Tag Archives: 3A

*Review* 3A SGR JC

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Intro:

Check out that flow of acronyms in the title! A little like trying to decipher a foreign language, init? Since we toy collectors tend to speak in our own language anyway, I didn’t think anyone would be too put off by it. Today, I’ll be using that acronym, not only to speed along writing out a character’s long-ish name over and over again, but also because the given name of our featured toy has a filthy, naughty, dirty word right smack in the middle of it. We don’t normally print copious amounts of cuss-based brusqueness over here at RtR..  despite the fact that we review a LOT of toys from 3A/Ashley Wood. Even though we tend to cater to an older audience and don’t take issue with the words themselves, we do our best to keep things pretty kid friendly. It’s been surprisingly easy to do up until now. For those of you who are familiar with today’s figure, there’s no mystery here. The acronym works because you already know his name. But for those of you who have no idea about this guy, it doesn’t. So in the name of journalistic clarity, we decided for at least a moment, we wouldn’t worry about censors and flood the next paragraph with a few, well-placed swear words.

Alright children, you’ve been warned. The next couple sentences hold snippets of the kind of language your Fox News marathoning Grandpa yells at the TV every time a Democrat gets elected into office. Continue reading →

SDCC 2013 Photos pt 2 – Toy Action!

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Here’s part II of our SDCC 2013 coverage. We finally went through the wheat and tossed out all the chaff, leaving only glorious toy photos for your enjoyment. Admit-ably, some of the prototype shots you’ll see in the gallery are no longer prototypes and have since moved on to full-on production. I still think you’ll find plenty here to start building an early Christmas list from. Check thing out after the jump! -> SDCC 2013 Toy Action

As I went through our remaining shots, I realized we didn’t have a ton of content for our “SDCC: Everything Else” category so in the name of efficiency, I decided to go ahead and toss the link for that gallery in this article as well. You can check out a few of the peeps and scenes we ran into at Comic Con last year right here- > SDCC 2013 Everything Else

That’ll do it for our SDCC 2013 Coverage. Maybe one day I’ll have the steeled nerves to revisit the long hibernating video project I started last July and release that. Maybe as an intoxicating siren leading up to this year’s SDCC. Or maybe I’ll just use that time to better plan what we’ll do for our 2014 coverage so it comes around as it should, when it should.

If you missed our last post and dig Cosplay, click the following jump to check out our newly uploaded SDCC 2013 Cosplay photos.

While you’re at it you can jump even further back to check out what sorta antics we got up to at SDCC 2012 

 

THE WORKSHOP: Casting Wooden Bats in Resin by Michael ‘Bubo’ Reilly and Simon ‘Goatballs’ Be

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A while ago we posted a step-by-step workshop provided by the ever talented, Simon ‘Goatballs’ Be! To this day, it’s one of the most popular we’ve ever featured. It seems folks can’t get enough of his 1/6 scale wooden bats! Well, today we’re excited to post a follow up, this time by our friend Michael ‘Bubo’ Reilly who worked to cast and produce copies of Goat’s original bat sculpts in resin. 

I’m personally very excited for this little walk-through as it talks about a process that I’ve been interested in for a long while. With a little hand-holding.. I might be brave enough to finally try it myself.

Welcome back to RtR’s  Workshop, and enjoy!

– Knives

Alright, here’s a list of some of the materials you’ll probably want to track down before you get started.

Materials:
  • Foam Core, for building mold walls. You can also use legos, acrylic plastic, or any other non-porous material of your choosing that’s stiff enough to form a wall.
  • 1/8″ thick or thicker wooden (or plastic) boards, to evenly distribute tension on mold when bound.
  • Super Glue (CA Glue), for gluing gates/vents onto model (bat) & onto mold floor.
  • Hot Melt Glue (& gun), for gluing walls of mold together.
  • Toothpicks (or long sharp pokey thing), for getting air bubbles out of silicone mold
  • Electrical tape
  • Disposable cups
  • Popsicle sticks
  • Rubber gloves
  • Monojet Oral 10ml syringes

.. and here’s some of the tools I use, also worth looking into.

Tools:

  • Razor/Ruler, for measuring & cutting mold box
  • Hot Glue Gun, to glue mold together
  • Scale, a gram scale to weigh out materials
  • Air Compressor
  • Vacuum Chamber & Vacuum pump, to de-gas silicone
  • Pressure Pot, a chamber that eliminates any remaining bubbles
  • Old sander or piece of vibrating equipment (to vibrate pressure pot)
  • Flat Chisel & Scalpel (x-acto knife), for cutting mold open

Before we begin, let me say that this is but one of many ways to build a mold. The construction of your mold will depend on the piece you are making a mold of, what kind of process you’ll use to cast it, and what material you will be casting with. For the sake of this project, the item being molded is a toy, it is small and the mold form is very simple. Continue reading →

*Review* 3A Real Steel Noisy Boy

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INTRO

There’s been few collectibles that I’ve reviewed where I’ve found myself so conflicted as I have with 3A’s Real Steel series.

On one hand, you have the film from which the toys are based. Certainly, far from the worse film ever made.. but just as far, if not further from being anything I’d consider a classic. There’s not a lot of reason to get excited when someone points at a generic box and says, “Hey, that box is full of Real Steel swag! I can’t wait to see what’s inside”, said nobody ever.

On the other hand, you have 3A who have a knack for deftly tackling technically and visually challenging figures.  It’s something they do so well, they could probably make action figures pulled from Battleship Earth and people would still be hard pressed to resist picking up a figure of Jon Travolta on account of his. “amazingly realistic alien goatee and forehead weathering!”

And that’s just the thing. There’s a lot of reasons for someone to be interested in these guys. I know some of you out there really enjoyed the film and have been picking up the figures because the franchise and the characters are something you really care about. Just like I know some of you grabbed them because they’re really cool looking robots and you can’t resist a cool looking robot. I’m sure some of you even picked them up because you’d blindly buy anything 3A puts out, banking on quality. Those and all of the ones in-between are all perfect reasons I’d say, to consider adding some Real Steel goodness to your collection. For me, I take them for what they are, great looking and impressive toys.

The final bot (that I know of) from 3A’s run with the Dreamworks franchise is this big purple guy in front of me, the ever-so-glossy, samurai-esque, Noisy  Boy..

and he’s puuurty. Continue reading →