The Curious Compendium: A New Adventure! *The chelonian page is now live!*

Thank you Fernando, Kelly, and Christophe! 

Uploaded a few more outdoor shots. A few from my beach trip (less successful outing than I had hoped due to tire trouble on my car) and a few of my new Papo birds.

Nothing new quite yet, but I wanted to update here real quick. I have been able to go through my collection boxes (albeit veeeeery slowly) to double check that everyone traveled and was stored safely. I am about halfway through and so far so good! No one is damaged or lost yet. Once I am finished (the progress is slow but continuous) I will be updating group images for the website. I think I have gotten some very exciting new additions since my last photo session (I think the photos up now are from over a year ago!) so there should be lots of new content for viewing. I won't be able to do the entire website at once, but once a new page is completed with updated photos I will post here.

I'm happy for you, Paige!

I'm glad to hear that no figures were lost or damaged! That is a relief! Can't wait to see your updated photos

That is wonderful news! Glad to hear they're all safe and back with you.

Great to hear that your great collection has travelled safely.

It took a bit over a month but I have finally achieved going throught every box of my figures! I am pleased to report very few injuries. It seems my horse figures were the worst off, but I am hoping that I can remedy their twisted legs (please PM me if you have any tips for different brands or issues in this regard). I have personally handled every single model and nearly everyone escaped serious injury. Phew! 

Since that was done I was hoping to start working on new group photos and updating my website. But it appears my computer had other ideas... I suspect the hard drive died. I am working on getting it diagnosed and will see if repair or replacement will be best. 

I have considered starting to take images anyway and doing one last STS curation but I haven't committed yet. So stay tuned, I hope to have (good) news soon. 

Moving can be quite a hassle, as I discovered when I had to relocate twice within a year not too long ago. However, I've found that hot water can often work wonders for fixing twisted legs, especially in traditional PVC figures. It's important to allow the figure to cool down in the correct position and ideally balanced over its own weight. If the legs are bent inwards, placing something between them can prevent them from bending inwards again. Similarly, if the legs tend to spread apart, using something to prevent them from spreading can be helpful.

I'm glad you have only bent legs isuues, each time I moved I had bad surprises, no matter what precautions were taken

So glad to hear nothing major was sustained in the move! I hope you can sort out the legs, and the computer is very sad news. Best of luck, that's an awful hassle.

Roger wrote:

However, I've found that hot water can often work wonders for fixing twisted legs, especially in traditional PVC figures. It's important to allow the figure to cool down in the correct position and ideally balanced over its own weight. If the legs are bent inwards, placing something between them can prevent them from bending inwards again. Similarly, if the legs tend to spread apart, using something to prevent them from spreading can be helpful.

All of this!

I find coins of various sizes are idea for propping horse legs apart after the hot water treatment, they're easy to wedge in place, won't bend or squash, and you can usually find one of exactly the right size for a standard size CollectA/Safari/Mojo type model. For smaller scales of soft plastic, like Britains, I pick little gravel stones which fit between the feet just right.

In total, a handful of my elephants tusks were bent inwards, my custom fringe eared oryx had an ear fringe break off (100% predicted that though), my Papo longhorn has one horn slightly bent inwards, my Papo megaloceros' antlers got tipped down, a dimetrodon's sail got slightly bent downwards, my Papo Baryonyx's upper jaw got twisted (currently closed the jaw and banded it),and mostly it was just horses who got a whole slew of warped legs. With the horses, it was mostly Mojo's sadly, and a handful of schleich/safari. Surprisingly I don't think any of my CollectA were warped, but I only have a few of those anyway. I am pretty sure all this can be fixed with the hot water/cold shock trick and the help of things like rubber bands and spacers (coins are an especially good idea George! Thank you!!). I am amazed my customs survived so well. Some of the clay reconstructions have very small cracks but that was really it, besides nearly microscopic paint chips. All in all, no one was lost in transit, no one was horribly broken, only a few were disfigured. I am pleased.  Now if only I can get a running laptop that won't cost me 1,000$ to repair/replace. 

I FINALLY have my laptop back! 130$ and like 3 weeks later...   MUCH better than replacing it though.

I plan on trying to do my first website update this weekend, so stand by for the Curious Compendium Renovation and Curation! I think Africa will be the first page to be updated. :)

Hurray that your laptop is back! Can't wait for updates!

Great

First page is back up! Australia. :) This project will take forever while I "remodel" it, but I will share updates here as they happen.

https://thecuriouscompendium.wixsite.com/curiouscompendium/oceanian-collection

The Asian Mammals Assemblage page is now up!
https://thecuriouscompendium.wixsite.com/curiouscompendium/asian-collection

Slowly but surely...

Looks fantastic, the assortment of species of the Asian continent is really amazing.
I love how you do it and please allow me just two minor spelling corrections.
Malayan porcupine and Sunda colugo, have small typos.

Very complete summary of asian mammals .

It looks so good! I can tell this is a ton of work, but everything is looking so smooth and well put together.

*very belated reply*

Thank you everyone! Roger especially, THANK YOU for noticing those spelling errors. Please continue to point out such mistakes so I can correct them!

And thank you Jill! Its not really *hard* if you know your way around a computer. Its mostly just finagling things into place and learning how the hosting site works. It gets frustrating at times when the site doesn't want to cooperate and I have to try to figure out why... but it is very rewarding after all that work is done!

African mammals has joined the Asian and Oceanian mammal pages and is now live! *please pardon minor issues like spacing... its been a long week with personal and work related tasks* **please continue to point out other mistakes as you notice them. It helps a lot!**

https://thecuriouscompendium.wixsite.com/curiouscompendium

First update for the category in my thread here in the collections section will be posted tomorrow morning as early as I can manage.