UBIK & VOID

 This month Kentaro Miura passed away, one of the artists i most admire and whos work has been extremelly relevant and important for for 23 years probablly. He leave taking with him the voices of the world he created but he also leave behind much more; a piece of art that meant his entire life and was born on him since his childhood.

Oviosully, Berserk has been my favorite serires to collect aside of Devilman, Metal Gear and Resident Evil and i can say the most expensive pieces i have on my collection belong to Berserk and one of those pieces is this one; the most crazy expensive Figma i ever got and i am sure i will never buy one of this again: the double feature pack of Figma Void and FigFIX Ubik.

Ubik is tiny, deffinetly the smallest Figma (eerrr....FigFIX?) i ever seen since he is the same height as Conrad but his body is much more compact. The sculpt is beautifull and sharp, with ever crevice and...."structure" perfectly deffined in this small scale. Tough his body is pretty difficult to descrive, looks like an insect or some kind of crab with fins of a fish.

Hes body is really shiny and black but not the same black as the other God Hand members: while Femto´s body is dark purple, Slan´s wings are dark violet and Conrad´s shell is just black, this guy have pretty soft grey and blue tones. Its imposible to notice it until you see around him the rest of his comrades, but his body is a different kind of black, wich speaks very nicelly of Good Smile Company attention to detail. 

Tough the most colorfull parts are his hands and face, both painted in a cadaveric blue/grey. His head is actually quiet big, specially compared to the human characters, Ubik head is 2 or 3 times bigger than an average human head. Both the sculpt and paint are pretty nice, specially on his twisted and repulsive face expression. One thing that pick my attention is how his teeth are not sculpted but only painted, i wonder why.

He cant stand at all of course but have a hole on his tomach and a traditional and awesome Figma base with an articulated arm soo he can hover to different heigth and keep his balance pretty good. Impresive.

As a FigFIX he is not articulated at all, is just a small statue tough he comes with a second pair of open arms. The arm change from the shoulder works pretty good and is really easy to do and helps him to have a little bit of display options.

The second figure of the pack is the main dish and the reason why this damn thing came in such a HUGE box; the God Hand leader Void. While Ubik is the smallest character, Void is by far the tallest Figma to be released since he is haf a body bigger than the rest. He can stand on his own perfectly oo no base needed and have only a single articulation on his neck that gives to his head pretty good movility.

The sculpt is very exquisite, specially on his shoulders. The Giger-esque design os magnifiscent from the "fingers" that comes our from his neck to the neck piece that crown him, looks very organic like a bat and yet it looks like a mechanical exoeskeleton, like a Xenomorph and just like the rest of the God Hand member, he is not just black but a mix of purple and blue and with the ligth you can see some feckles as well, almost like in the wings of an insect. Is pretty amazing how simple looks this characters and yet how much is going on in them.

There is some golden details on the "fingers" of his cape (since its not a cape but wings) but most of the color is of course on his head. The sculpt with the big brain and skeleton like epxression is as good as the paint, brown with orange on his brain and pink on his gums with some dark wash here and there to highlight details and made him look like a pencil drawing. 

Tough i have to say, he is missing the hooks that pulls his lips and the sew on his eyes, maybe they could not pull that off because of the small scale? Or maybe it was way too gruesome for Good Smile Company? I mean, they cesnored Slan as well....mmmmm.

Despite this very difficult to notice omision on the design, he is pretty amazing looking, elegant and menacing like a tower and incredibbly detailed. Even his not completelly static since his wings are not like a cilinder, the front side of his cape is moving forward and the back side have some wrinkles, he is not standing, he is actually moving forward and hiw cape/wings amove with that motion.

Also he is completelly hollow, like a ghost, wich suits him pretty well but the reason is his accesorys, and this is were things got pretty wild and serious: he have an entire extra body fully articulated because, well, hes a Figma, not a FigFIX like Ubik.

First remove the central piece with the two circular structures that are on his chest as well as the shoulder pad pieces and the stricture on the back and his entire head and shoulders can be removed from his body. Wath lies under his head is...well....nothing, just a pair of giant glands like testicles and a bony structure similar to a hip along side 4 different ball joint articulations on each side.

Next step: add his extra wings. Two extra wings witha rounded shape should be placed on the bony structure under his body with pegs, then two HUGE wings are added at every side of his shoudlers using the free ball joints. This hige side wings cover his entire back as well as his sides and have an articulation on the middle.

Next step: add the big wings that represents his back and centrail structure, one of them with the big circular chest piece. All this six wing thingys have the exact same color and look than the "stading" body tough they are made with soft plastic and an structure of wire under it, soo they are totally bendy and can be moved and posed wround like if the wings are moving by the wind.

Next step: the base. Void have a HUGE circular base with a mountain of red faces from the cilpse on it as well as a bony column. Insert the column on the base and Void on top of the column with  ahuge hole under his tiny body, and thats it, he stays hovering, levitating on top of the face mountain. The column is pretty gruesome and ncielly painted and sculpted and the base have a good sculpt tough the paint is a little simple, just red with some black washes.

Thanks to the base and the column, Void grows on size dramatically and he towers over all other Figmas in an imposing way (over over his God Hand minions). The base is sturdy as well as the column that holds him.

Speaking of accesoryes, is not over yet: he comes with a pair of long, loong, loooong and thin arms that can be conected with pegs over the testicles like organs under his neck. His hands are enormous, and heach hand have six fingers, six fingers that looks more like spider legs thanks to theyr spiky nature. They have a soft brown color and have really good articulation that gives them a huge range of motion on the wrist, elbows and shoulders (?).

The big wings are extremelly heavy and the arms are too thin and weak to soport them, soo they also included a couple of articulated transluscent arms that cna be conected to the face hill base. This arms have a rign that fits around Void wrists like handcuffs and can be adjusted with the two articulatiosn they have soo Void hands can be upward and resist the weigth of the wings/cape. Good Smile Company did an spectacular job in here.

There is no over, since Void have also 3 extra pair of hands: one closed fist, one flexed like if calling someone and a final set with a finger pointing (at his victims thats it), all hands can be removed pretty easy and adds a lot of persinality with this character that have mostly one face expression.

Finally, he have the mark of the sacrifice, a transluscent plastic  sacrifice brand that can be put on the pal of his hand (any of his open hand) with a peg and a hole, to recreate the moment he brand the Band of the Hawks.

This is the biggest Figma to date, not only on size but also in accesoryes department since hes loaded with a toally independent body, is like two figures in one. I have yet to know if there is a Figma as stuning as this one tugh he is certainlly not perfect at all.

Aside of the missing hooks and sew on his face, build his articulated body is hellish.....pretty complicated specially considering the weird chape of his head and shoulders, is very hard to hold him and conect the pegs strong enough and not broke him, he is really delicate. Also the wing pieces that form his body are too heavy and tends to fall apart pretty easy. I am afraid i end broking some of the pegs that conect everything and i can just hope Good Smile Company materials are good enough to resist.

This is one hell of an ambitious figure....is beautifull to look at but really stressing to move around; a puzzle of moving places and pieces that levitates thanks to small pegs and ball joints. I wonder if it would have been better to make his body of fabric with wire underneat....tough that would have add extra layers of complexity as well: wath fabric can match the texture and color of plastic?

The "wath if" does not exist and this figure is wath it is: a delicate puzzle, a pretty fun and awe inspiring puzzle. Miura was a genious character designer for sure sinc ehe created such imposible creatures in a pretty deffined and solid build. Now i wonder: is this the official body of Void? He is actually a head with a weird nervoius system underneat and long arms and nothing more? Or Miura had something else in mind to wath lies under Void wings? Now that he dies we will never know.

This figure was pretty expensive for me, i didnt expect spent this much money on something like this tough it is a pretty nice figure, a pretty amazing design actually and once he is together with the rest of the God Hand, i can say i have no regrets getting him at all.