Cooey's Toy Box

Here are a few toys that caught my fancy. These were released by Fresh, a local toy shop specializing in hard to find vinyl toys. I'm not looking to expand my collection to this line yet but these look quite tasty. TS118, the Philippine's 3 3/4 (1:18 scale) figure G.I. Joe/action figure club ( of which I'm a lurking member) exhibited a modular diorama entitled "Operation: Burnt Lair." The club pioneered the Dynamic Modular Diorama or DMD wherein the diorama changes display to tell a story. these DMDs are usually exhibited during toy conventions, launches, etc. Congratulations to the guys who made this awesome setup possible! You can view more of these fab dio pics here: http://www.hisstank.com/gi-joe-news/customs-10/ts118s-operation-burnt-lair-gi-joe-diorama-10479/ http://ts118.50.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1727&start=210 More links soon!

Lovers of 1/6th scale figures will love this English club's passion. Kampfgruppe von Abt is a modelling team based in England dedicated to producing high quality photo realistic dioramas. And I mean "high quality photo realistic" -- I spent the better half of the night looking and marveling at each layout. Check out their awesome galleries here: http://www.vonabt.co.uk/ Thanks to Tito Alvin for the link!

Dropped by Day 1 of the 10th Toycon at SM Megamall this weekend. The place was packed tight and I had a hard time going around. Didn't stay long though because I was feeling a bit under the weather with a typhoon building up outside. Here are some pix of the booths, the merchandise and the people. I was especially happy to see a display of Alfredo Alcala's work. I discovered his work in the old Conan comicbooks as well as in Arak, Son of Thunder. He was one of the influential illustrators I looked up to with his impressive attention to detail as well as lavishly rich linework. He's one of the illustrators whose black and white art inspired and influenced me a lot. Someone should really publish a folio of his impressive body of work. More to come!