The Young Painter
Lego. I don’t know about some of you out there, but lego was a massive part of my younger childhood. The endless creations, mixed with a child’s imagination makes lego a toy that can span for hours at a time, and for years.
Every now and then when I stroll through a toy store and see the lego section, I’m ever impressed with its ability to both remain lego at its core design, yet also fit into so many different themes and genre’s from ‘city life’ to ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Batman’.
I think its also one of those collections that stands the course of time and can be handed down through the generations. I don’t know where my large (from a kids memory) collection went. Perhaps it was passed onto another family, or is stored in a box somewhere back at the family home.
Todays image was shot on the GRD IV and slightly desaturated in Gimp.
Orko and childhood toys
This little character brought me back to my childhood. Orko. One of the characters from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Although not this particular copy, I recall having Orko alongside He-Man, Skeletor, Moss-man…I sure I had some more of the vast array of characters in the collection.
Orko was a Trollan, and one of the few who knew He-Mans identity. Although a little bit of a easily scared character, he always did the right thing and could be counted on when it counted. (in ones typical lesson learning childhood cartoons). Some countries knew him as Gorpo in the earlier series.
I think most of all (as far as ‘action figures’ go) I was into Transformers. I dont know where they all went – likely part of my take apart to see how it works stage, but I had a ton of them. Who else… GI Joe of course – their rubber band waist’s were hard to get back on when taken apart, I do remember that!
Reflecting on these toys of the 80’s, there were a ton of them. Many have since been re-released, with originals being worth a few dollars for the collectors. Like many, mine were handed down, given away, or boxed up and taken to charity.
Then there are the long standing toys – Lego!, Matchbox cars – unless you are a hot wheels or Corgi fan – I recall the hot wheels being faster, but suffering more axle bends. The Corgi’s were well made, but slow. Matchbox was the leader in my day. Meccano. I had some hand me down Meccano. It never seemed to be that big when I was a child, but I loved building with real metal and nuts and bolts etc etc.
Memory lane. TV shows are another. I’ll need to find an appropriate image to shoot for that post though!
Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV in very low light – hence the ‘grain’.
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