Older figures....

Deslock

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Mar 16, 2014
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So for my up and coming DSA Toy Theater projects that I've been working on for the last damned three years, I finally finished the scripts, most of the sets and vehicles, and decided to break out my older Joes and Cobras. And I was dismayed to find so many of the figures O-Rings had dried out. Not an expensive fix, but replacing the o rings on three big shoes boxes at almost one sitting, my fingers felt like they should've been bleeding.

Just a few had broken thumbs, but finding my helmeted Cobra Commanders crotch had broken off, and I can't find the damn missing piece. So I guess I'll have to hunt that down. Zarana on the other hand is going top be a bitter pill. They glued her together, so I'm probably going to have to hot knife her, and I really don't want to do that. Anyone here have any luck with the boil and pop method ?.

All of my vehicle fared pretty well, with the exceptions of some of the red parts on my Cobra Stun...the flags, the little rear gun, and one of the tabs on the side boxes. The gun off my Trouble Bubble broke off somewhere, and the rotors and landing gear on my Fang copter.

But worst of all was my poor Serpentors Air Chariot. I picked it up out of the box, and it LITERALLY disintegrated into pieces in my hands. No pressure mind you, just picking it up made it crumble into pieces. I've been pretty lucky slowly gluing it back together and reinforcing the back of the pieces with thick/thin layers of epoxy..but I'm going to have to lightly sand it, and repaint it with a matching gold paint.

I knew that dealing with such older figures would be some work, but thank God for Retroblasting and Toy Polloi on youtube. The shows there I watched on Retrobrighting my Cobra figs and Stormtroopers and such was a God send.

The hardest part is going to find the missiles and such for my vehicles. I was always super carefull on keeping them together, but it seems like almost every vehicle has just ONE missile missing....Arghh...
 

Videoviper

illuminati
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Aug 15, 2012
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Welcome back!

All valid reasons why I never bought the old stuff. I had a few older items break right out of the package, so now I stick to the newer stuff only.

As for Zarana... you might be able to shoot her from the waste up if she doesn't have working legs. I crazy glues one of my older figures with no O ring, but would not recommend that if you ever want to sell it off.
 

Dropshipbob

Turtlenap, Hanger Alpha
Mar 29, 2011
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Good to see you again Des!

Zarana...I don't know what to tell you. I'd be careful boiling her, that plastic is old and of a type that might disfigure in the kind of heat needed to pop her open. You could use the chisel method to open her up, much like people use on newer figures...but that WILL leave a mark on her that you won't be able to fix.
 

Deslock

Enlisted
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But worst of all was my poor Serpentors Air Chariot. I picked it up out of the box, and it LITERALLY disintegrated into pieces in my hands. No pressure mind you, just picking it up made it crumble into pieces. I've been pretty lucky slowly gluing it back together and reinforcing the back of the pieces with thick/thin layers of epoxy..but I'm going to have to lightly sand it, and repaint it with a matching gold paint.

It seems this is a serious problem, especially with Transformers:

Gold Plastic Syndrome - Transformers Wiki

Thanks for the welcomes back ! Working two jobs, taking care of our child, and working on these toy projects eat up all my time just about, I've just been lurking here a bunch lately.

Whats a DSA Toy Theater thing?

Well, one night I was bored and took some pictures of my toys for my gaming clan. I just wanted to do something fun for the guys and girls there.
It was done at first as a joke, but I really underestimated the reaction it would get. Just a few stupid photographs turned into a big hit, as everyone could see themselves on toy adventures.

So I decided to go all out and make some massive adventures for everyone. Imagine if you could see a mix up of Robot Chicken and South Park, with all the geek/gaming references, and see a toy version of yourself in them. :





I wanted to do a "better" version of Robot Chicken, because (Now this is just MYpersonal opinion, nothing more or less) it's just not that funny to me. It used to be, but not so much now. maybe it's just my age speaking here. So I wanted to build a better mousetrap. The original thread is now up to thirty eight thousand views. So for the past three years I've been working on these more professional based adventures. Better sets, better vehicles and such. And these sets are HUGE. For me, it's kinda like the whole Star Wars prequel issues, CGI is fine, but in my opinion, handmade is just better "looking". Plus, I suck at doing computer graphics.

Continued:
 

Deslock

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Mind you, that is my crappy set, my new sets are made much, much better.
It's taken years of hard work and God only knows how much money for toys, but most of all, the most expensive items have been all the doll house furniture and crap !. That's how I ended up here at this site. I was looking for any info for anything for this kinda thing.

I almost cringe showing you guys this, but you can see just how bad my first pictures were:







I tried GIMP, but that shit was waaaay over my head. Paint.net was much easier, but all I needed was some way to do easy special effects like gunfire, laser blasts, blurs, that kinda crap. So I found Photo deluxe, and it's another Godsend.

And the piccys I have now are much better done. The kick in the ass is; after doing all these photos and I'm ready to get them all started after all these years, Photobucket cheap asses me and tells me I have to upgrade to host my photos, so I'm working with my Clan leader to host my pictures directly on the DSA site.

I have a friend that does professional CGI for a living, and he's finally agreed to help me, after begging him for all this time.

(Jesus, after looking at these first pictures, I am actually cringing....)
 

Deslock

Enlisted
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Sure, I'd be happy to share with everyone here. The main problem is that I'm completely unskilled in the new photo programs. As you can see in my old pics, they look like crap. I am trying to have a friend come over today that does computer graphics for a living to try and help me out.

That, and now this fiasco with Photobucket pulling their crap with no notice. I'm trying to work out a way to host the pictures directly to my Gaming Clans servers.
 

Deslock

Enlisted
Mar 16, 2014
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Tennessee
www.darksidealliance.com
Can someone please tell me why damn near everyone on Ebay thinks their crap is worth 3X more than it's actually worth ?.

All I'm trying to do is find an AT-AT in halfway decent shape for my toy projects as our Clan is a Star Wars Battlefront based Clan. It's either a broke ass piece of crap with 50% of it missing for $80.00 plus shipping, or MIB for $400.00. *Sighs*.

I never figured it would be so hard to find one in decent shape for a decent price. I don't mind people wanting to make a profit. But all that I can find that I can afford, would kill me on buying the replacement parts. So I'd be better off just buying one MIB. It just kinda pisses me off that folks are trying to sell little single replacement parts for like $30 or more. Do they honestly think people are going to pay that ?. From what I can see, they're not.

I guess I'll just have to keep hitting up the huge Flea Market here and keep my fingers crossed.