Manchester MCM Comic Con 2018 Haul

Happy Wednesday! As if it's the start of August already! Where has this year gone, seriously!? The end of July means for me that it's a whole year until my local MCM Comic Con rolls around again! That makes me a little sad but at least I get to keep the memories alive for a while longer by sharing all about my day with you guys! I usually go to Comic Con with my best friend, but this year I went along with my mom and she thoroughly enjoyed her first convention! Just a disclaimer, I hope that this post doesn't come across like I'm bragging about what I bought... I save up my money for ages before the event so that I can treat myself, as there's no geeky merch stores anywhere around where I live. Anyhow, I hope you all like haul posts! Expect this to get pretty photo heavy, haha!! I was going to make this post a photo diary too, but I think I'll blog that separately :) Enjoy! 

I've been attending Comic Con for the last four years, and each time I don't really have a specific shopping list in mind. I just enjoy spotting things that take my tasty and buying them. However this time around, I wrote up a little checklist on my phone, and I had several items that I hoped to find. Most of them were Funko Pop! Vinyl; if you've been a regular reader of mine for a while now, you'll know that I collect these awesome figures. At the beginning of last month, after considering it for quite some time, I decided to set up an Instagram account entirely dedicated to my toy collecting hobby. If you're a fellow toy and vinyl figure lover, you can check out my IG here :) 

Finally finding a place were I could nerd out over my figures and share my photography with fellow enthusiasts helped to revive my passion for collecting, not that it was ever really gone, it just took a backburner with all of the stuff I've been dealing with so far this year. When you go through a long period of a particularly bad episode of depression, it can be super tough to get back into things that once brought you so much joy. So thankfully, I know have my toy collecting bug back and have managed to build up my wishlist again in a very short amount of time, since I keep seeing amazing Pop's that I immediately have a mighty need for! So, which figures did I buy?

I bought home five new Pop! Vinyl in total, and I am super happy with my finds! I have been after these characters ever since they were first brought to my attention, and so it is great to have them in my collection at long last! I have been very much wanting to expand the horror characters part of my collection in particular, and so I'm over the moon to now have the iconic Chucky from the Child's Play movie franchise, and also Beverly Marsh from Stephen King's IT (she's one of my favourite characters, and Sophie Lillis portrayed her so well in the 2017 movie). Just look how bright and eye-catching Chucky is!? He's so photogenic! f you know me well, you'll know that I have the hots for Tormund Giantsbane from the TV series, Game of Thrones. Kristofer Hivju is bearded, ginger and looks like he'd give a really good hug, so what's not to love!? *insert x10 heart eyes emojis here*. I really like the character himself, his personality, and he's definitely in my top 5 favourites from the show. 

I like how vibrant Funko have made his hair and beard, and I think the knife he's welding looks cool. It's an aim of mine to get as many of the dinosaur Pop's as possible because I just love dinosaurs! I actually spotted this Jurassic World Indoraptor figure when I was on my way to the train station to go home after the convention. I picked him up at HMV in the Manchester Arndale centre. I have three of the Jurassic Park/World dinosaurs now, yay! The other figure that I bought at Comic Con was this most recent version of Disney's Mulan, which I think is just gorgeous! Her eye makeup really pops (hahaha pops, get it? I think I'm funny :D) and her outfit from the matchmaker scene in the movie is really pretty. I can't stop saying 'FA, MULAN' in the matchmakers voice ever time I look at it though! Which is your favourite Pop! Vinyl that I bought?

Considering I'm basically addicted to Funko products, I couldn't just stop at Pop's! I also bought myself one of the Series 2 Harry Potter Mystery Mini's blind boxes, in fact it was the first thing I bought upon entering the con. It was only £5 at the Forbidden Planet stall, and I didn't even realise that they were the exclusive versions until I had already spent up. I wish I'd bought more now! If you follow me on either of my Instagram accounts, you might have seen my unboxing video for this awesome little guy. I am delighted to have unboxed the Hungarian Horntail dragon from Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire! I'm super impressed by how detailed he is, and I cannot wait to photograph him outside. The Mystery Minis figures are so cool! 

One of the reasons I love Comic Con so much, aside from all of the amazing cosplay and being surrounded by fellow nerds, is the opportunity to discover so many fabulous artists. Each year, my favourites always return and it's nice to be able to support them, but then there's also always new artwork to see, and this time I decided to focus on supporting them that extra bit more than I usually do. I was on the look out for new kawaii illustrations, and especially those who were selling stickers. Some of you will know that I am building up a vinyl sticker collection to cover my laptop with, and so Comic Con was the perfect place to stock up!

I bought the adorable Cardcaptor Sakura sticker you can see above is from a store called Tea No Sugar, and their products were just so so cute!! If you've a fan of all things kawaii like me, go check them out. I picked up both this epic dinosaur skull sticker and the I Heart Brain's zombie sticker from Bluefayt Art, and this artist seriously creates the most stunning fantasy character art!! I will definitely be buying some prints by her in the future! The tiny Bananya stickers were only 50p!? I love how they both have expressions of annoyance, but have different ways of showing it :) The artist who drew these is called Cataclysmic Tilde. 

I was walking past a stall with the loveliest anime-style artwork when I noticed that they had a basket filled with prints that were on offer for only £2 and I thought this was such an awesome deal that I couldn't pass up. It was really quite tough to choose just one print, but I finally settled on this one. I just adore the shocked expression on the girls face, as well as her blue/purple hair and a dress that reminds me of a traditional Bavarian style outfit. The flowers around her are what really made me fall in love with this print, they are just so pretty and bright! How sweet is the little thankyou note with the neko girl on it!? This was such a nice touch :) The artist who created this gorgeous print is called Evangeline Lelland. Another adorable addition to my sticker collection that I got at Manchester MCM was this chubby little shark! Chao Illustrations who designed this chibl sea creature might be my favourite new artist find of the day! Her artwork is just so eye-catching and colourful!! I can't wait to pop this shark onto my laptop :) 

How stunning is this 'Creepy Cute' girl!? It just appeals so much to the gothic side of my personality, plus green and black are my two favourite colours so it's perfect for me!  I also have green eyes and dark hair too :) I love the eyeball bows in the girl's hair as they remind me of the kind of hair accessories I used to wear in my teens! Creepy cute is how I would describe my personality, as someone who loves all things spooky and macabre, as well as everything cute and fluffy and pastel-coloured. And so this sticker just caught my eye and I had to have it! The store was called Illustration by Gaslight (which is a great name!). 

In addition to stickers and prints, I also purchased a couple of badges at Comic Con as well, although I completely forgot to photograph one for this post, oops! This brilliant Red Fox one is just fantastic! Foxes are one of my favourite animals and so I'm always likely to choose them, but this store had an array of other animals so it was hard to buy just one! I'm a geek when it comes to animals, I absolutely love them and so I am so happy to have discovered Lyndsey Green Illustrations who designs the most beautiful nature-themed artwork! I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to wear this badge much though as I don't want to have it fall off my bag or something, it's too pretty to risk it! 

YASSSS NEW BROGAN CORAL PRINTS!! I look forward to visiting Comic Con each year because I know Brogan Coral is going to be there, and she's my favourite artist! If you like what you see, go take a look at my post all about my mermaid prints by Brogan Coral! Before this weekend, I had five of her prints up on my art wall, so it was my aim to get three more to even out the number. However, there was a great deal of 4 prints so I got myself one of the new Spyro designs too! I can't really put into words how much I love these prints, they are so vibrant and unique! I love the fantasy and sci-fi themes, and I just adore the way that the artist designs the hair styles and backgrounds!! How cute is the Spyro print!? I really love that they've include the little dragonfly too. It's also such a nostalgic print for me as Spyro was one of my favourite games when I was a kid. I'm curious, which print would you choose out of the four I got? 

I can't go to a convention and not come back with some Pocky! I always get mine from the Tofu Cute stall for only £1.20 a box! The milk ones and the cookies & cream that you can see above are the best favourites in my opinion, but I decided earlier this year that I really wanted to try something matcha green tea flavoured since it's such a popular Japanese tea and I've never tried anything that tastes like matcha before. I'm curious to see what I think! Do you like matcha? Do you have a favourite flavour of Pocky? Just look how flippin' awesome the illustration on this bookmark is!! I couldn't walk by it and not buy it! I am a lover of dragons, and this one just looks epic. The artwork is by Collette J Ellis, another artist who designs the most gorgeous fantasy creatures. My books are going to be protected from damage by a fantastic fire dragon from now on!  

Next door to where I bought the fabulous dragon bookmark was the stall of another of my favourite illustrators. I picked up a print from them at a previous Comic Con, a fantastic eagle wearing a Ravenclaw scarf, and the bird is just so well detailed! I love it! It makes a change from seeing Ravenclaw artwork and merch with a bird that looks more like a raven than an eagle >.< which just makes me adore this print even more! I have been falling more in love with this artist's work over time because I follow them on Instagram, and this just made me so excited to go get some more of their products at the convention. This time from Sushi Studios, I choose this gorgeous bookmark and two stickers, which are just so beautiful. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I'm gonna have the best decorated laptop of all time :p I need one of Sushi Studios pin badges in my life too! 

Talking about pins, I was really happy when I discovered that Magical Maidens was going to be at my local Comic Con. I am currently collecting her Ditto X Studio Ghibli pins, and so I knew before I got there that I would be picking up some more of these! There was a deal on that meant I got all three of these pins for only £20!! It was such a challenge to choose who to get, but I was driven by girl power vibes, and thus got Kiki, Ponyo & Mononoke. Princess Mononoke is my favourite Ghibli movie so I'm super glad that I now have this pin! I know that I'm linking to a lot of my posts today, but I want to share more products by these wonderful artists with you all so if you like these pins, check out more of them in this post I wrote back in May. Her pins are great quality and so noticeable, I've been complimented on them a few times! 

The final things that I purchased leaving the convention and heading for a very much needed KFC at the Arndale food court was their figural keyring blind bags. I've have been desperate to get my hands on some of these for what feels like forever, and I watched every 'unboxing' video of them on YouTube that I could find. I was super sad when I couldn't get them easily in the UK, and each time I went to Comic Con I found some, but never the Horror Properties versions. I got these at a stall, that I'm gutted I can't remember the name of, for only £5 a bag. I regret not buying more now! Keep scrolling to find out which ones I got inside...

Two Pamela Voorhes (Jason's mom from the Friday 13th movies)! It's so typical that I would get a character that I wasn't hoping for, (I would have loved to get Pennywise, David from The Lost Boys, Freddy or Lydia!) and then get a duplicate of her! I was having a good rummage through the box too, but to be honest when I was picking the second one the stall owner came over to watch me, which always makes me feel super awkward so I didn't have a good root around, and ended up with another Pamela. Even though she's not one of the characters I most wanted, she's grown on me. Her angry expression is cute, and I like the textured detailing on her jumper. Her knife is awesome too, so I'm not too disappointed that I got one of her. To get another on the other hand.. I admit I'm gutted about that, but this is something that happens a lot when you collect blind box/bag figures. If only else collects these and wants to trade, or just interested in buying this keyring off me, let me know :) 

So that's my entire haul from Manchester MCM Comic Con 2018! I got such brilliant nerdy goodies, and had a wonderful day out. It felt weird not cosplaying, but I still had lots of fun noseying around the stalls and checking out everyone else's cosplay! As usual, there were some absolutely amazing cosplays, and I'm happy that my mom finally got to see them in person instead of just on all of the YouTube videos I show her. I'm surprised I managed to leave without a new plushie, haha... It's a miracle! I hope you all enjoyed checking out what I bought; I know that I love a good haul post myself :) 

Thankyou for reading! 

I hope this month is filled with awesomeness for you!

♥ 

Have you ever been to a convention before? 

Or any  other kind of hobbyist event?