DRACULA

 

It is hard to belive but a few years ago i was complaining the Universal Monsters were fading away, with no merch or anything related to them and now, we got lots of stuff based on them and even badly and deficient remakes that, as bas as they are, keep theyr names afloat. Its a great moment to be an Universal Monster fan but other versions of the characters dont have that luck. Like for example, the remakes made in the 50s-70s from Hammer Studio. 

The Hammer versions are soo far the only succesfull ramakes of the Monsters that managed to leave a mark in history and generactions of movie goers, but merch about them has been extremelly rare. A couple of years ago Numskull released duck version of this Hammer Monsters in theyr Tubbz series, but aside of that theres only been a handfull of very expensive statues but never action figures, until now.

Once they release all the Universal Monsters, NECA started to release the Hammer Monsters!! Or at least a single one soo far: Dracula from 1959 Horror of Dracula movie portrayed by Christopher Lee. This figure matches the scale of all other NECA figures of course and can stand on his own with no problem (this has to be noted because sometimes NECA figures refuse to stand for no aparent reason).

He is articulated on the neck, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles. Bll joints all around and with no problem for been moved. His jacket is amde with soft plastic soo it dosnt block his legs or waist movement too much tough he cant achive extreme poses deffinetly but thats not a problem for this particular character. 

This is Dracula, soo he is extremelly simple looking, and unlike Bela Lugosi´s version, this one have a full jacket closed in front soo theres no white shirt underneat or vest, and this make this figure like...90% blackness. Then again this isnt a bad thing since this Dracula have quiet a presence.

His entire suit have very natural looking wrinkles in the rigth places to make the fabric look like it flows along his body underneath and while the jacket and pants are made of mate black, the shoes are made in shiny black. He is using a shiny purple handkerchief on his neck along side a red jewell, but this is completelly blocked by the cape.

The sculpt and paint of the face is extremelly good loking!! the long shape of the face, the round eyes, the lips, this is completelly faithfull to Christopher Lee face features  but the paint is also extremelly good looking with a very natural skin color as well as color on the lips, very VERY subtle beard shadow, eye bags and the eyeballs shine and sparks with life despite the serious expresion. The hair is black but it also have a little bit of silver in front that mix with the rest of the hair perfectly, this make it shine and put in evidence this Dracula is a mature man with some grey on his hair.

His cape is made with fabric, a very thin and soft material that flows extremelly well with this scale. The lenght is the rigth one and it joins to the collar of the cape that is amde with soft plastic as well as a sculpted cord around the neck. To remove or add the cape back his head must be removed but this makes the cape stay in place all the time. Its a shame tough the cape is completelly black since in the movie the inside is crimson red, but i guess add a secon layer to it would make the cape more stiff and thick.

He comes with a pair of hands in a claw shape, ready to pounce on his victims as well as asecond pair designed to hold items and an extra left hand with a pinty finger. All of them can be swaped really easy and they helps a lot to changue his look.

Aside of the basic serious looking head sculpt, he comes with two extra heads: one with his mouth open and showing his fangs, his eyes all bloody red, and another one in a fierce animalistic roar, with his eyes wide open and his hair all messed up. I LOVE this heads, i really doo!! The red veins on the eyes looks fantastic, the yellow teeth and fangs are soo perfect as well as the inside of the mouth and both heads have blood splated around his mouth as well.

The blood shines soo much!!! The messy hair is such a subtle touch and attetion to detail and the overall effect is really shocking!! This version of Dracula was the very first one to have fangs and also it was the very frst one to show the count with blood all around since this was also the very first Dracula in Technicolor soo this makes Chrstopher Lee version of the character pretty important for the development of the character.

He also comes with a shovel. Is pretty thin and it have dirt on the back side while is painted in metalic grey with some brown details and a ark wash to make it looks old and used. I find odd to see Dracula with a shovel tough, i am used to see Fritz or even Rendfield with an item like this but not the count himself, tough its pretty difficult to find accesorys for him.

The other item is a candelabra, just like all other Dracula figures. This is totally different to the Lugosi Dracula´s candelabra since it have a less gothic design and looks much more medieval, like the tower of a castle with the candle on top and a flame. The sculpt is really good as well as the texture of the candle, the body of the candelabra is metalic black while the flame have a very nice looking yellow mixed with orange.

There is a second candelabra tough this one is on flames,with a blaze of fire covering from the top to the handle, amde with softish plastic. A pretty cool looking item for a very action oreiented pose, rpetty rare for a character like this but in fact, Christopher Lee Dracula was extremelly violent and physical.

Its odd because this figure is super simple looking and in the end, is just another Dracula, but this is one of the most special versions of the character since it help add fangs, blood and violence to the character, while being less seductive and more savage sexual, this version help define the king of the vampire for many generations.

I really hope NECA wont stop here, because this particular version of the Monsters has been neglected a lot, for a horror fan, having a figure of this particular version is such a threat but having the Hammer version of the Frankenstein Creature, the Mummy and the Wolfman would be such a dream come true.

LUCIAN

 

The 2000s was such an incrediblly interesting moment to be a toy collector. Back then McFarlane Toys had started the market of adult collectors soo many new brands started to pop up to offer incrediblly unique and different figures of very high quality at 1/5 the price we got now. Marvel and DC where limited to ToyBiz and DC Direct soo they only represent the 15% of the toys market soo it was a time of when creativity was runing rampant and the posibilitys where pretty endless.

One of those new action figures brand was Stan Winston Creatures, a series of figures designed by Stan Winston Studio (the people behind the special effects of Jurasic Park, Alien, Predator, Small Soldiers) and based on the basic concept of "monsters"with no relation with other IP. This where completelly original characters based on the 80s philosohphy of the "gross" and the "deform". HBO pick up the first series of figures Creature Features and made TV movies about them but the other series; Mutant Earth, Realm of the Claw, Blodo Wolves and Extreme Garogyles stay only in comic book format.

Sadly, distribution was non-existant soo it was pretty rare to see this figures and with each year, they get even more rare and more expensive!! And i was only able to find a single one, from Extreme Gargoyles. As a big fan of Gargoyles from Disney, this particular series resonated with me a lot beacuse i got the feeling if the Gargoyles live action movie project from the 90s would have been greenlighted, this would similar to the look of the Gargoyles.

Day dreaming aside, Lucian is quiet big, he is taller than standar NECA or McFarlane Toys figure even in this crunched position, if only he could stand erect this guy would be quiet masive. He can stand on his own moving the arms at the sides but he comes with a base (pretty much his only accesory) that reperesnts the balcony of a castle.

The sculpt of the balcony is exceptionally good, with a pretty gothic design like a catedral piece and a very realistic rock like texture and the paint complement it perfectly with bluish grey mixed with some dark wash to make it looks like natural rock just enoug but still keep some tonal balance to make the details of the identations and design pop up. This base could be perfect for other castle based characters or dioramas with its only deffect being the pair of pegs on top of it.

The pegs are really thick and they keep Lucian in perfect balance despite his awkard pose and heavy body. This guy have a swivel articulation on each one of his wings as well as his neck that let him rotate his head and a bal joint that let him move his ehad up and down. He have a ball joint in both shoulders and a swivel on one of his wrists as well as ball joints on his legs and a joint on his torso that moves up and down thats it.

Soo he is not very articulated, his entire arms and legs are sculpted on a single pose and cannot be moved and the torso articulation and head is limited. This was how things used to be back then, the priority was sculpt and paint and this was a piece designed for display and not to be played around, thats why theres no accesorys are all, the figure is sculpted in a specific pose and given a few joints to achive a couple more option poses but thats it. Is this good or a bad thing? I dont know really, it was just a different time.

The lack of articulations is worth the sculpt and paint tough, the joints are almost invisible but his musculature is extraordinary realstic, you can even see the veins around his arms and other parts covered in a thick rhinoceros like skin. The fingers are very thick and both the claws on his hands and feet are quiet impresive, actually his entire feet are sculpted soo the claws huge on the edge on the balcony rock soo Lucian looks like is resting his entire weigth on the base in an extremelly natural way. This is a pretty important atention to detail.!!

His abdomen dosnt have human structure at all and while his wings are a little small and very weird shaped, the skin texture on them looks totally different to th texture on his body. His head have giant bat wigs shaped ears, a couple of small horns and a canine snout with huge protunding fangs that dosnt let him close his mouth. His nose looks pretty strange, like some exotic bat nose and the whole head have the same rhinoceros texture full of wrinkles.

The eyes have a very evil looking shape and they are completelly black with a tiny neon green pupil that, surronded with all that black, looks like they shine but is only a optical effect. The yellow fangs are relaly well painted and the rest of the body is a mixture of grets, purples and black for his claws, horns and ears. The whole body paint have a soft wash that mix the colors exceptionally good and make them looks very ralistic and natural.

His wings sports the same colors but with a little bit of metalic hue and some black in the end sections soo it almost looks like they got burnt at some point.

The sculpt is amazing but even more shocking, the paint work is excelent here and stands out a lot since figures in the 2000s had a lot of issues with color (like the Palisades House of the Dead 2 figures).The figure salso came with a card that i cant seem to find, with a picture of Lucien with a natural background and a secret code that work on the Stan Winston Creatures website, a flash web age that let you acces to the storyline of each figures and see 3D renders of them, but once with the code it opened a totally new section that show videos of how the figure was made, production material sketches, details of the wrists behind this figure, wallpapers and more.

Testament of how exciting was internet back then, how creative it was and how much they love this figures as well to produce the figures and everything that surroinds them with such care, and how much felt Stan Winston for his sculptors as well to include them as part of the whole experience. This was a deluxe product for sure for its time.

Lucian is an extremelly filmic design, since is really easy to see this guy in the Elvira movie or any chapter of Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside or Goosebumps, this is a figure that embodies the 90s horro soo well it almost looks like a man on a costume!! A perfect fit for any horror display of any kind and with the weird big scale he surelly will stand out always. Even with the limited articulations this figure is perfect and the only thing i hate is now owning the rest of the serires since every single one of them loos amazing and totally difrefent! I would love to hunt them down!

K´

 Very few titles have done soo much for a genre like The King of Fighters did for the fighting game genre, not only it helped other games to develope in much refined ways thans to the direct and fierce competition, but it also helped to the genre saturation that almost kills SNK. And it was in this dark times when The King of Fighters tournament started a new chapter with a fresh main characters only called K´.

While Kyo will always be the original main character of the series, i never felt any interest on him since i found Ryo Sakazaki and Terry Bogard much more relatable and interesting than him and i never liked at all Ash Crimson or Shun´, but K´ made a HUGE impression being one of the coolest and more badass characters from SNK (and that´s quiet a feat!!) with both his stylish and sexy design and his cold and harsh personality, both that permeated every single frame of his animation and fighing style.

Of coruse i laways wanted a figure of him and Storm Collectibles is finally moving from KoF 98 to 2002, opening the door to more characters from the NEST saga and K´ is of coruse the very first to appeare in all his badass glory.

This man is quiet tall!! Same height as Geese thanks to his long legs but he fits perfectly with the rest of the Storm figures and he can stand on his wn perfectly thaks to his big shoes. Is rare a figure with such long legs can be soo stable but i am really glad he is. He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, double articulations on the elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, thighs, double articulation on the knees, ankles and half feet.

The ball joint on his neck works really good as wella s the double articulations on his elbows and knees, his thoghs rotate and his legs have a huge range of motion since the chaps are made with soft plastic. His waist ball joint works really good tough his chest one is a little limited thans to his jacket and while the shoudlers move up and down with no problem, there is no biceps rotation for the first time. Also for the first time theres no buttefly on his shoulders/chest area thanks to his jacket, but instead his arms articulation can be "dislocated" a little bit too the arm can have a much bigger rnag eof movement. Its great to see Storm adjusting the figures engineering with each character!!!

While the feet rotate they are kind fo limited thanks to his pants and the wrists also are a little limited by his jacket sleeves despite this part being made with soft plastuc, but overall this is a figure with an extremelly simple design that helps a lot his movility and gives him total freedome of being posed anyway posible while still looking stylish.

And he is deffinetly extremelly stylish. His chest section as well as his whole jacket are made with soft plastic as well as the end section of his sleeves but the rest is amde with hard plastic and the look is spectacular. Despite his jacket and pants being thigh to his body, theres a lot of wrinkles around that makes them looks extremelly natural and the whole outfit have a pretty soft to the touch texture that halpes it looks like leather.

He is very nicelly shaped, muscly but very athlethic, with a thing waist and big shoulders and deffinetly a big chest area that stands out with that clevage. His face is really good looking, with pretty soft and defined face features of a young man and his hair is messy enough to garantee a pretty sharp sculpt, specially on the back side with all those spikes. Also his neckalce is amde of woft plastic.

His brown color skin is perfect, looking pretty natural and his brown eyes looks really good tough between the hair and the skin color is a little difficult to see the eyes. The hair have a wash of light and dark greys while the cross on his necklace as well as the zippers on his jackets and buttons on his chaps are painted in silver metalic while the buckle on his belt is metalic gold. 

All pretty nice but the most spectacular looking part is his outfit: with a mix of purples, blacks and greys, Storm manage to make plastic looks too much like used leather, with bluish tones mixong with the mulsitple wrinkles to give it an extremelly natural look!! The shoes follow this pattern as well the "A BEAST OF PREY" logo on his back is soo damn good looking!!

All this color palette is pretty dark, wich makes his red glove stand out incrediblly well, with a vibrant and extremelly bright crimson color that works like an accent of an amazing character design.

He is fully loded with hnds!!Eight pair of hands!! The biggest number i have on a Storm figure tough some of them are extremelly similar to each other. Aside of the closed fist he comes with a pair of "thumbs up" hands (or thumbs down??), a pair of hands to hold his glasses, a pair with two extended fingers, totally open hands, claw shaped hands, siftly open hands and anotehr extra pair with a little bit more open hands?? I dunno....this last pair i have issues seeing any difference.

I can say too many hands are unnecesary but i guess is better to have more options and they really help to enhance K´ personality with different poses and hand gestures. They are all made with soft plastic and the black and red gloves are very well painted (actually, each hand is cast in this color plastic, the only paint aplication are the silver details) and they can be swaped pretty easy.

Then theres two extra heads aside of the calm and relaxed base one: one showing his teeth and another one screaming. The sculpt is really good as well as the paint of the teeth and the inside of the mouth, but the front of the hair is also different since one have the hair moving to the side and the other one is even more messy. The front of the hair can be removed an they can be swaped with the different heads, soo you can have a stoic and serious K´ with a messy hair. This enhance even more the display options.

He also comes with his sunglases with a pretty stylish design and orange glass, this items is extremelly delicate and thin and must be handle with care!! The glass is made with transluscent plastic for realism and they can go on his hand of on his face once the front of the hair is removed and the legs of the glasses inserted on top of his ears. Handle them is pretty tricky actually, but again, they really enhance K´ look a toon!!

And he dosnt come with a single effect, instead he have 3 different effects!! One is a fire ball vast ins translucent orange plastic with some red tones. This fire ball is shaped to fit on the palm of one of his hands. Its a little difficult wich one tough since only one can hold the flame tigthly, but the effect is really cool.

The second effect is a blaze of fire in the shape of a half moon that fits perfectly on his closed fist. This is for his Crow Bites movement and is aslo cast on transparent yellow plastic with different tones of red. The effect is pretty easy to install and stay in place perfectly tough it requires to balnce K´ legs properlly but it looks pretty awesome.

The thirs effect is pretty imilar but with a much bigger tail and this one fits on K´ shoe for his Second Shell movement. I am surprised hot nicelly it fits on his shoe tough to display this effect is necesary a base, the end result is really impresive!!

Lastly he comes with a background and this time this is the worst part of the pack. The impression is really good, but the stage used in the background is extremelly bland and boring to the point i wasnt even able to find its name...its from KoF 2002 Unlimited Match but the game dont have a stage select somehow. It shows a kind of cockpit with a pale blue sky on the windows at front. Theres no characters or anything there, only a lot of blurry and low pixel instruments and screens and the whole thing is grey wth a little bit of soft blue in the center, and given K´ color palette, he dosnt stand out at all in this stage.

Aside of that, overall this is a pretty well done figure that trully showcase perfectly one of the sexyest and coolest characters from The King of Fighters. Awesome articulation, impresive paint aplication, lots of hands options and accesorys and a lot of totally new and spectacular effects to play and display with this guy shows how much Storm Collectibles cares for this series. And while they already left incomplete all other series, Storm is going to produce lots of KoF characters this year soo the excitment continues for the SNK fans.