August 11, 2007
A Crayon Haiku #66!

Yep — just a quick little something to tide y’all over until the next update. 🙂 Contrary to what I wrote last time, though, the next update (which may go up as soon as tomorrow or Monday) will likely not be an article, as I’ve gone back to experimenting with some of the more ancient toy comic techniques that I used to employ on the site. See, during one particular break when I worked at the bookstore, I picked up a Batcave playset at Toys ‘R’ Us on clearance for $13 in the hopes of someday using it as a backdrop for Scary-Crayon toy comics, and now — after I spent a couple of hours the other night assembling the blasted thing — that time is almost upon us! Granted, using “real” backdrops isn’t as technically impressive or attractive as the screencap backgrounds I’ve inserted more recently, but doing comics this way should save me quite a bit of time with them… which means I should be able to post more of them! These next two will pretty much be test runs, but then after that it might be time for Krang to finally make his long-awaited return to the site. I actually already photographed that comic with a standard white background, but since then I’ve gotten better with that so I’m not even sure I’d want to keep those shots if I wanted to do it the other way. Anyway, WE SHALL SEE!

Regarding today’s haiku, feel free to post your guesses in the comments — though I don’t imagine anyone will have a hard time with this one. It’s so obvious, especially if you’ve seen the live action film! I really do like the sculpt on this guy… I may have to go back to Dollar Tree and pick up a few more of them for potential painting projects. Speaking of which, do y’all have any action figure customizing and/or painting tips for me? I’ve found information regarding the basics — I’m mostly interested in how cheap I can make things. Frex, I’ve heard that Testors and Tamiya acrylic paints are excellent, but they’re $2.50 per small bottle. Not backbreakingly expensive, mind you, but Michaels own acrylic paints are $0.50 for a bottle two times the size of the smaller ones. So if I could get by with the cheaper stuff, I’d definitely use it! Considering that the T-Rex guys are only a buck each, I may get at least one more of them and some of the Michaels paints and test them out on it. Yeah, I’d be blowing $1.50 (I’d only need like three colors) if it doesn’t work out, but if it turns out okay I can use the same paints on my more involved knockoff Transformers painting projects. 🙂

All for now, then — ’till next time, minna-san! :mrgreen:

-posted by Wes | 8:40 pm | Comments (5)
5 Comments »
  • Who is Yoshi?

    BTW despite being so vastly different from its source material, the live-action Mario movie will always have a place in my heart.

    Also, both real sets and bluescreen have their advantages and disadvantages. They’re different but equally cool effects (even with online gag-comics).

  • Canada's Matt says:

    Who is Yoshi?

    Tetsu said it first (the answer), but despite looking nothing like Yoshi, his eyes… are very cartoonish for some reason.

  • Wes says:

    You’re both right — though apparently I thought it looked far more like Yoshi than C-Matt! I went back this week and picked up two more of ’em, along with a magnetic stegosaurus that I think I’m going to try painting to look like Snarl. Fun times ahead, yes.

  • Hmmm… ya know, those bigger bottles of acrylic paint, while cheaper, also seem to have a different feel to them when they’re dry, from my experience. The smaller more expensive ones feel natural, as if you hadn’t done anything to the figure, but the bigger and cheaper ones seem to have this rough feel to them. Like I said, though, that’s just from my experience.

  • Wes says:

    Thanks for your input, Clown. I did read something like that somewhere on the web (I don’t recall exactly where) — apparently someone recommended watering the paints down a bit and/or using a sealant afterwards to try and rectify that problem. I did go ahead and get $3 worth of the paints — which is a LOT of paint, really — and some more $1 Yoshis, so I’ll have more to say about the project and its results soon enough. If nothing else positive comes of it, I should at least be able to wrangle an article out of my misadventures. 🙂

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