One for each month of the year. I will focus on and obsess over these playsets every month accordingly:
January - Lego Space Systems 453 & 454, Landing Plates & Crater Plates. Best. Modular. Set. Ever.
February - Mighty Max Dragon Island - Just add a blue sheet for water. (Red sheet for lava with the Skull Mountain playset)
March - Robin Hood Sherwood Forest playset - Like the Ewok Village, just better.
April - TMNT Technodrome - Pairs perfectly with Mini Mutants for epic scale!
May - The Family Play Castle - Sadly no commercial for this awesome set. I used to play with this set at my aunt's during the annual Easter get together. I love that trap door!
This is my fist post/response to the Round Robin Challenge. It was hard to nail down exactly what my collecting obsession is, but after some soul searching I finally figured it out: I AM OBSESSED WITH CREATING WORLDS! This obsession with creating worlds explains why I love building toys (LEGO, Construx), micro toys (Mighty Max, Micro Machines, Trend Masters), hobby toys (model trains, Christmas & Halloween villages, etc.), table top gaming (D&D, War Hammer, Brik Wars), and good old play sets!
Custom minifigures I created. Space is my favorite LEGO theme.
Basil The Bat Lord, Fright Knights Castle sub-theme
My earliest toy memory was when I was 4 or 5 years old, building the Blacktron Message Intercept Base (Set 6987-1). I still have bits and pieces from that set, and I hope to one day rebuild it. I have always loved the customizable nature of the LEGO brick. You really can create anything! I really miss the modular Classic Space base plates and I wish I had stocked up. Even considering just custom minifigures, there are millions of possible combinations of head, torso, legs, weapons, hats, etc., it is mind boggling! You really can build your own little world out of LEGO, though it can become very expensive. This is why I enjoy others' amazing creations, like Jang Bricks on YouTube, and the Construx Custom Designs Gallery.
My brother and I were huge fans of Galoob's Micro Machines and I still have a large collection of Z-Bots. This inevitably led to my love of Bluebird's Mighty Max series and all the other micro toys that flooded the market in the 90's. I loved that my parents could afford to buy me playsets, because they were so much cheaper in micro form.
Z-Bots Combots line, Tomahawk in custom desert scene. I simply used an old tan sheet as sand. Army men buckets are perfect for little accessories, like the barbwire fencing.
I also recall with fondness our family trips to the Intermountain Train Expo. I really want to visit again this year with my Dad and bring my kids along too. It was so cool seeing all the work and detail that went into those model trains and the surrounding landscape!
I recently started building a Halloween a few years ago when Tombstone Corners hit Dollar Tree stores. Ever since I visited Gardener Village in the fall as a kid and saw the Halloween villages there, I have wanted to create my own village. Check out my latest Tombstone Corners post, with links to every post HERE.
I have never played D&D or War Hammer, but I appreciate and marvel at the creativity of the games! I love the imagination and creativity that goes into a D&D game; and dedicated War Hammer players have created some incredible terrain and structures from everyday household rubbish!
And lastly, playsets and toy dioramas have always interested me. I did get some traditional playsets as a kid, like the Swamp Thing Swamp Trap playest (1990), and one of the Bat Cave playsets (I can't even remember which one to be honest, and a few others of note. I will be making a top 10 playset list of my personal favorites that I owned or really want). However, I always ended up creating playsets myself using cardboard or whatever else I could find. I recently created a playset from a cardboard apple box, Frogacuda's lair/toy room basement/sewer or something. The great outdoors is another quick and easy playset of sorts. Retroblasting puts it best with their video "Greatest Playsets you didn't 'buy'":
Frogacuda & Froggy Jr. in their toy room. Micro toys are perfect toys for bigger toys.
Old Sheets are perfect for a quick and easy landscape.
Another part I love about dioramas is crossing toy lines. Here we have Imaginext, The Real Ghostbusters, and Playmobil. The more the merrier!
I enjoy building in many different mediums. My 2015 ginger bread contest entry at work, Eversweet National Forest. I won first prize for Most Creative. That is real maple syrup in the candy lake.
What is your obsession, collecting related or otherwise? tell me in the comments below!
The League is always open to new members! Got a blog? Write a post in response to the weekly challenge, and you’ll be included. It’s that easy!
Once you put up a post on your site add a comment below with the URL. Try to incorporate at least three of your fellow League members’ links (but more would be great!) into the article you wrote, or you can also link to them on social media.
By cross-posting like this, we will help each other out by sending new readers to each other’s sites. Have fun!
The full range of Z-Bots figures, vehicles, and play sets can be quote daunting for a Z-Bots collector. There don't seem to be many Z-Bots fans. It was a weird toy series, especially being under Galoobs Mirco Machines banner. Luckily, I am not a completionist, and while I may be envious of those with super rare series 4 figures and hard to find play sets, I am quite happy with my collection. Here it is!
Not even close to a complete collection, but still an impressive little army. Gathering them all together for one group shot was no east task, and I can see I missed a few. If you want to see some closeups of my collection check out the Z-Bots & Voidspage of Toy-Disorderly .
Is Z-Bots month really over already!? I had it all planned out with a post for each type of Z-Bos starting with Utilitoids and ending with Linkbots, but life just keeps happening. I have decided to pace myself a bit and get more sleep, thus the "Catching More Zs" title, totally not a play on words there. I will still keep posting like a mad man on Instagram, no worries there.
June will be "Halloween In June". It's time to plant pumpkins, so I have Halloween on the brain! Stay tuned for that. Until then, check out #ZBotsMonth on Instagram for some Z-Bots goodness.
Super crappy, super cool vintage Halloween skull I found for 50 cents at the DI of course.
I'm not too familiar with Skylander figures, but I'm loving the spooky vibe from these. 50 cents a pop from the DI!
I already found some Halloween goodies at the DI, where Halloween never dies.
I'm just a tad late on this, but I have decided May just feels like Z-Bots month. Z-Bots were produced by Galoob under the Micro Machines banner and my brother and I couldn't get enough of these little robot guys when we were kids! Some of the old Z-Bots collection is worse for wear, and many of my poor Z-Bots and Voids have been lost. I hope to slowly and frugally build a complete collection and I'm sure it will be a life long pursuit, as some figures are insanely rare. If you are a Z-Bots fan then be sure to check out the Z-Bots Collectors Facebook Fan Page! Also, be sure to check out the Micro Machines Museum for an exhaustive checklist of all things Z-Bot! Stay tuned this month for more Z-Bots goodness!
So many generous souls have been sending all sorts of awesome treasures to little old me and I am so grateful! Normally I like to feature what is sent to me with a blog post, but lately I have been working insane hours and I've become a bit lazy. No more! For the sake of these giving individuals I will be featuring these kind donations every Monday. So before ado is anymore furthered, I give you the first
Monday Mail Madness: Brian Lapsley's Surprise Box #2!
That's right, Brian didn't just send me 1 package, a few weeks earlier he already sent me a bunch of awesome and I haven't even posted about it yet! Don't worry though, I'll get to the first pack next time. In true Star Wars Fashion, I will create the sequel fist, followed by a prequel.
Brian is an artist. I love this piece he included on the box.
Speaking of Star Wars, Surprise Box #2 was full of treasures from a galaxy far, far away!
NEW TOYS!
There were a few other toys not pictured here. Ava quickly claimed them.
My absolute favorite of the lot is the amazing Micro Scale Jabba's Palace with neighboring Sarlacc Pit! Most definitely my favorite Star Wars toys of all time. I've always had a soft spot for micro scale toys. I just love how much detail is packed into such a small play set! It's looks right at home on my toy room floor. The tan carpet gives a nice desert-sand effect.
Beauty!
Just look at the detail on this guy! Jim Henson, you are missed.
One nasty looking Sarlacc maw.
Omnomnom.
The front of Jaba's Palace opens up reveling his mighty throne.
Move Slave Leia, I can't see Salacious Crumb!
Even the trap door to the Rancor pit opens up, revealing the gnawed remains of the previously devoured.
This. Is. AWESOME!
The teeny tiny Han Solo frozen in carbonite is just so dang cool. Just look at it, it's tiny!
There was a mishap during shipping and one of the guns broke.
Luckily it's nothing a little Crazy Glue can't fix.
And as if this wasn't all enough, I even received a micro scale Slave One, parked in the back! Also, either Brian reads minds or follows my Instagram posts, because I recently came across a Tatooine Safari Luke and Mighty Max at the Redwood Swap Meet. They fit right in!
Dude, Luke, that's you sister man! Come on!
Thank you Brian! I will be having all sorts of crazy adventures on Tatooine with my new Jabba play set! I couldn't be happier! Be sure to check out Brian's blog, Awake Oh Sleeper! He shares with the world his fantastic art style, cool toy finds, and an overall inside look at the mind of this extraordinary gentleman. I really enjoyed his first contribution to the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, go check it out HERE! And don't forget to check out Brian's skills with pen and ink right over HERE!
