DRACULA

A couple of years ago i visited a toy flea market close to the place i used to live some time ago. I sometimes find small treasures between all the trash they have over there and this year was no dissapointment. One guy had McFarlane Toys. Not those “happy meal” hunks of plastic of the Walking Dead or Halo, but REAL McFarlane pieces from his golden age, from the time his toys were stuff of awe.

I was hit by nostalgia and ended up getting the McFarlane Monsters Icons of Horror pack. It was horribly cheap and it was sealed!!!! It was a day full of joy for me!!

I always wanted to grab this figures 15 years ago but i was sid tracked by one thing and the other and missed this guys (along many other McFarlane toys).

My favorite one was dracula. The design McFarlane did for him was really fearsome and spectacular. He is more monster than anything, with a bat like nose, fangs and the skin of a corpse; dry and rotten, with in-human claws and legs and covered in plagues and evilnes. Bats are hanging from his cape and rats are covering his body, and he is even eating a rat as well!!

It was visceral and brutal and reminds me Lords of Shadows vampires design. I always tough if vampires were real, they would look like this.

Is a little odd to be back at this scale again, he is standar action figure size, pretty small for a Play Arts Kai or a statue but the details are really perfecto. The sculpt is stricking and looks as real as a 1/1 scape vision. You can look at him and find many many small things going on on his body: bandages around his claws, a fresh wound in the center of his chest (a stake maybe?), scars on his back…

Deffinetly my favorite part of this figure is his cape, since it looks pretty “Spawn-ish” and is trasluscent, because it made with his own wings. The look is really gross but once you put him with light behind him he looks amazing and beautifull.

The chains on his body with the bats are a little odd, but they give a lot of impact to his silouethe, it looks like he is coming out from the grave and is still covered on the chains of his pirssion. The one detail i dont get are the hook´s on his arm and chest with the black string…i dont get wath´s that supposed to mean.

His accesoryes are a bunch of rats, all in a different possition, that can be placed on his back, under is cape, climbing over him. The bats and the rat he is eating can be removed as well as his cape.

Not everything is awesome tough, he have articulations on his neck, shoulders and legs, but he looks good only in one position, like a semi-statue. Also, his fet are pretty funky, soo is really difficult to make him stand, the chains make him lose his balance as well as his cape, tough the cape can be used as counter-balance as well.

The other thing i dont like is how his cape dosnt rest entirelly on his shoulders. That can be fixed with glue but not be able to remove his wings/cape would be sad.

The lack of articulations and balance are stigmas McFarlane Toys always suffered and this design over Dracula may be too busy for some folks but aside of personal tastes, this is a fine piece. Not a toy at all, but more like a dynamic sculpture, a pretty dark and gory small sculpture with chains and wings and fangs and i am in love him!!