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.