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?
