GOLIATH

 After 20 years Diamond Sleect Toys exist no more...just like Palisades, Sota, Quantum Mechanic, Epoch and many other figure brands that dissapeared sudenly, Diamond Select stoped existing a few months ago and cancelled an awfull lot of stuff that was on pre-order. Certainly Diamond had its ups and downs, it released an amazing collection of Ghostbusters with a build diorama and had some really great Universal Monsters pieces as well but it also had some really awfull The Nightmare Before Christmas figures, but in the end, it leaves a huge hole in the collectors field and pretty much stop us from getting some trully stuning pieces, like the Gargoyles statues.

The Gargoyles statues.....i dont even want to think about them ebcause they looked really amazing but the good news is that Diamond managed to actually release some merchadise of the series in the shape of resin mini busts: Goliath, Demona and Xanatos. And while i love all of them Goliath is always my number one soo i decided to get him before it gets too rare and expensive.

Firs of all, this is a statue soo theres no articulation at all or accesorys and is made with resing, soo is EXXXXTREMELLY HEAVY specially fir its size!! This is exactly the same size as the NECA Gargoyles Goliath but given its a bust, the scale of the upper body is different, but just like the NECA Goliath, th wing take a huge amount of space on the shelf. This piece demans a pretty specific place to be displayed not only for its size, but for its weigth as well.

This is completelly based on the animated series visual style, soo unlike the realistic style action figures, this Goliath lack sompletelly any texture soo he looks completelly clean, like an animation cell in 3D. Designed by Barry Bradfield and sculpted by Varner Studios, this piece show Goliath turning around with a closed fist and an open claw, a pretty simple pose that showcase his manly character pretty well.

The anatomy is soo perfect......HUGE shoulders, HUGE back, HUGE pectorals and biceps with a thin waist, his shape is exactly the same as in the animation and his claws and spikes on his elbows are actually quiet pointy. The wings are evidently not as big as they had to be but they are big enough to have a strong presene on the bust.

The face tough is ALMOST perfect but not quiet rigth since his jaw must be much more square and his cheek bones are too protunding. This is specially evident on the sides but from the front he looks much better. The shape of the nose, eyes, mouth, pointy ears and spiked eyebrows looks perfect and his hair have the perfect shape as well as is quiet long and flows on top of the wings.

The hair is a separate piece that must be removed in order to put the wings tough it dosnt rest on his head as good as i want too since there is always a gap between the hair and skull but this is because the hair is resting on top of the wings. Each wing as well as the hair comes with magnets soo they attach pretty strongly into Goliath´s body.

The base is a stone structure made with bricks and some medieval designs and this is the only section that actually have a rocky texture and it feels really really nice. The paint is grey with black airbursh to give a little bit of shadows but not too much. Same for Gpliath´s body, is perfectly purple with a darker purple brush to highlight the muscles but the paint is extremelly basic to keep that animated feel.

The hair is plain black and the wings have a beautifull looking dark blue/purple that stands out nicelly with light. Eyes are perfect as well as mouth and the brown loincloth and belt have no shadows at all tough some of the paint is invading other areas, like the brown invading the yellow buckle and some of the blue of the wings invading the purple "fingers"....i guess this is because of the material, it seems paint is extremelly runy on it soo i dont know how posible is to make a perfect paint aplication but the mostakes are at minimum.

Under the base is the numbered print of the piece, this is the number 500 out of 3000 but the bust also include a printed autenticity certificate that replicate this same number. 

I usually dont buy bust, i tough this was my very first one but i have a few Universal Monsters busts that are actually banks, soo i am not sure if they count, but this piece is really fantastic for any Gargoyles fan and it suits perfectly with the Applause vynil figures or other retro 90s merchadise of the series. I am not sure if i will get Xanatos but i will deffinetly try to get Demona to have the perfect Gargoyle couple.

ENDEAVOR

 Its interesting how fixation works, specially on specific characters and not in whole series because i got a big liking for Endeavor from My Hero Academia but i dont like exactly My Hero Academia at all...actually i find most of its characters irritating but Endeavor have a very special place in my heart despite all his faults, and as action figures he have a most perfect design to shine as an excting sculpt.

Before the pandemic there was nothing about him but after 2020 he got a lot of love from figure brands, specially Banpresto and Bandai that started adding him to every My Hero Cademia collection and pretty soon, my collection growth pretty fast and now i cant even take a picture of all my Endeavor figures together because they are too many, and just randomly i found a brand new one i didnt even knew existed at all.

Again, like most figures of this character, this is from Banda/Banpresto and have a beautifull price tag....i really wish all other figure brands stick wth this price range but i guess that too fantastic to be real. The box names him MY HERO ACADEMIA THE AMAZING HEROES - PLUS - ENDEAVOR and it dosnt have any info of wath other characters form this collection but that dosnt worry me at all (up at this point i impsible to know wich character belongs to wath collection with the amount of Hero Academia stuff coming out). 

This guy is exactly the same size of the rest of the Endeavor figures i posted here - matches perfectly the NECA or McFarlane scale figures but given his pose, he is shorter than the rest. I am not sure if he can stand on his own but he comes with a base that consist on a thin yellow square plate with a hole in the middle with the shape of his boot. As simple as this small piece of plastic is, it works amazing to make him stand and keep his balance all the time. This kind of simple bases are such a wonderfull acesory that shows theres no reason to have a figure with no balance, just basic engineering works perfectly.

This is a statue soo no articulations and no accesorys asid eof the small base and he is divided only in two pieces: upper body and lower body tough put this peices together is pretty easy soo this figure is pretty effiscient from every perspective. Here we have Endeavor crouching, legs open and with a fireball on his back hand just about to throw it but wath stands out the most is that he hsi missing his fire mask and beard. This is pretty much the very first figure i see him with his face clean of fire!!

His cheeks are puffy and his eyes have no pupils and have a mad expression, he is evidently collecting all his strenght on the next attack and the sculpt pn the face details are really good!! The shape of his mouth, the cheeks, the whole pose with his head lower, the body expression is really good and let us know waths going on here perfectly and the anatomy of his muscles is, like always, way too good. Also he is missing his giant shoulder pads (and i am glad, i hated them but i guess they would not work in this specific pose).

The fire on his boots and hand looks really good specially the big fireball on the hand tough they are made of normal plastic, no transluscent bits here and that rest spectacularity to the figure. Also while theres scartches on the metalic ganutlet and the suir, theres no painted details at all and every section is painted in a single color, like the gauntlets are just plain grey, the suit is plain blue and the orange sections are just brigth orange an theres nothing to highligth the muscle structure.

Tough the red details on the suit are a little shacky and they invade the bklue or orange section pretty poorly, the paint on the face is pretty good with the mouth detail and the scare as well as the hair beard and eyes perfectly painted, the way the eyes are painted is evidently pretty cartoony and since there just plain colors on the entire figure, this gives it a pretty "cell shading" or anime look.

The boots tough and fire ball are painted with a soft mix of yellow and oranges that makes the flames stand out nicelly.

I am very happy with this guy tough thanks to his pose (before the action and not during the action) and simplistic color he dosnt stand out as much as the other Endeavor figures but the sculpt and áint details on his face are really good and i am loving to see his face finally under all that fire. Makes me wish they make more figures like this one with less fire soo my Endeavor altar keeps growing.