by Taylor Smart
Seasons Greetings mini figure fiends! The holidays are right around the corner so today I thought I would share some thoughts on the often tough gifts: stocking stuffers. Growing up (and to this day) my mom frets almost every year about a couple of small gifts to put in stockings beside the annual assortment of candy, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. I’m here to give you a few ideas, and hopefully help you simplify a small portion of your holiday shopping for every toy lover on your list.
Mini figures lend themselves perfectly to the role of stocking stuffers because of their small size and cheap price, two points I have talked about in the past. Any mini figure will fit into a stocking and with the vast variety of licenses available you should easily be able to find something for just about anybody on your shopping list.
THE MEAT
I'm going to start off with OMFG or Outlandish Mini Figure Guys. There are currently three series out in a multitude of colors. Produced by October Toys these figures are voted on and created by individuals on their forums. There is a variety of aesthetics in each series of these figures, if I were picking these up as a gift I would try to make sure there was one figure in the pack I bought that I thought would intrigue the recipient. Each series has a pack of five figures and costs $10.00 per pack ($2/figure), you can buy them from October Toys store or of you want to find a different color there are exclusives to many online stores with a checklist here. These figures would be great in the package or strewn about loose in the stocking!
If you are looking for something a little more mainstream then I would suggest the Star Wars Microfighters. Not only do you get a great Lego mini figure but you also get a micro version of a ship! There is currently a solid line up of characters and ships including: Han Solo with Millenium Falcon, X-wing Pilot with X-wing, Clone Trooper with Turbo Tank, Imperial Crew member with Star Destroyer, TIE Fighter pilot with TIE Interceptor, and Battle Droid with Droid Army AAT. These are great little sets and would be very easy to wrap and slide into a stocking. In my mind these are a great gift for just about anybody, who doesn’t love Star Wars and Legos?
The last idea I am going to leave you with is just about anything by Imaginext. I talked about their blind bags recently (which would also make great stocking stuffers), but they also have a few themes in their line that cover some key interests. The themes are pretty self explanatory based off their names, two of my favorites are Cosmic Chaos and Castle. Cosmic Chaos is a sci-fi alien type theme, they have some great looking figures and vehicles. Castle has a knights and dragons medieval fantasy feel to it with some very cool accessories and playsets, in addition to great figures. The other themes are dinosaurs, pirates, DC heroes, city, and Spongebob.
At the very least I hope that some of these ideas inspired an idea of your own for any of your intended recipients this holiday.
On December 2, 2014 Matty Collector announced that the MOTU mini figures did not reach their goal and would be cancelled: “MOTU Minis Update: These little guys had a big task and we’re sorry to say we didn't reach our goal for the 2015 MOTU Minis subscription. We’d like to say a HUGE thank you to all the fans for waging such a good, strong fight.”
I don’t have any figures from this line, but I know that the people who do love them. The general consensus on-line seems to be pretty negative on this announcement from Matty Collector, with a lot of people saying they didn’t even realize these were up for order. If the advertising was as bad as people are saying it is, there is a lesson that all us mini figure collectors can learn from this. We need to let big time companies (Hasbro, Mattel, Fisher Price, Lego, etc) know what we want, then vote with our wallet (so to speak), and buy the product that we like. This is the only way they will hear that mini figures are a fantastic investment of mankind!
And again, have a HAPPY HOLIDAY!