Shake a hand, shake a hand, it’s Christmas time again and that means it’s time for the Toyhaul! The 2024 Toyhaul site update has new pixel art to celebrate two franchises celebrating their 40th anniversaries and one celebrating its 50th! The first, obvious one was planned, but the other two just happened to work out that way!

Transformers: a new Optimus Prime sprite to celebrate the 40th anniversary. I think I’ve finally got a style together that I like for making Transformers sprites, so keep an eye out for more next year.

Princess of Power: The line gets its own gallery for the 40th anniversary! a new and more powerful She-Ra sprite takes the sword from the sprite I made of her years ago, and she’s joined by friend Frosta!

Microman/Micronauts: Takara’s Microman toyline, known in the United States as Micronauts, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year! Microman M121 Mason (and the 3 other variants of his subset of figures) gets a sprite in the same pose he strikes in his portrait in Takara’s DreamMix TV World Fighters for the PS2, the Hudson/Konami/Takara crossover fighting game that also stars Convoy/Optimus Prime. Believe it or not, I was supposed to have this done for last year’s toy haul but ran out of time, but I did finish (and didn’t post) the Microman mini-logo then. Speaking of which…

Mini-logos: … I added that Takara Microman logo and the Mego Micronauts toy logo
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The new sprites and logos were added to the GFX Generators where you can make fake screenshots like the one at the top of this page. Just warning you ahead of time that Optimus is too tall for the MvC ending screen.

ToyBoss: A batch of new photos were added, including group shots of some 1:12 scale game heroes and villains, TMNT heroes and villains roster pics, Marvel Legends Avengers figures I have now, and a G.I. JOE classified Cobra “blue uniforms” group shot. But my favorite is a comic/toy team-up pre-fight pic that I experimented with earlier this year with plans of a 3rd obvious character joining that fight.


The “Trick or Beat ‘Em Up” project has been heating up with a lot of new info lately, including news that Megan McDuffee will sing for the horror brawler if the Ko-Fi campaign is successful! More info about that here and the game’s Ko-Fi page is here.


Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to those of you who won’t be back until next year. If you’re still sticking around the internet, get ready, because next week is… THE WRAP-UP!

First things first, if you’re reading this on the site’s main menu, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, the layout’s slightly different. I’ve moved the header, added some new header images (with many more to come) and rearranged a few other things, but I’m not done yet. Please expect more main menu mutations in the near future.

Toybox/ToyBoss: “Wait, there’s a toy section on this site?” Yeah, a small toy section was made for the site back when the game-related figures I wanted were in my ramen-life price range. That was an entire era of G.I. JOE figures ago (the Joe vs. Cobra/Spy Troops/Valor vs. Venom style that most of the customs are in). This was originally going to be part of the Karnovember update, but I kept wanting to make sure it debuted with new things, like new pics of the G.I.JOE Radd Spencer and Rolento customs, because I didn’t have a camera when I finished the last details on the figures and kept forgetting to take shots with the new camera. I also added some other quick pics, including a couple of Marvel beat ’em up and side-scroller teams that I’ve completed in Marvel Legends scale. I’ve got ideas for better photo set-ups in the future, so just know that I didn’t revive this part of the site just to let it rot again.

Game Index: added Spider-Man (arcade)


Custom Sprites:
Masters of the Universe: Mer-Man and Catra (Filmation designs)
G.I. JOE: Hawk (versions 1 and 2)
Horror: because it’s Friday the 13th, Jason has an updated version of the Pt. III outfit/Pt. VII Axe kill pose (seen on the NES cart box). The shading is now closer to the version seen in the Horror 3 vs. 3 print. I also condensed the Friday the 13th section so Jason and his mother have sub-galleries with their older sprites.

As usual, all the new custom sprites have been added to the image generators, and the fighter-scale image generator now has the series 5 G.I.JOE card added to the G.I.JOE layout (with an explosion obviously based on the new Hawk sprite’s shape).

Time for toys and time for cheer!


Custom Sprites
G.I. JOE: Stalker, Duke (new pose), Storm Shadow, Zarana
Masters of the Universe: She-Ra, Trap Jaw, Stratos
Toys and Cartoons: Aja and Shana (Jem), Matt Trakker (M.A.S.K.)

All these new sprites have been added to the main graphic generator, along with the new G.I. JOE 128×192 pixel layout used to display some of the new G.I.JOE sprites up there. It replaces the cruddy, shorter version I did a long time ago. I’ll be adding more versions of that card in the near future.

Wherever you and whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a happy one!