Before I begin this tour, a few thoughts...

I think part of the reason I have not been producing as many toy tour blogs recently isn't so much that I have run out of things to collect, to the contrary there have been LOTS of new additions over the past few months.

I think the problem is that, once I finished showing you all the toy room, it then really started to become a "hey look what I bought now" kind of blog, and I found it rather uninteresting to write quite frankly.

Don't worry, I will continue the tours, but I think at this point I am not going to continue to feature every single item I buy and instead save the tours for the more unique, special or oddball items.

So let's get to this one by looking at some VERY special items, special to me because they were birthday gifts from our resident Star Wars Saint, Jedi Melinda Wolf!

She sent me these back in October and of course I'm just NOW getting to them on the blog, but Melinda, as always my dear, I wish to thank you SO much for your kindness!

The package she sent me was very fitting, a veritable plethora of Darth Maul items including:

A Darth Maul Comic Book & Mighty Mugg!

A Darth Maul windup toy & Galactic Hero fig!

a Darth Maul/ Ep. I cardboard poster (yes, it did get a tad bent up during shipping Melinda, but I love it anyway!)

And lastly, an item of the sort I had not yet had in the collection... A Darth Maul / Ep. I Tie!!!! ...I really really love this one!

One more time...THANK YOU MELINDA! YOU ROCK!

Ok, moving on...by now, you all should be well aware of my love of clone collecting.

Well, I've added to that collection yet again with the release of two new Target Exclusive Battlepacks:

Obi Wan & The 212th Attack Battalion

Yoda & The Coruscant Guard

I liked these sets so much, in fact, that I later went back and bought a second one of each.

I also purchased two more "Oddball" pilot action figures, because I decided I wanted to try my hand at making a custom version of each one to fit them in with each squad.

I realize my paint work is a tad sloppy, but I had fun doing them anyway and they look sort of "battle worn" I guess so it's all good.

Lastly of course, I had to find the SPACE to display all these new clones, and after some reshuffling of shelf space and utilizing the interior of the packaging for a diorama effect, I now have two new clone army display shelves!

As you can see in the pics, I also added in my Commander Cody to the 212th squad and the Commander Fox figure to the Coruscant Guard.

Also added to the Clone Army are these two new, REALLY nice sets from Gentle Giant, available as a Toys R Us Exclusive - The Clone Troopers Armada Bust Ups set 1 and 2!

While I don't collect them heavily, I have always loved the detail on these Bust up pieces, and while I thought the packaging looked nice, I much prefer how they display opened and assembled, don't you?

Ok, last item for today is a NON Star Wars item, but one of my favorite new additions none the less.

I pre-ordered this Indiana Jones Bust Statue from Gentle Giant was back during the summer, and while it took AGES for it to finally ship, it was well worth the wait don't'cha think?

If you'd like a better look at it you can see more of it and the rest of the Indy shelf in my latest You Tube video instillation of the tour, The Maul Cantina Tour Part 30!

BTW, You Tube has a new "Watch In High Quality" feature that I recommend while viewing, the picture quality is much better...also, maybe I'm slow but I also just recently realized you can enlarge a You Tube video to FULL SCREEN with a simple click LOL....sheesh I can't believe I didn't know that ages ago!

Anyway, as far as the Toy Tour goes, it will continue...oh maybe not every week, or even every month, and it certainly won't feature every single new item I get, BUT I will bring it back whenever the spirit moves me and I when have something fun and special to share with all my friends here, k?

See you next time! And stay tuned for next week, I will have some special contributions to the BFD festivities throughout the week...I hope!