Saturday 18 January 2014

Travel Toys: Part 1


Ok, here's the thing.  I like to travel.  It'll come up a lot on the blog here, whether I'm posting pics from my most recent trip or reminiscing about the old ones (like right now!).  One thing I always have to do is bring some figures with me.  It doesn't matter if it's a day trip, camping, whatever, I need to have some figures with me.  I always have some figures set up on the nightstand here at home, so I always do it when I travel too.  Plus, you never know what kind of cool diorama shots you could snap while you're travelling, so you gotta be prepared.

Here are some of the toys I've taken with me on my various travels.  The first group of pics might make it seem like I only travel with Glyos figures, but I'll bring anything with me.  Oh, and um... EDIT: Apparently my first draft was so big I broke the internet, so I'll just split this post into three.  So this part 1 now.

C A N A D A

Just because I live here doesn't mean I won't come across some cool dio-shots, so I gotta be prepared here too.



These first pics were taken just a short walk from my house.  That only kinda counts as travelling, but kinda travelling is still travelling.  You can make dio-shots out of just about anything, and you don't always have to go far.  I just like to go far.


One of the nice things about living in Alberta is that there are lots of places a short drive away that make for some prime figure photo taking.  I can see the Rocky Mountains from my house!  Sometimes it's nice to just head out there for the day, get down on the ground, and take some pics.


I'm a sucker for marbles.  I looking at 'em, and I like taking pics of 'em.

Anyway, if desert shots are your thing, you can head out to the badlands by Drumheller and crawl around on the rocks there.


I went to Waterton for the first time about two years ago.  It's a longer drive from my house, but again, it's an area with it's own unique environment.  All the red rocks in the area make you feel like you're on Mars or some other alien planet.


If you drive through the Rocky Mountains, you'll get to BC on the other side.  Camping is great on Vancouver Island, and the terrain changes yet again.


When I was a kid I had a series of adventures I played out featuring me, my friends, and my brothers as the heroes.  This figure in the picture above is from a line called Freedom Fighters (or something like that).  I used him as my brother Marcel.  I still think of him that way.

I hate things that grow on things, and I hate barnacles.  This pic might speak to some of those issues.


I got married in BC, so some of the figures I brought on this trip were wedding themed.  That Hot Wheels car was the first toy I bought after I was married (just because I'm a married man now doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying toys!).  When we were planning the wedding I joked with my (soon to be) wife that I wanted to walk down the aisle to "Augie's Great Municipal Band", the end celebration music from Star Wars: Episode 1.  She never did go for the idea, but I showed her!  I walked down the aisle with that micro Boss Nass figure in my pocket.  Take that, love of my life!



I have a lot of family in Toronto, and I usually stay with my nana when I go there.  Going to her house is like going back in time!  It's never really changed for as long as I can remember.  As such, I like to bring figures there that remind me of specific events from my childhood.  The naked mole rat in the above picture isn't nostalgic in any way, though.  I saw naked mole rats for the first time at the Toronto Zoo on that trip, so I had to get the figure.

Ok, so to keep the internet working, let's stay close to home for now.  We'll continue on in another post.

2 comments:

  1. You and your beautiful scenery a "short drive away!" You've got like, the ultimate hike ALL THE TIME!

    But I digress. For some reason I love the water ones. Perhaps because I'm just too afraid to put toys in the outside water, though your Canadian wonderland apparently has the clearest water in the land! ...but hey, you can't ask much from the Detroit River, so you can't blame me for being paranoid of water.

    ANYWAY, you've got a knack for matching toy colors with the backgrounds! And of course matching the character with the surroundings - for some reason that shot of Knuckles just works great!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, there's lots of nice hikes you could go on around here, and most of them could just be day trips.

      I think our water is pretty clean. I wouldn't drink it, but it's not like it's pure sludge or anything. I try to be selective with which figures I put in the water, but I doubt it would do any lasting harm.

      Thanks! I take it as a compliment that I have a knack for matching toys with backgrounds. I tend to choose the ones I bring pretty willy-nilly, but when I see a shot that I think will work, I go for it. It's just fun to try things and see what comes out. And I like that Knuckles shot a lot too. The angle turned out well. That Bone Age guy on the reddish rocks is another one I like a lot. It's been years since I took that pic, but I still like it. It looks like he should be there.

      On a side note, those reddish rocks in that pic are on the side of a mountain in BC where you can go digging for fossils. We went there on the way to our camping trip. We didn't find anything too exciting, mostly leaves and maybe a fly's wing, but there's nothing quite like the feeling of cracking open a rock and seeing something for the first time in millions of years.

      Delete