If you don’t mind me asking – how old are you, exactly?
I’m turning 40 in October – why do you ask?
And you are still playing with dolls?!?
Well, yeah. Guess I have kept my inner child, and I love it. I don’t intend
to grow up anytime soon, I have way too much fun. And it is action figures,
please. There’s a difference. I think my figures might feel offended if you
called them dolls!
Tell me more about it. What is so fascinating about them?
They look like the actors! The faces and the clothes are done very well.
Well, except that one Captain Jack Harkness figure who comes a bit cross-eyed.
And not only mine, everyone was complaining about this. Makes him look a bit daft
;) Setting up scenes with the figures is in a way like fanfiction with
pictures. You can make them do pretty much everything you want. Sorry shippers
and slashers, taking their clothes off might be a bit difficult, if not
impossible, but everything else is fair game. They never complain, they never
get tired. They tend to fall over from time to time, which is especially bad if
you had put a tea tray into Ianto’s hands and have to pick up the pieces every
time...
I also had a few losses already, one Jack O’Neill broke his wrist, and one
Jack Harkness has a broken nose from falling down onto the pavement when we
were shooting out on location.
What do you mean – one? How many of them do you have?
Here is where it gets interesting. Once the figure bug has bitten you,
there is no turning back. They seem to multiply, I should check whether it is
an alien virus or something...
For example, Jack Harkness. It started with Doctor Who Jack, in the Air Force uniform he wore in the episode “The
Empty Child”, and naturally he brings the empty child in the gas mask with him.
John Barrowman said in an interview recently that he had to approve the figure
and made them actually use his face instead of just a generic one. I’m glad he
did – who would’ve wanted to buy a Jack Harkness that did not look like John
Barrowman?
You can get the Torchwood Jack
with the light blue shirt and rolled up sleeves (and crossed eyes – ah, never
mind). You can get the same figure in the dark blue shirt as a special limited
one which therefore is a bit more expensive.
You can also get the Doctor Who
Jack with his long grey coat. There are two variants, one comes with the hand
of the Doctor in the jar, the other one with the Webley. Of course you
understand that I had to buy both, right?
Finally, there is a very rare Jack which comes from a set with other
figures, this one is in the dark blue shirt (no coat), but not with rolled up
sleeves – instead they are long sleeves and even have the little planes as cuff
links. I love and use this one the most, as he has a cut at the upper arm which
means he can turn his arms inwards, whereas the Torchwood Jacks can only put them straight forward. Imagine
Zombies.
Shall I go on?
Same for the Tenth Doctor figure – he comes in blue and brown suit, with or
without glasses, with or without the coat and in combinations of suit with coat
and glasses, and also in the red and in the orange space suit, and the orange
space suit comes in either clean or dirty... needless to say, I have them all.
You still haven’t said how many exactly you have.
Well, if you insist... At the moment, I have 8 Torchwood figures and 47 Doctor
Who figures. I might have to stop collecting now though, as they changed
the size for upcoming figures from 5” to 3.5”.
That’s not too much, then?
Do I hear some irony there?
Well, I also have 21 Stargate SG-1
figures and 10 from Stargate: Atlantis,
and then there is also Superman & Batman, the Terminator & Indiana
Jones, Mulder & Scully, Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the sheep & friends,
Shakespeare & van Gogh, and some figures from Primeval, even though I never watched this.
Wait – Shakespeare and van Gogh? Didn’t the Doctor once meet them in an
episode? You could try to make a scene from that, maybe when van Gogh signed
his Sunflower painting for Amy – you do have an Amy, right?
Hah! I knew it! See? You already are thinking like a real action figure
theatre maker. There might be hope for you yet.
And why do you think I bought them in the first place?
Ahem. Never mind. But you must be crazy, buying figures of a series you
never watched!
Maybe – but have you seen the cool technical equipment and computer stuff
they come with? My Tosh was very happy to use this in her Torchwood Hub!
That looks like
John Barrowman there on one of the computer screens?!?
That is a leftover from last year, when I set up a little story about the Torchwood team celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee.
Watching the TV coverage, Tosh had spotted a man suspiciously looking like Jack
Harkness on the first boat from the pageant on the river Thames.
Now I understand what you mean with “Action Figure Theatre”. Do you play
alone or with friends?
Both. Sometimes I have an idea and already see the whole scene in my head.
I also have been inspired by other people’s fanfictions or drabbles. Sometimes
I just look through the many miniature things I keep in boxes and drawers. The
idea to do the whole Hamlet theatre
play with Doctor Who and Torchwood figures came from me finding a
little crown. I kept digging and also found a skull, a gun (for shooting
Polonius), a sword, a book, a knife and a camera. My fingers were itching to
start right away. Problem was, that it already was 2 AM at a workday...
So I decided this was something worth doing properly. First I had to make a
Hamlet – by changing a Tenth Doctor figure aka David Tennant. Then I invited a
friend, who brought also some of her figures and accessories, and we cast the
figures for their roles by their hair color or the clothes they wore. Rose was blond,
so she became Gertrude. Mickey was right for playing Horatio, as he had the
same skin color, and I guess I don’t need to tell you who played the soldier in
the long coat!
But the most fun is when I invite several friends and just put the figures
on the table. It’s never long before someone starts to try out what they can
do, and some of the most funny pictures have come from this, I remember
laughing till my belly hurt. Also the spontaneous comments and one thing
leading to the other are sometimes hilarious.
Wait – what do you mean, you made a Hamlet?
It’s called customizing. Thanks to two lovely people – roll my blues in the Stargate
fandom and Snow in the John
Barrowman fandom – I have taken my first steps into what has become my new
obsession. Sometimes I cut things off with a sharp knife – in Hamlet’s case,
I had to get rid of the suit jacket and the shirt collar and the tie. I
carved down the suit sleeves to bare arms and I added some pieces with a clay
called “Milliput” which is used by model builders. It can be easily shaped when
soft and after two – three hours it hardens and then can be cut further or
painted.
For the Hamlet I also had to change the shoes into naked feet, which took
me a while to form.
Another figure I recently finished is Owen Harper from the “Torchwood”
team.
Why didn’t you just buy him?
I would if I
could! Sadly, there never was an official Owen figure. There was supposed to be
one, some lucky people already saw the prototype, but then (Beware! Spoilers!)
he died and they must have figured (hah!) nobody would buy a figure of a dead
character. Whenever I did a picture story with the whole Torchwood team, Owen was missing. I ran out of excuses why he was
the only one remaining in the Hub while everyone else was out having fun, so I
just broke down and made him.
I apologise, I have forgotten who had originally the idea to use a Toby
figure from the episode “The Impossible Planet”. Paint one of the famous Owen
t-shirts onto him and add the white coat from Doctor Constantine in “The Doctor
Dances” and voilá, you have an Owen.
I’m from former Eastern Germany. Back then it was usual to make the things
which you couldn’t buy with your own hands. Many were very talented and crafty.
I guess this has stayed with me a little. One of the first things I ever did
back then were some Wild West figures from a book series by famous German
adventure author Karl May. You could not buy any merchandise for it, so I
created my own, and used the descriptions in the books.
Where do you get all those cute small things I see in your pictures from?
Let me tell you, when you work with miniatures, you start to see the world
with different eyes. You scan everything whether it might be useful or not. Of
course, there are lots of online shops which sell furniture, food or kitchen
items for dollhouses – not for kids to play with but for adults, who decorate
dollhouses. Like these:
There is practically nothing from the real world you can’t buy in
miniature. Most of those items are handmade by very talented people, and
sometimes very expensive. Most are also made for Victorian times and it can be
a bit hard to find modern stuff.
So I also look outside the obvious. Attachments of key rings work very
well, for example. I once bought two lovely bags which my figures use for
travel now. They even have zippers and can be opened and closed. I just removed
the keyrings. I have bought more from this seller since, and have shown her
pictures of what I do with her things. She loves it. The last time she said
that the whole office had wondered what I wanted with this particular item. You
know you are famous when your eBay seller wonders what you do with her stuff!
Sometimes, I also take them outside. If you get the right angle for the camera, it looks as if they are really standing in all those places. I took my Torchwood and Doctor Who figures to Cardiff:
I took my Stargate SG-1 figures to Vancouver where the series was shot:
And the Doctor showed me around London:
A while later, I showed him my home-city Dresden:
(All these are only one or two pictures of complete stories, but I don’t
want to spam you so those should be enough as teasers)
Intriguing. I want
to see more of this. Do you have a website?
Funny you should ask! I have several links for you. Here are some masterlists
which have all the links to the stories:
Torchwood stories: http://dieastra.livejournal.com/23552.html
Doctor Who stories: http://dieastra.livejournal.com/23912.html
John Barrowman stories: http://dieastra.livejournal.com/41353.html
Customized figures: http://dieastra.livejournal.com/40721.html
If Livejournal doesn’t work for some reason, there is also a copy of each list
on Dreamwidth: http://dieastra.dreamwidth.org/
I also have set up a Facebook page for them now, where I will upload all
pictures in time. You can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/AstrasActionfiguresInAction
Finally, you can follow me on Twitter, where I always announce new
additions: https://twitter.com/dieastra
So, are you the
only one in the world doing these kind of pictures?
Oh no! There are many others. Very different styles and scenes, but we all
share the fun. If you are so inclined, here are some more links for you.
A community for lovers of action figure theatre on Livejournal – it is
multifandom and very varied: http://action_tales.livejournal.com/
I also recently found this great page called “Adventures Of The Guys”. The
figures were made to resemble all the different characters the actor Ben
Browder has played in movies and TV series, but the Guys have rejected that
purpose and have taken on lives of their own. The way Beth is setting up the
figures makes them look like real people – small people in a big world and it’s
very funny. Here is a link to all the albums with lots of pictures:
I also have seen pictures of people who built a miniature Torchwood Hub, a
Hobbit hole or the complete apartment of Doctor House. The Torchwood Hub can be
looked at here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowyb52/sets/72157635168972557/ or, if you prefer to leave a comment, here: http://jbsnow.livejournal.com/3105.html
And that would be the link to the House apartment: http://sharp2799.livejournal.com/325651.html
Some of those people have become close friends of mine. So you see, there
really isn’t anything you cannot do.
Do John Barrowman
and David Tennant actually know about these?
Last year I
showed David Tennant the Hamlet figure and gave him an album with the figure
pictures, but sadly there was not much time to talk about it as it was a busy
convention. Next time I’ll see him, I’ll ask how he liked it!
I was also
lucky enough to show some of my work to John Barrowman and anyone who knows him
knows he loves action figures (he also has a big collection). So he was quite
amazed and wanted a copy of the album. His sister Carole even re-tweeted a link
to a picture story where I let my figures read a tiny version of the book
“Hollow Earth” they have written together.
And when she
said she’d loved to have an action figure of herself I thought: ‘Why not?’ And
so I created Carole Barrowman:
The totally
overwhelming finale to this story is that a few weeks later, when John and
Carole were guests at the American TV show “The Morning Blend”, they showed a
picture of it and talked about me for a few seconds. I was totally surprised as
I certainly hadn’t expected that.
This link
leads right to the moment, it’s at 06:55 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMxmjNpTVv4#t=6m55s
And back in
March, when she was over here for the book signing of “Bone Quill”, I took the
opportunity to give her her figure:
Awesome. I think this is a
great way to end the interview. Thank you so much for your time!
No, thank
you. It was a pleasure to talk about my hobby. I invite everyone to try it out
as well, and if you do, please show me your pictures! I always love to see the
work of others.
I follow all your figures posts with total awe. And thanks for the shout out!
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