We remember, one holiday season when we were about 9 years old, we got the awesomest Ninja Turtle action figure from our grandmother. It wasn’t so much awesome because our granmother had finally found an appropriate, non-knitted gift – in truth, the Leonardo with super chopping action figure was our request, made to our father then forwarded onward to our grandmother in a wonderful chain of subtle suggestions.

What made the action-chopping Leo our grandma got us so cool was that nobody else we knew had it. We spent the whole holiday break crushing foot soldiers and defeating the evil Shredder, training Leo for the first-day-of-school-show-off. Then, when we showed up big-grinned and ready to reap the praise of our peers, it turned out that fat, smelly Charles Harris had received an action-chopping Leo too. We were crushed (we may have cried more than once). Ever since then we’ve collected only the most unusual, unique and obscure dolls and action figures, just the kind showcased in a recent Outlaw Design Blog listicle. Here are our 10 favorites and two unwarranted omissions from their 40 Creative Vinyl Toys.

The Army Monkey

The Shotgun-Toting Bull Boy

The Cyborg Gorilla King

The Punk Gorilla Jock

The Demented Rabbit (with a monkey-like taste for bananas)

The Deep-Sea Diving Viking Rabbit Pirate

The Rusty Elephant (with heavy-drinking passenger)

The Melancholic Guardian Sewer Angel

The Speakerbot Tribesman

The Creepy Turtle

Strangely Absent: The Gangsta Clown

Also Strangely Absent: Run-DMC (though their clothes are not vinyl)

Check out the rest of the Outlaw Design Blog listicle here, or go straight to the store and gallery where they found most of their entries, myplasticheart.