The Lion King Collection

Here is again a post of my humble collection of things I never threw away in honor of the big news that I just found out about today. Disney is making a sequel to The Lion King in the form of a TV-movie and show! Read more here http://tvline.com/2014/06/10/disney-junior-lion-king-sequel-series-the-lion-guard/

Isn't that neat or what? Okay, so the show is going to be aimed for younger kids (age 2-7), which sounds a little weird first, but then again who cares? The back of the VHS tape's says that the age recommendation is from 8 years and up (on the Blu-ray it's 7 years). I remember that I was only 4 or 5 years old when I saw the original movie in theaters. Besides this new show is bound to be more kid friendly because they probably already took care of all the family feuds they could think up in the movies, no more daddies thrown down the cliffs by evil uncles or murderous/suicidal mother-in-laws........ awww! ( ಠ_ಠ)

Naturally, I have the two movies. For the record, I haven't seen The Lion King 1 ½ (or 3 depending on which country you're from) because I've only heard bad things about it.

Original trio. I've had these three figures since my childhood, Sarabi was the first one I got and the Scar figure was originally my brother's. On the Simba & Nala figure there is a clearly visible seam, as a kid, I used to try to tear them apart from each other! Now in hindsight, I'm glad I never managed to do that. :D Sadly, there are some irremovable smudges on the figures and the original paint is worn out here and there.

I think I got the Pumba figure from a relative and I bought the two Simba figures (the other one is significantly more scuffed up) from a flea market together with....

....sleeping Mufasa and Simba figure, which is so adorable!

Kiara or Simba? iron on patch. Honestly, I have no recollection of how this came into my possession, but it's cute all the same.

 

Happy Meal toys Kovu x2 and Zira. Not exactly the prettiest ones around, if you squeeze the toys they make a noise that sounds more like a pig rather than a lion. I found this old French McDonald's commercial on YouTube promoting these toy's  http://youtu.be/nlskILl_7Hc

 

Smarties tube toppers. Kiara with a butterfly, a very creepy roaring Simba and a broken one which was Rafiki holding cub Kiara. The tail feathers of Zazu, which is all that remains, came from something called Nestlé Magic Chocolate Surprise egg and amazingly there is even a video about those on YouTube  http://youtu.be/vrdpvI9yx6o

Coloring book with mazes, connect the dots, find five differences and so on. Here are a few selected pages from the book, I can't really tell the difference which pages were done by my brother and which ones I colored.

Nailed it!

*Update 07.03.15
Apparently I have a few stickers as well!

*Update 28.03.15

Found a children's book, the whole story of the movie in 4 pages! And the cub is a boy!

*Update 14.04.15

Zazu has been reunited with his tail feathers! I can't believe I found it... 

Dragon Quest 8 Fanart

I had t some digging but I think I finally found every single little drawing of  DQ8 I ever made, which in the end didn't total up to that much. Most of them are just doodles and unfinished sketches done in 2007 - 2008. The latest one was done in 2012, I think. I usually put a date on the drawing if I start and finish it on the same day.  Sometimes I start a drawing and then leave it for a few days (.....or weeks.....or years) and then come back to it and when that happens the date becomes kind of irrelevant. And I don't put dates on what I consider to be sketches either. I guess the date only becomes important if you like to try to keep track on how much you have improved or not.

 

It's the damn same face over and over again and the reason for that is that whenever I was bored in class, I would take my phone out which had Hero (Spartan as I called him) on the cover which I used as a reference and drew it on whatever paper I had in front of me. Bonus Edward Elric from FMA!

 

 

Again with the damn face. I was in art class when the teacher asked everyone to choose 3 items they had on them and make an "interesting composition" out of them and then continue on and draw those 3 said items. This ones size is 72 x 51 cm. Made in 18.11.2007.

From the looks of it, this was done without a reference picture nearby during some physics class.

Unfinished sketch of Hero and Princess Medea as kids.

 

Various monsters (and a Xenomorph as a bonus) from the game I drew in my sketchbook in preparation for the acrylic painting (where something called in-scale has been thrown out the window). I am doomed without an eraser or an undo-button, so painting isn't really my strong suit.

 

Le Evil Dog. I kinda like it how the Sir is underlined. Can't remember if this was some kind of an in-game joke or not.

 

Look who it is again! I think this was one of my earlier pictures that I colored digitally. Makes me kinda happy to see I might have actually improved since this!

Evil Jessica is eevil! This is one of those drawings I would like to see finished and colored one day.

 

(left) The bad guy Dhoulmagus done in 09.04.2008. I know I had this one digitally colored as well, but when I looked for it all I could find was a corrupted file. Oh well, it probably wasn't that good anyhow! (right) Not really sure, what kind of phase I was having, trying to make Dhoulmagus appear cuter looking than he actually is...

Sketch of the Horse-Princess Medea without the bridle and a more "realistic" Medea.

This one is done on plain white paper, but the pencil markings were so light I had to darken it down a bit to be able to see something. This is my favorite even if  the horse's anatomy doesn't look quite right now when I look at it, but Hero turned out decent looking.

Dragon Quest 8 Collection

So we climb all this way and finally reach the top, only to be greeted by a monster ugly enough to turn milk sour. -Angelo

Dragon Quest VIII: The Journey of the Cursed King (released in Europe 2006) is one of my favorite games of all time. I've very fond and frustrating memories of this one. DQ8 is the second game I bought for the PS2 system. What initially got me interested in the game series was of course the fact that Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z ♥) was responsible for the character design.

I bought the guidebook after my initial play through of the game, but it came in handy since I've played it two times after that. I won't bother to check it out, but I think I can safely say that I've put over 300+ hours into this game. Never did beat the secret boss and all of his damn forms, though.... so I guess I didn't truly complete the game.

Slightly off topic, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is so far the only other game of the DQ series that I've played....and never finished it. When I bought it, I didn't quite realize how different the gameplay was going to be. I obviously have to give this game another chance and I simply must pick up the previous installments of the series that were remade for the Nintendo DS.

Play Arts Action Figures. The box art on the back shows how supposedly posable the figures are, but I wouldn't risk it (I will never again trust the joints of an action figure, not after that one incident which ended with a figure with a broken arm). Each figure comes with a stand and a switchable set of hands; a pair of clenched fists and a pair of hands for holding their individual weapon, besides that there isn't any other accessories that comes with them. Which is a shame because there definitely would have been plenty of different weapons to choose from; spears, boomerangs (Hero), bows and arrows, magic staffs (Angelo), scythes, clubs, flails (Yangus), knives and whips (Jessica).

Hero/Eight or whatever you want to call him is my favorite out of the bunch. I find it so endearing that he doesn't talk throughout the game (although it is implied that he does talk). The game doesn't have a default name for him, so the player has to name him. I always named the hero "Spartan" for a reason I can no longer remember. Hero was the first of the DQ figures I bought.

By default the figure has clenched hands on them, so I had to switch Angelo's hands in order to make him hold the rapier. First of all the damn rapier was stuck in its hilt and second, the damn hands would not snap into their place.  Grrr >.< I say! As frustrating as it was trying to get a few pictures taken, this figure is nevertheless very elegant and one can only admire all the small details put into it.

 Yangus, what went wrong? When I first laid my eyes on it, I thought it was ugly and I passed the opportunity to buy this figure a few times just because I couldn't stand it. I finally gave up when it was on sale and now I am happy that I bought it even if it's still as ugly as ever. Don't really know what it is that bothers me so much in this figure, something's just off. Maybe it's my imagination, but the Yangus figure looks "stretched" which makes it look a lot taller than the in-game Yangus would be. It was a challenge to get figure to stand on its own, but that's no wonder, check out those tiny feet!

My party is incomplete because I'm missing the Jessica figure, but maybe someday...

There were two other keychains to choose from, the Thief's Key and the Magic Key but I chose the Ultimate Key because I thought it was the prettiest (it's the red gem that does it). Besides, who wouldn't want a key that can unlock any door? :D

Nothing official, but this is how my old phone used to look like. l loved that the Nokia 3200 (came out in 2003) had customizable covers. I'd probably still be using this phone if it was in working order, but unfortunately it's not.

That was short-lived... I was hoping to bask in the drunken delight of victory a little longer. -Angelo