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Monday, July 20, 2026

Forces of Valor (FOV) / Unimax Deep Dive: Pt 73 Set #93004 v2 (2003) Accessories

A recurring theme throughout this series is "Why?" After buying and viewing so many sets, that has become a question I've asked myself over-&-over and never more so than when looking over this set. To the best of my knowledge, this only came carded, not boxed, and oddly enough I remember buying one of these back when they were still on the shelf at Toys 'R' Us, Target, etc. Of course, the packaging was tossed long ago so now I'm relying on fleaBay photos, but it's apparent the moment you see this that it was a total waste of resources on the part of FOV. Just a bunch of random, cast off pieces tossed onto a card and labeled 'Accessories'. It makes one wonder what adolescents were running the show back in 2003. So why did I buy it? I'm a collector, and this was a part of the series of toys I collected, in spite of it being totally bonkers! Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, this is the only set like this throughout the Forces of Valor line.

Ed

Carded

{Photos culled from fleaBay)



Contents

-Corner ruined wall
-2 tan oil drums
-Base to road sign
-4 figure bases




Saturday, July 18, 2026

MPC Convoy - My 2nd Chat GPT Image

With it being so hot, it's a bit rough going out in The Cave right now so I'm stuck doing whatever I can on the PC. Bored with what I was doing, I decided to break out the Chat GPT again and see what kind of cool stuff I could come up with. I have the free version of Chat GPT which only allows me to do four images a day and I don't know if there's a monthly cap or not, but I managed to get a few cool images done today.

Ed

Going to the folder of my MPC setups, this photo of a convoy of MPC vehicles - taken in 2017 - seemed like a good candidate.



After opening the Chat GPT app, I uploaded the figure and typed in one command:
"add background that looks like the European countryside".
Wait approximately 40seconds.
That's it.

As it was rendering the final product I thought, "Dang, I forgot to tell it to add ground cover, not just the backdrop." I needn't have worried as the program added ground cover, buildings, stone walls, background, etc.

This is what I got!


As a collector, modeler, blogger there are several limitations that present themselves:
-I don't have the money to buy all the really cool diorama supplies and accessories  needed to do something like this
-There's no room in The Cave for a permanent display of this size
-I'm too tired. The energy to do projects of this scope using actual modeling just isn't there. Of late, just getting up in the morning is a major undertaking!

All of this means that AI becomes a tool for enhancing my old photos in a way I would never have thought possible. I get it that AI is the latest bad boy, the latest object of hate in the world (as humans we seem to have an in-bred need to hate something, anything, or anyone) but as long as everyone knows that any images presented were enhanced by AI, there shouldn't be any bitches, gripes, or groans! Right now, I'm a proponent of showing 'before' and 'after' shots so people can see the process and the results, which in-turn becomes a teaching tool for anyone on the fence about using AI. 

Forces of Valor (FOV) / Unimax Deep Dive: Pt 71 Set #83504 (2004)-#93504 (2004) US 82nd Airborne Division (Normandy 1944) Pt 3 Pose 3

Besides the Bazooka Guy (my favorite Little Green Army Man), I also really like Tommy Gun guys. I think the Tommy Gun is cool and invokes so many memories of shows I used to watch as a kid.

Ed

FOV U.S. Infantry Pose 3












Friday, July 17, 2026

BREWERIANA: Wolf-Keramik (Mogendorf, Germany) Handmade, Salt-Glazed Decanter with 4 Shot Glasses

For our latest Breweriana post we have this beautiful decanter and shot glass set. I bought this in the small town of Mogendorf in the Westerwald (State of Rhineland-Pfalz), very near my wife's hometown. Towns like Mogendorf and Ransbach-Baumbach, which are close to my wife's house, have numerous small craftsmen all producing the Westerwald's most famous commodity: blue-gray ceramicware, the blue-gray finish being the result of the salt glazing (Salzglasur). This particular set I guess would still be considered 'blue-gray' even though it has more of a golden hue to it.

Ed