TRASHIN PUMPKIN

 The toys from the 80s are soo unique and special, not only they had sometimes big muscles, but they also came with vibrant colors, gore, ooze, mutilations, mutantions and monstruisity, some of them even transformed or were even dangerous, deffinetly an era that wont be back again. But Premium DNA has managed to reproduce that era with the remake of the Madballs action figures they produced a few years ago.

I am not sure how it worked, but after the release of the first Madball series, Premium DNA had a collaboration with the mobile game Need for Speed On Limit. The game had a scenario and a vehicle based on Madballs while Premium DNA produced an exclusive limited edtion figure based on that same collaboration, a stand alone new Madballs monster called Trashin Pumpkin.

In the same scale as the rest of the Madballs (only a head shorter than your average action figure), this guy is crazy heavy!!! But he can stand on his own perfectly thanks to his short legs and huge feet. He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles. All ball joints soo the artculation have a big range fo movement BUT he suffers from a lack of movement the same way the other Madballs do.

Since he have no neck and his body is round, his head cant tilt up or down and only move to the sides and given how short are his legs they dont have many options of movement either. Also, his best is made of hard plastic and have a lot of spikes, while his arms also have thorns soo this keep his shoulder movement pretty limited. This is, sadly, something that cant be fixed given the nature of the character design tough i wish the vest was made in softer material.

This is a totally new Madball, and i am surprised that at this point it took them soo long to release a Halloween themed character, a sort of scarecrow with a pumpkin as head, this is a design very rooted on Halloween that could be perfectly on The Nightmare Before Christmas or Medievil, or even Ghostbusters.

The sculpt is soo soo seriuslly good, the pupkin have a rugged texture and the shapes around the sockets looks soo organic, theres very deep cuts on the back of his head with ooze coming out from it and the ooze have a softish and liquid texture. At first i tough the head was hollow but is not, the black inside really evade ligth nicelly and make it looks like theres nothing inside and the evil expression with the cross shape on his eye make it incrediblly creepy.

The stitches on the vest, the rope on his waist, the wrinkles on the panths, everything looks really good but not as good as the realistic skin texture on his arms and feet. The veins on the hands and feet and rugged looks of tendons mixing with skin is really amazing! This mix is realistic details along side cartoony anatomy makes for a really strocking combination.

He have big and pointy thorns coming out from his arms and feet as well as in the ivy tentacles around them and while they are incrediblly sharp, the end of the ivy tentacles is made of soft plastic. But like i said earlyer, the vest is not made of soft plastic and is very thin, wich makes me think it demands extra care soo the peice dosnt broke but judging the quality of the plastic used here, i doubt something like that happens anytime soon.

The paint aplication is at the same level as the sculpt. The big orange pumpkin have  a lot of darker washes in the rigth spots to make it looks, ready to rot away in any moment while the green ooze on his mouth have a totally different green color than the ooze coming out on the cutson his head. All this details reminds me soo much the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys from Playmates or the Toxic Crusaders.

Aside of the golden pin in the vest, the stitches have a different color and the vest itself have many tones of brown mixed with green that gives it a lot of deep and texture. The pants have the same tones and each patch have a different color as well. 

His skin coloring looks pretty natural, aside of the fact is green, it have a lot od dark green details and veins that makes his arms and legs looks like dry and old organic tissue made of plant. The ivy have a much more healtyer color but my favorite part are his feet, sicne one of his feet have an orange/brown color that, in fact makes it looks like this is a plant rotting away. Even the nails have a totally different color than the nails of the other more fresh feet.

Maybe because this is a special edition, instead of coming with 3 pair of hands, this guy have 5 1/2 pairs. Closed fist, open hands, graby hands and pointy hands like the rest of the Madballs but they also added grab hands with no ivy and an extra open palm with ivy on it. I find this pretty unecesary since i dont see why someone would display him with clean hands....but oh well, i guess is better to have more than necesary hands than having missing hands and the sculpt and paint is really good and they can be swaped pretty easy.

His best accesory is a pitchfork, pretty integral to the scarecrow look with the rigth amount of cartoony look: worms and green ooze as well as lot of blood and intestines wraped around the it. The material is kinda soft soo is easy to warp it, the sculpt of both groos and cartoony and the paint work matches perfecty.

Next he have a tire iron with both ivy, blood and even an eyeball in one of the sides with muscle tissue wraping round the metalic structure. I am guessing this is because of the Need for Sppeed theme since i cant see how this matches the character, but oh well, this is a really fun and creppy looking items toug its made with very soft material and is pretty difficult to put it on his grab hands made with haird plastic, at least difficult without damaging it.

He also comes with a piston, a pretty old piston with lots of blood on top as well as nails. It looks like a pretty gruesome and brutal weapon tough i cant see how i can pose Trashin Pumpkin with it since it even have difficultys holding it. The metalic paint of this item is really beautifull as wlel as the copper color in the nails.

While the other Madballs have only 3 accesorys, this have a fourth one; a severed hand. It is blue with darker blue spots and a bloody cut that shows the bone. It looks very very cartoony and i am not sure wath to do with it actually....Trashin Pumpkin cant really hold it and i dont see where to put this. It looks more like a scenary item for me tough.

And the last extra in here and unique to this figure is another head designed by James Groman. Its basically the same head but meanier and even much more gruesome than before: the pumpkin skin have holes and even more damage and looks even much more realistic this times!! The ooze looks less cartoony and theres purple worms coming out from his mouth and other areas but even much worse, he have human eyes inside his sockets and one is hanging from muscle tissue and almost falling into his mouth and in the back, one of the deep cuts have the knife still sticking out from it.

The paint is soo astonishing! Specially on the eyes!! With all those red veins and green pupil as well as the muscle tissue exposed. Worms, insects, cuts, theres soo much detail on this, it trully looks like a gruesome piece of designer art.

Premium DNA shocked me with the quality of the first Madball series but this one is even more impactfull. Articulation have its limits and this is not a cheap figure, but the amazing quality of the sculpt and paint deffinetly make it more than worth the money. 

The overall design is pretty top qualty as well, like i already mentioned not only this figure materialize the spirt of the 80s toys but also it can fit with any Ghotsbuster, Medievil or any ther horror and gothic collection. They are going to release a second series of Madballs soon and i am defifnetly pretty hyped to see this gruesome collection to keep growing.