Merry Christmas 2012!

Hello! Merry Christmas to all! Yeahhhh It's quite late for the celebration but it's better than not to greet you LOL!

It's been a while since my last post and maybe you wonder why.. it's because I have no access to my toys right now. I'm on a vacation with my family here in Qatar and I left my toys in the Philippines. I also forgot the supposed to be my featured toy for the month! That happens when you do not prepare your stuff ahead of time.

Well the good news is, a friend of ours gave me a vintage car as a Christmas present! Big YAHOOO! Another addition to my classics :D I'll post it later to share it to you :)

BTW, my eyes are feasting with lots of supercars and 4x4 offroad vehicles here in Qatar. They are everywhere! Hahahaha.


Again, Merry Christmas to all. God bless you and your family :)

Pullback Action Shelby Cobra

Hi guys! I hope you're doing fine :) I know most of you are busy right now in preparing for the upcoming holidays :D well, same here hahaha.

Since this is the month for the kids like me... (What??) LOL! I'll be sharing this wonderful find I had few months back which I think is worth keeping.

Toys with pullback action is a common gift when I was a kid... well, I think until now haha.

So I have this gift to myself - a plastic Shelby Cobra 427 that has a pullback action. The scale is almost close to a 1:64 which I think is quite rare but what really caught my attention is the driver and his.... is that a dog? LOL!

I got it from an online seller. It is in played condition but still good. No broken parts, the wheels are perfectly rolling and the pullback action is still functioning.

As a Cobra collector, it's a nice piece for me because it's not common to have this model in non-diecast.

That's all for now. I hope you liked it :D

Thanks for viewing ;)

Mod #10 Ford Model A Yakult

I really wanted to try decal application for the longest time but I lack the materials to start with it. Recently though, I was able to acquire everything I need for the project so yesterday, with all excitement, I made my very first decal project :)

The victim here is a Ford Model A by Lledo. I don't know what Vimto is until I searched on Google that it is a softdrinks I guess it's just not available here in our country or maybe it is but haven't seen one! Anyway... I just thought it would be better if I transform this to something I am very familiar with.

So I ended up creating a Yakult delivery. Yakult is my favorite drink ever since though, it's not really a juice drink but probiotic milk-like product by the Japanese.

*borrowed picture from the internet

Here's the finished product :)

Oh.. the "Okay ka ba tiyan?" which means "Is your tummy okay?" is the tag line being used by Yakult in their commercials here.

The decal application is not as hard as expected. You really have to be careful in applying it, though, because it has a tendency to break or be torn. 

As this was my first try, it is expected that my work will not be perfect. You'll see bubbles that formed if you look very closely, as well as some wrinkles and creases. 

All in all, I'm very happy with the outcome. I'll certainly do more decal projects next time to improve it :D

Thanks for looking :)

Express yourself figure

Howdy everyone! I hope you enjoyed the weekend as much as I did :D

My birthday is actually today! Yeaaaaah! And I'm very happy that I had the opportunity to celebrate it with my family and friends :)

And as a present to myself for my special day, I bought earphones for my MP3 'coz the old one is broken. And of course, mall-ing isn't complete without checking out what's in the toy stores.. you know.... it's like a routine hahaha. When I saw a Disney Princess "watergame" I thought my niece would love it so I bought it for her. But before going to the counter, my attention was caught by something that I know would be a perfect present for myself aside from the earphones :D

A Mickey Express Yourself Figure! This is manufactured by PlayKit Philippines.

I always want to buy it before but the price is too high for me, but this time it's on sale! And guess what? It's the only one left! It's really meant to be a birthday present for myself LOL!

 

Some part needs cleaning though, it'll be painted someday :)

Now the thing is, what Mickey would look like? A pig mouse? Polka dots Mickey? Macho Mickey? Nah.. Let's see. I still have to decide so stay tuned :D

freeing the jadas

As a carded / sealed collector, it's not easy for me to decide whether to set the toy loose or not. It's feels like removing some details in the presentation and decreasing the value of the item. But there are times that I want to remove them from their blisters and take pictures of them and I thought I'd appreciate them more as loose.

So yesterday, with the help of my friend, we freed my Jada Cobras :D finally after the long wait they are now ready to be displayed as loose in my cab. It really feels great when you can touch them, feel them and smell the not so good smell of their paint hahaha!

Here are some pics I took during the session hahaha

HURRAH!!!

More beautiful as loose indeed :D

I'll post the "studio" pictures next time.

'til then :)

Mod #9 No Strings attached Mini

For the record, this is the fastest custom I've done. I just did it for approximately 3 hours - well, for those experts in custom, you'll find this one very easy :) so probably you can have this in less than 3 hours haha.

I just had this crazy idea while browsing the internet for my first try in using decals for customization but unfortunately, I didn't use decals in this project.

Here is a Morris Mini by Hot Wheels.

For those of you who knows that I also collect Mini Cooper by Hot Wheels, I decided to remove this one from my collection. This casting is made of plastic :( so I wanted to dispose it but instead of doing that, I just customized it.

One thing that I like with this Mini is the metallic red wheels. I thought it would be perfect for a black body.

Maybe you're curious, the reason why I entitled this post with such dramatic line is because of the trick I did on the painting.

My experiment technique:

I cut a small string and dip it in red paint.

I painted the body with flat black, this will be the base color. Then paint it with red using the string :)

I also painted the interior with metallic red and flat black.

The result of my experiment :)

 

I was surprised to with the outcome. It's better than I expected :)

I hope you liked it too :)

Mod #8 Ecto Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all! :)

To have something for the Halloween, I did the project which is supposed to be for the last year's Halloween LOL! Better late than never :D

Here's the Ecto-1 by Hot Wheels. I just added some decorations to it :D

It's very common to just paint the roof rack so I tried something different ;)

After mud bath, I added some texture to make it look rusty and more muddy.

And vandalized it :D

And the output:

My plant box.

I put it inside the acrylic case to make it look "exclusive" - it is exclusive! :))

Thanks for looking ;)

HW Variant Revealers fr 10-pk

The most exciting part in collecting diecast especially, those by Hot Wheels is it's always like hunting for the treasures.

Hot Wheels is fond of producing variants and sometimes you'll be surprised that there is this variant for the car they produced originally. There are also this called error variant - these cars are those that has factory defects (eg. mismatched wheels, missing parts, error on paint) or the result isn't what is expected. Sometimes it's hard to determine if it is actually a real variant or just an error. The best example of common variants that collectors have to check are base variants, paint variants and wheel variants.

As a collector, looking for these variants gives me some sort of excitement and happiness when I found one. It's like you found a treasure yourself that other collectors doesn't have. Having rare items in your collection isn't just keeping toys in your cabinet but gold and diamond in a treasure box.

I have few rare items in my collection and I'm very proud that I own them plus the fact that I got most of them for a very descent price - you don't buy treasure, you just give effort to dig and find them :D

Recently, I got these great addition to my collection of Shelby Cobra 427 or the Classic Cobra.

HW Revealers from 10-pack.

I got them sealed inside their baggie. I only need one so I decided to sell the other one. I immediately posted my extra piece online and it quickly got reserved to an online buyer. Suddenly, I received a private message from a co-cobra collector that he's also interested if the other one is painted with "pearl white". I was surprised that there is another variant of this. He said additionally that the original release is painted with flat/matte white and that he already have.

I was hesitant that these Shelby's I have are variants. The one I kept is actually pearl white and this is the rare one. So there is a higher chance that the other one is a regular release and is a flat white! The problem is, once I opened it and they're the same, I can't sell it at that price anymore plus I have to apologize to the first buyer because I promised that it's 100% sealed!

I had to take the risk for my curiosity or else, it will give me sleepless nights LOL!

And the best part is, when the treasure reveals itself :D

Pearl White paint 

Flat White paint

Compare them with each other. Left: Pearl white, Right: Flat white. (Click to enlarge the picture for closer look)

Closer. The one painted with Pearl White (left) is somewhat yellowish and glossy and the one on Flat White (right) is whiter and the texture is rough.

I'm very thankful to my co-Shelby Cobra collector, Mike. He saved these twins from being apart from each other LOL! And because of that, I owe him one Pearl White Cobra hahaha!

I know we (collectors) are weird when it comes to this part. I mean why would you buy the same item?? We'll basically, it's not the same. They have different color, texture and... value :D

'til next the post everyone :)