Well, I trimmed back on the figures. A fairly hefty chunk of the collection, too.
Just a few months ago, I trimmed a big chunk of my vehicles out. That was a big trim of my favorite vehicles that were left from my prior vehicle reduction.
And even that prior vehicle reduction had a good sized reduction prior to that!
With the figures, I hadn't trimmed these as much. Figures are much easier to store, obviously since they are smaller. I did however start trimming some figures out a couple years ago, but just a few.
Most notably, the easier cuts to make for my GIJOE figures were eliminating "sub-group" figures that were essentially the same characters with different paint. Tiger Force and Python Patrol were easy to trim out. The big reason behind that was that I didn't feel I needed a secondary team within a team. Know what I'm saying? I mean, I really like them all, don't get me wrong, but, it comes back to a question as to what I want my GIJOE team to be.
I'm going with the direction of a small force, a small elite force. I can make up my own "sub-group" mission teams inside of my small force. I may just have a goal for my GIJOE collecting.... ?
Well, in this most recent reduction, well over 100 figures, I trimmed out a lot. I made up some criteria to make it somewhat of reasonable picks.
No "swivel-head" articulated figures, for instance. On the classic o-ring side of things, this means many characters are simply out. Scrap-Iron, Wild Weasel, Copperhead, Blowtorch, Short-Fuze, and more! Even Skystriker and Sparks, all out.
Then, I eliminated the sea and air wing personnel. I'm getting out of the fighter jets and blue-water operations, so characters like Keel Haul, Topside, Wet-suit, Deep-Six, Eels, Lampreys, and others, are out. Aside from the Stinger Raider, I have no boats. And this goes for the big fighters, so Ace, Slipstream, Maverick, ...., they're out, too.
Those o-ring Night watch troopers are out, too, as well as the CG's with the removeable helmets. I didn't feel like a needed that many ceremonial-looking troops.
In essence, simplifying.
Even though a good chunk of figures just left after years of me hunting, storing, well, I still have only trimmed out about 1/3.
And I must say, the extra shelf space from trimming vehicles has been awesome. And now, I've taken out one Rubbermaid container of figures from the stack.
I think it will be easier to sort out my GIJOE team of 28 after trimming back figures as I just did. I'm not sure if I can choose 28 joes as the only figures I'll have, but, slowly, but surely, I'll be better able to do it by slowly trimming back. Even after this trim, I still have over 100 figures on my GIJOE team.
Of course, at the same time, there's about 25+ figures I would like to bring into my collection still. I've got the figures identified that I want.
Ever have that empty space where once it is there, "something" usually ends up going there?
About HQ icebreaker
- icebreaker
- This is a very random bunch of thoughts based from my collecting of GIJOE: A real American hero figures and vehicles. Contained here are memories, experiences, recent thoughts, completely random thoughts, and other random things on top of that. While one company has made, and makes, our shared interests, we all add into that interest with our own creativity. You, the reader, will find many, many, excellent sites among the links to see what other GIJoe fans are doing, hit them up! For GIJOE stuff that is more random in topic, you'll find it here.