KRAUSER

 Resident Evil 4 was such a turning point from both the series and the genre of survival horro but also for the videogame industry as a whole. For my favorite videogame series to be this important should have been great news but for me, the game wasnt wath i was expecting at all and i didnt manage to enjoy it as much as the rest of the world was doing it but still it had his share of awesome moments, like the boss monsters El Gigante or Verdugo but it also had one of my all time favorite characters from the Resident Evil series: Jack Krauser.

This character first and last appearance was in Resident Evil 4 soo he was mostly a temprary villian (tough he was on Rsident Evil Darckside Chronicles but that was a first person spin off soo i am not sure it counts), a character that encapsules perfectly wath RE4 was but also, with the march of time he manage to encapsule as well the spirit of RE as a whole, the mix of the military with mutations, Biological Weapons and an 80s movie flavor.

Soo this figure was pretty much my main objective when NECA released the second series of theyr Resident Evil 4 line and soo far he is still my favorite. Krauser is in perfect scale with the rest of the figures tough given his knees are mend he is supposed to be taller than most of them but still fits perfectly with anything NECA has done before as well as McFarlane, Storm and many other modern action figures brands.

He can stand on his own perectly and thats quiet a feat given his giant arm but he keeps it at balance. Like all figures form that long gone era, this man is preposed imitating the official Capcom art, with his knees bend and his mutant arm up blocking an upcoming attack soo his articulations are very limited.

He have a ball joint on his head and his mutant shoulder, a swivel cut on his human elbow, his wrists, waist and both boots. The boots articulation is useless since each time they are moved the balance of Krauser is affected soo is better to leave the feet alone soo most of the posing will comes from the head and elbow to rotate it up or down as well as move his mutant arm. This let him get a couple of nice looking poses but the mutant arm will be the point of atraction always.

The sculpt is amazing, with a more than perfect muscular build with his huge back muscles and biceps, they matched the in game model perfectly. The pants have a fabric texture and the boots with all theyr lases and the wrinkles from the military pants on the top of the boots are incrediblly realistic. The face is also screen acurate and even have his scar sculpted on the half of his face as well as the cold look on his eyes. 

The mutant arm mix a rock texture with an organic texture and an insectoid exoeskeleton like plaques. Everythting is here, from the tentacles to the 3 claws surroinding the extructure as well as the 5 different blades united by tissue. For someone who loves Krauser this was more than satisfactory.

The paint work is really good as well with a pale yet healty looking skin tone mixed with soft pinks. Both the head and the whole torso looks extremelly realistic thanls to the dark pink shades on it that enhance the musculature but they also paint blonde hair on his chest and hair!!! The areas where the skin is broking down and revealing the ekosteleketon structure is red and looks swollen thanks to an effect of red beins surroinding it and makes me wonder....if Leon had leave Krayser mutante completelly, wath would he looks like?

The structure under his skin and arms have a mix of grey purple, bloody red mixed with the wilver of the metalic blades and everything melts perfectly natural with the adition of the yellow "eyes" thingys that stand out from it. The pants also have a really good camo pattern that mixed different greens with browns and white dots. As a Metal Gear Solid fan i am ashamed to admit i dont know the name of this camo pattern.

The granades hanging from his belt canot be removed but the knife on his back can be removed and have a snake sculpted on it but sadly, his hand isnt sculpted to hold into it soo its more a decorative thing than anything elese and the only element that counts like an accesory, because he have non, just like El Verdugo, theres zero items to hold for him but i guess he dont need anything else after he gets that arm.

Theres not many figures of Krauser out there (tough he still have many more than Billy Coen) and a few years later Hot Toys released him in both human and mutant version but despite the high price and quality, they failed to capture his character completelly and dosnt looks like him at all, unlike this cheaper and smaller version of NECA.

For me this was the best release of the NECA series and almost makes me wish i got stupid Leon just to pose them fighting but even all alone and even outside of the Resident Evil line, this guy is incrediblly sexy and cool looking.

LOS ILUMINADOS MONK

 After the huge succes of both Resident Evil 4 game and its action figures set, NECA proof it was capable of produce figures almost at the same level as McFarlane Toys (they sure use the same limtied articulations) and it didnt take them long to expand the set with a series 2, this time completelly focused on the enmies of the game.

The very first figure of the series 2 was Los Iluminados Monks, a set of four monk enemies, each one with a different weapon like a scythe, a shield, a spike ball with a chain, and each one of them looking different with one with his head fully bald, another one with his hood one, another one with a skull metalic mask, another one dressed in red....but sadly, since i wasnt pretty fond on the game and its human enemies (i was actually pretty salty about the game back then), i only got one of them; the leader of the group dressed in red, just because he was the coolest looking.

This nameless guy is in scale with everything NECA has always done soo he fits perfectly with most action figures line and he can also stand on his own perfectly and have a very good stability. Sadly, this is mostly a statue, even much more than Ada since he can only move his shoulders, elbows and wrists. The Elbows have a ball joint soo they cna move up and down and to the sides but the elbows articulation is just a cut articulation soo they can only rotate but at the same time this cuts completelly the sculpt since the wrinkles of his outfit stop matching once you move the elbows.

The wrists can rotate and thats it, this limit the pose options awfully since his entire torso and head and legs are just a single piece of solid plastic, not even his bots can move but given the situation, it would had make no sence articulate his feet. Both the rope and the baner at the front and the back of his body are made of soft plastic soo thats a very nice touch.

The sculpt is really good since the robe flows perfectly around his non existant anatomy and all the wrinkles are very realistic looking, tough the face is completelly hidden, the animal skill on top of his head is deffinetly the best part of th entire figure since the sculpt is both ncrediblly realistic but the paint job on it is outstanding too, with a boony yellow color mixed with lots of browns to high light the scarct and details as well as the impresive horns.

The entire body is red with a shade of black to give shadows to the robe and this includes the baners in front and the back that have details in golden and the Los Iluminados crest in front. The hands are extremelly pale, with blue vains on them and looks very plastic but i think tha fits the characters and the blue eyes peeking under the animal skull looks much better in person than in photos since the painted details are soo tiny.

He have a single accesory tough; a crossbow made of wood and metal with an arrow on top of it. The design of the weapon is really ancient looking and the details of both sculpt and paint looks very good. This item fits perfectly on both his hands as the pre-sculpt demands it but he can hold it with a single hand as well.

I didnt take too much pictures of this figure because, theres not much going on in here. I mean, the paint and sculpt are good and the animal skull is extremelly cool looking, but from the entire series of figures this is the most boring one despite the bring colors. The lack of articulation dosnt help either but overall, he is not very fun at all. I think this figures work moch better as a pack tough, the entire groupd of Los Iluminados monks together, each one looking different to the next....but as a single character this guy is pretty forgetable and i am not sure NECA can be blamed for it since he didnt looked too much like a Resident Evil monster at all.