May be a silly question when the website's name answers the question...but I'll ask it anyway:

You buy them at the store, you open them up, you fiddle with their accessories for 15 minutes and then what?

You collect them by the dozens or hundreds - you organize them on a shelf or by year in a container, but then what?

There's the thrill of the hunt, and satisfaction of getting that figure you've always wanted, but then what?

What do you do that makes your collection more than a bunch of toys hoarded in a box?

With some of you the answers are obvious, you've made a name for yourself with your customs, dioramas, dio-stories, or fan websites, but what are the rest of you guys doing? And what are the thousands of guys who are not Joe Customizers doing?

This question haunts me cause even as a kid, I wasn't that great at physically "playing" - my cousins and I would spend half a day setting up a battle scene and then it'd be time to go home before the battle ever started. I have an awesome collection and keep adding to it, with the guilt that I never get around to really "playing" with them.

Personally I have plenty of ideas for dioramas, and dio-stories, but my Joes mostly end up in plastic tubs in storage until that magic day I have both Time and Space.

What do you do with your Joes? And if you play with them please explain how.

-David

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I like taking ARAH parts and putting them together in different recipes.
For the most part, I have about boxes upon boxes of LBCs put together (Dreadnoks, Oktober Guard, JOEs, Cobra, Destro, etc) that I am trying to match up with the characters I've created. Some are named, some are created for a specific look, and some are pure whimsy.



I'd love to, but I don't have the room.



I'd love to at some point. Right now one room is wall to wall shelves that for my 'library'.



I seem to have acquired a lot of fodder material and figures over the years. Whether it be buying those 25 KB four packs of Star Wars figures that Sears sold for $2.50 each (that's a hundred figures right there), buying ARAH at flea markets for less than a buck each, or getting figures from people here, I just have a lot of stuff.

I believe right now I have six of those plastic 1.1 gallon 'shoe' boxes packed full of ARAH fodder. Each one holds about 60+ figures and I have a cheat sheet inside each one that tells me what is in there.



Almost all of my collection and surplus stuff is packed up for space. I really want to get cracking this year on some of the custom vehicle ideas I have.



I suppose if I was totally turned off by GIJOE.





Mostly whenever I get something new (figures, vehicles, etc) I usually just move them around the desk, checking them from different angles and trying to get that mental image of how I would use it/fit it into my 'verse. Sure I move the arms around checking out the poses or how figures look in a vehicle, but I think mostly it's the combination of touch and sight (like scanning something into the computer) to imprint the item firmly into my mind for future reference. It makes the item 'real' to us, instead of just something with rivets and o-rings.

I guess what I mean is if I mention a a random figure to you, like the original Blowtorch, you can vividly recall the color, the design, the texture, and the character of that figure. I daresay all of us can do that with anything we have a detailed knowledge of.



This one time, at action figure camp...

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voted for the living room floor AND playing because its the same thing.

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DarkJedi pretty much sounds like me. All points except the "hoarding" where I have tons of other types of items I've accumulated over the years. Oh and I never went to action figure camp.

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I forgot one option - using their hands to clean out your ears. Should have included that one in the survey.

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Make Customs!
LBCs mostly

Make Dio-stories
I've made two dio-stories. Does that count?

Organize them in Displays
Have many in display cases and also display the original 13 on the '97 Stars & Stripes set

Hoarding is a hobby!
No comment

Box them up for future plans
Most of my stuff is in boxes. I sometimes forget what I have

Box them up for future re-sale
A few things specifically fit this option, I guess

Play with them!
I got into Joes again because I wanted good, playable wrestling figures

Wow, so many of them apply to me. For the most part, they are boxed up/put away because I don't really have a place for them at the moment. I don't plan on selling them, but you never say never.

I would love to be able to to display them in a Dio-rama setting and do some dio-stories that I have been planning for years, that maybe, someday, I will get around to doing.

As for customizing, I am a light customizer, I have plans for stuff, but due to my abilities, I am hesitant in doing some of the stuff. I do plan in the very near future give head carving a shot again.

Whenever I get something new or I am in the mood, I will dig some of it out and play with it on the living room floor with my kids. But the wife gets a little upset with the mess and tight quarters.

As for CJ's suggestion of picking ears, I prefer to pick my nose with my figures.

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Other:

I throw them on the bed, cover myself with jell-o and roll around on the bed for hours. But you guys already knew that about me.

I mainly buy figures to customise. Don't often buy them to collect, although the Marvel and Wolvie figures coming out this year will fall into the latter category.

I do have a hoard of figures. Three largish plastic tubs full of fodder. There has been an increasing number of times over the last ccouple of years when I have bought a figure off the net for a specific custom, and when I have had it in hand, though 'Meh! Not suitable', bought something else and teh original choice lingers in the fodder bin.

The main time I display them in a dio is for photos on teh custom boards.

As for playing with them, it's a good job plastic figures don't bleed! TAC Vader didn't survive his encounter with SHS Wolverine.

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Im across the board.

having a 6 year old son.. I am constantly pitting my Bats against Battle droids, Greenshirts against Stormtroopers, seeing if the mobats and maulers can take down an AT-AT. A lot of my joe with joe is relived through my son.. teachinghim how to take care of his figures, set them up on his toy shelf in cool poses, and teaching him the "rules" of playing (um, son, trucks can't fly, ya gotta drive them to the battle)

...but even when he's not here, I still take down the Blackhawk, and have "Missions"

Thanks to you guys, Ive found a new paradyme in collecting, professional customizing. most joe fans swaped heads and body parts, but seeing how people dremel off details and sculpt heir own, repaint figures, and create new heads and weapons through molds,.. sparked an even greater drive for joe for me. Ive been cleaning out Family dollar's 2 dollar figures for customizing, not to mention enhancing figures I already owned.

thanks to army building, I also hoard figures, so far I have about 50 bats of various designs, 40 greenshirts, god knows how many ninjas,..and so on.

however, one think I CANNOT do is box my toys up, or leave them in the package. Toys (for me) just need to be played with, admired, and set free...

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- I have them on display and I tend to look at them a lot, pose them in various positions and I guess just play with them.

- One of my favourite things to do with Joes is to assemble vehicles. This gets me in such a good mood that I always have some MIB vehicles readyt to assemble if I'm feeling particularly down. Or if I just need encouragement. SIlly, I know, but I still like it. Last term paper I had, I assembled the TF Moray I got from danielb, and that boat got me through those nights of writing.
And now when I got a new job, I assembled a Conquest, I guess as a reward to myself.

- And of course take them apart, put different parts together, and paint them in new colors.

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First and foremost I customize. I have about 8 different customs I'm working on right now and that varies depending on my mood and real life. But I customize the hell out of figures. Whether it's simply adding a Marauder Inc rifle or creating a whole new character, just about every one of my figures gets customized in some way.

I also like to set up dio-displays. I have half of our shelves in the den and dining rooms that I'm allowed to use and I've got a few of them set-up already. I have my Cobra air forces on one shelf with the Rattler hanging above them. I have part of my naval forces displayed together. I have a tank shelf with my HISS tanks and some other vehicles displayed. And I plan on doing an arctic shelf eventually. I need to get some more figure stands though to display everything the way I want before I do anything else.

I have my armybuilders and several other figures in boxes in the closet until I get organized to display them all. And I have some figures I bought for custom fodder still on card waiting until I want to use them or for future trade bait. But I don't plan to keep them all boxed up forever. What's the point of having a collection if you can't enjoy it?

One of the things I like to do when "playing" is set up different scenes and photograph them. I do on occasion take out a Firebat and fly it around the apartment (when Amanda isn't home) but for the most part my play is setting up different dio-scenes.

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A-HA! she does have a name!

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noted. you got a roommate for the con yet?

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I almost hit all of the above. The thing I don't really do is hoarde them MOC or do a dio-story with them. That second one was a long battle with myself. I had this dio story I wanted to make one day and recently realized I was never going to do it. I stopped holding on to figures and stuff that I picked up or bought just for this never going to happen thing.

I'll give the run down on what happens with a figure/vehicle when I buy it. Even I buy a figure specifically for a custom this still happens.
1) Buy figure.
2) Take out of package as soon as I get home if not sooner (childhood habit of opening the toys as soon as I get them back to the car).
3) Give the figure the full look over: a) test articulation b) check paint apps c) load up with any accessories d) strike a few poses and e) read all packaging.
4) Play with figure with whatever other figures are on the work table.
5) See what other accessories might improve the figure and what the figure's accessories might work with other figures.
6a) If I really like the figure despite the reason I got it for, I will set up a mini display with the figure.
6b) If I don't care for the figure despite the reason I got it for, I will either use it for customs or add it to a for sale pile.
7) After a few days a custom will get displayed in the custom case or on a permanent display, while a purchased figure might get displayed out on the entertainment center for a while before being inducted into the rest of the collection.
8) The elite purchased items will remain on permanent display.

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