**A Cosplayer's Paradise: Favorite Things of 2021**

As a cosplayer, I'm excited to share with you my favorite things from 2021 that have made my life easier and more enjoyable. From mass-market toys to custom-made tools, there are several items on this list that have significantly impacted my cosplay journey.

One of my favorite items is the Black Series Mando Helmet from Hasbro's Star Wars: The Mandalorian line. I'm particularly fond of its finish, which I feel is even better than the original Novus model. This helmet has been weathered to perfection and will be making an appearance with my Mando costume at upcoming events. When it comes to cosplay accessories, there's never been a better time to be a cosplayer, thanks in part to Hasbro's release of mass-market items like this Black Series helmet, which can be picked up for just over $100.

Speaking of mass-market toys, I'm also excited about the Ghostbusters: Afterlife Neutron Wand from Hasbro. As a fan of the original Ghostbusters franchise, I was thrilled to see a prop replica that's incredibly faithful to its on-screen counterpart. The level of detail and fidelity in this toy is impressive, with even minor details like knurled aluminum wheels and dents that mimic those seen on screen. While not perfect, it's clear that Hasbro's design team is comprised of die-hard fans who understand the importance of accuracy.

For me, the Ghostbusters: Afterlife Neutron Wand represents the best of what's happening in the world of toys and prop-making. It shows that companies like Hasbro are capable of creating high-quality, accurate replicas that fans will love. And when it comes to fan-made content, I'm excited to see what enthusiasts are doing with this toy. The Ghostbusters franchise has inspired countless fans to create their own cosplay and prop-making projects, and the Neutron Wand is just one example of how these creations can be used in creative ways.

Of course, no conversation about my favorite things would be complete without mentioning my new milling machine. This is a tool that I've been using for many years, but only recently felt like it was time to upgrade to a new model. After 30 years of experience with milling machines, I knew that it was time to invest in a better one, and I'm thrilled to say that this Sharp milling machine has exceeded my expectations.

The new milling machine has radically improved my machining capabilities and output. It's like working with a whole new toolset – everything feels smoother, more accurate, and just generally easier to use. While it may seem counterintuitive to spend money on a high-end milling machine after using an older model for so long, I can confidently say that this was worth every penny.

In fact, I'm so pleased with my new milling machine that I've already started working on some exciting projects. The production process for one of these machines involved carving a seven-foot-wide hole out of the display area of my workshop – yes, it's as impressive as it sounds! But in all seriousness, this machine has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me and my fellow makers.

When it comes to tools and resources for makers like myself, I always stress the importance of investing in the best tool possible. While there's no denying that cheaper alternatives can be tempting, I firmly believe that spending money on high-quality tools will ultimately save you time and effort in the long run. By buying the most expensive version of a tool or machine that you can afford until you've mastered its use, you'll find that you're able to achieve results much faster and with greater ease.

For me, this philosophy has been reflected in my own experience as a maker. After years of using lower-end milling machines, I finally felt like I'd reached the point where I needed an upgrade. And while it was certainly tempting to buy a cheaper alternative, I knew that investing in a high-quality machine would be worth it in the long run.

Now, with my new Sharp milling machine by my side, I'm excited to see what the future holds for me and my fellow makers. Whether it's creating intricate prototypes or working on large-scale projects, I know that this tool will help me achieve my goals more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

So there you have it – a few of my favorite things from 2021 that have made my life easier and more enjoyable as a cosplayer and maker. From mass-market toys to custom-made tools, these items represent the best of what's happening in our community and I'm excited to see what the future holds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody adam savage here in my cave with a yearly tradition here at tested of giving a compendium of my favorite things for 2021 and ooh i have so many we're going to make this into two different videos but right now i'm going to talk about some physical objects some tools and toys and things that i've intersected with and loved this year i'm going to start off and i don't like doing this with things that are made of unobtanium but this first one is i believe a pretty hefty piece of unobtainium tom sachs and his atelier his studio have designed a magnificent leatherman that i've been wearing for the last couple of weeks all-purpose hand tool um i've been wearing leatherman's since the first uh since the first leatherman charge and that's probably 25 years now and this is the best one i have ever held this is an amazing piece first of all the outside body is fiberglass it's very light it feels great in your hand he's included a pin scissors sorry not scissors a ballpoint pen tweezers tweezers and scissors i was mixing those up in my head um a carbide scribe yeah he's even he's even gone and ground the uh the holes where your thumbs activate the knife blades he's ground them differently so by touch you can tell which one is which uh i put it back in its box with as you can see from the denim burn on this i've been wearing it on my belt now for uh like i said a couple of weeks since i got this uh this is gonna live with me for a very long time and i'm gonna beat the living crap out of it that's how i will show this the respect that is warranted um also i love everything that's white with the nasa warm logo in it i mean this is right up the middle of my wheelhouse uh yes these these were made in a very limited edition of 100 uh i don't know if more are coming out yeah and they are uh like i said unobtainium but i thought you'd like to see this okay from the unobtainium to the very obtainium uh this i just did a video about this on tested this this dumb simple construction has changed my ever-loving life this is a spray paint spray paint can mixer alexa has something to add um this is a spray paint can mixer you put a drill in here and a spray paint can in here it's got a little bit of foam holds onto it and it mixes paint faster and better than anything i have ever done uh it has resuscitated five or six cans of some ancient lacquer thinner lacquer primer that i love that i have not been able to use in a decade uh and while people have complained on amazon uh that these break right here i did find while i was filming the video about this that it broke right there so i've replaced it with a piece of quarter 20 all thread uh again we'll include a link to this video below but i am um i saw these for years before i bought one and i'm astounded by how useful it is i i i am rarely so moved by a 15 or 20 dollar tool but this one is incredible and there are several different versions of this on amazon we'll link to a couple next up future motion just came out with two brand new one wheels and you know i've been riding one wheels now for what feels like 10 years or more i have logged over 4 000 miles on the totality of all my one wheels and after all of these model iterations uh the latest iteration of the pintx and the onewheel gt uh the long range 30 plus mile one wheel i feel like future motion has matured into just an amazing maker of transportation objects this is a substantively different machine than any of its preset predecessors i love how round the wheel is it's very carvy even though my ankles are strong because i ride a onewheel every day the roundness of this wheel made my ankles soar after the first week because i had to impart so much more pressure its range is incredible this is lighter by a few pounds than the uh than the xr and has about the same range which means for the neighborhood riding i do hear around the mission i almost never even have to think about charging this every time i check it's like maybe it's 60 maybe it's 30 but even 30 gives me like four more days of getting coffee and riding around the mission on my errands the pintx is my new favorite one wheel that being said i have not yet ridden the gt and i look forward to some extreme range one wheeling as soon as i obtain one next up on my favorite things is some why does this thing keep i'm gonna have to fix that next up on my favorite things is a couple of toys uh both by hasbro uh their black series helmets that they make from different franchises are just getting better and better and more and more accurate to the filming originals which makes me very happy i used to be unhappy about how inaccurate a lot of the mass market iterations of props and costumes from movies were but over the last decade one of the things that cosplay has wrought in the world is a desi an understanding from companies like hasbro and xcoser and uh uh uh what do you call it um rubies etc that accuracy matters uh and that they can make some shortcuts as long as they get a lot of stuff right this is a black series mando helmet that i'm going to be wearing with my mando costume because i like it i like its finish even better than the inovos which is saying a lot because the novus is a lovely piece this is a black series helmet mandalorian that uh i weathered uh we'll include a link to the video of the weathering below um it has never been a better time to be a cosplayer when you can pick up something like this mass market for just over a hundred bucks uh there was no part of the cosplay fandom in which that would have been a regular occurrence before this like a casting from somebody's collection at least a couple hundred bucks if it's a penny uh like i said it's never been a better time for cosplay hasbro's uh has labs have released the ghostbusters afterlife neutron wand and we just covered uh the next release in the ghostbusters uh oov will be a one-to-one proton pack we'll include a link to the video in the comments below i can't believe how much fidelity there is in this object to its original don't get me wrong like any mass-market toy that's been injection molded there are some shortcuts but there are also some details here that they didn't have to make as good as they did for instance the top of the clippard valve and these knurled aluminum wheels they're aluminum they're actually made of metal this one is a volume dial i didn't even know that until i was farting around with it uh they've even gone so far as in the injection molding tooling to include dents and dings that are on the original screen screen used hero i said when i viewed this that i could tell from its overall construction that the team that put it together was a team of super nerds and i'm so happy they exist well those super nerds came here and reader it is absolutely true superheroes abound over at hasbro uh in their haz labs and i'm very very happy about it all right let's go bust some ghosts oh yeah okay um off off off there we go lastly uh my favorite thing is too big for me to show it on this workbench and so i'm going to walk over to it this is one of my favorite things of 2021 is my new milling machine we talk a lot here on tested and i converse a lot with tested members and fans about the acquisition of tools for makers and the usual set of questions is from beginning makers what tools should i invest my money in what should i how do i know when to spend money on a tool and when to buy the cheap version and i'm a big proponent buying the cheapest version that you can currently afford until you know both how to use that tool and how useful it will be to you in your shop process and that once you know those things go buy it go and buy the most expensive version you can obtain i have been using a milling machine since the early 90s and only now after close to 30 years of using one did i feel like i had achieved enough i'm not going to say skill i'm going to say ambition in using the mill to warrant purchasing a new one off the lot i bought this from sharp in la uh they sent it up here about two and a half months later we had to carve a seven foot wide hole out of the display area of my cave it was an entire production it took two days to get this in here uh but in here it is and it has so radically improved my machining my output uh it is so nice to you every other mill i have ever used is at least as old as i am so this one is literally 50 years younger than every other mill i have operated and i can feel it uh in the smoothness of how the ways work and accuracy of the dro and the lack of slop in all of its pieces it is a beautiful machine and i'm proud to be its steward currently while i execute a bunch of projects on it and at some point this will long outlive me and go to some other shop but for right now this is maybe my favorite object of 2021. there you have it these are some of my favorite physical objects i would love to know what are some of yours in the comments let me know your favorite tools toys and pieces of shop infrastructure that have shifted your clarity this year uh and also stay tuned in this space i'm making another video about the media i have consumed this year the books the podcasts the tv shows the movies the newsletters everything thank you guys for joining me for this favorite things i hope your 2021 was excellent and i hope your 2022 is even better see you next timehey everybody adam savage here in my cave with a yearly tradition here at tested of giving a compendium of my favorite things for 2021 and ooh i have so many we're going to make this into two different videos but right now i'm going to talk about some physical objects some tools and toys and things that i've intersected with and loved this year i'm going to start off and i don't like doing this with things that are made of unobtanium but this first one is i believe a pretty hefty piece of unobtainium tom sachs and his atelier his studio have designed a magnificent leatherman that i've been wearing for the last couple of weeks all-purpose hand tool um i've been wearing leatherman's since the first uh since the first leatherman charge and that's probably 25 years now and this is the best one i have ever held this is an amazing piece first of all the outside body is fiberglass it's very light it feels great in your hand he's included a pin scissors sorry not scissors a ballpoint pen tweezers tweezers and scissors i was mixing those up in my head um a carbide scribe yeah he's even he's even gone and ground the uh the holes where your thumbs activate the knife blades he's ground them differently so by touch you can tell which one is which uh i put it back in its box with as you can see from the denim burn on this i've been wearing it on my belt now for uh like i said a couple of weeks since i got this uh this is gonna live with me for a very long time and i'm gonna beat the living crap out of it that's how i will show this the respect that is warranted um also i love everything that's white with the nasa warm logo in it i mean this is right up the middle of my wheelhouse uh yes these these were made in a very limited edition of 100 uh i don't know if more are coming out yeah and they are uh like i said unobtainium but i thought you'd like to see this okay from the unobtainium to the very obtainium uh this i just did a video about this on tested this this dumb simple construction has changed my ever-loving life this is a spray paint spray paint can mixer alexa has something to add um this is a spray paint can mixer you put a drill in here and a spray paint can in here it's got a little bit of foam holds onto it and it mixes paint faster and better than anything i have ever done uh it has resuscitated five or six cans of some ancient lacquer thinner lacquer primer that i love that i have not been able to use in a decade uh and while people have complained on amazon uh that these break right here i did find while i was filming the video about this that it broke right there so i've replaced it with a piece of quarter 20 all thread uh again we'll include a link to this video below but i am um i saw these for years before i bought one and i'm astounded by how useful it is i i i am rarely so moved by a 15 or 20 dollar tool but this one is incredible and there are several different versions of this on amazon we'll link to a couple next up future motion just came out with two brand new one wheels and you know i've been riding one wheels now for what feels like 10 years or more i have logged over 4 000 miles on the totality of all my one wheels and after all of these model iterations uh the latest iteration of the pintx and the onewheel gt uh the long range 30 plus mile one wheel i feel like future motion has matured into just an amazing maker of transportation objects this is a substantively different machine than any of its preset predecessors i love how round the wheel is it's very carvy even though my ankles are strong because i ride a onewheel every day the roundness of this wheel made my ankles soar after the first week because i had to impart so much more pressure its range is incredible this is lighter by a few pounds than the uh than the xr and has about the same range which means for the neighborhood riding i do hear around the mission i almost never even have to think about charging this every time i check it's like maybe it's 60 maybe it's 30 but even 30 gives me like four more days of getting coffee and riding around the mission on my errands the pintx is my new favorite one wheel that being said i have not yet ridden the gt and i look forward to some extreme range one wheeling as soon as i obtain one next up on my favorite things is some why does this thing keep i'm gonna have to fix that next up on my favorite things is a couple of toys uh both by hasbro uh their black series helmets that they make from different franchises are just getting better and better and more and more accurate to the filming originals which makes me very happy i used to be unhappy about how inaccurate a lot of the mass market iterations of props and costumes from movies were but over the last decade one of the things that cosplay has wrought in the world is a desi an understanding from companies like hasbro and xcoser and uh uh uh what do you call it um rubies etc that accuracy matters uh and that they can make some shortcuts as long as they get a lot of stuff right this is a black series mando helmet that i'm going to be wearing with my mando costume because i like it i like its finish even better than the inovos which is saying a lot because the novus is a lovely piece this is a black series helmet mandalorian that uh i weathered uh we'll include a link to the video of the weathering below um it has never been a better time to be a cosplayer when you can pick up something like this mass market for just over a hundred bucks uh there was no part of the cosplay fandom in which that would have been a regular occurrence before this like a casting from somebody's collection at least a couple hundred bucks if it's a penny uh like i said it's never been a better time for cosplay hasbro's uh has labs have released the ghostbusters afterlife neutron wand and we just covered uh the next release in the ghostbusters uh oov will be a one-to-one proton pack we'll include a link to the video in the comments below i can't believe how much fidelity there is in this object to its original don't get me wrong like any mass-market toy that's been injection molded there are some shortcuts but there are also some details here that they didn't have to make as good as they did for instance the top of the clippard valve and these knurled aluminum wheels they're aluminum they're actually made of metal this one is a volume dial i didn't even know that until i was farting around with it uh they've even gone so far as in the injection molding tooling to include dents and dings that are on the original screen screen used hero i said when i viewed this that i could tell from its overall construction that the team that put it together was a team of super nerds and i'm so happy they exist well those super nerds came here and reader it is absolutely true superheroes abound over at hasbro uh in their haz labs and i'm very very happy about it all right let's go bust some ghosts oh yeah okay um off off off there we go lastly uh my favorite thing is too big for me to show it on this workbench and so i'm going to walk over to it this is one of my favorite things of 2021 is my new milling machine we talk a lot here on tested and i converse a lot with tested members and fans about the acquisition of tools for makers and the usual set of questions is from beginning makers what tools should i invest my money in what should i how do i know when to spend money on a tool and when to buy the cheap version and i'm a big proponent buying the cheapest version that you can currently afford until you know both how to use that tool and how useful it will be to you in your shop process and that once you know those things go buy it go and buy the most expensive version you can obtain i have been using a milling machine since the early 90s and only now after close to 30 years of using one did i feel like i had achieved enough i'm not going to say skill i'm going to say ambition in using the mill to warrant purchasing a new one off the lot i bought this from sharp in la uh they sent it up here about two and a half months later we had to carve a seven foot wide hole out of the display area of my cave it was an entire production it took two days to get this in here uh but in here it is and it has so radically improved my machining my output uh it is so nice to you every other mill i have ever used is at least as old as i am so this one is literally 50 years younger than every other mill i have operated and i can feel it uh in the smoothness of how the ways work and accuracy of the dro and the lack of slop in all of its pieces it is a beautiful machine and i'm proud to be its steward currently while i execute a bunch of projects on it and at some point this will long outlive me and go to some other shop but for right now this is maybe my favorite object of 2021. there you have it these are some of my favorite physical objects i would love to know what are some of yours in the comments let me know your favorite tools toys and pieces of shop infrastructure that have shifted your clarity this year uh and also stay tuned in this space i'm making another video about the media i have consumed this year the books the podcasts the tv shows the movies the newsletters everything thank you guys for joining me for this favorite things i hope your 2021 was excellent and i hope your 2022 is even better see you next time\n"