DEMONA

 I am not really into busts, actually i dont remember owning any aside of some Devilman gashappon but for many this is theyr main collection and the one to blame is Diamond Select. Over the longest time Diamond released resin minibust  of Batman The Animated Series, Marvel, Star Wars and an awfull lot of other series and each collection had a huge amount of characters as well, all of them sharing the same scale and base and this was perfect to build a theme based collection, specially with the high quality of said busts.

Sadly, Diamond Select exist no more but before it was gone they release a set of Gargoyles busts into the wild and a few months ago i got Goliath and i was extremelly happy with him and how he looks along side the Applause, Quantum Mechanix and NECA figures soo of course i had to HAVE Demona deffinetly, its imposible to not get the pair together.

Demona is in the same scale as Goliath soo wath does this means: she is much more smaller since theres even a lot of empty space on her base while Goliath huge body covers the entire base. She is also shorter and also she is much much much lighter as well. Really, is hard to belive the weigth difference bewteen Demona and Goliath!!

She can stand on her own perfectly since the base have soft rubber tiny legs on each point and she have no accesorys or articulations at all tough her wings are detached. Put the wings on her back is easy but this are not magnetic unlike Goliath´s that have a strong magnetical lock on his wongs and hair. I guess this is because the wings are not as heavy as Goliath´s but this also means they ccan fall if you put her back down. Then again, no problem with that if she is being displayed but move her around demands to be a little bit carefull with the wings.

Designed by Barry Bradfield and sculpted by Varner Studios this is one amazing looking statue. While i had some issues with Goliath, like the shape of his head from a side view or the size of his jaw, this Demona is 100% acurate to the on screen character design and unlike the NECA figures this looks 100% like an animation cell. 

The nose size, the cheekbones, the shape of her jaw, everything matches Demona´s design perfectly and the sculpt is clean and defined, specially on her body since her muscular structure is really good looking as well. With her hands around her thin waist and the smile she looks feminine enough to be sexy tough her wings are smaller than expected, they dont have any issue for the base to work.

Demona have my favorite wings from the entire cast of character, with the claws on top and no "fingers" in the membrane yet the membrane is bat wings shaped. The hair is very similar to the NECA´s design and i guess theres no other way to do a 3D render of it with smal spikes on all directions tough i wish her hair piece was longer, i guess this would have created issues for the wings.

The base is the same as Goliath´s, with the brick design and the strange gargoyle face at the front, also this is the only part with a texture while the rest is clean. Painted in grey it contrast nicelly with Demona´s color palette; red, pruple and electric blue. The paint aplication is perfect except in the outer finger of the wings where the purple and blue mix a little bit but is nothing to evident.

The beautifull purple have some dark wash to give shadows to the wings and the blue of Demona´s skin have also soft black brushes to high light her muscular anatomy. The red in her hair looks good and theres a darker section in the middle and around her face that makes it looks acurate to her two color hair deisng. Eyes are big and clean while the link lips and white on her teeth is very delicatelly painted.

Her golden tiara as well as her earrings and the ornament on her arm also have an extra layer of shiny finish soo they looks metalic and stand out to the rest of the body. Everything looks really good and i think thats quiet a feat considering how difficult it seems to paint such clean to the touch material.

Also the bottom of the base points out this is actually a limited edition product of 3000 pieces and this Demona in particular is the 330 one and while not an accesory, they also included an autenticity certificate that points out the same number. Very classy.

I really dont regret getting this, she looks amazing on the shelf and specially, with Goliath close to her. There is just something ornamental on this bust sculpts that feels quiet elegant mixed with the heavy resin material tough it worrys me how delicate they are. 

Theres also a Xanatos and as much as i love sexy Xanatos, i think i wont get him at all. I got the feeling he would mess the display completelly since Goliath and Demona are the perfect pair to be together.

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.

ARMORED XANATOS

 Last year NECA went crazy and released the entire line of Gargoyles in a single wave. It was a VERY TOUGH year for my walltet deffinetly, but there was one single figure i skip even if that means not completing the series: Armored Xanatos. I love the look of the red Steel Clan robot, the leader of the mechanical army that turns out to be actually Xanatos. I still have him as a Kenner toy from the 90s (the red variant, not the grey basic version) but in the end, he is just a color variant of an already released figure.

This review could be extremelly short but instead of that i am going to pretend i didnt review the Steel Clan figure, soo this guy is actually quiet masive, he is a little bit taller than Goliath and that makes this the biggest figure in the series but he is also extremelly heavy, quiet an issue for him to stand still.

Despite the use of the tail, the ankles get lose over time and they bend pretty easy soo extra precautions must be used here since given how heavy he is, he can damage anything under him. 

He is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half foot as well as his tail, wings and the middle of the wings open up to the sides. All if this are ball joints soo in theory they have a lot of freedom of movement only limited by the design: the hair thingy clash with the wings soo he can move his head too much to the sides also the shoulder pads have a hinge too the open up to give room to his shoulders articulation.

The elbows and ankles have double articulations soo they bend pretty good and the tail is bendy with a wire. The wings shape is..... weird, really weird soo they can rotate but not open up because they end in a pretty awkard angle soo this is the only character (aside of the Steel Clan) to have articulated wings but theres not a whole option of poses for them.

The feet claws rotate soo they can be adjusted to the surface but still manouver them while avoidung th wings is really tricky. Speaking of avoiding, the whole wing as well as the claws in the hands have really ponty edges and they can cut human skin pretty easy!!! Also the phalanx on his hands are also extremelly sharp.

While Kenner gives Xanatos a pretty different armour that includes even a maks instead of a helmeth and made him looks totally different to the other robots, NECA´s version is screen accurate soo this is exactly the same sculpt as the Steel Clan robots, the only totally new section is the ted button on the center of his chest and the tubes that goes around his neck. This section is made with soft plastic and cannot be removed.

The design is extremelly cool and follows the character design of the cartoon adding a lot of extra deailing and using the Kenner wings design. The biggest point of attention here is the color, a metalic red. The red shines pretty nice and actually make the photographic job to be extremelly difficult since the red color reflects the ligth like no other color does, soo while the Steel Clan robot shines like a mirror this guy looks like a lighthouse.

Every union of the pieces and every bolt are painted in black, soo theres no lack of detail in here, but everything looks soo clean shiny, like a limousine (pretty fitting for Xanatos i guess). The abdomen, biceps and tights are painted on gunmetal black  while the slaws are white, soo the overall looks is really sext, menacing and elegant (tough i really hope the red paint stays in the bendy tail and donst start to chip away).

The accesorys are exactly the same as the Steel Clan: a pair of closed fist, a pair of holding hands, a pair of open hands and a pair of claw shaped  hands and not only they are really really good looking (specially the open hands) but they are pretty easy to swap as well.

He also have a pait of lasser guns for his amr armor. The piece on his arm can be removed and the lassers attach with a peg. They are pretty good looking and the metalic red on top matches the rest of the armor perfectly.

Then theres the fire effect of the jet blasters that keep Xanatos on the air: two small effects for the base of his feet and a big one for his back, all cast in transluscent plastic with some orange wash over them. They are really good looking tough the peg is soo small in the feet ones is kinda tricky make them stay in place.

Lastly, the only new accesory is Xanatos head with no helmeth that can replace the normal robotic head and also includes a soft plastic metalic ring that goes around his neck to hide the articulation and make the transition looks better. Sadlly, this head with a fierce expression also comes with normal Xanatos soo this is literally a duplicated accesory.

Also....i hate hiw he looks....i mean, the head is way too small for such a huge body...this dosnt looks like IronMan at all, the Steel Clan body is huge compared to a human body soo having Xanatos inside this dosnt make too much sense. In the cartoon they played with scales a lot and no one notice because, they are 2D arts, but in 3D you need to be pretty close to scale between figures and this really bring this issue.

Either you downscale the red rebot to look in scale to Xanatos (and wrong comapred to the other robots) of you sculpt a bigger head to go with this figure, but that would be extremelly akward looking compared to the rest of the line, soo NECA decided to just keep the same scale of the head and the body soo they dont match each other but each elemtn matches the rest of the line. I think this was the most wise choice but still i dont like how it looks.

Besides, this was a perfect chance to add a Xanatos head with a different face expression or blood driping from his forehead, or give him lasser effects to his lasers or some damage pieces of other robots....i dunno....pretty much every element of this figure is taken from ther figures of the line, except the red color.

This is why it take me soo long to get this Xanatos, he is extremelly cool looking and nicelly done, but in the end everything is recycled here, i mean, even Thailong - Goliath´s clon - had a different face sculpt and totally unique accesorys.

Still i am tempted to get another Steel Clan robot soo i can display this red leader one along two sentrys i dont have the space for it but now that the line is over and it will take a while for NECA to release the side characters maybe i will do it. 

LEXINGTON

 NECA is deffinetly on a crazy race latelly, completing all the series that promised two years ago in just a few months!! Elisa and Xanatos just came a few week ago and here is Lexington already, closing the Manhattan clan at last. I still find it hard to belive that the Steel Clan Robot came out before Lexington or even Thailog but, while the wait was pretty weird, here he is at last!!!

And i was actually extremelly interested in this figure to see wath kind of design and enginering NECA would use on him, since for years they only show pretty limited photos online and all of them didnt reveal too much. This is a figure that deminds a lot of creativity that even Kenner didnt manage to handle back in the 90s.

Lexington is tiny, like...really tiny, much more than Elisa and Xanatos and almost as small as Bronx but deffinetly much more thin and ligth weigth. But of course, he is the same price as the rest of the figures.....but anyway, this small size makes him easy to handle and pretty easy to display him fliying around, this is the most fun figure of the entire collection to play with.

He is articulated on the head, torso, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles, half feet, tail and wings. The tail is pretty small and bendy like always, but is more than enough to handle the weigth of the figure and helps perfectly to make him stand. All other articulations are ball joints and have the impresive freedom of movement as always and since he have no hair, his head can move a lot, more soo than any other figures in the collection.

Now here is the thing; the wings. Lexington wings are very different to the rest of the clan, they conect from his legs to his arms and all around his torso like a fliying squirrel. Kenner could not handle this and did his wings separate to his arms to not sacrifice arms articulation, but NECA managed to stay true to the original design and conect the wings from thigs to a "long finger" conected to his back and then it reconects again to his foreamrs.

The wings are made of a pretty thin and soft plastic, a first for the collection and it folds and curls around once the arms and legs are moved tough not entirelly. I mean, the legs conection dosnt block the movement, but the forearms conection make his arms movement kind of troublesome once the elbows are bent. Also moving up his arms is very tircky since the wings make a resistance since is not elastic at all. 

Also the wings keep pulling his forearms and twists his elbows articulation in a pretty alarming way. I hope this articulations are strong enough to not broke eventually but i got the feeling the elbows are a point to be carefull with. But in the end, i cant see how to make a figure of Lexington without this kind of issues, this is the best any company could do with such a design.

The sculpt is fantastic. This is the most cartoony design and the character with the biggest eyes soo far but while they keep this features, he fits perfectly fine with the look of the rest of the series. His face features are pretty sharp, specially on the section on top of his eyes and the ears and this guy deffinetly is the one that looks more like a vampire

The body have a pretty impresive musculature build, despite the small body frame, he is ripped and that makes him looks as menacing as the bigger gargoyles. The arms are much longer than usual but i guess this is natural since they are his wings after all. The veins on his arms, the wrinkles on his feet, aged texture on his loincloth, this are all the details that looks even more impresive with the small scale of this guy and the wings, despite the difference of material, share the same scaly/leather texture the other wings have with some veins inclided and on both sides.

The paint is great. Every peice is cast in green plastic soo the skin color looks natural and match each other, but theres is also a dark green wash and airbrush to high ligth every muscle and give it volume. The shadowing on his face looks really good as well tough, the little fangs are not that well painted and some of the eyes paint is kinda sloppy, wich is weird given how big the eyes are.

The blue on the loincloth includes a ligther grey wash that gives it the looks of a pretty old and ancient piece of clothing, looks dusty and dirty and the holes on it helps a lot to make it looks natyral. The wings have a pretty ligth brown color in the internal side with some darker shadows soo the veins and scale texture dont get lost and in the external side it have a darker brown paint mixed with a little bit of metalic finish soo the skin shines with a soft supernatural iridesence. This kind of details are wath make this figures soo amazing.

Aside of the closed fist hands he comes with two extra pairs of hands, one claw shaped and another one to hold accesorys. Sculpt and paint is consistent and they are pretty easy to exchange despite the peg being extremelly thin and looks fragile.

The extra head have Lexington in attack mode with his open mouth and eyes with no pupils. Of course without the cartoony pupils, those huge eyes are really menacing and the sculpt with the open jaw shows up the muscular structure of his skull pretty nicelly. I love the tiny piranha fangs as well as the small tongue inside but while the red paint on the tongue is perfect, the small fangs are pretty messy looking.

He also comes with a headset. Is pretty simple looking and painted only in grey and black but it fits his head perfectly. The earbuds enter into his hears and the speaker is just in the rigth place for his mouth, also they are pretty easy to fit but they dont fall from his ehad since the earbud inters pretty deep into his ears.

He have a remote controler as well with a big antena and two sticks, one for up and down movement and another one for left and rigth movement and a red button on the center. Looks cartoony but fits on his hand perfectly and i am not sure from where this is remote....is his toy car remote i think? Is pretty sad they didnt include his actual toy here tough.

And this is all about usefull items, now the useless acesorys: Kenner gives him a silly looking crossbow back in 1995 and NECA is repeating it recreating that same crossvow despite this thing never been on the actualy show. The design is extremelly cool looking and medieval, with a wooden center part and metalic sections with spikes and a chain as shooting mechanism. The chain is a real metal chain and the wood section looks pretty realistic and almost makes me wish they included this weapon on the show.

It fits nicelly on his hand as is smaller than the Kenne rversion making it less silly deffinetly. Very out of character but a pretty damn cool accesory for some other figure. Also it comes with four arrows that, unlike the crossbow, dont have anything special despite eing extremelly small and delicate. The arrows fit inside the crossbow but they goes all the way inside the weapon and they are pretty difficult to take out. For such a beastly and big crossvow, the arrows dont fit it at all.

And thats it. Not too many usefull accesorys aside of the extra head but thr worst is the msised oportunity to add Hudson, Brooklyn, Angela or Thailog closed wings since Lexington is much smaller than Bronx, Xanatos or Elisa, closed wings could fit here perfectly and they would justify the high price as well.

Aside of the missing chance for the wings, i cant seem to find anything to complaing in here. This figure is really really good looking, works great and is a lot of fun to display specially fliying around. I huge improvement over the Kenner original and much more exciting than Elisa and Xanatos, but more important, its very exciting to have the Manhattan clana togetehr at last.

It was a logn wait, a really long wait, but they are finally together and display them interacting with each other, specially the younger ones, is really really special. Armored Xanatos is coming pretty son and next year we will get Macbeth, Gabriel and Coldstone but as nice as those characters are, they are side characters. For me, the final piece of the puzzle is Lexington. Now he is here and everything feels allrigth and complete.

XANATOS

 Theres soo many reason why to love Gargoyles, but one of the most important was its villians. The series had some of the most amazing and deep villians capable to do the worst thing but still being iposible to hate. One of the most prominent representatives of this is Xanatos, the main villian of the series that represent greed, betrayal and all the worst of humanity while packed on a pretty handsome, charming, well manered and kind package.

I says Elisa Maza was the most important human being for the Gargoykes but Xanatos is perhaps pretty close since he put the entire destiny of the gargoyles in motion and i am really surprised that NECA released the Steel Clan Robots before Xanatos as the main villian. But finally, here he is, along side Elisa Maza on his tiny super small package.

Xanatos is taller than Elisa but still shorter than Demona or the rest of the Gargoyles, perfect in scale and unlike Elisa that have some flimsy legs, this man can stand on his own perfectly and stay that way for an infinite amount of time. He is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, double articulation on the elbows, wrists, waist, legs, kneed, ankles and half feet.

Eevery single ball joint move perfectly and gives him a huge range of motion, despite him being a pretty pasive character. His pony tail dosnt block the head articulation since is made with soft plastic and while his waist only moves left and rigth and his ankles dosnt move that much thanks to his pants, everything else works wonderfully (specially the elbows).

I like his sculpt much more than Elisa´s tough this is maybe because i like him more than Elisa and his face feature are much more complex, with the strong jaw and seductive look on his eyes, even his "base head" looks very expresive. The hair is nicelly sculpted half way between cartoon and ralistic style as well as the pony tail.

His is pretty athletic tough since, under the soft plastic coat, his pecs looks really muscly. Like i said, the coat is made with soft plastic soo it dosnt get in the way of the articulations, it have a very few wrinkles of gravity  in specific places but not too many since i am sure Xanatos iron his entire attire. The buttons on his coat are perfectly sculpted as well as the ones on his shirt underneath as well as the neck collar.

The pants have more wrinkles but overall they are pretty plain as well a his shoes, that are made with more shiny plastic. Theres nothing more there tp talk about since, his entire looks is extremelly simple soo theres not many details too look at, just like with Elisa.

His pants are a mix od black paints with some darker washes here and there while his shoes are clean black while his shirt is gunmetal black and have a pretty nice and soft texture, the coat is painted n dark grey and dosnt have any other tone aside of the black buttons on the sleeve.

The skin tone is perfect (not completelly white but with a ligth taned mediterranean tone) as well as the hair tough i wish the hair had more different colors for shadows and ligth since its just plain brown. The eyes are perfectly definied as well as the lips on his sensual smile, a really good representation of Xanatos.

For the accesorys he have 3 sets of hands: closed fist, hands to hold the floppy disc and Eye of Odin and a pair to hold his riffle. All hands works perfectly and are easy to change. There is also an extra head that exchanges from the neck up and its a little tricky to use, but it works nice too and have Xanatos in a fierce angry expression with his teeth exposed. It looks good on him tough it dosnt have that much difference with the base smiling expresion.

He also comes with a floppy disc, that one fill with all the important information of his corporation and was stolen by a rival company. Yes...very 90s, only in the 90s you could put that much into this little discs...the item is pretty cute, pretty tiny and perfectly painted in grey with a white label and the metalic part on the top.

Nother accesory is the incomplete Eye of Odin nacklace. The sculpt is rpetty delicate and the necklace section is chained with little hooks and can be moved around tough is not flexible, soo it cant be sued as a necklace. The paint is totally gold with some black lines in the necklace section tough is incomplete....NECA FORGOT TO ADD THE PUPIL!! The blue round jewel that acts as the pupil of the ey is missing for some reason and looking at the internet, i seen all copys of the figure have the missing pupil.

While Elisa from the NYPD cant have a gun, Xanatos, as a good USA civilian citizen, comes with a big ass riffle with a pretty cool and futuristic sci-fy design, pretty classic from the 90s. The riffle tough comes in vibrant blues with some baby blue tones and dark blue details. This color make it looks extremelly silly, more like a toy gun or a water gun.

There is also a blast effect with a peg that can be unserted on the riffle mouth. The blast effect is supposed to be a laser soo is transluscent red with some explosion effects in both sides. It looks really good and is much easyer to display than the giant Thailog shooting effect tough, with the blue toy gun, this laser looks more like strawberry water.

And finally, there is Demona´s closed wings. The wings are made with soft plastic and feel very flimsy and delicate since they are not joined in the back, soo the only part that makes them stay close are the little hands on the front. Still i have no issues using this wings on Demona and they ahve the same blue color with the inside puple and metalic black on the outside.

I love tough how, while Goliath´s and Brooklyn´s wings hang from the necks, Demona´s wings hangd from the side of her arms, under the shoulders, much more like a dress. They are really femenine and suits her perfectly soo she can finally be close to Goliath or any other character without the anoying huge open wings.

I like Xanatos, he is one of the best characters of Gargoyles but as an action figure, he suffers the same issue as Elisa: he is pretty boring looking. This is not NECA´s fault of course, the figure itself is really well done except for the Eye of Odin, bit the part that excite me the most in here, in fact, Demona´s wings.

I think this is why NECA added the wings to both Xanatos and Elisa. Also i cant compare with old Kenner version because i never had the Xanatos figure before, only the one on his armor. But oh well, now we are missing only Lexington and Coldstone to finally complete the  collection!!