Goodwill Finds

I had the opportunity to hit three different Goodwill stores recently. It's been awhile since I'd been able to find much to get excited about at Goodwill but these trips did not disappoint.

Here's what I came up with:

1. Blades of Steel for the NES.
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES.
3. A sweet Little Tikes Rugged Riggz dump truck for the boys (and me).


4. A vintage (1977) Fisher Price Adventure People Daredevil van. Just like the one I had growing up...just dirtier and missing a few stickers.



I regret passing up on Batman for the NES. We started using a modified envelope system for our budget this month and I had to prioritize. I had to pass on Batman in favor of other things I'm saving up to purchase. Still, all good finds.

Thanks Goodwill!

The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More

The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More
by Ed Sobey and Woody Sobey
Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1556527454

I don't remember how I found this book. I might've just been browsing the library. Maybe I heard about it somewhere. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that it was a lot of fun to read. It's no secret that I love toys. I also love tinkering with things. This book was a cool combination of those two topics.

The authors essentially gathered a collection of toys for the sake of taking them apart to figure out how they work. The toys ranged from the very simple Magic 8 Ball to the potentially very complicated bicycle. For the more complicated toys (e.g. the bicycle), they authors glossed over a lot of details. That's to be expected, I think. Bicycle tinkering, alone, could fill a library of books. Overall, the toys were well covered. My one complaint--and I'm not sure it really counts as a complaint--is that several of the toys seemed a bit repetitive. Ok, not so much the toys themselves the scientific principals behind then. Again, I think that's to be expected. If two toys both operate on compressed air, it's only natural that the details would be pretty similar.

I did really like that the authors covered the history of many of these toys. And I especially liked how the authors provided information on how to create your own, homemade versions of the toys. I'll be making a stomp rocket in the near future.

I also now know how the Nintendo Light Zapper works. It wasn't what I expected. Interesting.

Positively Glowing

It's been awhile since I completed He's Got a Knife. And, by awhile, I mean about a year. That's unfortunate. Where did the year go?

While it certainly didn't require a full year, I did recently complete another sculpture. I call the little guy Textron. Really, he's not that little...probably 10 inches tall total. He's a mixed media kind of thing...a combination of Sculpey, plaster of Paris, recycled food containers, coax, and a handful of random parts scavenged from the garage. These may or may not have fallen off a bicycle, a moped, or a TR6. The finish is several layers of primer, sealer, silver paint, and sealer. Amidst that was a lot of sanding.

And, yes, the brain, the brain-juice, and the eye all glow-in-the-dark. It's a shame glow-in-the-dark doesn't photograph well. I tried but just couldn't capture the awesome.

Anyway, here are the results. I'm happy with how it turned out.




As a side note, I would recommend being very careful about buying second hand toaster ovens. The one I bought to bake sculpey in the garage (rather than stinking up the house) burns about 150 °F hotter than the setting. It's true. After baking some Cajun-style robot parts, I checked it with the oven thermometer.

He's Got a Knife

Here's a happy picture. As you can see, it's my very messy art desk. It's not the table or the messiness, itself, that makes me happy. What makes me smile is the fact that the messiness is proof that the table has seen from pretty extensive use recently. All too often, I've looked at the table and seen it looking spotlessly clean. That's sad. Even worse is when it's actually dusty.


What have I been working on? Well, a sculpture titled He's Got a Knife. I just wrapped it up over this past weekend. I'll post some of the detailed steps over the next week or so but, for now, here are a few simple images. I'm happy with the results. And let me tell you...I love Super Sculpey. It's some very, very cool stuff.

As for the sculpture, I hope the pictures turned out alright. The creature is holding a knife from an action figure that I can't even remember anymore. Everything was handmade.

Currently, the piece is on loan from my private collection at home to my private collection at work.

Action, Figures

I dearly love toys. I'm particularly fond of the toys the bring back a piece of my own childhood. Legos. Hot Wheels. Fisher Price Adventure People. Old video game systems. Transformers. GI Joe. Even the lowly Go-Bot. You get the picture.

I'm not typically enthusiastic about new toys. I don't know why. I think they feel trendy. And I'm hardly ever trendy. Still, there are occasions when something new will catch my eye. Since college, this has really been limited to three lines of toys:

1. The newest series of He-Man/Masters of the Universe figures. I enjoyed the original MOTU lines of the 80's but there's no getting around the feeling that they were pretty repetitive and geared more towards marketability and sales than quality. These new toys were amazingly well sculpted figures and featured incredible detail. While they tended to be more like display pieces than toys, I fell in love with them. I was especially fond of Mer-Man, Buzz-Off, and Beast Man.

2. Stikfas. Stikfas seem like the direct opposite of the new MOTU figures. While the MOTU figures sacrificed moving parts and pose-ability in favor of detailed realism, Stikfas are simplified figures with an innovative ball-and-socket joint allowing infinite positioning. They're really the 3D version of the stick figure. I have a handful of these little guys and have successfully used them to recreate at least a dozen professional wrestling moves like the Boston Crab and the Vertical Suplex. They get a little pricey for the themed Stikfas but I highly recommend the generic blister packs...you can occasionally find them on sale online.

3. Xevoz (Zee-Voz) represent a kind of blending of the two above lines. They were developed by Hasbro off the Stikfa toys and use the same joint system. However, they're much more detailed and sculpted than the normal Stikfa. There were scorpions, robots, praying mantises, along with many, many more cool designs. They were, quite simply, a lot of fun. It's a shame the line didn't survive. They weren't really marketed here in central Indiana and I don't think they ever got the recognizability of a lot of other toys. It's hard for a new line, no matter how cool and innovative, to make it when competing against established lines and the latest movie franchise merchandising.

Anyway, that brings me to this...I'm once again excited about some new toys. Actually, two lines that are very similar. I've already mentioned Automoblox and I'm excited that these are now showing up in Target stores. I don't actually have any but I wasn't shy about opening a box at a Target and checking it out. Very, very cool. I like the simplicity and just the feel of the cars. It's not something I can really pinpoint. They feel, I don't know, wholesome. Clean. Solid. Makes me wish my Honda Civic were made of wood.

Similar to Automoblox, are these new wooden toys I saw in the latest Toys "R" Us ad. It looks like TRU is starting up entire line of more eco-friendly toys. There's a train, a fire engine, and a pretty cool truck. My favorites are the formula race car and the Indy style race car. I need to get down to TRU to check these out. I like the concept of more natural and simple toys. If I manage to get a hold of one, I'll be sure to post a review.