Hoth-Con 2016

Last Saturday, 26th of November, Helsinki's own Star Wars convention returned! I visited the second ever Hoth-Con and while I was a little disappointed at the event last year, this time, they stepped up their game! It was bigger and better! The venue place was still the Gloria Cultural Arena, which still is a bit too nightclubby for my taste, but it didn't bother me as much like it did last year.

This time, I had company! After I told my brother that the guest of honor would be Jeremy Bulloch, the man who played Boba Fett in the original trilogy, he willingly joined me at the convention. We both got Mr. Bulloch's  autograph, which is freaking amazing! :DDD Four or five years ago, I hadn't even watched the original trilogy and now I have an autograph from someone in the film! Feels so crazy! XD I'd say Hoth-con sure found "that something special" it was missing last year.

People in line for autographs

First time for everything! Even though I have seen my fair share of anime conventions, I'm a little ashamed to admit I've never seen a cosplay competition before, but now I have. Star Wars style! And it was amazing! They were 20 minutes behind schedule and at parts it felt a little rushed, but overall it was a very good show for a first time viewer. 

Strike a pose!

Darth Revan!

Queen Amidala: 2nd place

Boba Fett look a like

Competition winner: Ahsoka Tano

Jeremy Bulloch Q & A panel

"Never go home empty handed." 

The original Boba Fett's signature that shall be treasured. 

In honor of the occasion, I just had to find a Boba Fett figure to bring home, and this chill looking mini Boba melted my heart. It was affordable, and the vendor said it was their last one. Just a sale tactic? Well, it worked, this bounty hunter is now mine! Of course, before we left the place, I wanted to find something Darth Maul to bring home and the only thing I found was this all blue "hologram" one that comes with a bonus miniature figure (all red!). I can't say, it's one of my favorites, but it will look interesting among all the red&black figures.

Flea market findings 6

Photo dump warning! Originally I was going to make this into two separate posts, but apparently I'm feeling really lazy this month so here's everything all at once! Just to be clear, all of this stuff wasn't bought at one place, but rather from different vendors at various locations over a long time frame (about 3 months). It would be nice to find a flea market where they would only sell toys, with flea market prices and not with "specialty" store price tags. There is a limit how much I'm willing to pay for a used toy even though I might not always seem like it.

I was really happy when I spotted this Sakura Miku Hatsune, but I was very disappointed to learn later that this is actually a bootleg! It doesn't stink like a cheap knock off, the paint job is really good and the plastic isn't soft and all bendy like bootlegs usually are. For what it's worth, it's the finest looking bootleg I've ever seen!  Shame on me, I was fooled....

I'm suspicious that I may have been fooled twice :D I found this Jolteon plush at a flea market that was full of bootlegs of many kinds (Lego, Minecraft, MLP).  There were also similar looking Eevee,Vaporeon and a Flareon plush there, but this Jolteon stood out because this was the only one with that Pokémon Center tag with appropriate copyright belongs to Nintendo, the Pokémon Company etc. text. The other eeveelutions only had a very basic tag that only reads "made in China". I find it very unlikely that a genuine plush would have ended up amongst all the bootlegs.

Free Elsa! I don't really care for Frozen, this was just me acting out a childhood dream! Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to bust open anything that slightly even resembled a snow globe, to get my hands on that small figurine that is held captive by a translucent sphere! Finally I did it! When cracking it open, it occurred to me that I probably should have used some protective gloves when that foul smelling liquid was dripping down my hand and causing a very distant feeling of a burning sensation.

SSJ Goku, a very disturbing looking Luke and Lil' Anakin Skywalker. I'm always on a lookout for anything Dragon Ball Z (and Star Wars) related stuff, but I'd say 98% of the time you're looking for DBZ items, the search is futile. When you do actually find something, it's either a manga volume or a video game. Whenever I find a figure, I'll always feel extra happy!

Horses,horses, horses......because I love 'em! I have from before a smaller version of the striped one, a bigger version of the spotted one (in different color), I want to repaint the black one and the Carousel horse is just something I've never come across before! Such beautiful and unique thing among all the boring and regular horse toys!

Completed my Lion King Pez collection with these three! The toys need a clean up, you can see they have been well played with! Now I need to update my Lion King collection post too with all these new additions!

Dino time! ;D

The Land Before Time's Chomper! I didn't even know such toys even excited!

Safari LTD. tiny Dilophosaurus, Raptor and Spinosaurus.

Brachiosaurus(?) by unknown and T.Rex. with JP logo on it's thigh.

Jurassic Park 3 Velociraptor and 1998 Godzilla baby.

Chap Mei's Dimetrodon and Raptor. Dammit, I'm loving these colors. *_*