WOLFMAN

 Exactly a year ago i was pleasantly surprised by Jada Toys, a company that makes vehicle toys of all kind and - unexpectedly - they started to do "action figures" starting with non other than the Universal Monsters (just like Sideshow and Mezco did 20 years ago). This premiere action figures Monsters have a much more discreet quality than the NECA figures tough while theyr Dracula and Frankenstein Monster are correct, they did an amazing job with the Bride of Frankenstein and the Creature of the Black Lagoon.

It tooks them an entire year but serires 2 is finally out, tough sadlly instead of 4 figures we only got 2: The Invisible Man and the Wolfman. Of coruse the Wolfman is my favorite Monster and a must have soo i pick him in seconds. This Wolfman is the same size as Dracula and a little shorter as the Frankenstein Monster and the Gillman. Its really nice that Jada Toys really makes this guys in perfect scale with each other (something very few companys does).

He is articulated on the head, neck, chest, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, thigh, knes and ankles. Eeveyrhting is ball jointed and the elbows and knes have doulbe articulation soo the range of movement is HUGE. The figures from last year have pretty stiff shoulders for some reason but that gone with this Wolfman, Jada Toys gives him a pretty soft shoulder articulations.

Given his simplistic design theres nothing that can get on the way of the movement. His chest piece is made with hard plastic soo of course he cant cross his arms, but aside of that he have total freedom of movement. Also he can stand on his own....i mean, he is not digitigrade anymore.... i guess Jada Toys didnt find a way to make him balance standing on his toes and refused to give him a stand, soo they chose to redesign his antire feet.

The sculpt on this guy is really good: the strands of fluffy hair, the serious look on his eyes, cute nose and fangs coming out from his bottom lips, the scult is really really good given how tiny the scale is. I am not sure if i see something of Lon Chaney Jr in here but is not necesary, the character is perfectly clear even on his face expression.

The body proportions are good too and the shirt and pants have totally different texture to give them a look of different fabric (in the photos this texture is pretty evident but n person is really hard to notice). The hands in hands are not in generic claw shape, instead they have a pretty expresive gesture and the feet, while sculpted in "normal human" mode, they keep the design with the protunding bones soo iconic of the character.

Paint is kind of a mixed bag. The brown color on the fur looks good as well as the nacre on the nails on both hands and feet. Theres black lines on his hair to divide each strand and the eyes, fangs and pink bottom lip are painted perfectly. BUT....i wish they give him a little bit of ligther browns on his face soo the details can be seen more easy. He looks a little too....dark....dark with just shiny eyes and fangs.

The paint of the rest of the body is much more basic, blue pants, brown belt and green shirt tough this time with some darker tones on airbrush to highligh the wrinkles on the cloth and how it wraps around his body. He looks much better than Frankenstein Monster for sure.

His accesorys consist on an extra set of hands to hold items. They are pretty easy to exchange tough nothing can beat the basic claw hands.

He also have an extra head with a fierce (???) face expression. I mean, i cant see too much difference between one ehad and othe other. The second one is looking down and you can see his upper lip and upper fangs soo i guess is more like he is about to bounce? I wish his mouth was more open and his eyes more focused or something, i really like more the basic serious head.

He also comes with the same accesorys the Sideshow and NECA version shave (i guess theres not a whole lot of options to give him): the silver cane that is used to kill him and a bear trap. The cane sculpt is a little fuzzy and soft soo thers not much detail on the wolf head tough is easy to see wath it is and it fits on his hands perfectly (for wathever rreason he would be holding it).

The bear trap looks really fake and plastc...just grey with some orange aribrush tough somehow they give it a real chain. The sculpt is good i guess and can be closed on the Wolfman´s leg, i just wish they used a different material.

And thats it. This Wolfman is basic and stirdy enough to be a kids toy but he is pretty enough too to be an adult collector, also i feel like i cant complaing too much about him given hos cheap, cheap really cheap he is. Also, in asingle year Jada Toys release more Monsters than NECA already....

I got the feeling i would have loved this serires when i was a kid, in the 90s, this feels like my dream toy serires. They arent as perfect as the NECA or Sideshow ones but theres just something cool about having this Monsters in such a small scale and soo crazy articulated! I am just not loving at all to wait an entire year for the Mummy.

PAUL PHOENIX

 Storm Collectibles release a non-Street Fgther/Mortal Kombat once every year soo the wait for The King of Figthers or Darkstalkers figures is pretty deadly and looong, really looong...in 2017 they show a catalog with lots of figures and most of them arent out yet fuve years later, tough all of a sudden King, Devil Jin and Paul Phoenix all come out in two months!!!

This is deffinetly the year of Tekken for Stor Collectibles, we never had soo many figures in one single year...or maybe Storm just want to move forward. Wathever the reason, Pual Phoenix is out and he is one of the manlyest figures to date,a kinf of fusion between Cuck Norris and Guile, Paul is one of the most clasics and iconc characters from Tekken, one of the verey few that has been on the games since the very first one and the only no-Mishima to ever win The King of Iron Fist Tournament!!!

He is an extremelly notable character from Tekken despite all the mocking from the no Tekken playersand is not surprise he cames out before Nina Willaims, Hwoarang, Xiaoyu or other more modern Tekken characters. 

He is taller than the other characters!!! And thanks to his hair he manages to be taller even than King. He can stand on his own perfectly, tough a base wouldnt be a bad idea tough i am really tired of expect bases fromStorm. He is articulated on the head, chest, waist, shulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knes, ankles and half feet. Eevery articulations works wonderfully, with  abig range of movement and they move pretty smothly too, specially the arms since they dont make those weird sounds of plastic scratching plastic the other figures does.

His chest piece is made with soft plastic as well as his red gi, soo theres literally nothing that can stop his movement and make him a lot of fun to pose him and play thanks to his good balance.

The sculpt is good, despite the simplicity of his design, the texture of his pants matches the texture of his gi and muscular proportions are perfect as well as feet and hands. His face is incrediblly realistic....really, he looks much better than the Jin´s and Kazuya. This is a perfect translation to the game model, his jaw, his nose, his eye size and the shape of his mouth, he is REALLY good looking.

His hair looks great too, with the division on the back of his head and each strand of hair perfectly deffined. His beard also have a pretty good texture and thats impresive since this is the part they usually mess when making figures (rigth, SquareEnix??).

Paint matches the sculpt nicelly and is keep at minimum. Of course every skin section is cast in flesh color soo it looks natural except his chest piece. The chest piece made with soft plastic is actually painted to match the rest of the skin color and have some very soft brushes to high ligth the great pecs of Paul tough, soft plastic and paint dosnt match....the paint is chipping away at the sides of his torso and while this is hidden by the gi, i hope his chest dosnt chip away.

I love the vibrant red color of his uniform...stands out soo much with the Mishimas and it also have some grey tones to show how dusty and dirty is. Just like Ryu, Paul seems to be very smelly (pretty comon on figthers it seems). On his black belt there is a P. PHOENIX in red, its difficut to see but i love this detail!!

And i love the yellow kanji on the chest and his back and the strandy texture they have!The bandages on his arms tough are missing some realism, they are just plain withe and strangelly clean compared to the rest of the outfit and the scoprion tatto on his arms looks perfect.

The blue eyes are beautifull as well as the tiny hairs on his eyebrows and beard, both blonde but ina  darker shade than the kanji on his gi. His hair have a darker yellow tone but still is ligth enough to look natural. The darker yellow flows with the strands of hair and makes it looks incredible realistic.

Accesorys wise he is much much better loeaded than Devil Jin. Aside of the closed fist, he comes with 3 extra pairs of hands: totaslly open hands, half open palms and hands to hold an item. Each can be exchanged pretty easy, the bandages on his arms are tigth and dosnt get in the way and are super cute with that puffy pillow on the nuckles tough the holding item hands puzzle me....i dont have any use for that pair...actually i think i didnt even take pictures of it.

There is two extra heads that cna be exchanged easy as well: one with tigth teetsh and one smiling. The sculpt and paint is exactly as the base head, the only difference is the mouth soo the quality on both is top notch.

The sculpt of the teeth and paint on them is really spectacular on both and while one is perfect for battle poses, the smiling one looks very dorkish. Paul looks soo stupid with that smile, is soo cute and sexy, just like in the game.

There is an effect piece for his Burning Fist attack, that one that is capable of instant kill his oponent (i think Paul is the only character in Takken capable of this??) and consist on an energy ball with swirling power on both ends, like small tornados. The effect is cast on transluscent plastic with dark and ligth orange shade and looks really fantastic. It fits perfectly on Paul´s fist tough is a little heavy and needs extra balancing.

And lastly a background....a cloned background from Jin Kazama. This is the first time one of this figure comes with a background i already have, its soo weird....at first i tough it was a factory mistake but looking online, it seems all Paul´s have this same Jin background and thats really dissapointing. Its not like Tekken 7 dosnt have a lot of scenarios...

Aside of the background print, this figure is oustanding, more soo than Devil Jin. The quality on the sculpt, paint and movement as well as accesorys is amazing and he is actually way too handsome for a figure, i mean, his gi can be removed soo i could not help but make Paul play a little bit with King. This is a very sexy figure.

And now i wonder waths goint to happend with Tekken and Storm? I really want Miguel, Nina and Anna, Hwoarang, Lei Wuolong but since 2017 Storm hasnt show any other prototype beyond Paul. Its going to take centurys to see other Tekken figure or maybe Storm is closing the serires with Paul?? I wish they didnt but soo far this has been the second longest runing figures serires of Tekken, soo i am pretty satisfied as it is now and asking for the entire cast is a little too unrealistic.

Maybe we will see the Soul Calibut figures from now on?? I dont know, i just really wish a couple of more Tekken figures if thats ask too much.

HUDSON

Exactly a year ago NECA launched theyr Gargoyles line with a pretty difficult to find Goliath. A year later we are getting the fifth figure of the collection:Hudson. Wether this is a fast shipping method or slow i am not sure, i mean in the same amount of time they only released 3 Universal Monsters but this figures are really...really big and not cheap soo i am glad they are coming slow.

Hudson was one of the most important characters in the serires being the guide of Goliath and to a certain moment, Demona too and he always keep his status of warrior and confident of the Gargoyles clan tough at the same time taking a very pasive rool in front of the TV. This is why i am surprised NECA has released him before the young characters tough i am surprised they released Bronx soo fast as well.

Hudson is a little bit smaller than Goliath/Thailog but not much and despite his looks, he is also ligther as well and unlike Demona he can stand on his own perfectly!! His feet are huge as well as his tail is incrediblly thick and strong making him perfectly capable of stand with those huge open wings.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, wrists, legs, knes, ankles, half feet, tail and both wings. Despite all this double joint and ball joints, he is not as articulated as the rest tough....his long hair and beard keep his head movement at minimum as well as his shoulder armour stop s a lot of his arms movement. His big stomach also limits a lot the waist movement tough he is not the most agile of the characters.

All other joints and articulations works perfectly fine as well as the super effective vendy tail and those noisy and hard as rock ratched joints on his wings. I am finally getting used to them and the wing span is, of course, pretty huge and take an awfull lot of space on the shelf.

The sculpt is soo nice..it recreates the character design perfectly, the shape of his nose, the fangs, the deep stare, his beard length and shape....but of couse they add realistic details to it like the sculpted nails and scar under his eye or the veins on his feet. He is the most dressed character tough, with a .....shirt? Or half shirt thats totally open in the back side but the wrinkles in the sides give the effect that the material is strecthing around his torso pretty naturally and everything with a soft leather texture.

His pants have a totally different texture tough, much more rough as well as the lointcloth on his waist, this in particular looks pretty old and almost ready to thorn apart. The shoulder armor as well as wrisst armor have also a very crudemetalic texture full of battle scars.

The wings are also full of holes and cuts that makes it evident this are totally different sculpt than Goliath´s wings.

The paint also complenet very nicelly the old look of Hudson since the brown color palette is pretty pale, the opposite to Goliath or Demona vibrant colors. The brown skin color is really smoth and the nails on the claws have a darker and weet tone that makes them stand out. The back of his wings have this orange pearly look while the front of the wings have a washed away brown tone.

The armour have a dark blue and silver metalic paint mixed with blacks to make the texture stand out (i think McFarlane is the only one who cant use metalic paint at this point...)and the dark tones on his shirt, loint clothe and pants follow his muscle structure soo the wrinkles follow a natural patthern. I specially like the pants paint tough , specially in the sides with all the stitching, the material looks.....well, ancient, really medieval.

The head is perfect, with his little painted fangs, deep eye bags, the scar and the yellow eye and orange pupil. His hair have some brush stroke or silver that makes it shines with the ligth tough not soo much. 

His accesoryes are two extra pair of hands and one more hand (???) aside of the closed fist: a pair claws shaped hands for attack poses, a close hand to hold his sword and another palm to hold the blade of the sword and an extra hand to hold his sword...again....i am puzzled why they added two hands for the sword since they look 90% the same. All hands can be changed pretty easy.

He also have an exra head with a roaring expression and looks magnifiscent, the open mouth full of fangs and the tongue and palate are independent sculpts and carefully painted as well as the white eyes that shine pretty good above the dark eyebags. While the head exchange is not as difficult as i was expecting, the wings make everything soo tricky and sometimes they pop out his head constantlly.

His other accesory is his sword, a thick sword with a very rough look tough with added details from NECA: Some celtic carvings on the blade as well as a lot of cuts. I am pretty sure this blade cant cut too well since it looks - like everyhting here- pretty ancient, like a relic. Also it can fit perfectly on his belt, something totally new since n the animation the sword just dissapeare at will but here he can hing it on his waist and it dosnt get on the way of his arms.

And thats it....nothing more, Hudson is really lacking on accesorys compared to the other characters soo far (specially Demona and Thailog), i know he mostly use only his sword for battle but i wich they added a remote control or a small TV since ask for a couch would be too much.

Since he has almost no accesorys would have beena good chance to...well....add his folded wings, rigth? RIGTH NECA????

But oh well, the quality of this guy is really sky high in sculpt and paint (and on his box too...that box art is soo magnifiscent) i just wish they added more items in here since he is basically as armed as the Kenner Hudson. Tough despite of that, he is much more fun than Demona, he can stand on his own for starters....and is soo sturdy and is soo easy to give him a cool pose for the shelf (finding enough space is a totally different devacle tough). And i am just glad i have another Christmas with Gargoyles, just like when i was a kid.

DEVIL JIN

 I remember at the late 90s and the begining of the century how strong was my obssesion with Jin Kazama. Is not like i dont like him anymore but i juts learn to like the rest of the cast of Tekken, because back then, for me, Jin was the only thing i saw on Tekken. He was the coolest guy in the entire universe, no one could reach him and then, he transformed into a Devil and set the bar even higher.

The Epoch action figures of Tekken 3 were pretty awesome in the 90s, but the jewel of the crown was both True Ogre and Devil Jin. I remember how much i seek for Devil Jin but he was soo rare i never find him until probablly 15 years later. He was this "deluxe" figure with huge wings that stand out from the rest of the characters (even tough he wasnt a playable in Tekken 3) and now Storm Collectibles did his magic on him, something that got me excited for the ongest time since the first time they show him was like...4 years ago.

Yes Storm take a lot of time to release theyr stuff but now, a few months ago we got King, soo that mean we got two Tekken characters in a year for the first time!!!

Devil Jin is at the same scale a the normal Jin Kazama of course tough, unlike Jin, this guy CANT STAND on his own. Thanks to the heavy wings, Devil Jin only can stand in a straigth museum like pose since anything else makes him lose his balance. I usually accept the fact Storm gives base only to the Street Figthers characters just because theyr figures stand pretty well by theyr own but this time around, a base is or extraordinary importance and the fact Storm is turning bases into DLC (they sold separatelly), this really hurts the figure experience (specially with the high price).

The articulations are as goos as always: head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knes, ankles, half foot, wings and half point of the wings tough he lost once articulation: the abs cut. Instead his torso is entire made with soft plastic with the mechanism inside soo he can bent a little bit but not much. Its deffinetly really good looking but this prevent him to be posed in a crounching position or turning around. This was, of course, thanks to the heavy wings on his back, an abs articulation would be lose pretty fast.

The rest of the articulations are excelent as always tough i am really dissapointed with the wings....the section conected to his back have a very basic joint that makes them move up and down but thats it and the middle section have also a basic cut joint that lest them open up and close. With the quality of the ball joints of Storm Collectibles i was deffinetly waiting for more....i was expecting to move the wings on all angles or have multiple layers of them but they are extremelly static. Even the Gargoykes from NECA have a much bigger thange of movement in the conectin section.

The sculpt is awesome and dosnt recycle anything from the normal Jin Kazama. His torso is different of course for the remobal of the articulation (and i have the feeling his pecs should be bigger...)m his arms have this veiny sculpts near the elbows and his pants have a totally different leather texture on them while the original Jin have a fabric texture.

The feet are different too wince he is using some very cool boots as well as his hands, now claws. I love the hands, the gauntlets seems to be absorbed by him soo they looks organic and fleshy and the metal claws are rad. The palm is full of this spiral sculpts that makes them look like fingerprints, very Tim Burton like.

To my surprise, the chains arent real chains but they are sculpted on his legs, waist and arm. This is good because it means you can mess them up by moving him and the hanging parts on his waist and arm are made wisth soft plastic, but they different materials mix soo good is difficult to tell the difference.

The face sculpt is the same as the normal Jin Kazama and - in my opinion - it dosnt looks that much to Jin sicne i find his jaw and nose too thin, but thanks to the marks on his face and hair is difficult to see the little lack fo resemblance since the starnds of hair are longer than normal Jin´s and cover most of his face. The horns, i love those hrons!! They are made of soft plastic and looks terrific!!

Now the wings....the damn wings...the wings are kind of a central point of the figure, wath makes him stand out of the rest of characters and i am not very happy with them. The feather texture is magnifiscent tough, the tiny feathers on top and how they get longer until they are pretty long in the end and the hairy-feathery sculpt is sharp and well done but the shape...

I dont know any animal with this wings shape...when closed, wings take this round shape around the body, they are very flexible, but here....they looks like giant doritos. They are somehow curled opposite to Jin´s body and thanks to the shape of Jin´s back they are in a pretty...odd angle. And of coruse thanks to the lack of dynamic articulation, you can change the angle soo they are perpetually on a 120° angle.

While closed they dont looks very closed or relaxed at all, they looks like they are in this spicky motion at the sides. While open they looks better tough in the top section they joint looks very awkard, like they have small horns on top....i dunno, i dont know how to describe it, specially on english, but they dont look anatomically correct nor closed or open.

Also.....they are soo smal...soo tiny wings. I think they Epoch Devil Jin from 1999 have much bigger wings and they looks pretty short compared wo the Gargoyles wings from NECA and thats sad since they are in the same scale. Also the top section (where the wings fold) is taller than Jin´s head on the same,the wings are maybe 6 inches taller than Jin himself, but here the wings are actually shorter than Jin soo yhea....pretty short wings.

The paint is good as always. The entire body is cast on skin tone and the legs in black soo they looks pretty clean and natural. The red on the legs and the boots and gaountlets is pretty vibrant and contrast nicelly with all the blacks and metalic colors. The chains and claws have shiny metalic paints but the application is soo amazing they looks really really metalic! I know how difficult is to paint a chain but made this good job in a 3d chain is really amazing. Why McFarlane cant reach this level of perfection???

The gauntlets have this weird spider legs holding on Jin´s arm (is amazing how many details have this figure that are unseen on the game) and a spike at the center in a pretty Devilmanish style, all this as well as the horns on his head are painted in gold metalic mixed with blacks soo they looks extremelly natural, like made with bronze.

The tattoos on his torso, shoulder, veins on his arms and face are pretty clean and nicelly done as well as the red eye on his forehead. The eyes are amazing looking, with yellow pupils and the eye lashes and eye brows soo perfectly painted at such smal scale. Also, for some reason his nipples are painted....why is this important? Because the rest of the characters dosnt have them painted, not even the normal Jin.

The awfull wings have a great painting as well, with a greysih black on it very different to Jin´s hair and pants and with pale blue strokes here and there for the feathers to stand out. A very basic paint that actually gives them a pretty livelly and artistic look and keeps them away of the black chunks of plastic looking wings from the Epoch Devil Jin.

For the accesorys he have 3 extra sets of hands: one pointing with two fingers, one open hands and one in claw shape. The sculpt and paint are top notch and they are easy to change tough the two fingers hand gesture is really menacing looking, i dont see too many display options to use them.

He also have two extra heads: one a snarling fierce expression and another shouting. Again the sculpt and paint are perfect, specially on the mouth, with each individually sculpted teet painted as well as his tongue and i find this head sculpts much closer to his Jin actually look in game. Change the heads is kind of tricky tough thanks to the wings is relaly imposible to get a strong hold of Jin´s body.

And thats it....nothing more. Just extra hands and extra head, no other display options and absolutelly no effects. This characer can shot rays from his head as well as use other suppernatural attacks and yet, Storm gives him nothing. Not even red electricity to his fist or anything making this the Storm Collectibles figure with less accesorys soo far.

There is a background piece tough, a cardboard background that dosnt fit too much thanks to Devil Jin´s wings. I try to use it on the photos but those wings keep the background away but also i tough this was a copy of Kazuya´s background. Kazuya´s background is the volcano where he figths against Heihachi and this one is like...a different kind of volcano? There is rocks and lava but this one is brigther. I dunno, i never realised Tekken 7 had two scenarios that looked like each other this much.

Overall, this figure is impresive looking. Even if its Jin all over again the little changes are masterfully made and everything works great just like all Storm Collectible figures. 

But then theres those wings...those damn wings....those damn heavy and tiny wings....odlly shaped wings that looks made by an  art AI and then there is the complete lack of accesorys....after soo many years, i finally have a complaing over a Storm Collectibles figure. This could have been the central piece of the Tekken collection but he falls short compared to the rest and yet he is really cool looking still.