ABOUT

Oh wow, where do I even begin? For as long as I can remember I have always been a fan of comics, superheroes, and action figures. Early on I remember having all kinds of different action figures like GI Joes, some Batman and DC figures, Transformers, etc., but what really started everything for me was the 90's ToyBiz X-men figures. I remember my Mom returning from a trip and she brought back two X-Men action figures: an Apocalypse for my Brother and Magneto for me. That is what really sparked my interest. From that moment forward, between the comics, cartoon, and figures, I knew I had to have everything X-Men related. I spent the next several years of my childhood collecting all of the X-Men figures, and branched out to the Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Fantastic Four ToyBiz toys as well. My Dad built me several shelves to put on the walls in my bedroom, and I was determined to fill those shelves with every X-Men action figure that was available. 5 inch, 10 inch, figures with crazy gimmicks, it didn't matter, I had to have them all.

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As the years went by, I started to collect more things, and started to focus on Star Wars figures. Around the time I was in high school I was primarily collecting Star Wars figures, and I missed out on the start of the original Marvel Legends line from ToyBiz. By the time I graduated high school, I wasn't really collecting figures any more, and my interests had shifted else where as I went off to college.

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Fast forward about 12 years, and my desire to collect figures again came roaring back. I had recently picked up photography as a hobby, and had purchased a DSLR camera a few years earlier. I enjoyed taking pictures, but didn't really have a niche that I really enjoyed. When I bought my house, I had a spare bedroom that I was converting into an office, and I decided it was going to have a superhero theme. This was around the time that Funko Pops started to really take off, and I thought those would be a great addition to the shelves on my wall. I also purchased some Kotobukiya ArtFX+ statues as well. Those statues are really what got me to where I am today.

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When I started purchasing the Kotobukiya statues, I started to look up reviews on YouTube to see which ones I wanted to buy. This led me to finding ShartimusPrime on Youtube. Watching Shart's reviews, I saw that he kept mentioned something called ACBA (or Articulated Comic Book Art). I was blown away because taking pictures of action figures was something that never occurred to me. I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to collect action figures again, but when I saw his video covering the Marvel Legends on display at the 2017 New York Toy Fair included a Moon Knight figure that was coming out later that year, I was sold since I was reading some Moon Knight comics at the time and thought having a figure would be awesome. Not long after I saw that video, I picked up the Walgreens Exclusive Yellow Suit Daredevil, and that was the figure that brought me back into action figures again. I was stoked that I now had a way to enjoy action figures without them just sitting on a shelf through photography. 

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I started like most action figure photographers and put together a light box to use to start taking photos with. My first few photos were not great by any stretch of the imagination (check out my very first toy photo here), but they definitely got me started on the journey. For a while I was just taking some generic photos, but I started to branch out to find some props, stands, backdrops and other things to start to expand. After about six months or so of taking photos, I joined the ACBA group on Facebook, and that really helped me improve by looking at everybody's shots and behind the scenes photos.  I also took some time and watched through all of Boog_ACBA's main course videos on YouTube, and that was a lot of fun learning ideas and techniques from the man behind ACBA himself. There are a lot of different toy photography communities out there, but in mind ACBA stands above them all. ACBA is all about doing things tangibly. No digital effects or post editing. I really enjoy this because it gives you that extra push to hide a stand, create an explosion, add a cutout for speech, etc.

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As I am writing this information, it has been a little over three years since I have been taking ACBA photos, and I can't remember a hobby in my life that I have enjoyed this much. We are living in the golden age of action figures, and I am truly happy that I found a hobby that enables me to enjoy these action figures to the fullest. I have also been able to interact with and build relationships with others in the community as well. It always is great to find others who enjoy the things you do, and you can help each other grow and bounce ideas around.

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It has been an amazing three years so far of watching myself grow and improve, and I have no desire to stop anytime soon!