Fantasy Art

Just a small collection of some recent drawings I've done over the past couple of months.

Character Sketch Commissions

I've decided to try doing some character sketch commissions. Rather simple and affordable ones. I'm ope to drawing comic book, cartoon, toy characters. Great for Dungeons & Dragons/Pathfinder or other RPG characters.

Below are some samples of the kind of sketches I can do.

Simple line art sketches 

Or pencil shaded sketches

Prices

• Line Art   $10 for a single character $5 extra for each additional character up to four characters max.
• Pencil Shaded  $15 for a single character $5 extra for each additional character up to four characters max.
• Backgrounds $5 extra for line art $10 extra for pencil shaded.

Contact me at sojdesigns (at) aol dot com and let me know what you'd like me to draw for you. Payments will be made through PayPal. I will send you a scan of the drawing and if it meets your approval you can pay and I will mail you the original art as well as send you a high quality scan.

Remco Toys Part 1 Soldiers

Note this is the first in a multi part series.

Good old Remco Toys. I've mentioned the before in my posts about the toys I had at Granny's. But I want to go a little more in depth and write about some of my memories of these cheap, wonderful toys. Most of mine came from either K-Mart or one of the Dollar Stores. Dollar General or Family Dollar. I probably go some elsewhere but those three places were the main stores for me.

The line I am most familiar with would be their military series that went by a few different names. Most notably American Defense or U. S. Forces.

 This was a line of 3 3/4" action figures along the lines of G. I. Joe. I had probably a dozen or so of them. As I said these were the ones I had at Granny's. The Good G.I. Joes stayed home but whenever I went to visit or stay I had these guys to play with there. And I had so much fun with them. I had a base from another Remco line that served as their headquarters.

Sure ManTech was a completely different scale but this base worked great for my soldiers. Like G.I. Joe they had some sci-fi elements and so it wasn't too odd.

Three of my favorite figures from the American Defense U.S. Forces line were

Heavy Metal

Forest Green

and Hidden Force

These were my go to guys. I've always liked figures made from translucent plastic like Hidden Force that made him seem to be invisible. Well at least that was what I think it was supposed to represent. Forest Green was a cool ranger type guy with the armor that had leaves on it. I got a kick out of that. As for Heavy Metal, come on look at him. He coulda been a Dreadnock easy. He was a great badguy for them to fight.

As cool as these were there was another military line that came first. Sgt. Rock! Based on the DC comic books that I read as a kid.

I only had Sarge himself and he was enough at the time. Though now I do wish I'd had more of that line. Oh well.

I had some of the vehicles and little playsets as well. I remember the boat and a jeep as well as a machine gun nest.

I don't have too many of them left these days. Most of the toys I had at Granny's I got rid of when she moved in with us. I just didn't have room for all of them. But there are a few left. I don't remember what thought process went into deciding which ones I kept and which ones I got rid of. None of my three favorites were kept for some reason.

I have a Sgt. Rock. Not my original though.

Then there are these three guys. Not too exciting compared to the others I had.

Finally there is this set. These were later releases that were of poorer quality and I'm certain I got these at one of the Dollar Stores. They were cheap and came in two packs. And I kept them.

Next up I'll talk about another line from Remco that was a favorite of mine. It features robots! Be ready.

My New Adventures of He-Man Collection Attic Archaeology Pt 2

The past few days I've been going through the boxes in my attic again. More thoroughly than last time. I've been finding lots of cool stuff. Things I forgot I had, things I remembered but didn't know where they were exactly. So much good stuff.

For one thing I found what was left of my New Adventures of He-Man collection. Not a lot and most of it is either broken or missing pieces. But still I gathered up what I found and took some pics and even made a video which is at the end of this post. First however, the pics.

First up, the good guys. I have two of He-man, but only one has his helmet and armor. So I gave the one remaining shield to the other one. Neither has his sword anymore. Both of the swords got broken long ago. Then there's Hydron and Flipshot. Flip is missing his jetpack and Hydron's helmet is gone as well. Finally there is the block-headed robot guy. I had to look him up as I didn't remember that his name was Artilla, which it is. As far as I know he didn't come with any accessories so he's complete.

Now for the bad guys.

First off there is Skeletor. Two of him as well, but they are different versions at least. I believe they are both complete at least. Then we have Flogg, minus his helmet. But otherwise in pretty good shape.  And lastly there is Optikk with his gun making him complete.

And there is also the shuttle.

The Dreadwing shuttle was the only vehicle in the series I owned. It is pretty much complete. Even has the weapons in the back. However the guns on the front are messed up somewhat. but at least they are still there. And as you can see from the photos some of the stickers are peeling off. So it's pretty rough looking but in okay shape.

Finally, here is a short video I made of them.

Free Comic Book Day 2019

I only get to the comic shop every other week. And it worked out that I got to go on Free Comic Book Day this year. Nice timing really. I also went by the local weekend flea market where my friend Matt has a booth selling comics. He was also doing stuff for FCBD this weekend.

I brought along my usual sidekick, my nephew Mason. We had a good day. Starting with a stop at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. Then we ran by Family Video, Mason wanted to get the new release calendar for this month and I rented him a couple video games. Then it was off to the Book Broker for our first FCBD stop.

There I got to see my friend Vince, a local comic artist. I picked up a few of the free comics and my regular books as well.

My free books I picked up

I got Casper, Archie and Vampirella, a odd mix I admit but I was most interested in this year. Mason got a small art print of Deadpool, a Captain Marvel button and a Power Rangers print.

My regular comics pick up

Most of these were in my pull file with the exceptions of Major X, Zorro and The Six Million Dollar Man. Again an odd mix but I enjoy a variety of titles.

After the comic shop we headed to the Diamond Ave Flea Market for our next stop. Matt had some free comics he was giving away as well as having his comics on sale for 1/2 off.

Free comic from the Flea Market

I don't remember what book Mason got but I picked up a Kabuki comic. An older title I enjoyed reading back in the day. I also took advantage of the half price sale to replace some of my G.I. Joe comics and add a few more older books to my collection.

Flea Market haul

I got a nice run of G.I. Joe books 30-37 missing #34. Four Archie titles, two Betty and Me and two Jugheads. As well I got four Conan books. Headed home after that. 

All in all it was a good day. Mason and I enjoyed ourselves and we got some good comics. Yes I'd say it was a good day.

Adventure People Mystery

Today when I went out to my art studio I found this in the mud.

It appeared to be the leg of an old Fisher-Price Adventure People figure. But I had no idea which one. So I decided to see if I could find out just which it was.

And I did find out pretty quickly. It took less that five minutes to search him out. And here he is,

 

His name is Jess and he is the pilot of the Rescue Helicopter. Which I clearly remember having as a kid.

More about it here.

Anyway, it is cool to have discovered this. And to be reunited with part of one of my childhood toys.

Attic Archaeology

Let's start the year off right. For my first post of 2019 I'm going to shade some things I discovered today.

This morning I went digging through my attic looking for an old book I seem to have misplaced. I hoped it may have been in one of those boxes. But I was wrong, it wasn't up there. But that's okay as what I did find was much cooler.

Old toys I had forgotten that I'd kept, or even had in the first place.

The main find was Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles toys.

I still have my 12" Sgt. Savage with all of his accessories. The gun even still works. He's going on the shelf with my other two 12" G.I. Joes. 

Nine of the action figures, three versions of Savage, two of Dynamite, D-Day, General Blitz, Iron Stormtrooper and the Arctic Stormtrooper. I still have their weapons and accessories as well. Looking them up on Yojoe.com I found some encouraging news. There are only sixteen figures in the line along with three vehicles. So I headed over to ebay and found that they aren't too pricey. I think I can complete this collection and I'd like to do that. These G.I. Joe toys were designed by one of my favorite comic book artists, Joe Kubert and I just enjoy them.

Next I found my G1 and G2 Sideswipes along with my Action Master Shockwave.

I kept very few of my original Transformers. I knew about the Sideswipes, but I didn't remember keeping Shockwave. Nice to see I still have him in my collection.

Sideswipe was one of my favorite Autobots as well as one of my favorite Transformers overall. Only Brawn ranks higher with me. I knew I still had both of these versions, just wasn't sure where I'd put them.

I knew I'd kept this SDF-1 from Robotech as well.

The thing is, I thought I'd lost one of the cannons off of its shoulders. But it turns out I was wrong. The missing piece was just in a different box somehow. So now it is back together and complete. I also found some of my other Robotech toys. Scott Bernard with his transforming Cyclone armor and the Veritch Alpha. I didn't keep them out of the box or take pics though.

Sgt. Savage wasn't the only G.I. Joe stuff that I found. As you can see I still have a Toxo-viper squirtgun, the antenna from the Badger, a folding comb/brush and the remote for the R/C Crossfire which I still have as well.

I kept my two talking Cryptkeeper dolls but I thought I'd gotten rid of the action figures. Apparently I was wrong. 

To go with the Tales From the Cryptkeeper cartoon I still have the Keeper himself as well as the vampire. I remember having the mummy as well but I didn't find him. But at least I still have these two guys.

Then there are these.

A genuine original Madballs, Crackhead as he was originally known, and a knock off as well. I thought I'd kept Crackhead. I have trouble calling him Bashbrain as his name was changed to for the obvious reasons. I was sure I also still have Fistface, but I didn't see him.

One half of the Hardy Boyz still remains in my possession, Titan Tron Jeff is missing his brother Matt.

Some other guys still around are these two.

Buck Rodgers from Mego and a Defenders of the Earth Flash Gordon. I remembered having Buck, but Flash I'd forgotten about.

I found all kinds of other random things as well.

A Visionaries staff(Cravex's I believe), a floor panel from the Go-Bots Command Center and Frankenstein for example. I also found the entire Power Rangers Wild Force along with their playset. Numerous Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon and Masters of the Universe figures. And then there was all of my New Adventures of He-Man toys and Captain Power's jet. BraveStarr's Kerium nuggets and Air Raiders figures. So many cool old toys. I may have to spend some more time just going though them all here soon.

Until next time.