SPLITTING HEADACHE

Madballs were born in 1986 under the logo "Freaky Fun for Everyone!" amd started as a collection of soft foam balls in the shape of grotesque heads tough it later evolved into "Head Poppers" action figures, with full articulated bodys and exchangable heads that could be shot with the press of a button on theyr back. Yes there were dangerous toys and they where pretty disgusting as well, soo they surelly deserv to be back and while the balls had a lot of rebots over the years, for the first time the Head Poppers action figures are having a remake made by Premium DNA.

This remake have only four figures and while Bruise Brother is violent, Oculus Orbus is weird and Horn Head is pretty cute, the last one - Splitting Headache - is deffinetly the most....disturbing in a pretty serious way. He is smaller than your average action figure tough like the rest, he is pretty heavy given his huge head and chibi anatomy and like the rest, he can stand on his own pretty good.

He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles and since all this articulations are ball joints, they have a big rnage of movement only limited by the short size of his apendages and his voluminous body. Actually the box ways he is not modular but MADular as an action feature, instead of shot his heavy head he can be divided into pieces and rebuild in a totally different creature with the pieces of the other figures, tough i cant confirm this since he was pretty pricey and i dont want to risk broke a peg.

This thing wasnt part of the Head Poppers collection, for 35 years we only seen his head as a ball and now we are discovering his body for the first time and is really....something else. A rotting corpse with his flesh melting away and half of his skeletal structure in sight, the kind of toy that would give nightmares to parents but would gatter all the interest of a 80s kid.

The sculpt is oustanding: his skin is saggy and his hands are swallow since he has been dead for quiet some time. Theres tumors popping out in different areas and his face have a pretty....i dont know how to call it, dead expression? I find his fleshy side to be rpetty scary somehow and the other half much more cute looking.

Tough the bony side is really impresive since the bones have a totally different texture, while his skin is smoth like velvet, the bones have pores and the build of the bones is realistic enough. The rib cage area is painted in black to give it the impression of emptynes and theres a lot of....juice in between his boney and fleshy parts.

While the sculpt is terriblly detailed and realistic, the paint is pure 80s fantasy, with his skin being electric blue and his brain and melting away flesh being darker blue and all the blood being in a intense red and the green slime....he is incrediblly colorfull in a very unrealistic way and he actually reminds me a blue velvet cake with blueberry and strawberry jelly.

This thing is really conflictive to me, its soo disguting and alarming yet soo incrediblly pretty and easy to the eyes, a really werid combination that portraits the Madballs character design perfectly (or any other 80s toy design).

He comes with 3 extra set of hands aside of the closed fist, open hands, pointing hands and hands to hold items and each one is pretty easy to use tough they are really swallow and the pink fingernails...

The rest of his accesorys show how playfull and violent is this creature tough. First he comes with a skate in a pretty damaged state. The paint is really good full of dirtynes and worms and while the whells dont move, he can stand on top of it with some patience since Spitting Headache is too big for it.

Next he have a bone with insects, blood and some metaic parts on it. I find it kind of scary to see this guy using that bone as a mace to commit acts of violence tough the sculpt and paint are really good, is pretty difficult to fit this bone on his hands given how swallow they are.

Next up is a crowbar. Yep, like i said this guy looks to be really brutish and theres even rest of one of his victims still lingering on this crowbar: a brain and an eyeball including a lot of blood. I am not sure if this are supposed to be decorations of if they actually came from the head of someone Splitting Headache attacked but that would explaind his name perfectly...

Overall this is deffinetly the shock factor of the entire serires tough the quality is top notch here as well as in the rest of the Madballs, i cant find anything to complaing since every single elements shines and they looks soo pretty and cool in the shelf it makes me want to get all other characters from the line.

Sadlly, Premium DNA lose the trust of many costumers since they didnt send this figures to most people who pre-ordered them years ago and it seems they are repeating that pattern with theyr new Batletoads figures it seems they are building a bad reputation for them and thats a shame gven the quality of this guys. It would be sad if they stoped here but only time will tell of they manage to expand to another four Madballs, i would deffinetly get them for sure.

HORN HEAD

 Gargoyles, Thundecats, Silverhawks, Toxic Crusaders, Alien, He Man...all the 80s-90s characters are suddenly back to the toy shelfs and Madballs are no exception: those little grotesque and wicked foam balls in the shape of heads and, more specifically, theyr "Head Poppers" action figures versions are having a remake thanks to Premium DNA, a pretty new company that dosnt have too good of a reputation for now thanks to most of the pre-orders of this figures being still in limbo...

Aside of Premium DNA actions, when this Madballs action figures were shown they were too good to be real and people was really excited for them and after getting Bruise Brother and Oculus Orbus i can say they are as good as they initially look and they catch perfectly the weirdness of the 1986 original versions.

One of the rarest character was Horn Head, a purple cyclops beast that came exclusivelly with the Madballs vehicle soo we only seen him in the back of the package and thats all, soo Premium DNA chosed him for theyr new remake and he turns out fantatsic.

He is smaller than your average action figure, like a Figma or Figuarts but he is extremelly heavy as well thanks to his huge head and round body, but thans to this and his big feet, he can stand on his own with no problem. He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles with ball joints soo each part can turn around perfectly and fold with no issue.

Of course given the small size of his legs and big body dont expect pretty dynamic posing but he is als modular - or MADullar - soo each piece can be separated and mixed with other characters to create a unique mix-mutation. Pretty creative but i hasnt tried it yet given to my fear to broke the pegs since this guys are pretty expensive.

While Bruise Brother was violent and Oculus Orbus was weird, this guy is the most "normal" monster design, he actually looks like a character from Where the Wild Things Are with a very 80s twist. Actually find him to be the cutest. The sculpt on his hair is pretty sharp and well defined and the skin texture on his hands and head is very realistic. I love his mouth since his big fangsstands out a lot above the black empty of his mouth (there is actually a sculpted tongue behind them tough is not easy to see it!!).

His claws are soo cool in both his hands and feet and the big cuts on his head with sticthes are really gruesome, bout the wirst part is the cut on his stomach since theres blood driping out of it. I really love all the "battle damage" this figures have all over them, is pretty obvious this are violent beasts.

The color is really spectacular, i love purple and i love all the tones they used on him. His fur have darker tones in each identation to give it a pretty natural look but his skin is pretty perfectlly painted as well since it have pretty soft veins and shades to make it looks realistic even with the alien color. And with that brigth yellow eye on the center, with the red pupil and veins perfectly painted.

The blue beard, the blood on the wounds and black nails, the application is perfect and makes me wich they also released Wolf Breath with this same high quality.

Liek the rest, he comes with 3 extra set of hands: open claws, pointing with a finger and items holding hands and my favorites are the open claws deffinetly but all of them works perfecly.

He also have a big and heavy green club that looks like a cactus at times since it have big menacing spikes all around and even a skull pinned on them with blood. While the skull have pretty relistic grey paint around the rest of the item looks soo cartoony.

His ther accesory is a turkey leg with a bite on the side and lots of maggots and spiders crawiling around. This is both cute and sickening and for some reason remidns me Beetlejuice but it suits Horn Head pretty nicelly and the paint and sculpt dont dissapoint.

And finally he have a mace. While the handle is nice looking with bendages and metal parts, the best part is the ball and the chain, the chain is a real chain and the ball is sculpted with a Horn Head face!! The big eye in the middle with the big mouth full of fangs looks really cool with the silver paint and shows an oustanding attention to details!

I really strugle over wich one i like the most, this guy or Oculus Orbus, since both are kind of simple looking they are pretty cool and representative of the Madballs, and besides, while i dont have his Head Popper version i do have him on foam ball version and both looks terrific together.

OCULUS ORBUS

 

Aaahhh...toys from the 80s, soo gory, grotesque, violent and mutated, imposible to forget them and one of theyr stars was the Madballs line in both the shape of soft foam balls and "Head Popping" action figures and one of the most colorfull and representative character was Oculus Orbus, literally a giant eye ball in ball shape that was kinda boring looking, but in Head Popping version he had a body with no skin, only raw muscular tissue and sinew making him one of the goryest and more eye catching characters.

And of course Premium DNA chosed him to be one of the monsters fro theyr Madballs remake action figures since this is one of the most remembered version....like a skined Eeyeball Dad from Gegege No Kitaro. This guy is a head smaller than your random NECA/McFarlane action figures tough, just like Bruise Brother, he is extremelly heavy!!

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, legsn knes and ankles and each serction use a ball joint soo he is only limited by his body shape, he can move around a lot but given how short are his legs dont expect him to do karate poses and he can stand on his own perfectly despite his heavy head and articulations.

Despite not having ad many crazy details as the Bruise Brother, is imposible not to look at him given how gory he is, how red he is...just muscles with a vascular system and some bones popping here and there, you can see his column as well as the bones on his knes and elbows and the sinew on his fingers...

The eye sculpt is soo amazing. He is not just a ball with a painted iris and pupil, both parts are a protunding sculpt and even the little lines on the iris are sculpted as well as each vein around the whole eye ball. Is a pretty interesting sculpt to touch really and difficult to describe in words.

The rest of the body sculpt have the same attatention to detail on the muscular fibers as well as the big beins around his arms and chest tough most of the effect comes with the strong red paint with black in each fiber division and electric blue on the vascular system. The pain is not perfect tough and some of the blue is invading the red but thats to be expected such an intrincate design.

Some of the red paint on the veins is aslo invading the white of the eyeball but the blue paint on the iris as well as the black on the pupil are perfect and catches the ligth pretty good.

Like Bruise Brother, Oculus Orbus comes with open hands, painting hands as well as items holding hands and each can be exchanged pretty easy.

Unlike the rest of the monsters, this one seems more contemplative than violent soo his accesorys represent that very nicelly: he comes with a magnifying glass with pretty cartoony sculpt. The glass is grey and is broken in the middle and have insects as well as slime on the handle, a pretty cute looking instrument with good paint.

He also comes with a golden telescope with green slime coming out from the glass and insects, tough this time instead of a glass theres and eyeball!! I am not sure of this is his eyeball reflecting on the glass or if theres is an actuall...well... eyeball stuck on it but both the csulpt and paint matches the cartoon look perfectly.

Then there is a pait of binoculars with a sculpted cord around, green slime coming out from the sides and again a pair of eyeballs instead of glasses. The paint job and sculpt are soo beautifull, specially on the metalic texture since they look pretty ancient, tough they are too big for him to hold them on his hands (and he cant rise his arms enough to use them anayway).

I forget to mention it with Bruise Brother, but Premium DNA dicched the head popping action fo the original figures and instead made this guys modular, or, as the box says "MADular" soo in theory you can remove each sections of this figures and mix them together to create weird characters.

I hasnt tried it yet, i am actually afraid to broke a peg or something and this figures werent cheapt at all soo i well leave the modular part alone, is not like they need it anyway given how good looking they are.

And while i never got Oculus Orbus as a ball, i do have him as a Head Popper and the difference on size, sculpt and paint is really amazing tough they still looks pretty much the same soo i am very happy Premium DNA has stick to the original designs perfectly soo this guy turns out to be....strangelly cute and adorable while at the same time being pretty monstruos and fun to play with.

BRUISE BROTHER

 

Being a child in the 80s means a lot of toys and most of them were pretty clear with theyr themes: monsters, deformity, mutilation, mutations, skeletons, coprses, zombies, vampires, werewolfs, ghost, slime...from the Ghostbusters to the Ninja Turtles, one of the most represenative toy from back then was the Madballs, soft foam balls shaped as the head of the most sickening and disgusting monstruosistys any child could love.

I had them, they were a lot of fun but just before theyr started to be boring, they released "Head Popping Madballs": the same creatures but with a full body to turn them into fully articulated action figures and making them some of the rares and most dirty and grimiest figures from the 80s, and since we are living rigth now in the 80s part two, Premium DNA Toys just made a remake of those same Madballs action figures from 1986.

I am not sure of this is unexpected or not anymore but the first to arrive is Bruise Brother, a motorcyclist that makes me wonder if he is human or not since he only have 4 fingers and have fangs, tough he is the most "normal" looking of the Madballs. Hi s the size of a Figma or S.H. Figuarts but given his porportions, he is incrediblly heavy!!! He is a big chunk of plastic!

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, legs, knes and anklesall with ball joints soo the range of movement is pretty high considering his body type. The original Head Popping Madballs had small bodys like toodlers soo Premium DNA keep the body proportions soo his torso is literally...a spheric body of the same size as his head (that is huge) and his arms and legs are pretty short and chubby soo he cant achive pretty dynamic poses thanks to his proportions but he can move pretty nicelly, alos thanks to his big feet and low gravity center, he is an expert standing on his own with no base.

This whole set of characters are a typical 80s design, mixing the fun of the cartoon with a lot of black humor soo theres a lot going on here: he is missing an eye and theres green slime coming out from his socket, he have purple lips with pointy fangs and lots of fresh open wounds on his face, arms and torso stitched even with a clip. His helmeth is full of bullet holes with blood coming out from the holes and he have a lot of crazy tattos on his helmeth and arms.

The sculpt on the muscly torso is really nice and detailes, he even have a piercing on his nipple, wich is odd given the spheric shape of his body, the sculpt of the beard is also very natural looking and overall the plastic feel of very high quality with a soft texture to the touch that stands out specially on his helmeth and boots.

The color is vibrant neon, very 80s. While his skin is cast on flesh color plastic and have no color, the rest of the details are pretty nice looking (the coloring on his eye is soo beautyfull!!). His boots have a very realistic look with brown washes that makes them look real and his helmeth also have a lot of blue and grey scratches to make it looks like real metal, tough all the blood and open wounds and slime are painted in pretty neon red and greens to give him a carton look.

The printing of the tattoes are flawless and the belt with bullets around his torso is a separate peice soo it can be removed. Serisully, theres is a TOON of details going on here and given his chibi proportions each details is big enough to be seen pretty easy.

He have a lot of extra hands that can be exchanged pretty easy: open palms, holding hands and hands pointing with a finger. Each hand have the exact same details reproduced perfectly: a fresh bleeding cut on the rigth hand and a stitched cut with a bandaged finger on the left hand as well as black fingernails.

Unlike the 1986 version this guy have a whole ste of wacky accesorys to go with. First he have a knife that can be stored on the sheath on his back. This is the most simple looking accesory since is not even painted, its just a grey piece of plastic tough the sculpt is good.

Then he have a baseball bat with a big crack on the middle, insects, nails pooping here and there and a lot of tooth pinned as well as a bite mark. The violence here is evident, this looks like a weapon capable of high brutality with those nails and the tooth of his victims proof it. The sculpt is terrific as well as the pint job, the wood of the bat looks incrediblly realistic while the tooth and insects looks more cartoony.

Then there is a bee hive on a stick....yes, its soo weird, maybe this is some kind of grenade? Throw the bee hive to your enemies to see them fighting against the insects? the hive and the stick looks very similar on sculpt and paint soo its a little hard to discern wath is it, but theres honey dripping around as well as black and yellow bees that poops a lot.

And finally there is a big box glove that cna act as an extra hand as well. The glove have a nice strong red color and black washes to make it look natural, but it also have shiny green slime as well as tooth pinned from his victims, a pretty fun attention to detail.

This figure is soo...unique...soo 80s, soo violent and brutal looking yet soo playfull and childish at the same time, soo fun to play with him thanks to his accesorys and articulations but soo fun to just look at him and get lost on all those crazy details. Bruise Brother wasnt cheap but he was worth it, specially since i never had him as a Madball or a Head Popper either

DEMONA

One of my main memories about Gargoyles aside of Goliath, of coruse, is Demona: some time before the serires was on TV my parents buy for me her action figure by Kenner, soo she was my very first glimps to Gargoyles and leave on me a pretty strong impression, when the serires started on TV i was really startled by her: not only she was beautifull but pretty tragic and sad and incredible evil and malignant as well, one of the most brillant villains i ever seen on TV and she kept her strong presence until the end.

So naturally, when NECA pick up the license i was really hyped for Demona, actually expecting to get her at the same time as Goliath tough Thailog and Bronx cames first, the wait for her was long and she is also a Target exclusive, pretty rare in my country and much more expensive than the rest of the characters, and yet she is really worth the price.

Demona is a head smaller than Goliath, in perfect scale with him and she is articulated on the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles, half feet and tail as well as both wings. All articulations are ball joint soo they have a huge range of movement and since she dosnt have Goliath´s big muscles, she have a much wider range of movement, her hair and loincloth are made with soft plastic soo they dosnt get in the way.

And she can stand on her own...sometimes...sort of...problem is, her wings are as heavy as Goliaths´s but her legs are much more thin and with all those ball joints her legs really strugle to keep her standing, her ankles joints get lose pretty easy so make her stand is really a test of patience, also her tail is shorter than Goliath´s soo it barelly can support her big wings.

I really didnt expect this, i tough Goliath or Thailog would have much troubles stading thanks to theyr huge frame, but while Demona have a much lighter frame, she feels like a card castle ready to crumble with the thinyest movement.

The sculpt is brillant, beautifull, perfect. Her build is very muscly and athletic and it matches perfectly the character design of the series. The texture on her loincloth and bra is very different to that of Goliath´s loincloth, it have a pattern that makes it feel extremelly realistic and yet dosnt looks busy.

 I love the small hands on her wings, tough th wings have a very leathery texture like Goliath´s  and even fingers dividing the membrain. In the cartoon she dosnt have fingers and her wings are just clean purple, i always tough of them like a velveth cape, tough that wouldnt be realistic i guess for the wings of an animal.

The hair is the most difficult part to make in 3D but the design here really matches the shape of her hair on the cartoon and is pretty easy to recognize her. Her face is pretty, soo pretty, with the golden tiara on her forehead and chiseled face features. From a low angle, her smile looks pretty childish, almost playfull and her long ears make her looks like some kind of elf or magical being, from a top angle, her smile looks pretty devilish and perverse, and the look on her eyes is really scary and menacing. 

Is pretty rare when a face sculpt says soo much of a character, is trully outstanding.

The color matches the sculpt perfectly too since she is mostly cast on soft blue with only a few shades of shadow that gives volume to her musculature, but is soo discrete is almost difficult to see it. The purple of her wings is mixed with some black and the back side of her wings have the same black pearly paint Goliath have.

Her red hair stand out a lot with the blue palette as well as her crimson red lips. Her eyes are perfectly defined and theres not a single drop of paint in the wrong place. This figure looks perfectly as the prototype show on the box, this really put to shame the shody and lousy job Super 7 has been doing with the Thundercats....

Another detail worth mentioning is that her jewerlly is realy, the rings on her ears as well as the bracelet on her ankle are real metal and really enhance the overall look of the figure, an awesome detail of feminity for a monster.

Her accesorys consist on 3 different sets of hands: closed fist, open claws and hands to hold her accesorys. Each hand can be exchanged pretty easy.

Then there is an extra face. Yes, not a head, but a face, a kind of plate that fits with two pegs under her hair. This extra face have her screaming with red eyes and if the normal face is impresive and menacing, this second face is just terrifiying!! Her mouth totally open, you can see the wrinkles on her nise as well as her tiny fangs, her face is totally distorted and is easy to see all the rage, fury and raw power thanks to such a brillant sculpt.

But the eyes....those eyes...they shine brightly in red without using a led light at all. They are just white with some airbrush crimson paint around them, but the paint is soo meticulous they have a strong light effect, they almost shine even from a distant....

She also comes with the Grimorium Arcanorum, the book Magus used to cast the spell on her clan, the book she steal from Brooklyn, the book that is soo relevant in the serires and the sculpt and paint on it is just perfect, it looks aged, old, heavy, with two winged snakes circling a sword in the cover, the texture and paint are soo natural it almost looks real.

This item cant be more perfect? Well, the strap on front can be removed and the book actually opens to reveal ancient pages with text on them and some missing pages...the pages Demona tear off in chapter 7 "Temptation". The attention to detail of NECA is sometimes really disturbing.

Another of Demona´s trait is her use of high techn weapons soo her other accesory is a rocket launcher that Xanatos gives her on chapter 5 "Awakening Part V". The sculpt is easy to recognize and full of intrincate details with a brown and green palette that also includes some grey scratches to make it looks real. Its fits perfectlya dn is easy to install and is kind of reminiscent to the rocket launcher her Kenner figure have. Even the laser sight fits perfectly with her eye.

And her last accesory is a laser blast, another weapon, the one she use to hunt Goliath and Hudson in chapter 11 "The Long Way to Morning". This weapon is huge and looks very futuristic, more sci-fi than the rocket pauncher (and is full of pretty delicate tubes as well) but the brown and green color palette make it looks almost cyber-punk.

Out of the 4 figures, she is the one loaded with more accesorys and the quality of them is really astonishing and fits perfectly to such a perfect figure.

Tough her lack of balance really bugs me, and i cant remove her wings at all thanks to her small frame, she feels more delicate than the other gargoyles, the fear to broke the pegs on her wings or tail is too real and i hear a lot of horror stories from collectors on the internet that complaing that her wings articulations are just flacid and lose. Mines are pretty strong, almost way too strong tough soo i am very lucky.

Despite her fragility and how hard to handle is her thanks to those huge wings, is really nice to finally have a Demona figure that looks like Demona since the Kenner figure leave a lot to be desired since 1994.

This figure is really amazing, along with Goliath she is the the most important figure for the display that lave in shame even female figures from other serires and companys and she is more than worth the price tag on her head.