BUBBLE HEAD NURSE

 And the couwntdow to Silent Hill 2 remake is still active and each monsth release new products based on the series, something unthinkable 20 years ago when Silent Hill was...well, very much alive. It never fails to amuse me how long it took to Konami to learn wath to do to Silent Hill but maybe they are already desesperate enough? It dosnt matter but one of the products they show on ther Silent Hill shodcase from monht ago was this Pop Up Parade Bubble Head Nurse.

I admit i am liking soo far this Pop Up Parade line from Good Smile Company, the quality is great and they are only 1/4 the price of thsoe crazy expensive Figma and Nendroids. I admit it pains me to let soo many Nendroids fly away but Good Smile Company prices are already delusional but this Pop Up Parade line is doing wonders fixing that.

A little bit taller than a Figma, this Bubble Head Nurse actually fit to any standar action figure collection like NECA or McFarlane and despite the shape of her legs, she can stand perfectly with the use of her base. Unlike the other Pop Up Parade, the Nurse base is a black and thick circle. Pretty simple but works good and dosnt looks bad with such a dark character.

The Nurse is walking, barelly standing with her legs and waist tiwsted, holding the iron pipe. A pretty basic pose for this character but is really well done and have sense of movement and weigth. This is almost the same pose of the GECCO Nurse, almost... only the head looking at frint and the arm with no pipe rised are the only elements that makes it different.

The plastic used here is pretty good, the arms are a little bit soft as well as her skirt (and yes....she actually have pantys sculpted and painted under the skirt). All the wrinkles hugging her body while she contorts looks pretty natural as well as the ripped sections that, instead of show skin, they show a weird fabric like material, almost like of if the Nurse is a ragg doll.

The skin tough lacks any kind of texture and i find the head sculpt a little bit exagerated. I mean, the weird shapes on her face are a little too prominent for my licking but i guess is neccesary at this scale. Tough she is using the strange....thing on her mouth. Time flys and i still dont udnerstand waths the thing on her mouth, is almost like a board or something.

The weird board is black with some kind of red markings on it. The worst thing is that i dont remember many Nurses in the game having this thingy and yet all the figures have it. I guess they tough leaving it out would make her looks way too simple, but i wish it was optional and detachable.

The paint work is really good but very limtied as well. Her skin have a mix of purples and greys with some darker shades in elbows and other particular areas to create a shadow while her uniform is almost the same color but a little bit more....redish? The uniform looks really dirty and natural but the color looks very similar to that of the Nurse skin.

The iron pipe is painted in metalic golden but somehow it also looks like is the same color of the entire Nurse. The only elements that stand out are the thing on her mouth and her white shoes. Again, the paint is very high quality but very monotone as well.

The head tough have some tiny and very difficult to see veins but this is the only area since the rest of her body is completelly clean. Almost all Pop Up Parade are anime characters soo i guess Good Smile is not that good with realistic paint at this point, this Bubble Head Nurse looks almost from an animel screenshot.

Theres not too much to complaing tough given the very low price of this figure and while the paint is a little basic, the sculpt and representation of the figure is perfect and she fits with most action figures collection as well. I am deffinetly going to get the Pyramid Head but i am also dissapointed to not see anything else....just Nurse and Pyramid over and over and over again...

STEEL CLAN ROBOT

 I admit its kind of exciting to expect NECA´s new releases with the fast pace they been having this year...releasing only one or two figures a year and this 2023 it seems they will complete a lot of theyr series releasing multiple figures at the same time. Exciting but not very kind to the wallet tough i am still happy they dont reach Super 7 overprice range.

Just a month ago they release Brooklyn and Broadway together (two figures with release date of 2022) and just now they release Steel Clan Robot. Why this guy is out before Lexington is an mistery that will never be solved, but i am just glad they are not releasing one of two figures anymore and i am starting to feel the hype for Gargoyles again while the collection grows.

This is a big boy actually, based on Goliath, this guy is a little bit taller than Goliath, plus th wings this is the tallest figure of the collection soo far and he is quiet heavy as well!! Gladlly, since he have the build of Goliath, with the huge feet and thick and strong legs and masive tail, he can stand on his own perfectly with no risk to fall over, he stands like a mountain!

This mecha-Goliath is articulated on the ehad, but on the neck as well, the shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes, half feet and claws section, as well as on his tail, wings and half wings, a grand total of 25 points of articulation plus two extras: the shoulder pads are also articulated and move upwards soo the arms can point up. This shoulder pads are actually made of very soft rubber material tough i got the feeling the point of movement is a little bit fragile and needs to be handled with care.

The rest of the articulations are ball joints except the cut joints from the biceps that only moves in one direction. The fore arms armor can be rotated soo it dosnt block on the double articulation on the elbows and the feet articulation works specially well to adjust the standing pose all the time.

The tail is bendy of course, and for the first time in this series the wings are articulated and open and close!! Of course, this are not normal wings, but they are delta wings like those of a plane soo they just open to the sides with an articulation on the point of each wings. This articulations are a little bit lsoe tough and the wings keeps ratling each time i am manipulating the figure. Anoying, but i dont think theres risk to brake them.

All articulations works really awesome except the head of course, just because....like the rest of the character, this Steel Clan member have hair?  A metalic mullet on the back on his head that is always in between the wings and dont let the head move too much. Is weird how obssesed was Xanatos to Goliath to even reproduce his hair on his toys even if it dosnt give it any tactical advantage.

The sculpt is fantastic, much more closer to the original design of the cartoon rather than the Kenner version, tough it also incorporate a lot of details of the Kenner version as well. The overall shape is correct as well as the color scheme, with black chest followed by a blue section and grey stomach, everythign is correct tough each piece is engraved with details not present on the caroton, like the bolts and different divisions on the legs and biceps or the engravings on the chest.

The spring design of the arms of the Kenner version is present here on the inside sections of the elbows as well as the abs design. The wings also seems more reminsecent to the old toy than the actual cartoon with the round shape they have since in the cartoon, once open the wings looks a lot like bat wings but in here they keep the rounded shape. I guess it was imposible to have both shapes in the same structure and they chose to recreate the closed wings more closelly.

Super 7 just released the Silverhawks, painted them entirelly in baby blue because is not posible to make them looks metalic thanks to the articulations...and and here is the Steel Clan Robot covered entirelly in metalic paint with 27 articulations. The paint is clean, very clean and totally metalic like i already say soo this figure shines...like A LOT.

I love how the wings refelect everything on them like a mirror, but with a close source of direct ligth the wings are like a lamp, only because they are the bigger structure here, because every section of the figure is reflective, even the bendy tail have metalic paint on it.

That dosnt meant the paint is plane, each crevice and bolt are painted in black soo they dont get lost on all the metalic silver, plus the black on the legs, hip, chest and shoulders is ligth enough to let all the sculpt been seen with no problem. The blue sections looks nice and i love the intense red eyes.

Since this machine is not expresive at all theres no extra heads, but theres four different pairs of hands: closed fist, hands to hold items, open claws and claws in sword shape and all of them can be exchanged pretty easy. The hands are my favorite part of the figure along the feet since i love those claws!! They are soo incrediblly sharp and the metalic paint only enhance the effect and the closed fist make the finger structure to also have shrap poits on the knuckles for some mortal and bloody punches.

I didnt take pictures of the hands that hold items because...he dosnt have anything to hold. I am surprised NECA added such extra hands. Maybe to grab Gargoyles tails??

He have his gauntlet blasters, one for each arm. The plate on his arm armor can be removed since it made with soft plastic and leave a small hole in the arm. The peg of the blasters fits perfectly and can be adjusted moving the entire armor piece.

Lastly he have 3 thruster blast effects, made with transluscent orange plastic with some red tones, the biggest blast effect attaches to the thruster on his back and the smaller ones on the base of his feet. They fit perfectly and attach pretty easy for an extremelly cool fliying effect.

Sadly, theres no base in here and find a base capable to hold this guy is a feat, given how big and heavy he is and also the tail, thruster and wings on his back keep all normal base out of cuestion. I really strugled to take this pictures and i even used my strongest bases but i am sure after a few hours they could snap under the heavy weigth of this guy.

I love this blast effects but i cant see how use them without a custome made base.

This guy is such a classic concept from the 80s and 90s cartoons, an army of robots based on the protagonist is such a cliche from back then but this robot is just way too cool looking to be ignored. Of course he is the less important character in the end and the strongest point of him is being displayed with a bunch of other Steel Clan Robots in roder to build...well, an actual Clan. All for hismelf looks kinda odd.

Its a shame he is the same price as the rest of the characters tough maybe at some point i try to buy another one to bodyguard Xanatos but space is also a problem, this guys are not small. But anyway, i am really glad to have aanother villian of Gargoyles along side Demona and Thailog but NECA is really taking a risk by not releasing Xanatos along side his Steel Clan Robots.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

 

I like weird woman. I admit it, it seems i always like the weirdest ones: Demona, Lexia Ashford, Eve, Martian Spy Girl and since i was a little kid, i felt an odd fascination for The Bride of Frankenstein. Her visuals are soo simple yet the long white dress and bandages look soo sublime together, her intense beauty and beehive hair with electric strokes at the sides looks soo magestic, and that looks has been used soo much for almost 100 years on media all around that i can help but asociate her with the most basic and pure form of femenine horror.

Of course, being the first and only female Universal Monster makes her more cooler and her short stay on screen and complet silence makes here an absolute mistery as well, soo each time a company makes figures of the Universal Monsters, i am always looking forward for the Bride and at last, NECA just released her Ultimate action figure and they were pretty brave with her.

The Bride is the shortest figure soo far and only with her hair she reaches Dracula and the rest of the Monsters heigh, except her mate, the Monster is much more taller than her and i love NECA for keeping scale soo good between characters. She can stand on her own tough she sometimes trips with her dress or lose balance since the section of the back is a little heavy, but she is much more easyer to stand then the Phantom of the Opera.

She is articulated on the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, legs, knes and wrists and like usuall, all this are ball joints soo theres a huge range of movement in here. Her dress made with real fabric dont block any of her movement either but the shoulder pads stop her shoulder movement a little bit but theres nothing to worry since she is not an specially dynamic character to beging with.

Soo far Jada, Mezco and Sideshows has only sculpted a "generic" woman to portrai the Bride, the action figure of Sideshows tried to mimic a little bit of the Bride face but never stay too close to Elsa Lanchester excentric and unforgetable features. But finally NECA actually sculpted Lanchester in here with the big eyes, small nose, sensual and puty lips and delicate face shape. The faery looking face is crowned with the great beehive hair with every strand sharply sculpted in waves.

The texture of the skin is clean tough she have an sculpted scar around her chin and on her neck (her face dont belong to her...). Aside of her delicate neck, the rest of her body is covered in bandages and while the sculpt is good, theres no more details aside of that. Her body shape is curvy but not sexualyzed, is very realistc shaped and her chest is small and tigth in bandages.

The paint in the bandages is kind of metalic white, very different to those of the Mummy, but the color is complete and have no more details. Her skin is pale and cast on that soft ckin color plastic tough it also have soem purple shadows around her eyes and and some beauty make up on her check bones. Her green eyes looks good but i wish they gives her bigger eye lashes for a prettyer look but my favorite part is the lips, painted on metalic purple and giving a small glimpse of her teeth in a very delicate way.

And is in here that NECA felt really brave because while Elsa Lanchester had red hair, the Bride has been always seen with black hair amd Universal has never opposed to it for 90 years, but this time NECA decided to gives us the look Elsa Lanchester show only to the staff of the movie: red hair.

The different tones of red and brown looks really good and gives the character a totally different feel. More colorfull for sure...better than the black hair? I dont know since the black and white motive we had for 90 years is not bad either, but this red tone isnt either and is growing on me.

Her dress is really fantastic, made with real fabric in the same material as Dracula´s cape, the dress is pretty fresh, ligth, soft, high quality and have a great flow, specially at this sall scale. Again, while Jada, Diamond and even Sideshow only gives her a tube like white hown, NECA actually tailored the dress as its supposed to be: long and square at the front with a fold at the sides around the arms and a very long, looong long back section with  around shape, a hospital gown in front and a bridal dress in the back.

The back side also have a very delicate tie that cross and close the dress, tough its not necesary to open this part to remove the dress, just remove the head, and move her arms up and the dress can be rmeoved pretty quickly. Tough this is the most delicate part since being of such a thin material and completelly white, i am afraid to damage or stain the dress.

On the accesorys department she is very low tough, but after a lot of consideration i dont know wath kind of accesory they could give her since she literally dont touch anything on the movie except the hands of her creator and her mate. Even Sideshow gives her her heart and the equipment to keep it beating, but even theyr figure could not interact with this items, soo NECA did theyr best in here.

First theres an extra pair of open hands, for her mate to touch and theres a pair of extra bandages as well, made with soft plastic, that can be wrapped around her arms at the owner discretion. Why make this bandages modular is beyond me, sicne they are actual part of the Bride look on the movie but i guess it was easyer this way that make articulated bandages.

Then theres two extra heads tough calling them heads is no accurate since they also include the neck to the collar bone. Remove this whole section is easy tough extra care shoudl be put while replacing the neck section to not pinch the dress.

One of the extra parts have the Bride screaming. Paint and sculpt are perfect, just like in the basic head. The teeth and wet tongue looks really really good in such small size and looks more accurate than the Jada´s version.

The second head part have the Bride covered in bandages, with only her eyes revealed in the moment the doctor Frankenstein screams his iconic " It´s alive! Alive!". The sculpt of the bandages have a nice texture and the surprised eyes under them are really striking. The bandages mix perfectly with the collar bone where this piece conects with the main body.

Lasly, theres a bandage covering for her eyes with hair clips holding the bandages, moments before the Brides comes to life. This small piece fits perfectly and is mostly designed for those who got Frankenstein Monster accesory pack that includes the table.

And thats it, nothing more, not many display options for the Bride, unlike the expresive Erik, but that dosnt mean she is less fun to play or to look at. She stand out soo much against the rest of the black and grey dressed Monsters and looks amazing interacting with her mate in the most cruel of displays of rejection.

Just one single character before completing the Ultimate Universal Monsters, one of the bests erires NECA has produced, but even as a stand alone, the Bride is just a beautifull piece to be displayed as the titular character of one of the corner stones of science fiction and horror and the central piece of the most perfect and hypnotic scene in the history of cinema.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

A cuple of years ago i read for the first time The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux and it became one of my favorite books pretty quickly thanks to the grandiose and dark mistery it holds and no movie or other version has managed to come close to it, except the 1925 version by Univeral. Of course this was the only movie that had Gaston Leroux directly involved soo is the closest to the book, but is also one of the most lavish and spectacular films of the silent era, and one of the most unerving and diturbing thanks to Lon Chaney and his unmatched performance.

The very first creature from the Universal Monster universe, NECA really did take its time to bring the Phantom into theyr Ultimate line but the wait was really really worth it. The Phantom is of curse, human size and the standar scale of the NECA figures tough he is much shorter than the Frankenstein Monster and the same heigth as Dracula. He....can stand on his own but not very well sadly, thanks to his high heel shoes (he is french after all), balance him with those shoes is kinda tricky, just like the Wolfman.

He is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knes and ankles, all of them ball joint soo theres a hug range of movement here since his coat is made of soft plastic, soo his legs can move with total freedom. This articulations are really welcome since Erik - the Phantom - is one of the most expressive Monsters.

The sculpt is just amazing. Every detail of Lon Chaney performance is here: the big bags under the eyes, the bony check bones, the skull nose, the big teeth protunding from the mouth, also the texture of old skin, the little wrinkles around his mouth and on his forehead, there is a very disturbing and odd realism in this figure that make some of his expressions trully frigthing and haunting.

The realism goes to his hands as well since they have the same texture and are made with soft plastic, and his body looks fantastic as well with the tuxed wraping around it very naturally. The shirt, vest and coat are separate peices tough they cant be removed, but that add a lot of realism and depht to the sculpt. His bow tie is also made with soft plastic.

The paint is very simple but effective: pure blackness here with pure white only on his shirt under the vest and on the sleeves, but theres different in his black clothing, that mixed with the texture make the tuxed shine on a very natural way. The buttons on the sleeves, shoes and other details are also painted in a darker more shiny black.

The skin have a mix of purple and grey tones that makes him looks like a corpse half rotting. I am not sure if its the paint or the plastic used on it, but the skin have this wird and pretty soft shine on it that catches ligth on a very specific way. The bags under his eyes have a much darker pueple that makes them looks like the sockets on a skull and his lips are even more purple, almost black and....wet and all this dark tones makes his protunding and yellow teeth stand out even more.

This really makes me apreciate Lon Chaney artcraft creating the make up of this characters, every single day with his own hands and with no CG or even advanced prostetics or make up effects, just the most basic of tools and colors he was able to create a vision of the grotesque that it gets much worse the more you look at it and maybe the wrst is that theres nothing supernatural in here, just human evilnes. No wonder after 93 years his version of the Phantom is still chilling.

He comes with two pairs of extra hands in the same soft material as the base hands: two for holding items and two with a pointing finger to recreate the popular scene of the Phantom unmasking. All the hands can be swaped pretty easy and adds a lot of diversity to this odd character.

Then theres 4 extra heads. Yes, 4....this is the most heads we ever got with an Universal Monster and of coruse, this is because i am sure NECA really strugled to chose wath expressions to use since this character, like i already said, is really really expresive. 

Aside of the basic blank expression there is a "surprised" face expression with his eyes wide open  and looking to his left and his mouth in a "O" shape. Looks very different to the blank base expression and is from a famous still from a scene in wich Christine is about to decide if she stays with him or not. Another face have the Phantom looking at the rigth and smiling. This is my favorite head of course given how evil and trully frigtning his smile looks, almost beastly, like an ape.

Then there is the open mouth and shouting face expression, from one of the most intense and electrifiying scenes in the history of cinema, when Christine unmask him to reveal his fury and and terror. The inside of the mouth and the big tongue inside looks wet and soo real!! 

And lastly, theres the head with the mark on. The mask have a pretty pink color, different to the Phantom skin color and some purple shadows around the eyes and looks basically empty, cold and dead, like a manikin. The lower half is made with transluscent soft plastic soo you can see  alittle bit of the Phantom rotten teeths and purple lips, wich makes it even worse.

To complement the looks theres a black hat, made with soft plastic that fits with every head perfectly, a pretty cool looking hat and there is also his cape...or i dont know how to call it. This peice of clothing always leaves me perplexed because it have gole son the sides soo hes arms comes out soo its like some kind of long vest?? I dunno,its very different to Dracula´s cape deffinetly.

Wath leave sme perplexed is the material....velvet...black velvet...i mean, i think this piece of clothing was velvet as well in the movie, and i apreciate NECA intention to be faithfull to the movie, but given how small is the scale and how thick is velvet the cape looks just wrong...it puffs soo much and dosnt have any kind of flow or weigth, plus it looks way too hairy....the hair really reflects ligth and almost looks like a fur coat.

The neck part is made of plastic and it gits on the Phantom´s neck perfectly once the head is removed, also theres a wire around it soo it can be posed flowing at the wind...i apreciate this detail but i dont know if that helps or make things worst. Posing this coat/cape in a natural way is really tricky and still it stands out and looks cheap compared to the rest of the figure.

Lastly, theres no organ, violin or any other muscial instrument, but a snorkel made with bamboo he uses to drown those who try to cross the river to his lair. This item is soo silly tough in the movie he uses eficiently and the sculpt and small mouth piece is very delicatelly crafted in here, i also wish NECA added some kind of musical instrument or a Don Juan Triunphant partiture.

I also wish they added an extra mask to pose the Phantom removing it, but i guess thats too much to ask with this many accesory and real fabric parts. Actually, just the sculpt and paint of the head is worth to get this figure since he looks really ghostly and haunting, perfect for any horror collection or anyone who collects history of cinema, a really brillant work from NECA. 

NEMESIS

 Aside or producing many different serires of action figures based on the Muppet,s the Pink Panther or The House of the Dead, Plisades Marketing also produced statues. I am not sure how many statues released tough i know about five based on Resident Evil: Claire Redfield, William G-2, Jill Valentine, Nemesis and a Nemesis bust tough 3 of this statues were pretty rare and now they are imposible to find.

I do got the pair of Resident Evil 3: Jill Valentine and Nemesis. And honestly, Jill was very dissapointing, she had a very bland pose and sculpt and a poor paint and material quality, specially compared with the fantastic and smaller action figures Plisades release along this statues. Tough good news is, Nemesis is the ying of the yang of Jill, the opposite on every aspect.

Sculpted by Taniguchi Junichi and measuring the amazing heigth of 16 inch, this Nemesis is one of the biggest figures i got on my collection, even taller than a Sideshow or Hot Toys figure, he towers over anything and it makes him stand out no matter where he is displayed.

He can stand better than Jill but only because they give him a small base: a little rock like thingy with a hole for his boot. The rock thingy is made with...well, stone!! Soo is pretty heavy and manages to keep this guy standing as long as his gravity center is in the rigth place. A pretty simple method, but it works.

And is not easy to make this guy stand thanks to the pose, he is literally runing and turning around at the same time, around a corner i guess, and ready to grav Jill by the head. While Jill is on a totally static pose, Nemesis is really dynamic and full of movement and momentum.

The wolfs on his outfit are also moving along side him and they have different textures from each other while his pant and top part have a leather texture. While it looks like prue blackness here, theres a lot of paint work as well since his pants and boots are extremelly dirty with greens and browns like hes been runing in the trash and the rest of his body have some greys and blues ti give it volume, but all this color is pretty discrete and only visible at close inspection.

The head sculpt is great, much more alive than Jill and pretty close to the original Nemesis design but the paint, this time, helps a lot thr sculpt as well. Both the texture and the paint on the skin are fantastic and are filled with greens and browns that gives it a pretty "secaying corpse" look. The eye paint could be better but the open wounds, gums and yellow teeths are looking really good.

The parasite tentacles coming in and out from his flesh (the actial Nemesis parasite) have a really gruesome look, like raw flesh, but also a withe web, some kind of fat tissue mixed with a wet look that looks really disgusting and realistic.

This statue is made of the same cheap vinyl as Jill soo that makes him kind of delicate and the glue ussed to join the pieces dosnt work no moresoo he requieres some curation every few years, but even with that this guy is much much better than Jill deffinetly.

Also, over the years i seen lots and lots of bootleg version of this figure, in smaller scale but i never seen this original Palisades copy soo i got the feeling this guy may have a high price by now, specially with Jill included, that dosnt looks that bad with Nemesis displayed close.