Little Smiling Faces- A Playmo Blog

Here's my little Playmo world. I hope it's as magical for you as it is for me.

[littlesmilingfaces]

This is my last Halloweek post. I know tomorrow I should post something, but I'll probably be too busy. 

Here we have some vampires. Ever so lovely. I actually really love these because of just how gaudy they are with their ridiculous hair, ridiculous eyes, red eyebrows, and mismatched purples. I love them.

Then a ghost. Very basic. He has a balland chain.

Last is the Grim Reaper. He has a bizarre mouth, and for some reason his scythe is neon yellow. I do wish he had a hood instead of a weird hat, though.

[littlesmilingfaces]

Middle of the night update!

Giant crab and zombie pirate! Why? Because Playmo, that's why.

Happy Halloweek.

[littlesmilingfaces]

This guy was a hard one to track down. This is meant to be part of a Halloween set, and I do have the kid who goes with him. But the reason I liked him is because he just reminded me of an old sci-fi man in a monster suit.

[littlesmilingfaces]

I realised I missed yesterday, so today we get two! Yay. They're two very different kinds of witches. The first one is obviously Maleficent inspired... but not Maleficent I'm sure because of Disney rights blah blah. I really like her. She's a unique green and has a bizarre face. Her head is two sided, though, the other side being a more traditional Playmo face.

The second witch comes from a Hansel and Gretel set. I love her unique nose glasses. And I think the spiderweb full of pasttires is too weird and funny. PLaymo did a similar witch without the pastries, but I searched specifically for this one because I love the bizarreness of it.

Happy Halloweek. She you tomorrow

[littlesmilingfaces]

Happy Halloweek!

Being the last week of Halloween this year, I thought I'd do a little Playmo advent leading up to the big day. I surprisingly don't have a huge number of spooktacular ghouls and ghosts to haunt you with, but I do have a few. Today's haunt is a bit of a mummy, bit of a skeleton, and their's a candelabra in there. If memory serves correctly, I purchased all three of these pieces individually from a seller on ebay. I rather like them. So there you go.

[littlesmilingfaces]

This is something I need in my life.

This is a legit version of Vermeer's Milkmaid in Playmobil. It's an exclusive set at the Rijks Museum. I can purchase it off their website for about 5 Euros, but it's a shipping that is killer, about 12 Euros, making my total about $21.50 in US dollars. That's not a comitment I want to make just yet. But mark my words, one day she will be mine. Oh yes.

[littlesmilingfaces]

A taste of things to come!

A new toywiz order arrived today.

[littlesmilingfaces]

Let's talk about a serious subject: racism.

So I found out today that Playmobil will no longer be producing Zwarte Piet figures. As you can see from the image above, I have one.

See, I got him because my heritage is partially Dutch, and I knew about him as a kid, and seeing him in something I like made me happy.

I seriously put no thought into it other than that.

See, now I know Zwarte Piet is usually portrayed by a white man in blackface, and I think the blackface practice is wrong, but that the real Zwarte Piet is actually black, and therefore he himself isn't inherantly bad. 

Well, this has caused quite a kerfuffle. See, alot of this is due to my ignorance about the character. Yes, I may have known about him as a kid, but I knew nothing more than him being Sinderklaas's helper. 

I did some research. It turns out that he probably originated from the stories of a black demon who was used by Sinderklaas to scare children. Then he became a black Moorish man who was his servant. And now he's an unintelligent but happy servant. 

Wow, all of this really seems wrong now, doesn't it?

But now here's a second thing that I don't know about. Is it also bad to just delete the character? I understand that in an ideal word, we'd have various people of color who are positive representations, but currently. at least in Zwarte Piet's case, we have the option of a racist caricature or complete erasure of a person of color. 

And I feel awful for this when all I was trying to do was have a little tie to my heritage.

[littlesmilingfaces]

The Three Musketeers and D'artagnan!

I love how this photo came out, because they seem to have a bit of personality.

The Three Musketeers is a book by Alexandre Dumas chroniciling the story of four musketeers for some reason. Dumas couldn't count, I guess. Their names are Athena, Porthole, Aramaic, and D'artagnan, who, as we've lreaned from comics, is an alien because of the apostrophes in his name. They fight crime from their base on the Eiffel Tower. Joined by Joan of Arc, they save impressionist paintings from the evil Marquis de Sade, and they win and become nighted by Marie Antoinette and Napoleon.

I totally read the book.

[littlesmilingfaces]

I just really wanted to show a person of color today. That is all.

[littlesmilingfaces]

I can't really explain it, but I was more excited about this than anything else. Swan boats are one of those things you've seen maybe once or twice in real life, and I would wildly want to ride in one but something just came up, you know. But I also love swans. Both City Park and Audubon Park in New Orleans has swans, and City Park even has a black swan. Actually, now that I think about it, City Park may have a swan boat you can rent out. There's a guy who lets you rent boats, and I believe one is a swan, though it may be a pelican. I don't remember.

What is it about swans that makes them so alluring? Swans are often in mythology and folk stories. 

This set is just so fun. I changed her hair out because I wanted to make a custom figure, but this hair works surprisingly well. And the boat actually floats!

[littlesmilingfaces]

One of the great things is that Playmobil is small. Because of this, I can get things I always wanted, but just in Playmo. Two things I've wanted since I was a kid was a grandfather clock and a great dane. Now granted, Playmo versions aren't as great as those actual items would be, but they're a great placeholder until I'm in a place in my life where I can have such things.

On a side note, the great dane pictured above in name Reykjavik after a great dane who used to live in New Orleans, but he and his family moved to Hawaii. And the woman is Anita named after a friend who often dyes her hair an unnatural shade of red.

[littlesmilingfaces]

When I was a kid, I used to play with my toys by setting them up and looking at them. All the playing went on in my head. While I was setting them up, I'd come up with the adventures, and then I'd look at them to make the story.

I still do this alot today. I set up my Playmobil, and I just enjoy looking at them, but I do sometimes make a story.

The top figure I bought off ebay, and when she arrived, the seller threw in the woman and the pony for free. So I decided they were lovers and couldn't be separated. The top woman is a princess, and when her beloved pony, Pickle, got sick, the lady vet made her all better. They then fell madly in love with eachother.

And I display them next to eachother always.

They also remind me of a real life couple I knew at the time where one girl always wore really feminine clothes and the other wore more masculine clothes, just as these figures are doing.

[littlesmilingfaces]

A few years ago Playmobil started this line called Fi?ures. It features people, and they're meant to be taken apart and pieces swapped with other Fi?ures (which is something adult collectors have been doing for years anyway. ha ha ha). But now, I was much more interested in the figures as they come (as I probably would have been when I was a kid).

This guy was my first Fi?ure. See, they come in mystery packs, so you don't know what you are getting, but this one I was able to tell because of the hat. I was so excited, because in America at least almost nobody sells them, and I happened to see them in Target, not by the toys, mind you, but by the baseball cards are by the registers. Who would look there? 

However, now I buy them off toywiz.com. They're a little pricier, but I know which ones I'm getting, and they are shipped to my house. 

I love the British Royal Guards. They're just so cute and unique looking. There is a single klicky (the Playmo people are called klickies) that was release years ago, but when you find one (on ebay), it's usually really expensive. So I'm really glad they decided to make a new one in the Fi?ures line.

[littlesmilingfaces]

One thing I like about Playmobil is its diversity. While yes it does still have a good majority of white people, it does also have the more than average amount of people of color and people from all over the world.

Above is a picture of two figures, both of which people are likely to call Cleopatra. There are some differences between the two, but the main difference is the skin color. 

I enjoy that she came in two colors. Was Cleopatra dark skinned or light skinned? We don't know for sure. However, I feel she was likely dark skinned.

You have to ignore artistic depictions of Cleopatra. Most of them were done centuries after she died anyway.

Now we know that Cleopatra was of mixed race, and that she was Greek and Egyptian. There are two reason I think she's dark-skinned, though. One, she was the first Greek ruler to claim to be Egyptian. Two, if she were pale, in Egyptians climate, she would constantly be sunburnt.

But of course Playmobil made both colors for you so now you get to choose.

[littlesmilingfaces]

My Playmobil History

I didn't grow up with Playmobil. Actually, I didn't grow up with alot of the toys I have now. But I often found them really cute and lovable. It was my ex boyfriend who convinced me that I am allowed to like what I like, and it doesn't matter what others think. 

I don't remember what my first Playmo was exactly, but these guys up here were a pretty early addition. They remain one of my favorites, because until a coupla years ago when they did a mermaids line, mermaids were pretty uncommon. I loved their design, and they're just so darn cute. I had always thought they were the king and queen of the sea, but it just dawned on me today that they were probably meant to be from The Little Mermaid.

Over the course of this blog, you'll see my Playmo story. I'll share not only photos but little stories here and there. I wish for this place to be a place of magic and fun for all ages. I hope you find it thus.