NOSFERATU

It was at the begining of the century that Mezco was born and soo far it has build a pretty interesting legacy for collectors, specially with theyr Living Dead Dolls series and ONE: 12 Collective series. Is weird but i dont have many of theyr figures since they seem to be pretty infatuated with DC and Marvel and theyr ONE:12 Collective figures are not my cup of tea: small scale action figures with real cloth outfits that look way to thick for them.

To conmemorate theyr 20 anniversary, Mezco remake theyr very first figure that launched theyr brand: Nosferatu from the series Silent Screamers. When i saw this figure for the first time i tough it was way to good to be real and way to distant as well, and i was rigth.....i searched it for a long time since ti was sold out in hours and the only way to get it was 2 or 3 times its price. Against all odds and without expecting it at all, i was able to finally get him!!

I rarelly post pictures of boxes in here but this time around, the box is as special and important as the figure since its a metalic lunch box with a pretty cool comic book style artwork of Count Orlock on it and in the sides. The lunch box looks vibrant and is extremelly sturdy and collector friendly since the figure can be stored back inside pretty easy: mark of a high end premium product for sure, specially with the "20 years" golden mark on top.

One element i dislike a lot from the ONE:12 Collective series its the tiny scale. I ton know why i always tough they were Figma/Figuarts size but in fact this figure is the same size as the NECA or even Storm figures soo it matches in scale with most action figures on the market. He can stand on his own nicelly but given the slim shape of his feet is safer to use the base included.

He is articulated on the neck, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles, all ball joints and double articulation on the elbows and knees soo his limbs have much more freedom to bend. A note included on the lunch box was that while the body have total feedom of movement, the outfit have limits soo every movement must be done with extra care.

While most of the articulations have total freedom of movement, the shoulders are very limited and only can move up to certain degree thanks to the jacket. Also his pants are made of elastic soo his legs have a good range of movement but abuse the elastic could be not a very good idea. Of course this guy is not meant to be displayed in a Spiderman like pose, Count Orlock is a monster of subtle movements soo the limit on the articulations is not that important.

The sculpt is really really really amazing....the blocky bodyshape with the hunchback and the slim and spidery limbs fits perfectly to the characters, despite not being screen accurate. This figure is based on the figure that Mezco did 20 years ago soo is basically a redesign of Nosferatu, Mezco´s own version of the vampire.

His face features has been exagerated and all traces of hair removed, no hair behind his ears and no eye brows, wich gives him a less human look. The intrincate wrinkles covering each part of his face are softly sculpted, in a pretty realistic look, with veins protunding on his bald skull and all that saggy skin around his mouth, this gives him deffinetly a look of a pretty ancient and old evil.

The long nose, tiny fangs peeking out of his wrinkled and old lips and cmpletelly black eye balls gives him a much more animal look, he looks even more like a rat now. Like a completelly bald and dead rat actually. His arms have the same old texture full of veins and his hands are soo amazing....not only the veins looks natural, but his loooong fingers and claws make his hand slook like spiders. Also they are made of soft plastic soo the delicate claws dont have any risk to be broken.

His shoes are slim and looks way to medieval....actually they kind of remidns me the shoes of a goblin for some reason and are painted on a pretty simple brown with very little of black just to accentuate the leather texture. 

His arms and head are also painte don a very pale white with pretty simple and delicate paint aplication to give him enough realism without any excess: dark brown around the eyes to deepen his already black sight, a little bit of soft pink at the tip of his vampire ears, a little bit around his lips, some grey/blue on the veins and black for the claws with some yellow on the tip, this is deffinetly the look i expect from a vampiric corpse.

This is all the sculpt and paint visile since the rest of the body is covered by the outfit. His pants are dark grey elastic pants that dosnt block any of the articulation but is better to nto force them since the elastic can be all lose on no time. This pants along side the very medieval shoes makes him looks kind of like a dark version of Peter Pan (while in the movie he is using pants from a suit with more conventional shoes).

He is using a purple shirt with his brown jacket on top. I am surprised this much clothes dosnt block his articulations specially at this scale but the fabric is soo incrediblly thin and delicate. The jacket have a leatherish texture and the tailoring, specially on the collar, is really stellar and beautifull. Unlike the movie version, this Count Orlok have the end parts of his sleeves ripped and torn as well as the end of the jacket around his hips. Theres some dirt as well that makes it looks like a jacket as old as the corpse thats using it. The small buttons at the front are all plastic and they seem to be thigthly glued and dont seem to come off.

The accesorys are as impresive as the figure itself. Aside of the relaxed hands he comes with an extra pair of hands shaped like a claw, ready to attack. This hands looks even more spidery than the normal relaxed hands and the quality of the sculpt and paint matched the base hands. He also comes with a rigth hand sculpted to hold accesorys and a left hand pointing out or ready to grav something. Again the quality is really amazing and every single of this extra hands is really helpfull for the display since they have a lot of personality with each small gesture.

He also comes with two extra heads. One seems to be reading or concentrating in something in front of him, with his eyes hald closed and his fangs hidden inside his mouth. The sculpt and paint are perfect but its a little bit to notice the differences with the basic face sculpt.

The other head have him in a screaming expression, Nosferatu in attack mode. The subtle change of expression on his eyes is pretty delicate but easy to see and the pointy piranha fangs coming out from his mouth in a yellow tone are really frithing. Change the heads is extremelly easy since only a small push on the chin makes them pop out and they stay in place perfectly despite the clothing.

He also have his trukish hat, a tubeteika. An specially decadent and exotic looking tubeteika, the wrinkles of it flows in  apretty natural way and while the hat is completelly black it have some different soft grey tones to give it depth and detail. It fits perfectly on any of his heads.

Theres also the castle keys, keept together with a metalic golden ring as seen on the movie. They fit perfectly between his spidery fingers and every single key have a completelly different size and configuration mixing siver and golden keys. A pretty nice attention to detail.

They also included a lamp tough this lamp is never seen on the movie, this is perhaps the most colorfull item on this figure. The design and sculpt is evidently very oriental, complete in golden color  with a centery section in stain glass with yellows and orange tiles. I am not sure if theres a pattern in the stain glass tough, it looks pretty random but the handle is articulated.

The other accesory is The Plague: a group of six rats to run around Count Orlok feet. Whule the paint is very simple (just brown with pink tails), each one of them have a completelly original sculpt, some of them are completlely flat, some others sre standing, the tails flow is totally different and one of them is turning around while another is standing in two feet. Its pretty difficult to see the difference given the small size but not a single one is the same.

The best accesory tough is his coffin. A coffin big enough for Count Orlok to lie inside. The sculpt is really good and the paint gives it a pretty realistic wooden texture. This is not Dracula´s coffin with intrincate decorations and red velvet inside, this is an extremelly old coffin read to fall apart. The lid just goes on top pretty losely and theres a brokken section that reveals half of Count Orlok face while he sleeps.

The best part perhaps is how is not empty: Theres a lot of cementery dirt inside as well as 14 rats crawiling around inside and triying to come out. When they release this kind of items they usually forget to sculpt or paint anything inside but this is the very first time i see a coffin like this and the paint and texture is specially nice on the dirt, very realistic looking and i am afraid my photos dont make it justice.

The base is circular and black, extremelly simple, and it have the tittle Nosferatu in red with 1922 in white as well as the Silent Screamers logo. Very simple but usefull since it have a small peg that fits on Count Orloks hole on his fit and keep him standing perfectly. This method is pretty basic but this is one of the very few times i see it working properlly.

The peg can be removed and exchanged for an articulated translucent arm with a clamp to hold him but i dont see this necesary since Nosferatu is not airborn and the peg works good enough to keep him standing. They also included a plastic bag to hold all his accesorys but since they can be stored much better on the lunch box i see no use for this bag.

Laslt theres a comic book. I dont know if other ONE:12 figures comes with books but this one is totally unrelated to Nosferatu. With the title Doomed Tales -The Origins of Aticus Doom this chronicles the origin and powers of Aticus Doom, necromagus prime and original character of Mezco with a figure that came out last year.

The art is nice as well as the colroing and the paper ad print impression are very high quality (unlike the Furay Planet). The narrative, the way characters talks and design, everything is a call back to the pulp fiction from the 1920s, with very direct unions to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Myths and it works wonderfull to spark interest on a very exotic looking character that is more like a dream project of a Lovecraft fan.

The only figure i have from ONE:12 Collective aside of this one is the Frankenstein Monster and i was really dissapointed by it. Not only Mezco never worked on any of the other Universal Monsters, but the Monster was soo.....boring. There wasnt anything bad about him but anything good either and i hated the tailoring of his outfit, soo the line never sparked any interest on my at all.

But this Nosferatu is quiet the oposite, not only is easy to recognise him but its different enough to make him interesting ad the sculpt, paint and tailoring and materials are miles above that sad Frankenstein Monster. Accesorys and presentation, everything in this figure is top notch and my only concern is that the materials of the outfit resists the march of time.

NECA will release his version of Ultimate Nosferatu soon but i somehow doubt they get close to the impresive and feral eerines of this version.