ALEXIA ASHFORD

 I love Resident Evil CODE: Veronica. I remember all the hype i felt when i saw screenshots of the game on videogame magazines; the exotic scenarios, the suggestion that Chris may be there, the hard to belive graphics, but most of all i remember the screnshots of the female monster that looked like anything to ever be shown in Resident Evil. Sure, in 2023 having a female villian is not big deal but back in 2000, it was extraordinary out of the norm in the Resident Evil games and once i played the game on my Dreamcast, Alexia Ashford became one of my favorite characters. Sure, she is on screen a pretty short amount of time but each time she is there is electrifiying (thanks to the amazing ost as well).

Soo i was ectastic when Plisades Marketing released Alexia as part of the series 2 of action figures. Sure, Claire and the Zombie Cop were nice and iconic, but Alexia was something totally different and unique. Despite being a big bad boss monster, Alexia is really petit, maybe more than Claire herself. Tough given to the shape of her legs, small feet and thing frame, she cant stand on her own but the base is specifically designed  to hold her while she is steping in front.

She is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles. Pretty basic articulations but pretty discrete as well since they dont stand out in thre sculpt. Her head and shoulders are ball jointed soo they have a good range of movement, but her hair prevent her head too moce too much at all. But is not like she must take a lot of dynamic poses tough since in the game she is very stationary.

She is sculpted to match her key art of the game, with er left feet beiding to give an step and her arms around her hip and the effect is terrific. The body shape and msucle density are really perfect as well as the details on her "plant" sections. Her face is really pretty and dead serious while the leaf hair cover most of her face and only shows enough to leave her expression in a kind of mistery.

The paint is really really good, with her body painted in grey but with very thin and delicate veins covering all her flesh and the plant sections have a really vibrant green mixed with dark greens and yellows to high ligth the plants tissue and msucular structure (specially on her leg).Her eyes are brigth yellow/orange and they shine really really good from behind her leaf hair.

From the Plisades Markerting series, she is pretty much the only one with an action feature: just like William Birkin in the Toy Biz series, Alexia can evolve into her third and final transformation. Her head, arms and waist down section can be removed pretty easy and leave only her torso. Then add the new form head, wings and tail section in the sockets and thats it, pretty easy, you got a totally different second figure, the final boss of CODE. Veronica.

The second head have an extremelly malevolent expression and her hair is turned into some kind of appendage with extra eyes here and there. The paint is good and have the same quality the original head have tough this time around her eyes are brigth yellow and again, the green hair looks really really natural.

The wings are ball jointed and each wing section as well (soo its kind like she have four arms). The membrane is really veiny....or i dont know wath it is...the roots of a plant? I am not sure. The wings movement is really good tough the joints are really lose and the wings use to fall a lot wich is pretty anoying.

The wings are painted in plain red and liiks a little bit out of place for me. I really really wish they amde them transluscent soo they looks more like an insect but with the sculpt and color they looks kinda thick.

And finally the tail thingy. The sculpt here is terrific since you can see the hips bone structure opening up to make room for inhuman muscle tissue. The green is great but i love the soft purples of the muscles in the center. They looks perfect for Alexia and very insectoid as well as the red eye in the end of her tail. Also, the tail is made with soft plastic and wired soo its bendy and it even can hold other figures!!!!!

Aside of this ectra head, tail and wings, her only accesory is her base, specifically designed to hold on her feet and having the same design as the rest: a wall of red bricks with the logo of the game. Pretty simple and consistent but also pretty usefull. Sadlly this only works for Alexia on her first form since her final fliying form dont have a base.

And 23 years later, we still dont have any new figure of Alexia, making this the most rare and important part of the Plisades collection. Sure her wings may use a better paint, but most of this figure is really really perfect and in both her form she looks amazing. The last figure of series 2 was Mr.X from Resident Evil 2, to go with Leon and the Zombie Cop but he looked pretty tacky compared to Alexia or the Moby Dick Toys Mr. X too i ignored him.