tales from the toy box
Jan. 31st, 2026 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
operasteersI finished another gunpla model recently (putting them together clicks with something in my brain) and I was wondering what to do with the leftover runners and boxes, cause it feels like such a waste to throw them away. Partially inspired by the approach I'm taking for my current project and wanting to be more mindful of the things I toss, I figured I could probably make something that wasn't just keeping them in their boxes that take up space.
For the boxes, the suggestions I saw on Reddit involved making a sort of poster collage with the artwork, which sounds pretty cool! I still have space left on my walls for posters (or there's always the ceiling!), so that's one idea I'll keep in mind as I gather more gunpla kits... because I know I will... I will gather my harem of robots... is this the beginning of a possible Transformers stage for me? I don't know quite yet but... Gundam my beloved... now I understand why Sgt. Keroro was so smitten with you...
As for the runners, there was a video linked that I'll have to check out, because it'd be cool if I could make furniture for my dolls or props to use for stop-motion or things like that... It'd be cool to learn how to make puppets... I really do love puppets... Anyhow, it made me think about my nendoroids and all the space their boxes take up.
The way I have it set up right now is that any spare parts I'm not using stay in the boxes, who in turn stay in my closet. But, well, space is a smidge limited (my dream living space will allow me the utmost customization... want a figurine in the kitchen? Well wha-BAM why not... but not next to the stove... I think that would be bad for the figurine if oil splashed on them) so I had to really ask myself: Do I need the boxes?
I looked around online for other's opinions on it, and the consensus seemed to be: Yes on the chance that you sell them in the future, because otherwise their value goes down.
My experience with selling my stuff is usually: oh my god what have I done.
Plus, the boxes come with pretty cute designs on them, and they really do make it easy to just pack everyone away when needed—although I know I've seen some advice that discourages keeping them in their boxes because the material can get sticky/greasy? I didn't have that issue with any of mine, thankfully, and supposedly it's more of a common issue with older models and those that haven't been opened ever. Aside from that, they can be convenient to keep on hand.
But they take up so much space.
Ultimately, I decided to keep the boxes for arts and crafts projects! I'm sure I could have used the plastic inside for something as well, but, yeah. Limited space. I probably could have made cool sculptures with them... tucking away a mental note for the future. The older models had larger boxes—the special versions also tend to have bigger boxes—that newer models reduced, and I feel that the side that included the little plastic window could be made into a cute bookmark. The front side with the plastic window could make for a neat photo frame, though I'm also considering just flattening all the patterns and textures into one large background and cutting out the photos of the nendoroids to make a collage of sorts.
Another idea I'm toying with is just having the cutouts of the nendoroids to use as dolls for flat backgrounds, or I don't know if y'all've seen those reusable sticker books, where it's a set background and you place the stickers over and over again to make different scenes? Something kinda like that.
Plus, it would be nice to have my nendoroid parts more easily accessible so I can play with them... life is for enjoying stuff, and what better way to enjoy life than letting my nendoroids drive barbie cars and starring in homemade telenovelas?
A common tip that several people mentioned was getting a storage drawer organizer, because it's compact and lets the figurines breathe. When I saw the size of the drawers, I did wonder if maybe I had gotten the wrong size, but nope! These little guys fit in alright for the most part!
Nendoroids with larger pieces I placed inside the bigger cabinets on the bottom, and the others I stored in the small cabinets. A cute detail was feeling the difference in the face sculpts, because some had more wiggle room while others were more snug. However, I'm probably going to find a cabinet that has more of the large cabinets, cause I feel like it'd just be more comfortable for them. Like, yes, they fit, but are they comfortable? Is this a five-star experience?
No. It very much is not.
And I mean a lot.
But whatever, yay we fina-fucking-lly did it! Riku can hold Braveheart now and his hand won't stay in an upright position because of the piece that broke off, but! Yay! Now we can move on to the others! Smooth sailing! I pulled out Sora's KH 3 Ver I figurine.
Yeah.
You see, there's this thing with figurines where you have to gamble on, Do I need to use a bit more force, or just accept that it's a bad fit? I usually lose this gamble, but whatever, it's fine, I can just glue the part that snapped off. Or give it to Phoebus.
Anyhow, I did have some struggle switching Sora's hands, but thankfully nowhere near as much as I did with Riku's. I attached him to his stand and found it funny how much he reminds me of Teen!Gojo here.
Fly high my queens...
I noticed the stand was really stiff, but the screws indicated that it should bend like everyone else's, so I figured with some persuasion I could get it to bend. After all, it might just be stiff because of its time sitting in the box, y'know?
That very much was not the case.
Whatever, it gave me the chance to use this star bracelet with a key I had laying around to tie the stand back together, so it all worked out in the end.
¡Guao!
I didn't have any issues (thank fucking god) with the other KH figurines, so I'm assuming maybe it was a sculpt issue with the Ver I figurines? Don't get me wrong, I will still love them but, I will be feeling the soreness in my fingers for a minute.
I had this Hello Kitty lip balm shaped like a macaron on hand, and thought it'd make for a good peace offering to Riku.
He was pleased.
Now, everyone's accessories and pieces are within reach, ready for play!
For the boxes, the suggestions I saw on Reddit involved making a sort of poster collage with the artwork, which sounds pretty cool! I still have space left on my walls for posters (or there's always the ceiling!), so that's one idea I'll keep in mind as I gather more gunpla kits... because I know I will... I will gather my harem of robots... is this the beginning of a possible Transformers stage for me? I don't know quite yet but... Gundam my beloved... now I understand why Sgt. Keroro was so smitten with you...
As for the runners, there was a video linked that I'll have to check out, because it'd be cool if I could make furniture for my dolls or props to use for stop-motion or things like that... It'd be cool to learn how to make puppets... I really do love puppets... Anyhow, it made me think about my nendoroids and all the space their boxes take up.
The way I have it set up right now is that any spare parts I'm not using stay in the boxes, who in turn stay in my closet. But, well, space is a smidge limited (my dream living space will allow me the utmost customization... want a figurine in the kitchen? Well wha-BAM why not... but not next to the stove... I think that would be bad for the figurine if oil splashed on them) so I had to really ask myself: Do I need the boxes?
I looked around online for other's opinions on it, and the consensus seemed to be: Yes on the chance that you sell them in the future, because otherwise their value goes down.
My experience with selling my stuff is usually: oh my god what have I done.
Plus, the boxes come with pretty cute designs on them, and they really do make it easy to just pack everyone away when needed—although I know I've seen some advice that discourages keeping them in their boxes because the material can get sticky/greasy? I didn't have that issue with any of mine, thankfully, and supposedly it's more of a common issue with older models and those that haven't been opened ever. Aside from that, they can be convenient to keep on hand.
But they take up so much space.
Ultimately, I decided to keep the boxes for arts and crafts projects! I'm sure I could have used the plastic inside for something as well, but, yeah. Limited space. I probably could have made cool sculptures with them... tucking away a mental note for the future. The older models had larger boxes—the special versions also tend to have bigger boxes—that newer models reduced, and I feel that the side that included the little plastic window could be made into a cute bookmark. The front side with the plastic window could make for a neat photo frame, though I'm also considering just flattening all the patterns and textures into one large background and cutting out the photos of the nendoroids to make a collage of sorts.
Another idea I'm toying with is just having the cutouts of the nendoroids to use as dolls for flat backgrounds, or I don't know if y'all've seen those reusable sticker books, where it's a set background and you place the stickers over and over again to make different scenes? Something kinda like that.
Plus, it would be nice to have my nendoroid parts more easily accessible so I can play with them... life is for enjoying stuff, and what better way to enjoy life than letting my nendoroids drive barbie cars and starring in homemade telenovelas?
A common tip that several people mentioned was getting a storage drawer organizer, because it's compact and lets the figurines breathe. When I saw the size of the drawers, I did wonder if maybe I had gotten the wrong size, but nope! These little guys fit in alright for the most part!
Nendoroids with larger pieces I placed inside the bigger cabinets on the bottom, and the others I stored in the small cabinets. A cute detail was feeling the difference in the face sculpts, because some had more wiggle room while others were more snug. However, I'm probably going to find a cabinet that has more of the large cabinets, cause I feel like it'd just be more comfortable for them. Like, yes, they fit, but are they comfortable? Is this a five-star experience?
No. It very much is not.
It's not even a thing of, Does this create a possibility of the paint rubbing off, I just feel bad when it seems like my figurines are uncomfortable, same with my plushies. I don't know if that was cause of Toy Story (or Chucky... I hold no love for him but... who am I to deny the little bastard a luxury resort?), but I always try to make sure that everyone has some wiggle room. There was still a large drawer left once I finished sorting everyone else, so I went ahead and moved Iwaizumi and Oikawa.
There were still quite a bit of empty cabinets, so I checked to make sure the larger figurines could fit in here, and decided to prep them for their home on a new shelf I got recently. Things were going good until I got to Riku's KH 3 Ver I figurine. All things considered, I don't think what happened was too bad. Right, Riku?
No we did not.
My fucking god.
Even with the pliers, I wasn't able to push the hand into place—really glad I didn't cut myself now that I think about it. For a moment I still figured it was probably just a bad grip on my end, so I placed the patient on top of a stack of sticky notes for additional support and tried again.
I was so ready to give up.
Then I remembered I had some motor oil.
I'm not 100% how safe the motor oil I have is for the figurine's material, cause it's some that went to a walking treadmill I had a while back, but nothing I saw online advised against it, and either way, no matter what happens, Riku, lala loves you. I did want to be cautious though, so I only put in a teensy bit, because oil is oil and I reasoned, Ok, now the hand can go in, just slide right on in.
That did not fucking work.
Anya lent him Chimera in the meantime. He'll be okay.
And then! It finally went in!
After a lot of struggle!
Look at all that space... five-stars!
There were still quite a bit of empty cabinets, so I checked to make sure the larger figurines could fit in here, and decided to prep them for their home on a new shelf I got recently. Things were going good until I got to Riku's KH 3 Ver I figurine. All things considered, I don't think what happened was too bad. Right, Riku?
He's still taking a moment to process things. What happened was that I went to switch out his hand for one that would let him hold Braveheart so that 1) He'd look cool 2) Braveheart was having some trouble fitting in the small drawer. His hand would not attach, I was met with a lot and I mean a fucking LOT of resistance. At first I thought it was just because I hadn't taken him out of the box in a while, but after 20 minutes of trying and failing, I decided to grab some needle nose pliers to hold the joint in place and push. I figured, Hey, maybe it's just because I don't have a good enough grip! But we can do this! We got this!
No we did not.
My fucking god.
Even with the pliers, I wasn't able to push the hand into place—really glad I didn't cut myself now that I think about it. For a moment I still figured it was probably just a bad grip on my end, so I placed the patient on top of a stack of sticky notes for additional support and tried again.
And that's where the bottom portion of the hook that gives the joint stability when you move it broke off. My fingers were hurting. I was in so much pain.
I was so ready to give up.
Then I remembered I had some motor oil.
I'm not 100% how safe the motor oil I have is for the figurine's material, cause it's some that went to a walking treadmill I had a while back, but nothing I saw online advised against it, and either way, no matter what happens, Riku, lala loves you. I did want to be cautious though, so I only put in a teensy bit, because oil is oil and I reasoned, Ok, now the hand can go in, just slide right on in.
That did not fucking work.
So I poured oil in that hole because what do you fucking mean the hand is not attaching are you fucking kidding me I refuse to let the last 40 minutes of my life and Riku's pain go in vain. Don't give up, Riku, we can DO this!
Anya lent him Chimera in the meantime. He'll be okay.
And then! It finally went in!
After a lot of struggle!
And I mean a lot.
But whatever, yay we fina-fucking-lly did it! Riku can hold Braveheart now and his hand won't stay in an upright position because of the piece that broke off, but! Yay! Now we can move on to the others! Smooth sailing! I pulled out Sora's KH 3 Ver I figurine.
Yeah.
You see, there's this thing with figurines where you have to gamble on, Do I need to use a bit more force, or just accept that it's a bad fit? I usually lose this gamble, but whatever, it's fine, I can just glue the part that snapped off. Or give it to Phoebus.
You better not lose it, Phoebus.
Anyhow, I did have some struggle switching Sora's hands, but thankfully nowhere near as much as I did with Riku's. I attached him to his stand and found it funny how much he reminds me of Teen!Gojo here.
Fly high my queens...
I noticed the stand was really stiff, but the screws indicated that it should bend like everyone else's, so I figured with some persuasion I could get it to bend. After all, it might just be stiff because of its time sitting in the box, y'know?
That very much was not the case.
Whatever, it gave me the chance to use this star bracelet with a key I had laying around to tie the stand back together, so it all worked out in the end.
¡Guao!
I didn't have any issues (thank fucking god) with the other KH figurines, so I'm assuming maybe it was a sculpt issue with the Ver I figurines? Don't get me wrong, I will still love them but, I will be feeling the soreness in my fingers for a minute.
I had this Hello Kitty lip balm shaped like a macaron on hand, and thought it'd make for a good peace offering to Riku.
He was pleased.
Now, everyone's accessories and pieces are within reach, ready for play!
