My Five Points Festival Review

    Did you make it out to the inaugural Five Points Festival? If you did, then you know it was the convention that the East Coast has been begging for.  If you didn't make it, I'm sure you were glued to your social media checking out all the excitement and planning how to make your way there next year.  It took the best parts of much larger conventions and parred them down so that nearly every booth appealed to my wallet.  Ok, I'm not really into comics, but the designer toys were so plentiful I had more than enough to look at and drool over.

   Usually when I attend a convention I have one or two things I really want on my list, then I inevitably find a few more as a bonus.  Not here though, as everywhere I turned I was literally bombarded with figures I'd never been able to see in person and desperately wanted.  Tons of artists that rarely exhibit in America let alone the east coast had tables full of toys that made me wonder how long I could go without paying my mortgage before it became a problem.  The Sunguts booth alone could have sent me to bankruptcy court.

   There was also a line of food trucks and a beer garden outside.  The beer I passed on but let me tell you about Phil's Steaks, which Sharon and I consumed both days.  Good Lord I would smack your momma to be able to eat from that truck every day, which is strange for me to say because I am so freakishly weird about where I'll eat. I have never once eaten from a food truck because food from a gas station will kill you, so food from a gas guzzling vehicle can't be much different right?  I was so wrong and wonder what else I've been missing out on.  Not that I'm willing to be bold to the level of eating a hot dog from a street cart, but I'm closer than I ever have been to being a culinary adventurer.  My wife is still amazed.

Other highlights from our adventures:

- Meeting tons of artists and collectors that I've known for years online but never met in person until now.  Literally I was standing next to people, heard them mention their names on Instagram, and we started talking as if we'd been life long friends.  That's the beauty of collecting.

- On day two we walked from Battery Park to the venue, which was approximately two miles.  Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge we saw a completely nude man laying face down on a large rock.  Was he sunning those hard to reach areas, was it performance art, or was their an issue involving chemicals?  As weird as it was to see it was weirder how many people passed by him without taking notice, as if it were commonplace.  I never want to be that comfortable, either as the man or the passers by.

- We went to The Statue of Liberty and took a photo holding up one of the exclusive Gary Ham Dunnys from Kidrobot.  A hopeful seagull thought it might be edible and nearly made off with it as my wife's outstretched hand tried to get it into position, which would have been a funny story, but would have also cost me $14.99.

- I actually ate at a food truck and loved it.  Did I mention that yet?

-  I tried to not be a germaphobe for once and didn't ask for hand sanitizer after holding onto the pole in the subway.  A few hours later I used that hand without thinking to remove a hair from my mouth.  Somehow I did not become patent zero for the next great plague.

-Someone dropped a can of chicken noodle soup and a bag of grapes on a different subway trip and a roach the size of a Chihuahua appeared and said "back up hungry eyes" with a perfect New York accent.

 - I never once had to stop in the middle of an aisle because someone was taking pictures of a half dressed woman from a comic book.  Cosplay is cool I suppose, but not when it causes me anxiety because I'm trapped in between sweaty people trying to take pictures of it.

    All in all I had one of the best convention experiences ever and would like to thank everyone at Clutter Magazine and Five Points Festival for letting me be a part of it.  I'm already saving up for next year.  

Check out all of the photos I took over at our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thetoyviking

Teddy Troops 2.0 from Flying Fortress x Artoyz

    Things aren't always better once they're "improved".  Not everything is gonna be awesome like Robocop, or Windows 95.  Most things that are "improved" go the way of Coke 2 and are terrible.  A personal example for me would be Vitamin Water, whose orange drink I was in love with and consumed at least one a day, every day.  That is until they changed what they were using to sweeten it with which rendered it disgusting.  I was heart broken, disgusted, and very dehydrated.  Every once in a while I'll check the label in hopes that they've come to their senses and sometimes I'll even buy one, but it's never the same.  Let's move on before I get angry again.

  Teddy Troops are back, baby!  They've been resculpted in two different versions; the standard one we all know and love and a new version that has a spray can-like helmet and gas mask feature.  These awesome little dudes from Flying Fortress and Artoyz are up for preorder from now until June 15th with a few different options to fit your needs.  You can get the standard versions, the alternate colorways, or you can get em all and save some cash.  Whichever way you choose, the only place to get them is at www.artoyz.com.

Clutter Magazine Exclusives for Five Points Festival

   Having a severed head laying around the house is just asking for trouble.  Just ask anyone who has and they're sure to tell you the cons outweigh the pros.  Shockingly I have found an exception to that rule courtesy of Luke Chueh and Clutter Magazine.  Exclusive to this weekend's Five Points Festival,  the Black and Bone edition is limited to 50 pieces and comes with a nice pool of blood display stand all for only $100.  It's a bear, it's a skull, it's a crime scene and it speaks to me.  Not literally like voices in my head or anything, I meant aesthetically.  The pills take care of the voices.

   

    I think I found the culprit behind the whole severed head business.  Everything Splurrt makes looks like it has bad intentions and the Masterworks Cadaver Kid is no exception to that rule.  This behemoth is cast in a milk-white vinyl thats filled with purple glitter, limited to only 12 pieces in the entire world, and will sell for $165 each.  These things will go quick so make sure you have fresh laces in your Air Jordans if you want one.  

    Things are starting to get a little cuter as we go down the list.  This is Luna from The Bots and Urban Vinyl Daily and she is limited to just 50 pieces in this pink colorway and can be your forever companion for $60.  

    And don't forget about the amazing Dunnys from Gary Ham and Kidrobot.  The yellow one is only for VIP ticket holders while the other two will be available for everyone for $14.99 each.  

All of this will be at booth #234 for your shopping pleasure.

Tenacious Toys Exclusives for Five Points Festival

    Five Points Festival is this weekend which means it's time to forget any sort of budgeting I've been doing and spend some cash like there's an asteroid headed towards Earth.  They say you can't take your stuff with you when you die, but you could glue it all together beforehand and make a pretty banging tomb that celebrates your love for inanimate objects.  Tenacious Toys will be there to help you decorate your inner chambers in high fashion with all of their convention exclusive releases, such as the Resin is King series 4 blind boxes.  At $30 a pieces. each blind box will contain a resin figure from one of the following artists: Renone, TobyArt, UME Toys, Forces of Dorkness, Eyehart Toys, Pickman's Vinyls, Leecifer , One-Eyed Girl , Kyle Kirwan, Dollar Slice Bootlegs, and Abe Lincoln Jr (with sculpting by NEMO and casting by Jacob JAMS).   There will be tons of different paint schemes and even golden tickets hidden throughout that are redeemable for awesome things.  

    You'd probably think that would be all, but you'd be so wrong that you're parents now feel ashamed of you.  Now check out this list of other items Tenacious Toys will have available just for you:

• Forces of Dorkness (Nature Warriors 6in OOAK resin figure series) 

• Nerviswrek (Inner Child Greyscale handpainted customs) 

• Rampage Toys (Cyclops Dinos Painted sofubi sets of 3) 

• Taylored Curiosities (Huoli Guadians resin figure sets) 

• Dollar Slice Bootlegs (Blue Chrome Slaughterbots) 

• Cat Atomic (pins & customs including a Finalist in Custom Category in the DTAs!) 

• Jason Adams (Will Work for Toys resin figure) 

• Pickman's Vinyls (Dick Wood - Log Private Eye resin figure) 

• Naptime Noah (various customs on many platforms) 

• NEMO & Dead Hand Toys (Danger Dog blue resin figures) 

• Manly Art (stickers and more

   That's a lot of stuff and it's all going down at booth #229.  

Five Points Festival Exclusive Soul Collector from Huck Gee x Mighty Jaxx

    No, you are not looking at the latest piece of jewelry from some rapper whose name makes no sense; you are looking at the first eight inch Gold Life figure from Huck Gee and Mighty Jaxx.  The Soul Collector looks like he takes his name seriously, with a giant cleaver looking thing to help separate your spirit from its fleshy cage.  My wife collects Pyrex so maybe I should get her a mean looking knife for when we're searching the local Goodwills.  Things can get pretty competitive in the hunt for vintage cookware and she would absolutely cut you for a five dollar Pink Gooseberry bowl, so don't test her.

  This beauty has been painted in Mr. T's favorite color and is an exclusive for this weekend's Five Points Festival in New York.  This will no doubt be an extremely desirable figure to obtain so if you're going I would hunt down the Mighty Jaxx booth first thing so you don't miss out on what would be an MTV Cribs-level addition to your collection.  

The Arcane Divination Dunny Series from Kidrobot

    While a rarity anymore, we still have a few fortune tellers at the Jersey Shore that set up in tiny shops on the boardwalk for the amusement of tourists.  Sandwiched in between stands offering temporary tattoos and cheaply bootlegged t-shirts, they are content to sit and wait for you to enter their business rather than applying their fellow merchants more aggressive tactics.  I've been to one once and while I can't say I was enlightened, it was an interesting experience.  Then her daughter tried to upsell me on all kinds of knick knacks and very expensive cleansing spells, which were supposed to remove a curse of someone had put on me.  Suddenly what was a weird try anything once moment turned into buying a used car.  I opted for a snow cone and a couple rounds on the crane machines instead, which I totally owned so obviously my curse had nothing to do with whooping the behind of carnival games.  

    I don't think I've declared anything "The Greatest Dunny Series of All Time" recently, so allow me to do that right now.  This is the greatest Dunny series of all time.  Based on the tarot, this series was curated by J*Ryu and features his work alongside that of Jon-Paul Kaiser, Godmachine, Tokyo Jesus, and Camilla d'Errico.  Certainly the darkest set produced to date, these feature a crazy amount of new sculpted shapes an intricately printed designs to give each figure the most otherworldly of feels.  Add a heavy dose of the supernatural to your collection when these release tomorrow (May 12th) at www.kidrobot.com and wherever designer toys are sold.  

Plush Merboston Kickstarter from Shlii

    Oh, science you have gone to far this time.  I accepted when you invented laser swords and the Millennium Falcon, but splicing dogs and fish together is something beyond anything I thought possible.   Now the sea will be filled with puppies great and small and all the plastic chew toys that go with them.  This seems like a serious environmental threat that will throw the planet completely off balance.  Next thing you know cats will have wings and be raining dead mice on our heads.  Is there no end to the madness?

   Just kidding, this adorable sea pup is just a plush toy.  I had you going though didn't I?  Now I'll probably be labeled as fake news and lose all of my journalistic credibility that I never had in the first place.  But screw credibility when you can own cute things from Shlii.  She has a Kickstarter campaign going right now to make this precious genetic freak a reality so check it out at this link and help make it happen.  There's only 10 days to go and she's a little more than half way there.