These guys look just like they do in the show, which is impressive considering this is a mass market retail line. The following pictures are of Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Martian Manhunter.

Now, these aren't Marvel Legends level articlated, or even DC Superheroes/DC Universe Classics level, but they are pretty good for about 5" figures. They have neck swivel, shoulder, hinged elbows, waist, T-crotch and hinged knees. The paint applications on mine are all pretty good as well. Flash has a few little white marks here and there, but for mass market they look good. If you have the chance to look over a few of each (which with their being 1 per case is unlikely), you may find a good one.

From what I've seen Lantern and Hawkman are in one wave, and the other 3 are in another wave. There is also a 2 pack with Batman in some crazy armor with a Superman with Kryptonite veins on his neck and chest. If you customize at all, that might be a better bet for your Superman fix.

So in my opinion, if you're a fan of the show, or even of the characters themselves, I'd think about getting these figures, if you can find them.

-Eric

Welcome

2008-01-26T22:17:00.000-08:00

So, I guess I'll join the crowd and create a blog to share my random thoughts on all things of interest to me.

To start, I'll post a sketch I did using my new tablet that my wondeful wife bought me for my birthday.

The news of NECA TMNT figures got my juices flowing about the turtles again, so I got to drawing.

This took about 15 minutes using just the tablet and pen to get a feel for actually drawing digitally. I like the loose feel this has, and may come back to it later so I can tighten it up and finish it off.

More later.