Cool and Collected - collecting pop culture memories and memorabilia
A general discussion of collecting cool things, such as vintage and modern toys, comic books, ephemera.
Some of the new G.I. Joe action figures are just too tempting on the store shelves, and I’ve been picking them up here and there only because I wanted to photograph them. I’ve also been wanting to play around with different lighting techniques with some of my toy photos, so here are a few images [...]
One of my favorite places to stock up on toys is the Big Toy Auction, an online auction that typically happens once or twice a month. This week, they had a massive G.I. Joe auction, followed by a Star Wars auction the next day. I managed to win some pretty good items in the G.I. [...]
I was packaging this figure up to send it off to a friend of the site, but thought it might be fun to snap a few photos first. This is the Matrix Morpheus figure from N2 Toys. The detail is pretty good but there is almost no articulation, so I wasn’t going to get much [...]
Ashley Raburn lives in Tennessee, and works at a local College as an Instructional Technology Specialist. Ashley has been an avid Doctor Who fan his whole life, and runs the website, Life with Fandom, where he talks about pop culture. He’s also involved in a cool new project called “New Monster,” which is a series of [...]
The other day I showed you some great vintage toys up for bid in Hake’s current auction, but there were also a bunch of action figures that caught my eye. Sometimes, it’s just easier to buy an entire collection than to build one piece by piece. So, if you have some cash burning a hole [...]
The Hunger Games movie is coming to theaters soon, and I am curious to see how the books translate to the big screen. While reading the trilogy, all I could think was that it read like a Hollywood script more than a book. The story is brutal and depicts young kids and teenagers killing each [...]
Last week, a tweet came across my screen from @ICollectStuff about some custom action figures on eBay. I clicked through and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Custom action figures are not uncommon, but this seller was offering action figures that were never actually produced. This customizer even goes the extra mile and designs the [...]
Here’s a picture of Grimlock, one of my favorite Transformers toys. This is what I would call a product shot — something that might be used in a catalog. The figure dominates the photo and all the details are crisp and clear. If your job is to sell and market toys, this is probably the [...]
Hasbro G.I. Joe Hazard Viper action figure (2011) I finally got around to taking some pictures this weekend using my new photo backdrop. The new GI Joe action figures from Hasbro make for some great subject material. I saw this Hazard Viper figure at Target and immediately bought it just so I could take pictures [...]
I finally got all the playsets out of their boxes and set up. I REALLY did want to put the Eternia set together, but the track pieces are so incredibly fragile that I chickened out. I also didn’t feel comfortable putting on the Lion’s arms since it didn’t seem like they would ever come off [...]
