NOSFERATU

 I never buy the same figure twice with the only exception of the same character having multiple version of itself, different outfit or amour, basically a new sculpt. When they are color variants i think about it...the color variant must be really special for me to get it but i deffinety neve buy a figure twice just because it have different accesorys. That was a rule i respected until now...

Also, collecting monsters from the black and white era is always tricky because, most of the time, they release them in color or black and white versions or even glow in the dark, but i usually go for the color version and only got the black and white version when i have no other choice. Is not like i dont like black and white, that grey scale color palette is really beautifull and suit the characters soo well, but i dont have enough space for a grey scale display.

I been tempting by the NECA Universl Monsters for a long time but in the end, i got the black and white Nosferatu because of a mix of "color variation" and "different accesorys" soo i could not resist. In scale with pretty much evertything NECA does, this Orlock can stand on his own perfectly and is articulated on the neck, chest, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles in a pretty usualy NECA way. The jacket is made if dot plastic but it restrict not only the chest and waist movement but also the legs a little bit but this is not a character that needs extreme freedom of movement. Count Orlock looks better in more stale poses.

I really review this figure time ago....maybe two year ago? I dont remember, but is basically the same sculpt. The wrinkles on the jacket are really really natural on the sleves as well as in the back, the pants have a nice soft texture and the long spidery limbs along side the hunchback match the character on screen perfectly as well as the face structure, long eyebrows and big eyes, this is one of the best sculpts based on Max Schreck rat like vampire.

The color here is the main atraction, or more likely the lack of color. The shoes and inside shirt are deep black while the pants are gunmetal black with a dark wash that works pretty good with the texture and the jacket have a lighter tone of grey, almost a little but bluish and the combination is pretty good for the eye.

The hands and face shine along side the deep grey outfit since Count Orlock skin is completelly white with soft grey airbrush on his checks, around his eyes and fingernails to give them volume and focus. The contrast is really good and he looks very ghostly. The eyes shine and the color aplication is really perfect as well as in the lips and little sections with hair.

Talking about accesorys, he comes with four pair of hands: one pair relaxed, one pair in closed fist, one pair with his claws out and a a pair of rigth hands to hold items. The sculpt and color is perfect and they are easy to swap tough its pretty odd to see some of the hands are designed to hold into items he dosnt have but i guess its a mather of mix with the colored version. My favorite hands are the claw ones for sure.

He also comes with three heads: one have a serious and pretty grave face expression while another have his eyes wide open and smiling in a pretty mischevious and evil way and finally, theres the ehad with his fangs out and eyes that with a blanck impresion. They are pretty easy to swap and each one of them have a perfect sculpt and grey scale painting. For me the best is the fangs out one, its the most disturbing.

Now here is where things got interesting, he dosnt comes with his letter or ink well and feather, no castle keys or tubeteika hat. Instead he comes with his black cloack, whip and Orlok´s outside hat. The whip is made of soft plastic soo it always flows pretty natural no matter how you puse him holding and while the sculpt of the base and end parts is good, the piece is completelly black.

The hat is also made with very soft plastic and fit into his head perfectly. I have no idea how is named this hat in specifit but it have the shape of a witch hat with a pointy end, tough given how he wears the tubeteika, this hat overall shape must be totally different to how he uses it. The balck of the hat is the same as his pants and it have a darker shiny ribbon in the base and a grey feather in top. The feather looks extremelly "Burtonesque", pretty classic design for a german expresionistic movie.

The cloack top part is made of woft plastic and is completelly black with a realistic sculpt of small wrinkles her and there while the rest of the cloack is made with real fabric. The black fabric is thick and black and it opens up in the front. It have a wire all around its perimeter, from the neck section the the bottom section and around it soo it can be posed flowing into the wind or can be folded in any way tough the material is quiet heavy.

Theres two holes at the side for Orlock´s hands to comes out and this holes are also wired. This cloack along side the feather hat and the whip can be seen on the scene where Hutter travels to the castle and Orlock arrives with his carriage to take him. The scene is really brief but i never seen a figure recreate this outfit before and thats the reason why i got this figure. The overall look with the cloack and hat is really ethereal and ghotsly, he looks like a phantom, specially with the way his white eyes contrast.

Sadly this is opening the door for me to buy more black and white variants and i dont want to but slowlly i am getting full of Nosferatu figures pretty fast and thats not a complaing, this is one of the version of the vampire most remembered and not even the mustache version can match this design.

THE VISITOR

 The begining of this cerntury was a big moment of experimentation and exploration in regard of many media outlets and even moreimprtantly, it was a moment of great creativity following the footseps of the 90s. In the toy and figures market we started to see characters and series we never expect to see in toy form or just original universes created from scratch. One of the studios following this thrend was Stan Winsont Studios, the people responsible of the FX of Predator, Alien, Small Soldiers and other movies but in 2000 they decided to enter the toy market.

They launch themselves with a multimedia project called Creature Features: a set of high quality Stan Winston standar figures that came with a CD-ROOM detailing all the creative proces of the figure itslef as well as share wallpapers and other stuff for the PC and, on TV, a movie based entirelly on each of the figures made by HBO. It was pretty ambitious deffinetly but sadly, the high prices of the figures and terrible distribution (and exclusivity to Toy R us) make them very difficult to come by and pretty fast they turned into expensive and rare collector items.

Last year tough i was able to get one of the last figures of the studio, from Blood Wolves, and one of theyr Exreme Gargoyles but also i was able to find two of the first Creature Features figures in mint condition, inside theyr blister package. I had my doubts about opening them but in the end i take the chance and while i wasnt very happy with the Evilution Demon, the second figure was much more interesting.

This is The Visitor, from the Day the Wolrd Ends movie. A creature from another world that is tied to a little boy with psychic powers. The boy own imagination and powers let the creature take shape in a small town to start the destrucion of minkand. Since the kid is a fan of 50s horror movies, The Visitor looks like an alien coming out from the Cold War era, with one eye, tentacles and a green palette to7gh in the movie, the creature is never fully seen.

This figure is in standar scale soo he fits with McFarlane or NECA or most modern figures but given the position he is in, he looks smaller than it looks. Also he cant stand on his own thanks to the shape of his feet, soo he needs to use the base he comes with.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, left bicep, legs and half calf. Yes, thats not much, specially considering this are all cut basic articulations soo he can rotate his head on his shoulders but cant look at the sides and arms only move up and down. Legs are even more limited but theres not much sense on moving the legs given the pre-posing. 

Tough, both arms are made with sift plastic ad are wired as well as the longer tentacles on his head, soo they cna be posed moving to any side and the arms can bend even if they dont have visible articulation. This is quiet a special detail since back then no figures used this kind of material mixed with normal hard plastic. 

Sculpt is really really good since the whole body have the texture of a plant and his muscular structure is not human at all, instead it seems his arms and legs are made of random tendrills or tentacles joining together. The fleshy texture on his back looks almost like a mummy with the bones protunfind and the center of his torso is covered in soft plastic insectoid like shrimp legs that gives him quiet a disgusting look.

The texture of the head tentacles is very different and the big mouth full of tiny fangs and one eye with no nose looks really fantastic. The face have a mix of purples and greens that makes a pretty hard to discenr color but the different shades around the wrinkles on the eyes and mouth makes it looks really natural. The pruple tongue, pink gums and whire brigth teeth looks really good, but the best aprt is the yellow eye. Is painted perfectly but also it contrast with the rest of the figure palette pretty nicelly.

The little legs in the torso looks purple with a black wash in the tip and the rest of the torso is red mixed with purples and it slowlly turns into green in the back. The back have a huge amounth of different greens, paley greens that mkes it looks sick, pruple that reminds a corpse and yellow in the blisters that surrounds his body randomly. Legs and arms also use a mix of much brigther greens that makes them looks like a plant and theres a wash of ligther colors mixed with browns and yellows.

This guy looks all green, like a plant, but ince you see him in details theres an amazing amounth of different colors here and all of them blends perfectly in a very natural way. I wish McFarlane´s Swamtp Thing had a color aplication like this.

The base is really spectacular. It have a very weird shape but it consist on the woods flor with a bunch of rocks and two big fallen trees. Each of this trees have a thick and big peg soo The Visitor can put a foot on each with one of his arms holding into the big "Y" shape branch of one of them in a very predatory way. The figures fits perfectly in between this trees tough assemble the trees is quiet tricky, once done they make for a very sturfy base.

The sculpt and paint job here are insane!!! The trees have an extremelly natural wood texture on them and the color helps a lot to enhance it mixing browns and greys and light brown in the areas where the tree is broken. Each one of the rocks on the flor have a different grey palette and the dirty on the flor looks just like....wet dirt!!! Aside of the darker brown and all the washes it have, its also covered in shiny transparent paint that makes it looks like a piece of damp forest.

There is also five different branches that have the same sculpt and paint job as the base. This branches fits in very specific place in between the rocks and trees but they can be placed anywhere on the base soo the display cna be customized a little bit and they help to make the forest floor more dangerous and much more natural.

Lastly, theres a CD-ROOM with videos of how the figure was made and info about the artists behind it, from the design in paper to the sculpt and paint. This was a great addition to those interested in go beyond the figure part and knows how this figure are build from scratch. Of course i am leaving the CD packed with the blister.

This Visitor is quiet the opposite to the Evilution Demon, while the Demon had a design that made it looks like a bunch of trash melting together, this guy here is very reminiscent of the 50s monster design and it also makes for a much more interesting and cleaner design. While the Evilution Demon color palette was dull, this one is vivid and vibrant and the base also matches the high quality of the figure. Actually, the base would be perfect for so many figures i cant count (like werewolf figures)!!!

I think this figure really encapsulates wath Stan Winston wanted to do with this line of toys and the high quality explain the high price too since, 25 years later i still find this guy quiet impresive. Sadly, its pretty evident not all figures on the line share this same quality  and i think that explains why they laster only for 3 years. I will try to get more of this figures but i am not sure if i will ever be able to complete this collection.

EVILUTION DEMON

Aaahh...2001, such a nice moment to be alive: TV channels like Cartoon Network or Fox Kids were in the best moment, videogames never been better with pieces like Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 2, movies still felt like in the 80s-90s and there was no super hero obsesion and for those that colected toys, the industry was in its most experimental and creative moment thanks to the seeds planted by McFarlane Toys and one of the brands blossoming was Stan Winston Creatures, the toys section of the studio that did the special effects of Jurasic Park, Predator or Small Soldiers.

The very first one of theyr lines was Creature Feature and consist on a collection of original monsters inspired by old 50s movies and since this was a kind of multimedia project, HBO produced one movie for each of this creatures just soo people had context and a back story for this figures. I wish now day we had something like this!! 

Last year i was able to get a couple of this Creature Feature in mint condition in theyr blister and was planing to review them for Halloween but it was a busy month for me, soo here it is at last the first one of the Stan Winston creations: the Evilution Demon from the movie How to Make a Monster.

This creature is on "base scale" soo he fits perfectly with other NECA, McFarlane or Storm figures or pretty much most of waths on the market. He can stand on his own pretty good, and thats a surprise given the state of his legs and pose but he comes wih a base anyways that helps keep balance much better. He is articulated on the neck, rigth shoulder, both biceps and wrists as well as his legs and waist. This is a 2001 figure soo back then articulations didnt had too much importance over scupt, soo this are only basic cut joints that only let you move each part to a single direction.

Basically, this Demon is pre-posed with his legs half bend and his arms open to the sides and while you can rotate the biceps and the wrists, the amount of poses for display is very very limited (find a new pose for this pictures was quiet a challengue for me) soo the limited posing is deffinetly part of the charm of this era figures.

Wath we got here is a videogame enemy that is building himself using metal scraps and ppieces of the corpses of his victims to have a body in the real wolrd soo this is mostly like a Frankenstein creture with robotic and mechanical parts, kind of a futuristic Cenobite coming out from a melted computer.

The face is a skull with a metalic jaw but it lack deffinition on the sculpture soo the teeth dont look very good. The helmeth with horns and spikes tough is really well sculpted as well as the fleshy part that have a kind of mummyfied texture on them. The metali chest plates and arms sections have intrincate engravings nicelly sculpted and i specially like a lot the legs....the legs a just a bunch of wires and very thin metal poles conected to the faw flesh. It looks gruesome and make wonder how he can stand (tough he is very ligth).

The pikes and the pieces of clotehs hanging from his torso and waist are made with soft plastic. Of course this sections dosnt botehr at all with the very limited articulation but they help to give to the clothing a much more nice texture. 

Paint is good, with the clothing mixing a soft brown with a black wash soo it looks dirty and used soo the texture stand out. The fleshy parts have a mix of an even ligther brown with a black brush and some red mixed on it soo it looks like scarred flesh. The metalic parts are a mix od blues, copper, golden and greys soo he is not a one color creature and the best part, for me, are the siny metalic eyes that stand out from the dull skull that is his face. The horns also have a very realistic white paint on them.

The base is really heavy and stranglely shped and it consist on a metalic flor with a giant computer on the side that is melting away and from its center is coming out the Evilution Demon. Theres a lot of mother boards and cables and panels in the leting away material but the paint job is really really bad. The metalic flor is just ligth blue and dosnt looks anything metalic, it looks very plastic.

Also whhile the melting away PC have green color on the boards and a dark wash to gives it shadow, is basically brown....just brown....and the brown dosnt mixat all with the plastic blue of the floor soo in the end is pretty difficult to find out wath this is....it almost liooks like a pile of shit.

While theres no accesories aside of the base, they also incuded an old looking monitor and a metalic piece that is brown....again...both items are brown for some reason and the Evilution Demon cant hold them or interact with them soo they are just liying on the floor in between his legs.

Oh! I almost forgot!!! The figure also inclides and interactive CD-ROOM that contains a behind the scenes look at how this monster was designed, how it was sculpted and painted and who are the people behind him. This is such a nice detail....i mean it really show this was a collector item for people really interested not only on the figure, but on its proces of creation and mixed with the HBO movie, also interested on its story.

I love this collection of monster figures, i really do, and i love who is behind them and the CD-ROOM thingy but to be honest, i dont like this figure at all. The paint is OK, the sculpt is good but while in concept it sounds pretty gruesome, the figure it self is not really interesting to look at. Theres just too much going on, too much brown....and that hides not only the gruesome details of the monster but also make him really uninteresting.

I think this was mostly a design failure, something that may looks amazing on screen wont be that good as a toy or in this scale and also the lack of expreicnce on the paint section really hurt this character and failed to make him come alive in the display. Its really a shame because most of the rest of the monsters are much much better looking.

MANBAT

After more than 25 years i stil feel fascinated by McFarlane Toys figures from the 90s and begining of the 2000s but at the same time i really dislike wath McFarlane has been doing in the last 15 years. He produced a lot of Witcher figures yet every single one of them was terrible except a single statue of Geralt i review last year and he also produced an ocean of Batmen and DC characters, again some with an extremelly poor quality and some really good ones but the quality is all over the place in the end.

He did one of the best Swamp Thing figures i ever seen if not the single best one tough soo theres some really good jewells on his stock but they are kind of rare. One of the figures  that pick my attention greatly was Mcfarlane version of Manbat. He is part of the "Mega Figure" line along side Swapm Thing and other big characters like Doomsday soo while he came in a huge box, i was kinda dissapointed by his wings but in the end, i toock the chance i got him before he gets super expensive in the secondary market once McFarlane lose the DC licence.

Like i said, this guy comes in a huge box and is really really heavy but thankfully, price was very good and thats the saving greace of MacFarlane Toys now day. He is on scale with everything else of the brand soo this make him in perfect scale with NECA or Storm figures but given how beastly he is, he is for sure much bigger than those characters. He is actually bigger than Goliath and all the other Gargoyles but he is endeed shorter than the Swamp Thing (just to have in perspective how epic gigantic and imposing is Alec Holland).

This bad boy is articulate don the head, shoulders, elbows, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet. The head articulation is really fantastic because he have a long peg with two ball joints in each side, conecting with his shoulders and head soo the head can move at the sides with complete freedom, up and down too and the fur piece on his neck that covers the peg is made of soft plastic. The shoulders have giant ball joints as well as the elbows soo the only thing that blocks the movement are his wings.

Chest and waist ball joints have a huge range of movement and while the legs can rotate only a little bit, they cna split and move front and back pretty nicelly. Theres double joint on the knees soo they can bend pretty good and he have not one, but TWO articulations on the ankles: one that let his feet rotate and a ball joint that makes his feet pivot. 

Wath does this mean? I cant stand on his own at all. I mean, he can technically stand but once you find the perfect balance of weight in the front and the back and even then, its imposible to know for how long this is gonna last....i mean the torso is huge and really heave and the ankles joints are very very lose soo this is to be expected, is logic, is noting but BAD ENGINERING.......

He comes with a tiny mini stand with a peg that conects with any of his feet. The stand is soo crazy generic every single MacFarlane figues has it: a thin circular completelly black with the DC logo on it. Is completely useles. It dosnt help balance at all and it dosnt help make his falls lighter. Is a completelly waste of plastic...

Anyway, i only have another Manbat on my collection and that is the one from Batman The Animated Series that belongs to one of my favorite chapters, "On Leather Wings". This one tough is based on the design of the New 52 comics soo is very different and is more like a Hulk with wings. This version looks like a body builder werewolf with wings, very beastly, extremelly sexy as well and imposing while the animated one looks much more lean and athletic. This version have HUGE biceps and arms in general wich makes sense because you need wings of steel to keep such a beast in the air and makes wonder wath kind of wings he could have.

This is the thing, McFarlane Toys made his wings closed completelly. I knwo this figure is already big but this is such a huge wasted chance to make a trully amazing figure, give him a pair of extra open wings just like DC Direct did with this same character, wings made of rea fabric or even paper or something....having such an amazing design with the wings always closed is soo depressing....

Aside of the wings thing, the sculpt here is amazing. The texture of the muscles is very realistic and theres veings everywhere and little realistic details, like the nipples. The hair parts ofn the shoulders and neck are made with soft plastic and the hair sculpt is very sharp and well defined. The closed wings are also amde of soft plastic and they are divided with most of them coming from Manbat´s hands and a smaller section coming out from his biceps, this way the elbows can still bend and move and the gap between this two sections is very easy to hide.

The head sculot is really really good, with the tiny eyes and almost non-existant nose and the huge ears and mouth full of fangs, tough one of the fangs is thicker and bigger than the other. I tough this was a mistake on y figure but i seen photos and videos other people pointing the same soo i think this is intentional but i dont know waths the story behind it (maybe he broke one of his fangs???). The broken jeans have also a very good texture on them and while the legs seems small comapred to his torso, they are pretty well build too but kind of pre-posed soo he can stand up righ at all since the knees are sculpted bending (logic would tell us this was to make him stand him easyer but it dosnt help at all his balance).

Paint is less interesting tough. The hair in the shoulders, neck and forearms is painted in a dark brown with some black wash to make it stand and it works very well because it even looks a little shiny but pretty much everything else is painted in a softer brown and thats it. Theres no shades or shadows or a wash, nothing....just brown and that makes it looks almost like cell shading clean. I mean, the wings SHOULD be a different color on each side but they are just the same brown as the rest of the body. 

Even the jeans are just blue and nothing else...no stains, dirt or anything else, just plain blue. The inside of the mouth is purple and stands our pretty good with all that brown and the inside of the hear is purple too tough i wish the transition between purple and brown could be better. The fangs...i am not sure if they are brown as well but they looks suspiciouslly like the skin tone but the eyes looks terrific!! The black surrounding the red puplis makes them sttand out perfectly and looks really demonic.

And since this is McFarlane, theres no accesorys beyond the waste of plastic that is the base and a card featuring a very good looking art in the front and the basic info of the character in the back. The card is a nice detail, like always, but i wish they added a closed mouth extra head (or gives him ana rticulated jaw!!!) or some open hands....its soo tiring to have his hands always on a fist.

This figure is nothing but contrast....it looks amazing on the shelve with a horror collection or a DC display, y beastly, sexy and well articulated and have an impresive size and presence, but the paint could be better, the balance needs to be better, the extras dont exist at all....soo this Manbat feels soo perfect yet soo incomplete. Its such a werid feeling.

Even soo i am happy i got him, despitr the headache that represents make him stand, this is one of the best McFarlane Toys has done in many years and looks perfect along side Zood or the Great Wolves and the Furay Planet figures.

DEVILMAN VIOLENCE

 Let start the year with something retro, very retro, from 1998 actually and a subject even more retro: Devilman. Its been a long time since i posted something Devilman related but i already review every single piece i have and in the last years pretty much nothing has come out related to the character. Yes, Devilman Crybaby was very popular but it didnt spark any kind of merchadise at all soo the last time we had new Devilman toys was....probablly 15 years ago.

Good thing tough last century leave us an awfull lot of Devilman merchadise to hunt down soo while this figure is not entirelly new but its just a color variant i think its worth adding it to the collection given how rare it is. From Kaiyodo this is part of theyr "Violence Action Figures" series that consist on nly two figures: Devilman and Devilman Lady.

But while the series was pretty small, the color variations made it much bigger. Back in the 90s for some reason color variations in action figures was extremelly popular ocurrence soo every figure came out in 5 or even more color palettes and that made them extremelly tricky to collect since the original color palette was most of the time pretty difficult to find. Thats something i really dont miss from toy collecting in the 90s and beginign of the 2000s.

Soo of course Kaiyodo was no exception for this soo it released 4 different variations of each Devilman and Devilman Lady. I think i got the original version of both....maybe. But last year i was able to find another Devilman lose but in really good condition. Yes i aready got this guy in my collection but up at this point is a good idea to snatch anything related to the character.

He is in standar scale, justlike NECA or McFarlane or Storm soo he fits nicelly with most figures series and he can stand on his own, partially because the articulations on his knees are very lose and make him fall constantly, specially with the wings on soo you need to find the perfect balance but once done, he stays still perfectly. With no wings he stands much much better.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs and knees and of course, all this articulations are very basic swivels that only let him rotate the waist, head and wrists and the elbows and knees have a basic articulation and given his legs are sculpted very open, moveing them isnt specially usefull or good looking, soo this is a figure fully articulated but with not many options of display.

Sculpt is fantastic, this is Devilman in his most basic shape, just like Go Nagai designed him, with the big smile full of fangs, pointy nose, the anthena and medium size wings on his head and hairy legs, no unnecesary redesign or anything and the muscular buid is really really amazing, he looks like a body builder and he actually have his penis sculpted as well as his nipples.

The paint consist on metalic orange with a black airbursh on his legs and shoulder marks and the wings have the same color aplication. The red inside his mouth dosnt stand too much with all that orange but the yellow eyes looks really nice in contrast with the back section of his head. While the paint on the eyes and fangs is perfectm the whole figure is cast in transluscent plastic soo it catch the light in a pretty weird way mixed along the metalic paint.

The original version is cast on normal plastic and is painted in green, with a lot of details on his muscuature. Here theres no details in the paint at all, just plain orange, but the transparency make his looks more shiny than the original version. There sno accesorys but the wings can be removed but that leave a big hole on his back.

Compared with modertn figures this is abismal. but the articulations and design mixed with the material and the way its painted makes this looks like one of those super expensive vinyl japanese toys and it defifinelty screams "80s-90s". From all the Devilman figures i seen in my life this one is one of the bests to represents the Go Nagai character design and fits nicelly on any anime of horror collection.

I cant remember the last time i got a Deviman figure like this. To a point i think i felt my collection was completelly closed but this guy reminds me it is not, there is a lot still out there related to Devilman and that somehow makes me feel kinda excited.