DEMONA

 I am not really into busts, actually i dont remember owning any aside of some Devilman gashappon but for many this is theyr main collection and the one to blame is Diamond Select. Over the longest time Diamond released resin minibust  of Batman The Animated Series, Marvel, Star Wars and an awfull lot of other series and each collection had a huge amount of characters as well, all of them sharing the same scale and base and this was perfect to build a theme based collection, specially with the high quality of said busts.

Sadly, Diamond Select exist no more but before it was gone they release a set of Gargoyles busts into the wild and a few months ago i got Goliath and i was extremelly happy with him and how he looks along side the Applause, Quantum Mechanix and NECA figures soo of course i had to HAVE Demona deffinetly, its imposible to not get the pair together.

Demona is in the same scale as Goliath soo wath does this means: she is much more smaller since theres even a lot of empty space on her base while Goliath huge body covers the entire base. She is also shorter and also she is much much much lighter as well. Really, is hard to belive the weigth difference bewteen Demona and Goliath!!

She can stand on her own perfectly since the base have soft rubber tiny legs on each point and she have no accesorys or articulations at all tough her wings are detached. Put the wings on her back is easy but this are not magnetic unlike Goliath´s that have a strong magnetical lock on his wongs and hair. I guess this is because the wings are not as heavy as Goliath´s but this also means they ccan fall if you put her back down. Then again, no problem with that if she is being displayed but move her around demands to be a little bit carefull with the wings.

Designed by Barry Bradfield and sculpted by Varner Studios this is one amazing looking statue. While i had some issues with Goliath, like the shape of his head from a side view or the size of his jaw, this Demona is 100% acurate to the on screen character design and unlike the NECA figures this looks 100% like an animation cell. 

The nose size, the cheekbones, the shape of her jaw, everything matches Demona´s design perfectly and the sculpt is clean and defined, specially on her body since her muscular structure is really good looking as well. With her hands around her thin waist and the smile she looks feminine enough to be sexy tough her wings are smaller than expected, they dont have any issue for the base to work.

Demona have my favorite wings from the entire cast of character, with the claws on top and no "fingers" in the membrane yet the membrane is bat wings shaped. The hair is very similar to the NECA´s design and i guess theres no other way to do a 3D render of it with smal spikes on all directions tough i wish her hair piece was longer, i guess this would have created issues for the wings.

The base is the same as Goliath´s, with the brick design and the strange gargoyle face at the front, also this is the only part with a texture while the rest is clean. Painted in grey it contrast nicelly with Demona´s color palette; red, pruple and electric blue. The paint aplication is perfect except in the outer finger of the wings where the purple and blue mix a little bit but is nothing to evident.

The beautifull purple have some dark wash to give shadows to the wings and the blue of Demona´s skin have also soft black brushes to high light her muscular anatomy. The red in her hair looks good and theres a darker section in the middle and around her face that makes it looks acurate to her two color hair deisng. Eyes are big and clean while the link lips and white on her teeth is very delicatelly painted.

Her golden tiara as well as her earrings and the ornament on her arm also have an extra layer of shiny finish soo they looks metalic and stand out to the rest of the body. Everything looks really good and i think thats quiet a feat considering how difficult it seems to paint such clean to the touch material.

Also the bottom of the base points out this is actually a limited edition product of 3000 pieces and this Demona in particular is the 330 one and while not an accesory, they also included an autenticity certificate that points out the same number. Very classy.

I really dont regret getting this, she looks amazing on the shelf and specially, with Goliath close to her. There is just something ornamental on this bust sculpts that feels quiet elegant mixed with the heavy resin material tough it worrys me how delicate they are. 

Theres also a Xanatos and as much as i love sexy Xanatos, i think i wont get him at all. I got the feeling he would mess the display completelly since Goliath and Demona are the perfect pair to be together.

NIGHTMARE BAT

 

Now than ever is pretty odd to find a toy of figure that feels unexpected because most of the industry stick with DC, Marvel, Star Wars and even inside those series they stick to the main characters. Its pretty ODD too that some originality comes from McFarlane Toys since the only thing that has beenproducing in the last 10 years is a countless army of Batman. But somehow in between that army of same-ish theres a few sparks of originality at times.

Last century the Batman Forever had a deleted scene that pick the attention of fans all over the world, the scene had Bruce Wayne in a dream like sequence meeting face to face with a gigantic bat that acted like some kind of inspration for his Batman persona. Part of The Riddler mind games, this scene that included a giant bat animatronic wasnt present on the movie at all but in an attacj of originality, McFarlane Toys decided to includes this "Nightamer Bat" into theyr Batman Forever line.

This is a Build-A-Figure soo it was divided into four parts, each inside the box of each character of the line soo this guy dont have a bx of his own and in order to get it you need to collect all other figures. This was something that happened a lot at the 90s and 2000s but is not veyr common to see it now. 

This guy have the size of a standar McFarlane figures but given his body shape he is more "round" than usual and plus the wings....those HUGE wings make this figure looks colossal!!! And of course, it cant stand on hiw own soo it have a black round base with the DC logo in front and a metalic rod that inserts on it in the bottom and on the top it have a ball joint that goes in a hole on the bat chests.

Is not easy to insert the bat but ince in top of the metal rod the base makes a very good job keeping it o the fly and the ball joint let the figure moves to the front, back and sides in a big range of motion. This bat have ball joints on the shoulders and head an have an artoculated jaw.

The head dosnt move too much thanks to the fur of the neck but the mouth opens nicelly and the wings also have a big range of motion in angle or to the front, back, up or down. The membrane stop the movement but the range of motion is still pretty considerable and while is the shame the membrane dont conect to the body, the movility is really worth the big gap between the wings and body.

Andjust the anlge of each wings, the head and the body and you can have this big boy fliying in a very spectacular way and despite the low number of articulations, the display options is almost endles!!!

The sculpt is really really good! The fur have a very sharp sculpt and follows the body structure and msuculature nicelly in a very realistic way and it also fades with the vreature legs and arms in a natural way and changuing into a skin texture with wrinkles and veins. The membrane of the wings have a lot of veins and have a leather like texture pretty similar to NECA´s Gargoyles figures.

The ears are sharp and very deep and the sculpt of each small fangs looks really good as well as his realistic odd shaped nose soo this is McFarlane Toys at its best. The paint tough, its OK but not outstanding since the body is ony painted in plain brown and dosnt have anything that accentuates anything except in the facem where the brown is softer to give the impression of shorter hair.

The red of the eyes and the inside of the mouth stand out a lot and the yellow of the fangs looks good while the inside of the ears have a pink paint with purple wash to make the shadows of theyr ear shape much more natural. The wings have also a mix of pink and pruple and soft brown that makes the leather texture and veins stand out and while this section is brigther, it matches the color palette of the body perfectly.

Overall, the paint job on the face, legs, wings and ears is fantastic but the brown fur of the body is specially simple and with some shadows and shades this figure would looks trully amazing!!! Tough is not like it dosnt looks amazing already.

Really, i am not very fond on McFarlane Toys anymore but once in a blue moon they release somethign that stands out by quality or just by originality because, this goes beyond of a creature from a deleted Batman scene, this figure can stand proudlly like somethign related to Dracula or pretty much fit into any horror themed collection, or even outside of a collection, this big boy can work as a ornament on pretty much any corner of any room and given the movility he have, he is going to looks fantastic all the time.

GERALT OF RIVIA

 The Saga of Geralt of Rivia, a series of sword and sorcery novels that trully builds on a completelly original vision of the medieval times, pawned a fantastic game long time ago called The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt and sparked a series of comics, board games, merchadise and finally an awfull Netflix series that had buried the brand in the worst way. Sure, a new game is coming but something tells me it wont be able to fill the shoes of The Wicther 3.

The videogame spawned a big collection of Dark Horse statues based on the characters but later on McFarlane Toys got the licence and released a pretty awfull and cheap looking action figures that looked....just.....nothing like a McFarlane Toys figure. Things got even much worse when they started release figures based on the Netflix show, they Henrry Cavill sculpt was a grotesque atrocity that didnt lasted long since the series also saw a huge fall in popularity.

But there was a single item i really like from the McFarlane Toys line, a 12" statue of Geralt that reminds me the old big size Tortured Souls or Spawn figures from the 90s. A piece i surelly could not resist when i saw it. Like i said this statue is huge and have a pretty strong presence in the shelves since each details stand out in all its glory.

It can stand on its own perfectly but just to be extra safe it comes with a huge circular black base with a pin that can be inserted in Geralt feet. The base is black with the logo of the game and nothing more. Its pretty elegant, looks good and do the job perfectly fine tough it takes a little bit of space.

Like i said, this reminds me a lot of the old McFarlane Toys figures feelt and that includes the articulations, soo while this is a statue, it have pretty limited articulation. The shoulders can move up and down a little bit and the left glvoe can rotate soo the position of the sword can be adjusted. The swords on his back can rotate as well and his thigh can rotate a little bit t adjust his feet but not too much. This is way too much for a statue really.

The sculpt is really really good. Entirelly based on the game design and by default, the original novels, this shows Geralt on all his glory. The wrinkles on his forehead, the scars on his ehe and nose, the thin lips, the beard, everything is sculpted in a pretty subtle and realistc way and the beard really surprise me because they usually dont know how to sculpt a beard at all, but here it looks perfect.

The strands of hair are really well defined and his armor not only have the seams sculpted but also cuts and other prints of heavy use as well. The lower half of his shirt have a leather texture and his pants and sleeves looks like soft cotton. The chains mails design looks really good as well and all the belts, the shoulder pads and the hook on the front of his waist are made with soft plastic despite replicating the same textures.

His left hand is actually made of soft plastic, soo the fingers can be open to place any of the two swords on it and this was a huge and very positive surprise for me since most of the time they leave the hands in hard plastic, makinf the sword changue a nightmare, His rigth hand holds four harpy heads tied with a thick rope. This peice is also amde with soft plastic tough the only sections that felt actually soft are the hair. 

The wrinkles, the huge teeth and tongue, the rope moving bwteeen mouths and in between the hair, this section is pretty gruesome and helps for Geralt to stand out more like the monster hunter he is.

Sadly, i have issues with the paint. Each section is cast in the dominant color of the peice soo the brown and blue of his top armor looks pretty clean as well as the different browns on his pants and qhote on his sleeves. The belts around him also looks pretty clean but thats the biggest issue here....theres no shadows, no wash, no signs of wear, everything looks supernatural clean to the point it almost looks cell shading. 

Strangelly, his boots actually have a light brown that works perfectly with the texture used on them and make them looks like rino skin, pretty cool and natural, but pretty much this is the only section were texture and color works together. 

The hair of the harpys are just black but the skin is a mix of dark green with a dark wash that makes them looks rotte, and while the tongues and gums are red, the eyes and teeth are not painted at all. The chainmail metalic paints isnt perfect either and mix with the brown pretty badly in some sections.

Both the hair and beard tough have a soft blue tones that helps aparts the strands of hair and gives the beard a bushy and natural look and Geralt face paint is really good and natural. The lips are wet. the scars and eyebrows are perfectly painted as well as the eyes with the yellow pupils but theres also a weird.....purple tone at the side of his head that looks really awfull. It covers the neck and ears and the sides of the face. From the sides looks terrible, but from the front this weird paint frames the face very nicelly and make his eyes stand out. Really i dont know wath to think about this....

Aside of his base, the only accesory this statue have are his two swords: one for humans and another made of silver for monsters. The sculpt is very simple and while the normal sword have marks is use and identations in the blade, the silver one for monsters have runes and symbols carved on the blade. But then again, one is silver with black, the other one is silver with brown and nothing more, no marks of use, no blood or mud, no nothing.

Both swords can be fit on his free hand pretty easyand the glvoe can be adjusted to have the sword close to Geralt,s body or away from it or also they cna be fit on the sheath on his back and they fit perfectly there and this way the statue take less space on the shelve.

I really like this figure, i love the scale and the sculpt and the addition of the monster heads and two swords but the paint job really fill me with doubts. The face looks terrific, but the rest is just antinatural clean and looks extremelly cartoony and thats a HUGE dissapointment for something with the McFarlane Toys brand on it. Then again, comapred with the smaller scale action figures, this statue is a piece of art!!

MAYOR

 I love The Nightmare Before Christmas. When i was a kid that movie was my main fixation and obsession and not only show me a new way of animation and a new face of Disney (that never saw again) but turned me into a follower of an specific director for the first time; Tim Burton. And while the toys Hasbro did in the 90s were pretty much my favorite ones and i took them with me averywhere, it wasnt until NECA release they action figures series that i found the ultimate version of the characters in plastic form.

But long before NECA and while Hasbro was doing his thing, in Japan there was this company called Jun Planing that released the first figures of the movie in that part of the world. For the longest time i hear theyr figures are the best ones yet based on the work of Tim Burton and i must admit, theyr Corpse Bride figures looks beyond perfection but i was never able to afford theyr products, specially since now they are deffinetly discontinued.

In the end i take a chance and got The Mayor from theyr 1/6 scale figures. Aside of the box being damn pretty, this is in scale with Hot Toys, Sideshow, ThreeZero, Asmus, Mondo and other premium high quality brands and just like them, this Mayor have real fabric clothes. And just for reference, The Mayor is a small guy that reaches the chest of a standar human being or the belly of a Predator but his hat is HUGE and goes beyond the 8´ mark. 

For startetes, he cna stand on his own perfectly and thats a HUGE plsu given how small are his feet and his round shape, this gigure shows an impresive balance and i think this is the very first time i see a figure of The Mayor standing on his own. He is articulated on his neck of course, but also the shoulders, elbows and the left wrists and thats it. Honestly with this character design is pretty difficult to articulate him since any articulation on the legs would destroy his balance soo this is the maximum movement one can get in this guy.

I am not sure how the shoulders are articulated, i think they are ball jointed since they open very nicelly but the jacket make the arms be back at the starting point soo i got the feeling the shoulders articulations are kind of delicate. The elbows have a one direction joint and botht the head a wrists can rotate.

The sculpt is really magnifiscent, the texture on the hat is on point with the one on screen and the shape on the face and huge mouth size and eyes are also perfectly sculpted as well as each one of the big teeth. Really, this character is extra cartoony but not always they manage to sculpt the rigth proportions....just like Diamond Sleect did. The hands are funny looking and the spider bow tie and the ribbon on his chest looks terrific!!

His pants have a pretty good fabric texture as well while the shoes are simple, sculpted, but still just plain black. The pants are grey with light gray lines and both the red onf the ribbon with MAYOR written inside as the spider on his neck are perfectly painted and stand out a lot. The color of his arms is consistent with the color of his happy face and he have red fingernails.

Each teeth have a black line to divide them and the soft punk gums as well as the spiral aya are perfectly painted. The other face with the white skin and blue lips and fangs and bulging eyes is soo good looking i am not sure wich one display.

The jacket tailoring is really high quality, specially on the tiny and perfect buttons in front and the neck build. The fabric is thin and is made with velvet wich makes it feel really elegant but i am afraid it will be a dust magnet. The sleeves are kinda lose but that soo they dosnt limit the arms articulations and the end part of the sleves have a wire to open them or wrap them around his wrists. Its seems the jacket could be removed but the ribbon keept it in place.

He has no accesorys aside of his megaphone. The design and color of the item is very simple but effective and have an extra hand attached to it soo the left hand must be removed to swap it with the megaphone hand. Tough the shoulder articulation is not strong enough to keep the megaphone up and sometimes this item make The Mayor lose his balance.

While the figure is really huge, is completelly hollow soo it makes me anxious to consider how resistant that spheric body and hat coud be is he lose balance tough the fact is soo light deffinetly help the figure.

Overall, i always considered the NECA mayor as the ultimate figure of the character and while that one have a toon of accesorys, this one is much better on every possible level and thats quiet impresive considering this is a 1998 figure. This is the closest i can get to own an actual replica of a puppet from the movie.

This collection is not that big tough, aside of this guy theres Jack, Sally, Ooogie Boogie, Dr Flinckenstein and Lock, Shock and Barrel and while i like Jack and Sally, i seen them hundreds of times already but i am very excited to get Lock, Shock and Barrel.

MUMMY

More horror and monsters for th halloween reviews and more nostalgia from past times!!! This time from the XX century, when Sideshow made its debut in the figure collectors market, they did it with the Universal Monsters and released a chibi line, an action figure line, a 1/6 scale with real rabric line as well as mixed media statues. Those times were pretty amazing to be alive for any Universal Monster fan!!

Sadly i missed many of those and while i am still missing The Creature From the Black Lagoon from the 1/6 line, i am still missing the Frankenstein Monster and the Phantom of the Opera from the action figure line, but here we have The Mummy!! Imhotep!!! Why? Well, years ago i got this figure but with no accesorys and was custom repainted. I liked quiet a lot the new colors the artists gives him but his looked a little bit out of palce with the rest of the line but weeks ago i was able to get the original colored version complete with accesorys.

Soo basically this is a figure i review years ago and i am pretty sure no one will notice soo lets talk about The Mummy!! For a 1998 figure this guy was amde in quiet a tall scale, he is bigger than the NECA version and cant balance himself pretty well but thankfully, Sideshow gives him a pretty elegant base to deal with that.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs and knees. all of this are basic cut articulations soo they can only rotate and theres not much sense on moving his legs since he wouldnt be able to stand. Both the knees and elbows have a very basic hinge but this are very delicate. I seen lots of this figures with the arms broken exactly in the elbows.

Soo this figure is not very articulated and dont have a lot of display options but this was the way of the 90s, something that McFarlane was starting to make popular in that moment but Imhotep is not a pretty dynamic character full of movement either and this was the starting point of the "adult collectible" market soo articulations were used to be seen as something "childish". Tough the articulations are extremelly well hidden and almost invisible thanks to the bandages.

The sculpt is FANTASTIC!!! This is Boris Karloff face perfectly rendered along the Mummy make up, the wrinkled skin covering his face, the mark on the nose, the muddy hair, and under all those elements is pretty easy to see Karloff sad and serious expression. The slim body shape and wrinkled hands looks great as well as the bettle ring and the texture of the bandages looks quiet realistic, old and rotten and they wrap around his body with perfect sense. Even the bandages than hang around flows with the body naturally. Of course this is all thanks to Matt Falls, the sculptor that was in chargue to sculpt all this characters for Sideshow using the actors likenes.

The painting is divisive, but thats expected from a character of a black and white movie. The paint job on the bandages is superv, a bone color with some grey washes aplyed carefully as well as a weet texture make the bandages looks extremelly real and covered in oil. Details like the beetle ring and the eyes looks really good and the paint jov on the aged exposed flesh and face have a very subtle wash to make the wrinkles stand out nicelly, all in a grey......green tone? I am not sure wath color is this soo i am not sure if i like it. It makes the Mummy to look too monochrome but i guess this isnt a colorfull character, but also i feel this color is a little too dark and make difficult to notice the details of the sculpt.

This line came with a pretty mini diorama base with a plate in front with the logo of the movie, the actor of the character and the year if release (1932 for The Mummy), this make this figures looks like museum pieces. For The Mummy the base is basically made of sand with a mix of rocks and a couple of big rocks coming out of the sand with hieroglyps on them. While the rocks with the marks looks really good, the paint job on the sand and the other rocks is pretty bad and cheap looking. The tones dont mix at alll and the rocks looks very plain.

The rest of the accesorys tough are much better looking tough: a rock plate with more hieroglyps, a chest that cotains Toth scrool and the Toth scrool. The sculpt on the plate is really good, with cracks all over it and the marks are pretty clear and easy to see while the paint is a mix of yellow and light browns and gives it the looks and feel of an acient piece of rock the base dosnt have.

The chest is the same, it have two Horus sculpted at front just like in the movie and the golden seal on top. The coloring have the same mix of yellow and light brown that makes it looks mudy, ancient and dirty in a very natural way. Sadly it canot be open.

The scrool is a piece of yelowish paper with the edges cut all rough and more hieroglyps printed on it. We never see the scroll fully open on the front side of the movie but since this is the main object of interest n the movie, its very nice they detailed it this much. the scrool can be rolled up and it also have a golden ring to hold it in plce soo Imhotep can hold him.

Sideshow always add accesorys that are top quality and exact replicas to the items on screen soo they never disapoint in this. The paint of the base is the only dissapointing part and Imhotep face paint could be a little bit ligther but aside of that, this is the perfect representatio of the classic monster.

This line could looks silly now tough, with the limited articulations and sometimes odd paint choices, but from 1998 to 2021, this figures were the best loosking toys based on the Universl Movies and also the only ones using the actors likens. Not even Diamond Select came close to this even with its best peices and i find amazing that this figures were the Rolls-Royce of the horror collectors aroudn the world for more than 20 years.

Even tough i already have this guy in my collection with a totally different color palette, i am very happy to have him on his original form as well as with all his accesorys. Now if only The Phantom and the Frankenstein Creature could apeare like this in front of me....

WOLFMAN

 

And speaking of the now gone Diamons Select, my very thin relationship with the brand was born from the Universal Monsters, just like with Sideshow. They started releasing toys of the Monsters in a moment were the characters had not much popularity. The line had up and downs, like for example, Dracula; they didnt get the rigths of Lugosi familly soo they had to make a completelly generic Dracula and the same happened with the Bride of Frankenstein but they also had some really amazing pieces, like the Mummy that came with his sarcophagus and the Creature of the Black Lagoon that included Kay Lawrence for display.

Pretty soon those figures started to be more and more rare soo i wasnt able to complete the collection but just recently i found the Wolfman lose but complete and in very good condition. This is the black and white version of the figure and is very rare for me to get this version of the Monsters but given how difficult to get is this figure, i cant complain at all.

This Wolfman is in the same scale as most action figures like McFarlane and NECA and fits perfectly with the rest of the Diamons Monsters and, to my very big surprise, this guy can stand on hiw own!!! I mean, the Wolfman is digitigrade and it dosnt matter the scale, this guy always ALWAYS need a base to stand but this one in particular dont need it and thats a very particular achivement from Diamond Sleect.

Back in 2010 the Diamond Select toys didnt had too much articulation at all, just like NECA. Soo this furry guy only have articulation on his head, waist, shoulders, elbows and wrists. The ehad have a ball joint but the up and down movement is minimum and while the shoulders are also ball jointed and have a much better range, the sculp dont let them move totally up. The elbows have a very basic hinge articulation while the wrists and waist only rotate.

Soo from the waist down he is totally static and maybe thats why he can stand on hiw own soo well because this figure feels extremelly sturdy. Wath we got here is the Wolfman in his classic stalking position, with his back crouched to the front and one leg in front. The sculpt on the shirt and legs is really really good, the wrinkles of the pants flows nicelly with his legs movement and the shirt hangs from his torso in a very natural way.

I love the sculpting on his long fingernails and the stance of his hands looks perfect and his feet are super cute, round with pointy tiny claws like a kitty but the hair sculpt looks realistuc enough. The hair sculpt on his head is good but theres something on the shape of his ehad that i really dislike...he dosnt looks too much like Lon Chaney Wolfman soo i think it was a rigths thing, but the shape of the head isnt rigth at all tough i really like his open mouth and little fangs sculpted.

I seen pictures of the color version of this figure and somehow the face sculpt looks much worse on it, in the black and white the different sculpt is somehow hidden and dosnt looks that much different of the on screen Wolfman. I have to say, i am really imprsed with the color of this figure!!! Yes is black and white but it have a HUGE array of greys in here is stuning!!

Is pretty easy to notice the difference of color between the pants ans shirt, the buttons, the furt and the base, every single element have a different grey that stands out on his own and at the same time looks pretty harmonious as a whole. But also the shirt and pants have a darkery grey wash that gives a much better flow to the wrinkles and the fur also have a different dark wash.

The eyes, fangs and claws are completelly white soo they stand out a lot, but overall, this figures looks pretty natural with this black and white palette.

His only accesory is a base soo yes, he stand on his own perfectly but the base helps keep him in perfect blaance and also help make the display looks better and consist ona  rocky surface and nothing more. The sculpt and grey coloring are really good since the greys used on the base are different to those in the Woflamn soo it looks like a realistic rock texture. Also the base includes a small and dry tree that can be attached at front but it falls pretty easy. But again the black used on this thing make it looks like it was burnt.

Overall, i am impressed by how good looking is the black and white paint and make this figure looks not only elegant but very natural and i like how sturdy it is but the lack of articulation dont give him much options for display and the face looks like a generic random wolf than the actual Chaney Wolfman.

Years later Diamond Slelect released a much better version with a bigger diorama stand as well as more articulations and more screen accurate sculpt but that one is very very rare....and i am still looking for it in a descent price. I regret not colecting this series despite i dont like some of this figures and also the very few i have are colored, soo this Wolfman looks out of place......mmmmm.....i guess my hunt for more Diamond Select figures continue.