Tomfoolery After Dark: Black Light Special

Darkness is my friend.  Not like the way darkness is Batman's friend, though.  He treats darkness like a psychiatrist.  He stalks through darkness; darkness shows him who he really is, etc.  Naw, me and darkness are buds who go way back.  Ever since my Grandma bought me Scare Glow and I ran into the closet to see him glow...we've been pals. 

Point is: you can see everything in the light.  In the dark...you see only what you light up. 

Welcome to a little bit of filler!  I wasn't planning on throwing these pics together at all, but I've been doing this for the past few weeks and I figured: what the hell.  Especially since I didn't sit down to get the next post I wanted to do.

The basic gist is this:

That is a little black light.  It came with a hotwheels car that changes color when you run the light over it.  Works best when you put the light right on there and go back and forth to sort of make designs.  The cool part is the light itself: it's surprisingly powerful!  In the past, I had to screw in this black light bulb and try to get some interesting pictures...with little to no success.  Now I can just shine this thing and get the pic with as little or as much black light as I want! 

Of course, my camera isn't great in the dark, for some reason.  My phone seems to do well, though!  Kinda disappointing that my phone can hold a better camera than my...uh...camera...but that's the way it goes. 

Now let me show you where I'm working from:

This is a small corner of the nightstand by the bed - right beside where I sleep.  Rest of it has junk (couple 3DSs and phones charging, tissues, that little flashlight in the bottom right corner, etc.)  Scare Glow has been on the night stand since I got him, and I like to watch 'em glow before I sleep.  It's even better with that little black light, 'cause in case you didn't know: A black light SUPERCHARGES a glow-in-the-dark toy!  Granted, it's strongest a few seconds after you shine it and quickly fades to normal, but it gives you enough time to take a pictures AND....well, I just like looking at it.  You can see some other glowing items there because.  Just because.  The hotwheels car has a clear body and glowing insides, the tiny skeleton is from some Scooby Doo building brick line, there's a Mordle, and finally the most awesome thing in the world: The Pocket Power Skeleton.  I will cover that at some point. 

Otherwise, there's King He-Man because he's AWESOME. 

The spot right in front of these guys is where I've been bringing up a figure every night or so, and shining the black light on them to see if I get any interesting colors.  Sometimes it's cool, other times it's interesting because of the effects!  Below are my findings.

This guy was a no brainer - he's clear green, and that stuff ALWAYS glows under a black light.  It's a Weaponeers of Monkaa figure from Spymonkey Creations.  He looks solid, of course.

...unless you shine the light behind him. 

Sometimes the camera can't seem to focus and we get these blobby monsters in the dark.  This is Clawful, if you couldn't tell.  He actually turned out a lot cooler; I just couldn't get it to show in the picture.

Now the all-white ToD Sorceress: She came out interesting!  I knew white would show up, but the camera was having problems with it, and that landed me some interesting effects.  This one is just a wash of purplish blue.

This one is fuzzy like Clawful....but somehow got this outline of ethereal glow.  I wana stress that this went through no programs or filters!  Just the light shinning and the camera either focusing or not.

That was the final shot that finally focused perfectly; showing the translucence of the wings and the white of the costume.  Also Scare Glow is looking pretty badass back there.

This one is Stonedar, of the Rock Warriors.  I haven't touched on 'em yet, but we'll get there.  He's a light blue that obviously reacts well to the black light.

Next I tried out the new Mini Masters, which are different from the last SDCC miniature He-Man and Skeletors figures...which I also haven't covered yet.  Doesn't matter!  Point is: shiny things look kinda cool in the black light as well, like his armor. 

But the winner here is little baby Mer-Man.  Not only does he look good, but it has an underwater feel to it.

...more so with this picture.  HE IS WATCHING YOU.  It's possible you killed his family, and you're on his revenge list.  Tread lightly.

OH GOD I'M SORRY THIS ONE WINS.  This is DC vs MotU two pack Mer-Man, who sports a very light powder blue skin and HORROR.  Horror face. 

Friendly though.  Just wana...shake his hand.  Get on his good side.  I just wish he didn't watch me sleep.

M...moving on.

This one is the brand-new Modulok!  The best toy ever.  I only used the fuzzy pic 'cause it looked cooler, what with his mysterious shiny metal rod.  Don't get to close to this one.

Finally: two Imaginext figures.  I kinda...went a little nuts with Imaginext, as of late.  They've always been sort of the coolest toys around (simple, tons of themes, inventive, lots of accessories, small enough for big playsets, etc) but I was trying to keep away so I didn't end up with a ton.  I'm doing well do far!  But I do keep buying them.  Anyway, this is Frankenstein's Monster from the most recent series (2) of the blind bagged figures.  His electrodes on top shined up real nice under the light.  The BEST one though...

YEAH-HEAH!  He just...glows!  Like I said: No filters or anything.  Just the light and a press of the camera button.  He normally looks like this:

So as you can see: Light blue is the way to go when you want something glowing under the black light!  It's just perfect. 

That's it!  You might think that my childhood wasn't fraught with night terrors, but you'd be wrong.  It wasn't that I was scared of the dark...it was just a few things combined with the dark: you know, silence and being completely awake.  When I'm tired there's no problem!  I just wasn't much of a tired kid.  I had energy.  ALL THE TIME.  Sleeping wasn't on my list of important things to do.  So I laid there awake and my imagination took full control of the wheel and steered me toward all the things I was afraid of. 

...but.

I had toys.  Glowing toys!  Things to play with in the dark.  Skeletons...?  Well look, I like skeletons, so it makes sense to me.  I was afraid of the unknown, and still am, in certain ways.  Once I knew what the dark and silence was, it didn't bother me!  Plus: the darkness itself is just fantastic.  Glowing figures, lightsabers, flashlights, light-up features...where else can you use those things and get the absolute most bang for your buck?  In the dark!

So remember: you can't see a frown or a smile in the dark, but you can FEEL it on you.  So why not smile?  When the lights go on, at least people know you're having a good time----

I take it back.  I take it all back.