Hello mini figure fans! This week I am doing something a little different, instead of bringing you a review I want to talk about the myriad of resources that are available to us as mini figure collectors. You can find just about anything you could ever think of on the internet, it may take hours of Google searching but you will eventually get there. Rather than waste all that time with a search engine I would recommend you search up some forums or blogs, even social media is being used more as a resource for many things.
THE MEAT
I have referenced a couple of forums in past columns but I want to leave a list here for you to browse if you so desire. These are forums that I utilize regularly (some on a daily basis):
October Toys – lots of indie toy discussion, home of OMFG, OTMFG, and Glyos forums.
Minimate Multiverse – Minimate heaven with a side of Funko, Hot Toys, Hasbro, etc.
Little Rubber Guys – if it’s a mini figure you’ll almost certainly find a discussion about it here.
Action Figure Insider – mostly licensed toy lines, great for Imaginext and Lego.
Rebel Scum – everything Star Wars with a smattering of other licensed toys.
None of the forums above are limited to the very brief description I provided, I just wanted to highlight what they have to try and help guide you to what you may be looking for.
Fairly recently I waded back into the world of blogging as a spectator. I was surprised at how many quality blogs are out there, I was under the impression the blogging wasn’t really done that much and had almost died out. I am very happy to be wrong about this. Some blogs I have discovered so far are:
Keshi Drop – Regular updates about tiny rubber toys, news, mailbag openings, reviews, and fringe ramblings of SpiderEarth and his friends.
Eric Nilla Customs – Eric does great work but his blog is a bit out of date, still fun to look at the old posts though.
Glyos Transmission Web Log – A great place to get sneak peak of upcoming Glyos drops.
The God Beast – Kabuto Mushi and other musings from the one and only TGB, Marty Hansen.
MWOTR – updates on everything Mystical Warriors of the Ring from the main man himself Mark Vasquez.
Toyfinity – home of Mordles and Roboforce.
I am sure there are many more great blogs out there; I just haven’t got to them yet. If you know of any feel free to point them out, you can never have too much reading material.
Facebook in particular is an excellent resource for collectors with many different groups for many different toy lines. Generally groups will also have a buy/sell page which can help you fill holes in your own collection or get rid of some items you may not want anymore. As far as mini figure groups go The Mini Figure Militia is the place to be, there are also groups or pages for individual lines but I like the Militia the best.
Another good social media resource is Instagram. Many indie artists (see above) post works in progress on Instagram and it’s always fun to follow along. Many big time companies also have accounts and post fun pictures.
THE POTATOES
Something I really enjoy about the forums is the interaction with not only other collectors but the creators and toy company employees. This also bleeds over to blogs and social media but is most pure on forums. Pretty much everybody that owns one of the above blogs also frequent at least one of the forums I listed, they are collectors just like us and they want to talk about toys as much as we do. This also applies to bigger companies, Zach from Diamond Select Toys is a regular on the boards of Minimate Multiverse.
THE DESSERT
I know this was a veer from the usual course for this column but I hope you found it useful. You may see something along these lines every so often but I will always try to keep it relevant. If you like what you saw, let us know and I can do this a little more regularly.
Oh man there was so much awesome news from Toy Fair! I am not even going to try and condense it here, I wouldn’t know where to begin (but you can look at our Facebook Photo Album for highlights). Go-TV will have a feature video coming this week that will also highlight some of Toy Fair. Just about all the forums I listed above will have pages and pages of discussion about this years reveals with links to pictures, check them out!