Holiday greetings

I don't consider myself as a collector of postcards, but here are a selected few I've held on to, that I'm going to share with you in honor of the season's spirit.

This Moomin card describes quite well how you feel after all the stress that leads up to our precious Holiday.

 Two beautifully detailed cards by Tove Jansson.

Lastly, a very atmospheric holiday card from year 1943 or 1948, the stamp on the back is so faded, I can't make out which year it is.

Merry Christmas!

The Force Awakens

It was pretty awesome.

I don't want to spoil anything for anybody, so, I'm not even going to talk about the movie! Episode VII is the first Star Wars movie I've seen in a theater since The Phantom Menace that came out in 1999. As a movie experience this one was very exciting! After watching the movie I'm feeling very optimistic about the future installments, but at the same time I'm kind of feeling empty inside. For a brief moment the wait was over, but now it feels like forever before we get Episode VIII.....

Oh well, there's now a whole load of new stuff to collect....!

A piece of Moomin winter

Let's take a quick look at some screenshots from the Moomin TV series episode 22  titled "Moomin and Little My's Adventure" (Mumintrollet upplever vintern / Muumipeikon ja Pikku Myyn talvinen seikkailu). This episode is one of the many, that I thought was too scary as a kid. Still to this day, I think it's creepy, but in a beautiful kind of way.... if that makes sense.

"Moomin and Little My's Adventure" is the one and only episode in the series where Lady of the Cold makes an appearance (I seriously thought that her English name was "the Ice Maiden", but I was wrong), and she is of course the source of all the creepiness in the episode. And then there's that snow horse that comes to life..... such a majestic creature! I'd seriously watch that all day while listening to Walking in the Air, instead of The Snowman (although it is a beautiful animation as well).

Anyway, why the mini nostalgia trip with the episode? Because, through a tip from a Facebook group, I found this selling in stores now:

 

The packaging looks very cheap and the paint job on the figures is far from great, but hey, it's intended for kids, they don't care! Or do they? The set contains 5 pieces; Lady of the Cold, Moomin, Little My, Snow Horse and switchable legs to the Lady. The most astonishing thing is that they got her name wrong in Finnish! The backside of the box claims that she is called "Jääkuningatar" (Ice Queen), while it should be "Jäärouva", unless of course they've changed the official translation of her name, which I doubt.

There's one thing that bothers the heck out of me on the Lady Cold figure, I don't mind the blueish dark purple on the torso, it's the awful flesh tone on her arms, legs and face that I think is ugly. So I played around in Photoshop and switched the colors around, now matching closer to her anime appearance.  Not sure if it improved anything, but at least  I find it easier to look at. Hmm..... and now I'm tempted to repaint the figure. Curses.

Someone might remember that I bought this loose Snow horse at the Old Toy Swap in October. Now I finally decided to fix its missing tail problem. On the butt of the figure was this small peg, where the tail used to go. I sawed it off, because I needed to make a hole there where the peg used to stand. I got the hole started simply with a nail and a hammer, after that I switched to a screw and  a screwdriver to make the hole deeper.  Once the hole was deep enough, I removed the screw and replaced it with a piece of a barbecue stick. After that, I tied together this small pile of oat straws (that I took from our stable) around the  new base of the tail which, amazingly was the hardest part of the whole process. Once I finally got the miniature knot tight enough that the straws wouldn't fall off, I sealed the knot and straws together with a glue and water mix.

Comparing the tails side by side.... the new tail is slightly too long, but considering the amount of frustration that went into making it, I'd still give it the thumbs up and call it a day.

Before I go, I'll leave you with this lovely image, which is easily the creepiest moment of the earlier mentioned episode. Enjoy!

Super Exciting Plate Display!

Nothing extravagant exactly, but still, this is something I've wanted to do for  a while. Last Christmas I got this Darth Vader plate as a gift and I didn't want to use it for its intended purpose but rather to have it on display. However, getting a hold of a plate stand like this proved to be surprisingly difficult. All my searches proved fruitless, until I finally found this plain wood one in a shop for hobby and craft materials. The unfinished wood was perfect to  be painted over,  I then painted with acrylics the inside black and the outside red, finished with a Vader print from a stamp. My life is far from complete! 8D

Ginga Custom pt.7

Has it really been 5 months since my last Ginga custom? Well, anyway, my poll for the next character to paint got zero votes, so that wasn't very helpful. Apparently it took me five months to decide on my own, which one out of the three I'd paint. In the end Heuler (or Hoiler, whatever you like to call him)  won, because of Henry the 3rd's nonexistent screentime, Buruge's inconsistent ear length and mainly because the last figure I painted happened to be Jerome. He and Heuler belong in the same group so it kinda made more sense. If I ever manage to get a hold on a similar Coonhound figures, I'll paint the two leftouts as well.

Please right click the images and open in a new tab for a larger view.

Starting point

Work in progress

Comparison

More...

Together with Jerome

Hoth-Con 2015

This looks familiar....

Last Sunday I visited the first ever Hoth-Con in Helsinki, which also became the first Star Wars themed convention I've ever attended. It was nice, I guess. I must have had too high expectations, because overall I found it to be a little bit disappointing. The event took place at the Gloria Cultural Arena, which felt more like a skanky bar & nightclub. It was so freaking dark in there I might just as well have walked into a black hole!
Usually, at conventions, there's this buzz of things happening around you, but there, it was more like nothing's happening..... nothing's happening.... I left the place early, because I was on a schedule, so maybe all the cool stuff happened after I left? 8D Based on the event's Facebook page, other people sure seemed to have a good time.  Maybe I am the problem....
I don't know what to say without sounding nitpicky and mean, Hoth-Con was by no means terrible, a lot of love was put into it, but for me it was just lacking "that something special". If there's going to be a convention next year, let's just say there's only room for improvement. :D

Battle of Hoth miniatures

Huge X-wing 4 sale

Life size Darth Vader statue

Probably the best Boba Fett costume I'll ever see live

Awesome custom Boba Fett & Darth Maul busts

Took a sneak shot of  someone's sweet Darth Maul backpack

Never go home empty handed. I've been missing Darth Maul's ship from my collection for a while, and this one wasn't too expensive so I picked it up. Haven't actually built it yet though.... I was going to settle with the ship and go home, but then I had to lay my eyes on the Starkiller figure there on the table...... and here we are. Before going home, I took a small detour through a toy shop and got this very cartoonish Maul figurine, even though I have never actually played Disney Infinity.

For the occasion, I turned my keyring into a necklace

Readable comics

It's frustrating when you drag yourself to the library in order to borrow something specific and when you are finally there, it turns out someone else has already borrowed the book you wanted. Rather than go home empty handed, I picked up a few books from the comic book section that looked interesting enough just by quickly glancing through them.

Monsterland by Hans Arnold
Published by Arvinius Förlag AB
OMG! Nudity! Alright, this one isn't actually a traditional comic, more like an illustrated short story, a little over 60 pages long. I was drawn to this by the dark imagery, rather than the story, which I couldn't quite grasp. The story is just there to provide a setting for the illustrations, which are the main focus. A good description of the illustrations would be surreal,slightly disgusting, macabre horror mixed with humor. Even if it contradicts what I just said, the entirely black and white illustrations are quite beautiful in their technique. Enjoyable might not be the right word for this, but I did find the book more enjoyable if I skipped reading the text entirely and just looked at the pictures. The title of the book, "Monsterland" has already tied the pictures perfectly together, therefore the story isn't needed. Oh, right, the story begins with a woman answering to a personal ad in a magazine, where a businessman is looking for company for a holiday getaway, and then everything just turns bizarre....

Terry Pratchett's The Light Fantastic
Illustrated by Steven Ross & Joe Bennet
Published by Transworld Publishers Ltd
Honestly, I got this one purely for the reason that Death appears on the cover and beyond that I wasn't really expecting much, but it turned out to be a quite funny reading. However, trying to explain the plot is a challenge. The story is about .....well, first of all, there is this giant turtle swimming is space and on its back it's carrying a magical world called Discworld, filled with wizards, trolls and all kinds of crazy shit. Then there is this spellbook called Octavo, left behind by the creator of the universe, that withholds 8 great spells, but for whatever reason one of the spells is stuck in our main character's Rincewind's head. Rincewind, a failed wizard, must bring the spells back together before a set time or else the Discworld will be destroyed. Rincewind meets many wacky characters and surroundings on his way to return the spell to the magic book. I don't know any background for this graphic novel, but something tells me there's a lot more to it and this is merely a fracture of a whole bigger story. The comic was good fun, but it wasn't captivating enough for me to find out more about the series. The art does its job well, although I'm not a huge fan of it, but what I like the most about this comic is the dialog, almost on every page you will find something to make you chuckle. Despite how absurd it was, this one was surprisingly fun to read.

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon "Inspired by a true story"
Published by DC Comics
Well, that was depressing! I had very high expectations for this one and it turns out to be the most depressing thing I've read in a while. The Pride of Baghdad is a story of four lions that try to survive after they escape from the zoo along with other animals, as the city has been bombed to ruins around them. The main characters are the two lionesses Safa and Noor, Noor's cub Ali and a male lion named Zill. From what I could understand the events in the comic are happening during one single day, which means everything went downhill for the poor animals very quickly. Never did I imagine stumbling upon the subject of rape in an graphic novel about talking lions. o_O Definitely no Hakuna Matata singing in this one. It was tiresome to read when the character were constantly bickering with each other, except for the little Lion cub Ali, he was lovable. Close to the end of the story, we get to see a quite random and frankly, pretty stupid plot twist, with the lions fighting an another big animal. Nothing is gained from this fight, other that it drags down the story right before we get to the bittersweet end. Even though I'm saying this is very depressing, I don't necessarily mean that it's bad. It's just hard to recommend to anyone, because it is a such a sad story. The drawings are very beautiful though. I guess I could recommend this for them, who have ever wondered how the Lion King with an M-rating would look like....

Funny Misshapen Body a memoir by Jeffrey Brown
Published by Simon & Schuster
Brown's autobiographical comic here, has to be my favorite out of this bunch. It was quite refreshing to read a comic that is this down to earth after all those earlier fantasy series. I can only speak for myself, but rarely do I find a story that is this relatable. I think Brown's drawings are charming, because they aren't too perfect, they definitely have a handmade quality to them. I can easily picture them being taken directly out of a sketchbook. This is a good read for anyone who ever, even just for a second, have dreamed about of becoming a cartoonist.

Frame this

I had some pictures that needed framing, so I took some measurements and headed off to a flea market in hopes of finding fitting frames for cheap. I came home with three frames that suited my needs as I was planning all along to repaint them, for them to better match their intended pictures.

I had this paper bag with the motifs that appear in Tove's Jubilee mug illustration.
I cut the images out and carefully removed the handles on the back side of each image and framed them individually.

Taking a peek on the backside of the wooden frame reveals it to be originally from Ikea. This frame was the exact size I needed, I barely had to cut the image to make it fit. I was trying to match the color of the frame to the flowers on the right side, lower corner and I think it turned out pretty good.

With this, my reference for the frame's color were those blue flowers in the picture. In reality, those flowers are more like a grayish light blue in color and the frame is plain light blue, even though I really tried to get some gray in there. The reason for those white flowers along the sides.... I accidentally scraped off a tiny area of paint so that the original white color showed underneath. I didn't have any of the blue left and I didn't want to go through the pain of mixing it again, so instead I covered it up with those flowers.

The (plastic) frame looked nice as it was in silver, but a golden frame just looked better for this Ian McCaig's concept art of Queen Amidala, that I've printed out.

..... and with the leftover paint from mixing the colors for the frames I painted this (and right after, I really could have used all that blue color.....).

All You Need Is Kill / Edge of Tomorrow

All You Need Is Kill:

Original story: Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Illustrated screenplay: Ryosuke Takeuchi

Character design: yoshitoshi ABe

Art: Takeshi Obata

Edge of Tomorrow: 

A film adaptation from director Doug Liman 

Starring Tom Cruise,Emily Blunt

1h 54 min

Note: I tried writing this spoiler free, but I can't promise that minor spoiler wouldn't appear. Sorry. Also, I haven't had a chance to read the novel that the manga originated from, therefore I can only judge the movie based on my experience of the manga. I've read the Finnish edition of the manga and I'm writing this in English, so most likely some of the terms I use will differ from any official English translation.

Summary of AYNIK:
The united armies of mankind (United Defense Force) are at war against alien lifeforms known as mimics. One day, a Japanese rookie soldier named Keiji Kiriya dies during a battle. However, instead of staying dead, Kiriya wakes up, alive and well, in his bed at the military base and brushes off his violent death as a wacky dream. But then he dies again, and before too long, Kiriya realizes that he is re-living the day before the battle in an endless loop while the people around him are unaware of this. Kiriya tries to escape his death on the battlefield by running away from the military base, but is killed. He wakes up in his bed and shortly after, commits suicide. All his attempts are futile, he just keeps waking up on the day before the battle. Kiriya comes to the conclusion that he has to survive the battle, in hopes to break out of the loop. So he spends the same day in and out training and preparing himself for the fight ahead of him. With every battle ending in his death, Kiriya's skills improve and he survives for longer periods of time. During his 158th time on the battlefield, he comes face to face with Rita Vrataski, an American soldier who is hailed to be the best mimic killer in the world. It turns out that Rita is also caught in the same timeloop as Kiriya, and so the two decide to work together in order to break out of the loop and save mankind from the mimics.

teethed balls of death vs. starfish spaghetti monsters

Summary of EoT:
Well, we have the invading alien army. We have a character who wakes up the day earlier whenever he dies, and there's a woman named Rita Vrataski. Those three facts remain intact from the original version, although some alterations have been made on them. The story line is basically the same, although the setting of the big battle is moved from Japan to central Europe. The biggest changes are the explanation on how the time loop, created by the mimics, works and also the main character. They abandon the role of the private Keiji Kiriya in favor for Major William Cage, US Army Media Relations, played by Tom Cruise. The character of Cage in the beginning of the movie is more like a recruiter and not an actual soldier. Cage gets himself sent out in the battle as a punishment of insubordination, despite having no training on how to use the military mobile suit in combat. It takes Cage a few deaths as well to realize something isn't right. Before too long, Cage meets up with Rita and they start working together to rid the world of the mimics.

As with any story that includes some aspect of time travel, it can be confusing at times. Although, the movie and the manga don't play by the same rules on how the time loop works, I felt that the manga did a better job explaining its version of the rules while the movie's was altogether more confusing and to top it off, the ending threw all the rules out the window in favor for a very dislikable, cliché Hollywood ending.

I think there is a problem with the main character in both versions. Kiriya looks like a black haired Light Yagami, he stands out too much in the wrong way. I don't remember Kiriya's age being mentioned in the manga, but he looks way too young compared to the other soldiers appearing as support/background characters in the comic. The movie doesn't do much better, as Tom Cruise is too old for the role. It's sad when the looks of the side characters are much more believable in the story, making the main character feel out of place. Still, I will say that Tom Cruise does a good job acting in this, transcending from this smug and arrogant PR person, into a scared rookie and then into an expert soldier.

However, in the manga, there's something that bugs me even more than the main characters looks, mainly the women. There are basically only three females included in the story, our second main character Rita the badass soldier, a slutty cook and a mechanic. All of them are drawn way too young and cute in a very stereotypical manga way, in order for me to take them seriously. Since the manga is only two volumes long, I understand that the side characters won't be developed very well, but the women, except for Rita, seem to be unaffected about the destruction of humanity around them and they plain and simple, don't fit very well in the world the manga is trying to create. To be fair, the movie doesn't really do any better with its representation of women either. A little better, but not much.

Because of the restrictions of the story's length the storytelling has to move forward at a fast pace and some corners had to be cut in the development of the world these characters live in. The manga paints a really sad picture of the state of the army. They are sending soldiers to fight overwhelming enemies with ineffective weapons! Machine guns, rocket launchers and other explosives are practically ineffective against the mimics. The only weapon in the army's arsenal that may critically injure a Mimic is a pile driver-like weapon that fire lances. The downside is, that the weapon has an ammo limit of 20 and in order to fatally wound a mimic, a soldier would have to be standing right next to one of the deadly creatures. The reason Kiriya and Rita survive is because they abandon the army's choice of weapons and instead they use custom made battle-axes (although there are some inconsistencies in there, in one of Rita's flashbacks we see her using a machine gun against the mimics and it seems to do the job just fine).
The movie fancies machine guns, grenades and mines as the army's weapons which aren't quite imaginative when compared to the manga. Rita is shown to wield a big sword a few times, but not in the same extent like her ax master manga counterpart.

 

I have to say that the film's version of the armored battle suits looks just ridiculous. They look so heavy and slow, it's no wonder the mimics are kicking humanity's ass. It appears like the battle suits were designed only to help the soldier carry the heavy weapons mounted on the suit rather than to protect the individual inside the suit from injury. Granted, the suits didn't stop anybody from dying in the manga, but at least it looked like it could protect its carriers from some damage. The EoT's version leaves their operators as open targets. Right now, if I had to choose which version's suits looks better I'd go with the suits that appeared in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra)

Couldn't find a good screenshot from the G.I. movie. Picture from here. 

The manga does not shy away from showing off the mutilation of Kiriya, which is very fitting for a story that makes the death of its main character a major plot point. The only time we get to "enjoy" watching Tom Cruise's Cage's gruesome death is the first time he dies, otherwise he usually meets his end off screen or in a generic explosion. The movie could have been slightly better if they wouldn't have been so afraid to amp up some gore. All the deaths in the movie are so ineffective because we are never shown anything. EoT is essentially a sci-fi war movie and we barely get to see any blood! How about showing us a few torn up limbs here and there or an aftermath of an explosion? Anything!

The way the character of Rita Vrataski was handled in the film left something to be desired. The manga has three chapters dedicated to Rita's backstory while in the movie pretty much ignores Rita's past. Manga Rita seems more humane, while movie Rita is portrayed to be just a tough bitch. Then the movie specifically makes a point on how Rita doesn't like to be called a bitch at the same time they make her act like one. A good example to demonstrate the differences between the two Ritas is in one short scene that can be found in both versions. In the movie, Cage is fatally injured and Rita walks up to him, removes the battery from his mobile suit and walks away, leaving him to die. While in the manga, Rita tells Kiriya that she will wait by his side until he dies, and then she will take the battery from his suit. (What we're missing here is a third Rita, that would first put Kiriya/Cage out of his misery and then take the damn battery....) In the manga, Kiriya looks up to Rita and he becomes her equal through his own efforts, but the movie manages to turn things around that Cage, who was trained by Rita, has to save Rita from dying (making her into a "damsel in distress" while she's being a bitch about it).

As a standalone movie, and if you can avoid comparing it to its source material, Edge of Tomorrow is a decent film, and unintentionally funny at times. I'd probably recommend you watch the movie before reading any of its source material, that way the movie won't be as disappointing and possibly more enjoyable. Warning: the song playing over the ending credits is just atrocious and totally kills the mood of the film, even if the ending itself is already horrible. In conclusion, despite my whining over some stuff, the manga is the superior version out of the two. Especially the ending.