MURACO

 Last year i was really surprised by Furay Planet, an original series of figures from Maestro Union; totally original characters that included a comic book with theyr story, just like Master of the Universe did 40 years ago, a concept i found really exciting and refreshing on a landscape thats been totally dominated by DC, Marvel and Star Wars and in much smaller scale, many well stablished series and characters. Its very rare to see something totally new by now.

And suddenly, two years ago was born LoseCollector, launched along side theyr first series of figures called "The Crypt". They first figure was Mr.Hyde soo it was evident they were focused on horror characters and while i let that particular figure pass, i was shocked when i saw the second figure of The Crypt series: a werewolf....i just adore and love werewolfs and wolfmen, they are my most favorite monster and LoseCollector didnt promised one, but four color variations of the same wolf in a kind of subseries inside The Crypt called "The Great Wolves".

Vozlak of the North (a white wolf), Dilim from the East (a Black Wolf), Muraco from the West (a grey wolf) and Garros from the South (a brown wolf), this wolfs seems to be inmortal and immense, aparently they are the very first ones to be cursed by lycanthropy, the ancestors of all other wolfmen. While the storyline was exciting and the figures looked exceptional, they are really expensive....

Soo i had to chose one; the black and white looked too simple for me but the brown and grey looked perfect but given my Veteran Williams is brown, i wanted something that looked very different, soo i adopted Muraco and took him home with me. This is almost like a pet thanks to his size!!!

This bad boy is HUGE....is 1/12 scale soo he is on scale as NECA, Storm or McFarlane Toys but is is literally twice the size of those and astonishingly heavy as well. You can kill someone pretty easy if you throw this wolf at theyr head. He can stand on his own perfectly....for now.

He have two ball joints on the head area, one close to the head and another close to his shoulders (like a neck) covered by a ring of soft plastic fur. This let him move his head up and down and to the sides but the big chunk of fur on his shoulders limit the movement a lot. His shoulders have a ball joint and his biceps a cut rotating artciulation while his elbows have two independent joints and of course, the wrists have ball joints.

The chest area have a ball joint as well as the waist and the legs, the thighs rotate and the knees have two independent articulations while the section at the middle of hsi calf have also a ball joint as well as the feet that rotates and move up and down. The tail also have a ball joint and the jaws open and close.

Aside of his neck articulation, everything here have total freedom of movement since he is totally nude soo the articulation construction on this figure is really impresive, tough some joints are extremelly difficult to move. The shoulders and one of the elbows articulations are pretty tigth and hot water was the only answear. This is because the shoulders must keep the masive arms in place while posed.

Same happened with his legs, they were completelly stuck and i had to use hot water to move them, but even with that, the ratchet inside the legs is pretty tigth and i dont want to change that. The legs articulations are the most important part here, i know if i keep moving them around they will get more and more lose and they wont be able to resist the masive weigth of this wolf.

The wait and chest area, not even with hot water i was able to move them but is the same as the legs: i am not sure if its a good idea to lose them because i dont want this guy to be all wobbly like a puppet of NECA´s Mantis Alien, this guy MUST keep the pose given to him, must be strong enough to hold on his two legs as much as needed and soo far, he has been powerfull enough to do it and i dont want that to changue.

The design of this monster is the basic design of a werewolf, like the blueprint of the Van Hellsing wolf but with esteroids, like.....a body building wolfman. His shoulders are masive and each muscle is extremelly defined by the sculpt and aside of the veins that cover his legs, arms and chest area and back, the skin have a very realistic texture that looks rugged and hard. The claws are hug and very sharp and the fingers are long and knotty.

Theres not much fur here tough, aside of this head and shoulders and neck area, he have hair on the back of his hands and arms, the back of his calfs and his pubic area as well as his tail. The sculpt is totally different than that of the skin tough both mix perfectly.

The face is soo awesome....the pointy ears that looks like horns, small eyes, long anout and shirt beard as well as the huge fangs protunding of his mouth, he looks similar to the Kesler Wolf  from An American Wolf in London but with more stylish face features. The red gums and tongue inside the mouth stand out a lot as well as the fangs and the vibrant yellow eyes despite being very small. Both the entire mouth and eyes are a weet look that makes them shine a lot.

The rest of the body have a mix of soft grey and dark white that looks a little like blue, with clear washes on the fur and dark washes on the muscle tissue to give volume and to make the hair shine. His chest area is also soft grey despite not having hair as well as the finggers on his feet. The claws of the feet and hands are completelly black and despite the simple color palette, the clear areas mix perfectly with the grey areas to make him looks very natural.

Theres noa ccesorys here, no base or extra heads, only 3 pairs of hands: a pair with closed fist, a pair with relaxed hands and anotehr with open claw shaped hands. Changue them is a little tricky given how heavy is the whole figure soo its better to changue them while the wolf is on a sorface and not doing while he hangs or else the articulations could be damaged.

The sculpt and paints are very consistent and looks really good and gives a descent amount of options for different poses.

My main problem ehre is, of course, the weigth. I am afraid to move him too much from the waist down and lose his joints or something like that but aside of that, this figure is impresive and perfect, like a solid 10/10 in therms of sculpt, paint and movement.

This figure have an amazing presence in the shelves and can fit on literally any kind of collection since he is such a well known monster while not having a visual element that tie him to any existing series or characters soo this figure is extremelly dynamic to display. Also while is pretty simiar looking to Veteran William and deffinetly much bigger, i dont think this is better than William, or is just that i like William soo much?

This is by far one of my favorite toys of my entire life and i am even tempted to walk around with him on my arms like Eddie Monster just to be with him all the time. This is trully a dream figure for a werewolf or monster lover and, despite the high price, this big boy is much more than that price tag. I mean i seen Good Smile company asking this same amount of money for theyr tiny miniature Figma´s soo i will try to hunt down more of this guys and get as many as i can before they sold out!