The U.S.S. Flagg,Defiant Space Shuttle,Tacticle Battle Platform and the Terror Drome all had one thing in common-I never had any of them! I had lots of figures and a few vehicles here and there but no playsets. No worries, though. My OCD coupled with an imagination that would make most kids my age question my normalcy, would never allow for any of my Joes to go HQ-less. That’s when my brain would kick into overdrive. It was commonplace to walk into my room and see quilts folded and fluffed into makeshift caves. Or mom’s wicker spice rack, which served as a lookout post for Cobra! But my all time favorite, miscellaneous “found-around-the-house” item was the oh- so versatile packaging Styrofoam ! I realize that today many action figure backdrops and dioramas are made of similar Styrofoam materials,to a degree of realism where it’s hard to tell if your looking at an actual brick wall, or an elaborate creation made out of insulation foam boards. I’ve dabbled in that myself. The only problem with those is that once they are sculpted and painted,that is all they can ever be . As an adult collector who relies on backdrops for picture purposes, these dios really come in handy,but as a kid , a couple of oddly shaped packaging Styrofoam/cardboard inserts served as blank canvases and could be anything I wanted them to be. Standing upright or laying on their side, those Styrofoam blocks could morph into everything from an elevator shaft to a computer terminal!I recently unpackaged a brand new mini cup cake maker to do some baking with my daughter, when I stumbled across these Styrofoam blocks inside the box. You never know where you’ll draw your next little bit of inspiration from and in this case, a night of baking with my baby girl resulted in the following set of pics! Enjoy 🙂
I hear ya Tony, I used to make bases out of foam as well when it came into the house. Another favourite of mine was to use vhs tapes and boxes to make elaborate bases that I could tear down as the violence escalated. Anything could be a good base. These days I enjoy printing off backdrops and mounting the on card to create make shift rooms in which I can take my photos though I need to get myself a printer to avoid awkward questions in work lol.
The internet has virtually any backdrop your looking for Derek.I remember printing out an infirmary scene to use for my Doc action figure.Those backdrops make for some really cool pics.
I used to use shoe boxes, foam, and toys from other lines for bases all the time.
Every one of my toy sessions began with the setting up of both bases.
I used shoe boxes alot.
They were so easy to cut windows out of….
Soooo many shoeboxes and foam packers used like this ! The best thing was you could make bullet holes or blow part of it off and there was always another box ready somewhere !
Exactly!
Styrofoam = Hoth… So much fun!
I was more of a Joe kid myself but I could definitely see that!
Yup. We probably all did the same thing. I however really enjoy making my own playsets today. I will be doing Joes after the wrestling stuff.
Can’t wait to see some of those!
This is great. I used to do both of those when i was a kid: the blanket “caves” and the styrofoam packing headquarters. I also used to make bases out of Legos.
Good times,Joshua!Thanks for commenting 🙂