Chicago... highlights

It's like a whirlwind. Everywhere you look is something new and cool, or old and cool, and you want it all. Too much to take in. I'll let you know right off the bat, I didn't take any pictures. My camera, for some reason, has a 10 minute battery life. But there are plenty of pictures on other sites for you to enjoy, which I suggest visiting when you have the chance.

Now for the things that really stood out in my mind:

1. Lots of nice people. From the dealers to collectors, everyone I met was super nice and ready to talk about what they brought or what they had bought. Being able to put faces to online names is almost worth the trip alone.

2. New stuff - Barzo's Robin Hood, Conte's Spartans, TSSD's Cavalry, and Mr. Weston's Gunfighters and Peasants were what I was most interested in. There was of course lots of other stuff that was outside my interest range, but these were the things that I went to see. I have to say, each of the above makers/dealers were super nice and helpful. Anyone that has met Ron Barzso knows what a super nice guy he is, and always willing to talk about his newest creations. Jim Clouse, who sculpted the Barzso buildings, is also a real addition to the hobby and fun to talk with. Richard Conte, who always manages to cause waves in the hobby for one reason or another, was nothing but extremely friendly and helpful. Even though his room was full, and had people clamoring to talk to him, he took the time to go digging into the top corner of his closet to find me a set of Viking figures. (Thanks!) And of course, Nick and Deanna from TSSD, even though they seemed pretty busy the whole weekend (probably a good thing!), were always willing to stop and talk to Stephanie and I. Hope to see ya'll at the Texas Show in 2008!! Steve Weston, who has the new gunfighters and peasants, is also just a really nice guy, and you can tell is just way into the hobby. If the weekend seemed like a rush to me, who was just wandering around shopping, I know it had to seem even worse to these people, having to set-up, tear down, and then set-up again, all the while selling and talking about their product. Thanks to them for taking the time to stop and "hobby talk" with Stephanie and I.

One of my favorite rooms to be in was the Hobby Bunker. The guy has everything (.50 cent buckets!!!!) and gave a good dry-brush painting demonstration on his foam buildings. I got myself the unpainted two-story blown up building and going to give it a shot. (don't worry, I think Stephanie is going to help... a lot.)

My favorite part of the weekend was after my 7 year-old nephew bought a set of the Barzso Merry Men and we went to eat at the Cheesecake Factory with him and his parents. I took out my Airfix Cowboys, and he took out his Merry-Men, and we had a grand ole' battle right there between the fried macaroni and the bannana cheesecake.

Good times.

Itinerary for Tonight

Aight,

I should get to the show tonight at around 6:00. In my quest to become ever more like Danny Tanner, here is the itinerary for tonight.

1. Go directly to Barzso Display and then to Barzso room and accidently spend my whole stash within the first few minutes of my arrival to OTSN.
2. Find an ATM.
3. Go Directly to TSSD Room, spend everything that I just pulled out of the ATM.
4. Raid the wife's purse for loose cash (she always has some)
5. Run (not jog, actual sprinting here) to Mr. Conte's Room.
6. Feign surprise and astonishment when wife realizes all of her cash has disappeared. "You just can't trust these toy soldier types, darlin. Sneaky and desperate guys they is".
7. Rob the nearest bank.
8. Mosey on over to Mr. Weston's room to find me some Gunfighters and Peasants. Dude yea!
9. Give blood, trade watch, and sell my shoes for some paltry bit of cash.
10. Hit up the Hobby Bunker for some recast Marx bits.
11. Hang out at the Chicago Skyway McDonald's because I don't have enough cash to pay the toll booth in order to get home.

Yea, pretty much the same as last year.

Barzso at OTSN

Well, the news has hit the web that Ron Barzso has delivered an entirely new set this year. You can see the Robin Hood themed set at his website, and dang, the OTSN display looks HUGE!! The hub-bub is that Mr. Barzso used injected molded plastic this time instead of the usual resin. I know some people didn't like the composition of his previous figures, but for me, I always thought they were great, a little fragile, but still unique enough to make them a stand-out. Plus I thought the most recent Tripoli figures had moved beyond being very fragile, and had reduced a lot of the flash. I'm most interested to see his newest offerings. I guess I'll need to go get the Marx figures to go along with them.

So far this is the only big surprise I've heard about thus far. I've got one and a half days of work ahead of me, and then I get to scoot on up to Chicago to see it all for myself. I'm taking my camera, and as long as it stays charged, I should be able to post some pictures for ya'll.

You should also be able to keep up with the show through the Playset Magazine website, which always does a nice job of covering the show. And I believe TSSD will be updating their page each day with reports from the show. And, keeping an eye on the Hobby Bunker forum usually proves educational.

So Much New Stuff

Well, I've been off in la-la land lately... mostly "chilling" before the big Chicago show. I'm way too excited about it, and looking forward to all the new stuf that is going to be there. And to get you even more excited, check out the teaser page from TSSD. Yup, Civil War Cav. Rock on. And what was that they said, possibly another new TSSD figure set??? New stuff from Steve Weston (see his site for pics of the peasants), new Barzso, Pegasus having sample shots... It's just all too much to take in. (I may need to go lie down for a second... and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's 3:03 in the morning right now.)

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. It may continue to be fairly sparse. With all the news coming out, I don't want to just simply repeat what's being said on other message boards and collector sites, so, I just don't say anything at all. My room is in tatters right now, so I can't put up any new displays till that is cleaned up. Plus, the other day while going through my toy soldier closet, I saw a great big huge black spider. I haven't wanted to venture into the closet anymore since then. I have some friends who had a brush with death because of a situation that featured me driving and a dangling spider... It wasn't pretty.

Labor Day weekend, Stephanie and I went down to North Vernon, Indiana for the annual flea market and antique show. We set up a table and sold a few things, including some BMC civil war soldiers. I was practically giving them away to the kids, but it was fun to see them root around in the bucket looking for different poses. One thing I was most amazed at, the girls were just as interested as the boys. In fact, many of the boys sped right by the toy soldiers to hit the NASCAR die-cast dealer right beside me. The girls on the other hand had no love for the cars, but were mesmerized by the miniatures. It was surprising to say the least.

Need a new Stone Wall?

Reaper Miniatures has a nice tutorial on how to create a great looking stonewall from foam. On the left hand side of the page you can click on the "craft" link to find more "how-to" things, like making windows with glass, and miniature pumpkins out of acorns. Rock on Reaper.

Conte... Rev War Plastic

Here's an interesting one for ya. Just saw this on Ebay. Only got about three hours left.

Meebo Me!

Man, I just had to add this little feature. You can now instant message me while on my site. So, if you ever see me actually online, feel free to shoot me an IM. What will they think of next? So yea, I'm not sure how much I will actually be online, but yea, it's cool.

Spooky Town Stuff

I made a trip to my local Michael's Hobby store a couple days ago and found some of the new Spooky Town stuff. I got a "hill" sort of thing and a wooden fence that is part of their Christmas Village line. I also got a some piles of skulls that are pretty cool (see on right hand side of picture). Here are some pictures of them in my latest set-up.
The fences in the above picture are actually made of wood and are fairly fragile. All my other Christmas Village wood fences have actually been made of the hard ceramic, which is much more durable and easy to store. Makes these kind of a pain, but they look so good, I'll forgive them.

As for the hill piece, it is simply rockin', made of the same foam type material that FormTech uses, and is painted up nicely. There is another add on piece to the hill that is a bit taller and has stairs on it. I plan on getting it before the holiday season is over. They do have a hill like this for their christmas village as well which would come in handy. I can already see a confederate artillery battery on top of it with the TSSD winter dress Federals charging up it...

New Spooky Town

One of my favorite things about the approach of Halloween is the Spooky Town Collection from Lemax. This year's offerings look pretty good, as they are going to give us a bit of Pirate flavoring. They have a nice cannon piece, an anchor, piles of skulls, several pirates, a few neat scenes including pirates playing cards and men being tortured in a dungeon, and some barrels that would look good with most any set-up. Aside from these are the wonderful trees they come out with every year. The Mulberry trees look especially nice. You can usually find them at Menards, and they always seem to be on sale for 50% off. You know, I have no idea if Menards is a national store or not. It's a home improvement store... kind of like a mix between Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

HaT's Innovation, 300 DVD, and Harry.

I have to applaud the people running HaT. On their website they have set up the HaTwiki. You all know Wikipedia probably. But you might not have known that it is becoming easier and easier to set up your own wiki, which is exactly what HaT has done. It is a collection of links that users might find interesting. Granted, it is more to the interest of wargamers and painters, but still, seeing a company do something like this is satisfying. I'd like to see more of the companies use the Internet to get their products out there, to show them off a bit more, and to allow interaction with their customers. Forums, interactive photo galleries, pages that use flash technology, wikis... heck, set up a myspace page.

I sat down and watched 300 on DVD today (our library got a copy a bit earlier than the release date). It's as good as I remember it, though watching it for the second time, I was able to resist the uncontrollable urge to stand up and pump my fist in the air. Also, I want the soundtrack. There is a fine line between macho goofiness and supercool. And there are those that I know will disagree, but this movie definitely falls in the supercool category, and it's the music that gets it there.

I went and saw the 5th Harry Potter movie last night. well.... meh. I don't know. Sure, it was, you know, good. But after reading the 7th book, revelling in the Harry Potter mythology, the detail, the magic of the printed word, letting the author take my imagination on a vivid and elaborate ride, the movie felt... empty. A bit hollow. Kind of like reading the 2 paragraph summary of the American War for Independence that was in my 7th grade history textbook. Not to say that the actors weren't good. I think the actors used have been perfect. Harry, Hermione, and Ron all fit exactly what I had in mind when I read the books. My favorite has to be Alan Rickman as Snape. Perfect inflection of the voice, and he really gets the character. I loved him in Galaxy Quest too, and he rocked in Die Hard... but I'm getting off the point. When I need a Harry Potter fix, I will read the books, not watch the movies.