CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

Having get both the Mummy and the Wolfman, i had no choice but also get my favorite of them all!! The “Gillman” from the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Out of the tree, he was the most expensive… but if i didnt get him it would be much more difficult to find him later. Somehow he is always the more expensive and rare to find in any collection….

The man responsible from the sculpt of this guy, as well as the other monsters from Sideshows, did a great job capturing each detail as well as the perfect balance and size of the Gillman strange anatomy. While the Diamond Select have some issues and dosnt looks 100% similar to the character (specially the first version) this one is really faitfull to the 1954 costume used on the movie.

This is from the second series of figures, soo both the paint and articulations has been enhanced. The articulations are not as fragile as with the Wolfman but they are still really useless. Only to justify the “action figure” classification, but they are nicelly hidden with the little scales soo the only noticeable articulation is the one on his abs.

He is not just plain green, he have many tones of greens inbetween each one of his scales and they finally managed to do softer transition between colors. Theres golden tones on his fins and feet and orange and yellow shades on his chest and forehead. This is one of the most colorfull figures of the character, yet eveything looks organic and natural.

And like the Wolfman, he comes with the tool of his own destruction: the spear gun used to kill him on the movie. Its actually really big and have a strong retro-50s-ish design tough they also paint rust on it to make it much more realistic. His other accesory is a net to catch him. Tough is a pretty small net, its made with fabric material to make it realistic.

He can stand on his own but also comes with his decorative base. Island style, with some vegetation and sand athmosphere and with a transluscent plastic that looks like water, this is probablly the best of the bases thanks to this small detail. A watery base… i bet it was really cool looking back in the 90s. The box on the front reads “CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGGON. THE CREATURE. 1954″ and is interesting how it dosnt have the name of the actor under the scales…

This is probablly because Sideshows didnt wanted to give importance to one over another (the creature had two different men under his skin).

I am not sure if this is the best action figure of the character, since the second version of Diamond Select is really fantastic, but is deffinetly the most acurate to the original design. Now i am hunting down  the Phantom of the Opera and Dracula (and the Frankesntein Monster too).