MORRIGAN

 

Four years it took Storm to release Morrigan, 4 entire years to release the second Darkstalkers figure of te series after the first one....i am sorry this is the very first thing to say in this review, but i really had to took it out from my chest. Storm Collectibles has been turning into reality many of our dreams as fighting game fanatics by creating high quality action figures in the same scales based on many fighting game characters, from main stream games to games that hasnt seen the day of ligth since 25 years ago.

In the last years my Storm collection has been growing a lot and i only got the characters i love the most with exception of a few series that i swear to complete and buy any character they produce. One of those series is Darkstalkers because not only is one of my favorite games since the last century, but because the last time we had action figures based on this characters was from ToyBiz well.....a century ago actually.

Naturally, my hype was huge when Storm show it had the licence and i had the fantasy to finally have figures of all this monster characters tough i had to wait 4 entire years to saw the very first release; Demitri. I was ectastic, but i had to wait another 4 years for a second figure: Morrigan Aensland.

I am actually surprised this figure wasnt the very first to be launched, but its actually a figure full of contrast. In perfect scale with Demitri, she is half a head smaller than him and that makes her a pretty tall lady, i mean she is like a head and a half taller than Ryu, but not only Ryu is quiet short, but this woman is a monster, soo i guess expect her to be tall is natural.

As i was afraid since i saw the very first prototypes, she is a pain in the ass to stand. With no base and those stileto high heels, she is literally standing on the tip of her feet and only when her legs are in the extact distance from each other, soo she is really imposible to stand with her legs together or any part of her body leaning to any side. I guess that cant be helped and thats a character design flaw in 3D.

She is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half of her boots. Also her wings have a ball joint atriculation where they join her back and another one in the middle of the arm (elbow?) and another ball joint where the membran part begins (wrists??). All this ball joints make her wings extremelly flexible and since the arm part can be rotated that helps a lot to give the wings any pose in a pretty easy way.

Her head have a ball joint like all other Storm figures and her shoulders have both a ball joint and a butterfly while her elbows and knees have two articulations and her boots have a pibot and her legs can rotate. Her chest articulation and waist have a ball joint soo they have a HUGE range of movement that let her tist her entire body pretty easy, specially with her soft plastic hips piece.

The chest piece is also soft plastic but since its quiet small, it dosnt make too much of a difference. Her hair is also made with soft plastic tough it lacks any kind of articulation and thats one of the problem points here: The hair and the white thingys on her shoulders get A LOT in the way. The hair weigth too much and it gets in the way with the wings pretty easy.

The featherish leace that conects with her chest and back also dosnt let her amrs rise too much. In order to make a Soul Fist movement the feather thingys must be put above her shoulders. They are made with soft plastic of course but i hope the glue resist all the movement of her arms section.

I dont have many Storm female figures, aside of Taki, soo this figure is quiet a novelty for me and i am impresed by how much of a good jov Storm did here; Morrigan is stuning beautifull. Whie her chest is smaller than Taki´s, her waist line is soo incrediblly tiny while her ass is HUGE. The curves here are really extreme, beyond human anatomy actually....she is mostly shaped like Jessica Rabit.

Theres not much sculpted detail here tough, her outfit dont hide too much soo her silhouette is mostly wath we seen here. Her boots have the rigth amount of wrinkles close to the ankles and her wings have the rigth shape tough i am not sure if they are a little bit too small. The feather/hairy thingy that holds her outfit from the chest to her back looks really good as well.

And here is another contrast: she dosnt looks like Morrigan. We can use the sprites to compare but the artwork of Capcom from the 90s shows a different woman: round face, wide mouth and nose, no make up, big brown eyes. This figure is quiet the opposite: chiseled face features, small mouth and nose, cat shaped eyes with make up and lipstick and her pupils are the same color as her hair. Despite not looking like her, she is really pretty. 

Tough she is more like...."doll pretty", and that mixed with her imposible shapes make this woman looks kinda cartoony along side the rest of the Storm Collectible figures. Of course, being a Darkstalker thats about rigth since thats one of the most cartoony games from Capcom and i am glad she is cartoony pretty and not just cartoony like Mai Shiranui.

The bangs of her hair are made with soft plastic tough the wings are made of hard plastic and are nto artciculated, and that makes them specially delicate and must be handled with caution. Her hair have the rigth lenght and shape in the back and the aqua blue color stands out with all those different shades.

The red lipstick, awua blue eye brows and big blue eyes are perfectly painted and contrast nicelly with her pale skin (she actually looks quiet a bit like Slan from Berserk).Her chest piece and elbows are cast in the same skin color as her face with some darker shades to give them shadows in a natural way while her arms are cast in pink color plastic and her legs in purple. Theres not much color details here either aside of the bats pattern on her legs, that looks pretty perfect.

The wings are the same, cast in gun metal black with only the membrane painted in a dark purple and the claw on top on withe. Actually i think the whole color aplication is quiet cartoony as well, but it matches Morrigan perfectly (just like Demitri dosnt have too many color details on his suit either).

Her accesorys are four extra pairs of hands aside of the close fists: claw shaped hands, a pair designed to hold her arms or waist, another pair in a becoking stance and another with 3 fingers together. All of them are extremelly femenine and have a lot of personality and matches Morrigan perfectly. The color is perfect and they are pretty soft to the touch and can be swaped prettye easy despite the tiny ball joint.

Then theres 3 extra heads aside of the neutral base face head for a grand total f 4: one is smiling, another one have her have angry looking eyes while another one shows her being hit, with her mouth open and huge cartoony eyes poping out. The problem here is the neutral, smiling and angry faces are 90% the same, they are extremelly unespresive and you must to looks carefully in order to notice the tiny differences on them: the soft smile and the frown.

The last face is the opposite, extremelly expresive!! With her open mouth, with no make lipstick but her tiny teeth and mouth perfectly apinted and those huge eyes oping out of her sockets.At first i hated this head in images but in the end, i think is one of my favorite accesorys because it aknowledges the fact how Darkstalkers wasnt a serius game at all, it was less serius than Street Figther.

The next accesoryes are her wings, four in total: one with straigth neutral hair, another one being bown by the wind, another one the same but tunrning a little bit to her rigth and another one being blown to her back and flooding to the sides. This last wig is mostly for the Soul Fist pose and looks really spectacular since it recreates the shape of the sprite perfectly.

I find the other two hair pieces irrelevant tough since they looks almost the same and they take a lot of space in the box. With an articulation on the hair hidden on the back of the head, Storm could have save the space and material of this wigs, tough the sculpt is good and the paint matches the aqua blue colors of the rest of the heads, conect this pieces to her back is quiet tricky, specially with the delicate wings on her head and the wings of her back getting in the way constantly.

I am not sure if this counts as an effect, but they also included two boots shaped like giant blades. You can see the shape of her feet under them and how the gun metal black turns slowlly into metalic grey near the blade. This are pretty damn big and i am surprised how easy is to swap this for her high heel boots. Of coruse, adding two is unnecesary since she will not kick with both her two feets at the same time, but they are designed for an specific feet.

This is mostly to recreate her heavy kick, where she throws herself to her back and stand on a single leg, while the other leg rises with a balde in front. This pose is.....extremelly difficult to achive actually even with a base, but with some adjustement and posing her holding the boot with her hand and covering it with her hair, you can recreate her Shadow Blade attack as well!!

Then the real effect: the Soul Fist bat that cna be suspended in the hair using a base with an adjustable rod. This bat is exactly the same as Demitri´s except this one is smaller: made with soft transluscent plastic and painted with a mix of orange and yellow, it was pretty dissapoiting for me to see them recyce this piece. I mean, is not like Morrigan dont have much flashy moves, they could add arros to adjust to her wings, more blades or even some bats to surround here....

And lastly, theres her background: the Deserted Chateau, With the dress in one side and a gargoyle in the other and the Aensland castle in the middle. The pixel work is beautifull and this is one of the most iconic stages of Darksalkers, but i think the contast is too dark since this image dosnt looks as flashy as it looks in the game. Tough it deffinetly makes Morrigan pop out.

Its odd how many issues have this figure, from an off sculpt face to unexpresive extra heads, and redundant hair pieces and even recycled effects, i cant belive Storm took four entire years to produce this and yet....and yet, she is pretty beautifull and pretty fun to pose with all those femenine hand gestures and she just have such an amazing and unique design that shows the brillance of Capcom artistry in the 90s.

Is really bittersweet because i am not expecting Storm to release anymore Darkstalker figures, if they take this much to produce a second one and they didnt show any prototype, this line is mostly dead just like Soul Calibur VI, actually i am amazed they didnt cancelled Morrigan just like they cancelled the women from Mortal Kombat or Supermand and Batman from Injustice. Again more contrasts: Storm Collectibles makes me soo damn happy but at the same time they dissapoint me like no other company.

DEMITRI MAXIMOFF

Some brands really knows how to stand out by giving to the fans wath they always wated, like McFarlane introducing the figures of horror movies to a hungry market or NECA and Sideshow with Gargoyles or Predator and Storm Collectibles is deffinetly leaving a big mark behind, first for theyr great quality figures of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, and also for giving us figures of classic games that didnt had any kind of merchadise in the last 20 years. 

Street of Rage, Tekken, Samurai Shodown, Golden Axe and in this case, Darkstalkers. Toybiz take care of the Darkstalkers back at the end of the last century producing a bunch of characters in a very descent quality. SOTA would try a few years later but despite producing really good looking base models, they cancelled the series. Now more than a decade later Storm have the brand and IS ACTUALLY making the figures.

I would lie if i say i wasnt crazy hyaped by this and it took five extra months to the first figure to arrive to my hands, the Prince of Darkness Demitri Maximoff. He is big, much bigger than Ryu and a little taller than the Street Fighter or King of Fighter characters soo he is really tall and heavy, perfect for him. He can stand n his own perfectly tough a base wuold have been extremelly helpfull for his lvitation poses but since he dosnt fight on the streets, he dosnt have the luxury of a base.

Just like all other Storm figures, he is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles and half foot and given his design, nothing get in the way of the articulations, he have full freedom of movement to tilt his head and torax to any direction tough he cant rotate his legs, wich is odd since that limit his lower half a little bit, he cant join his legs for example. Despite that detail, all articulations work perfect and are pretty strong and sturdy.

The entire cast of Darkstalkers is much more closer to cartoon style than reality, given how they can distor theyr entire body like a Tex Avery cartoon and on illustrations the anatomi of each character is really off, for example Dimitri have a tiny head and HUGE hands, feet and an extremelly thin waist. This is all part of Capcom trademark style, wath make theyr characters stand out. But wath looks good on 2D, dont always does it on 3D.

Storm redesigned Dimitri to keep his huge frame but in a more realistic way, adjusted size but keep the volume soo he can fit perfectly with all the other figures from Tekken or Mortal Kombat, he looks huge but with good proportions, really good goood proportions i say since his costume dosnt hide any detail of his musculature soo this is the only figure to sport such perfect and impresive legs and chest.

the face sculpt is really good, with his chiseled face features that almost looks like sculpted on rock. His "Vegeta" like hair style have mre detail than we seen on the illustrations and i love the velvet texture on his entire body, it feels almost like peach. The inner red shirt and outer jacket are made with soft plastic soo the texture is really nice and dosnt block any of the articulation. But the best detail on the sculpt is deffinetly the handkerchief and poofy cuffs.

The cape is made with the same nice soft plastic and flows nicelly tough i got the feeling is kind of short....i wish it was longer and i wish it could me posed with a wire or something but real clothe cape woul look kinda odd on this scale soo this plastic cape just fall behind him but looks really integral to the sculpt.

The paint is minimum like always, all the pieces are cast on the dominant color of that section soo the color is really consistent all over the piece and the paint is aplied just in some small details, like the buttons on the sides of his pants, the red side of his cape, the cuffs, his hair and eyes and each section is painted perfectly. I specially love his eyes since they looks like shiny red jewels.

My only compalign here is the tone of his body suit, i always expecte something darker, like navy blue, but insted is a gray/blue color.

His accesorys consist on a bunch of extra hands with different gestures, 3 pairs to be exact aside of the closed fist and are really expresive. The hands can be exchanged pretty easy and the puffy cuffs dosnt get in the way (unlike Ryu´s). The other accesorys are a pair of extra heads that can be exchanged perfectly easy as well. One head have a sigtly open mouth showing his fangs and anothe one a huge smile.

The fierce looking is good for battle poses, but the best one is the smile, is really terrifying and monstruos and the inside paint and piranha fangs looks terrific. This is soo different to any other fight game character.

Then there is the effects and he have two: both for the same attack Chaors Flare. The Chaos Flare is a big yellow and orange fireball with not much detailing. Is big but completelly hollow and kind of soft but the transluscent effect is really nice and once you attach it to the base Dimitri can shot it from his hands.

The Chaors Flare DS3 version have the shape of a bat. The sculpt os really nice and the wing span is big. With no paint at all, the bat s cast on transluscent yellow and orange plastic and use the same base as the other Chaos Flare version. The base arm can be extended to adjuts the height of both effects.

An the last item is Demitris scenario, the Feast of the Damned. The impression is of very high quality and despite being really pixelated, it highlights the amazing artistry of Capcom with pixel art since every single character in the Feast stands out. My only complaing is that the backgrounds fall s alittle short compared to Demitry heigth.

I wish his legs have an extra articulation and his body suit was darker, i wish his cape was a little bit longer but despite those small issues, this figure is really amazing and deffinetly one of my favorites of Storm along Haohmaru. The wait was soo long to finally have Darkstalkers figures and Morrigan will come next to form the evil pairing. I just WISH Storm dosnt stop there and gives us more characters since a collection with this level of quality would be hard to belive.

JON TALBAIN & B.B. HOOD

Now this was totally unexpected. In the last decade of the last century there was a toy company called Toy Biz and they had a place in between the giants of that time, like Kenner, Hasbro, Galloob, mostly because they produced lots of Marvel figures: Spiderman, X-men, Ironman, Ghost Rider.... and since i dont care any of those, the company is memorable for me because they produce the very first ever Resident Evil action figures (that i will post later) as well as some Marvel vs Capcom figures and more importantly: Darkstalkers.

For some reason i dont remember (mostly being a kid with no money) i didnt buy theyr Darkstalkers line and i regret it because this line has been pretty much the only one of this character in 25 years. Sota designed pretty good looking Darkstalkers in 2004 but cancelled them and Storm Collectibles got the lincence a cuple of years ago but i wont belive them until i see theyr figures, soo Toy Biz was the only company to produce proper articulated figures of this characters.

In the last Toysfest i went i found one of the 3 sets of figures lose, tough with all accesorys and in very good condition. The set was expensive, but it was worth it givven this is the rarest of the 3 sets and how complete it is. The set includes one big figure along a smaller figure (a wonderfull tradition of Toy Viz, release two figures together): Jon Talbain and B. B. Hood.

This figures are pretty small tough, i didnt remember them being this small since they are smaller than the Figma or Figuarts and they are traped in a limbo in between "toys for kids" and "toys for dults" since back then theyr production values were higger than the overall kid toy.

Jon Talbain is one of my favorite characters form Darkstalkers soo it was no brainer got him since this is pretty much the only figure of him in existance. The sculpt is solid, with his cartoony and extreme body shape, with big paws and claws and torso and a very athletic build and his face is pretty close to the game art. His claws and feet and tails are spectacular big and the only problem i see on the sculpt is the hair round his neck since it should be much more pointy like a hedgehoog.

The paint is nice, with his neon yellow claws and different tones of blues, the red details on his gums, fangs and his yellow eyes are perfectly painted tough, again, i see a problem in here since the fut on his neck and around his face and his claws should be white or soft grey, but they painted it light blue, giving him a very....well, blue look.

He is articulated on the knes, legs, waist, shoulders, elbows and head as well as his jaw and tail. The articulations are extremelly simple and only move on a single direction (like any 90s toy) tough his head and shoulders are ball jointed and have a bigger range of movement. The jaw articulation is a great touhc tough, i love how good he looks with his law close or open, but looks are very close to the game artwork tough the articulation is a little evident. Also he can stand on his own thanks to his big tail and use it as base, tough if you move the tail up and move his legs a little bit, he can also keep his balance perfectly.

B. B. Hood is the less impresive part of the deal tough but thats to be expected. She is smaller than Jon and can stand on her own perfectly and only have articulations on her shoulders and neck. This makes her mostly a statue since theres not much room for poses at all. The sculpt is OK tough i fond her face a little too boring, i see they try to give her the look of the artwork but i feel her eyes are a little too big giving her a random anime girl look.

The paint is vibrant and very simplistic and thanks good, her eyes are well painted, soo no cmplain there. To my susprise her dres as well as her hood are made with soft plastic soo her limbs can have total freedom of movement....too bad theres no articulations for it. Also her hood can be removed and.....the red plastic is staining her head and arms, wich is a shame but is natural since it happens with all toys.

This is the set with the more accesoryes from the line, since Jon Tailbain comes with his nunchaku that can be placed with no problem in one of his hands. The chain is an actual real chain soo the nunchaku falls and moves around in a natural way, i am soo glad they didnt do it with plastic!!

B. B. Hood comes with her basket that can be placed on her arm without loosing balance as well as a machine gun that can be placed inside the bascket or on her hand. To be honest i am kinda dissapointed by how empty the backet look, i wish they give her more weapons to play with.

Also and her most important accesory is her two years old dog, Harry. The little guy is tiny with a red bow and brown colors, the paint on him is solid and theres not much to say about him aside that he most be on B. B. Hood side all the time.

And laslty, Toy Biz aslo added Jon Talbain and B. B. Hood cursed by Anakaris, Jon transformed in a little dachshund kind of dark blue dog with a very vicious smile and B. B. Hood transformed into a kind of russian doll. Both have a wonderfull sculpt and paint and is awesome how Toy Biz went this close on details to even add such weird versions of them. Ironically, they never released Anakaris...

I am not specially thrilled about B. B. Hood but i just love Jon Talbain, even if he is too blue, he is a damn good looking figure of a damn good looking design and he fits perfectly with the Resident Evil figures. I would try to get the other two sets to complete this (Victor and Demitry - Lilith) mostly because is rare to have this characters around until Storm Collectibles does theyr job.

MORRIGAN AESLAND

Darkstalkers has been always one of my all time fight games and i actually like it much more than Street Fighter. I always wanted figures of this characters tough it seems the only one who gets love is Morrigan (and maybe Felicia) and the rest are mostly ignored.

And even soo, theres a bazillion of figures of Morrigan and i never find any i particulary liked (or i could afford). But after 20 years (OMFG) i finally decided for this one.

From Capcom´s series “Figure Builder” comes this Morrigan Aesland, or how they call her in the box: “The libido roaming the shadows”. She is based on a Kinu Nishimura illustration and is sculpted by Takeshi Hamazaki.

She is actually quite big. She is on the same scale as the GECCO statues (the Silent Hill and MGSV figures) and with her big wings she eats a lot of space. Her hair also takes a lot of space as well but shes incrediblly magnifiscent and alluring.

She have the distinctive Kinu style; a dreamy face and ridiculouslly HUGE boobs as well as Chun-li´s hips and legs, the classic Capcom style. The sculpt os pretty close to the illustration with the added bonus of the base, a moon, a couple of bats and wath it seems bluish velvet/water/ wind that acts like a throne for her.

She is actually sitting on the blue base wich makes her quite delicate, a strong movement and she falls. I guess it goes with the visual of the figure, shes really as delicate as she looks.

Her 4 wings are trasluscent and the paint is quite soft and sensual too. Her skin have soft shadows and her hair is aqua blue but it gradually changes to purple.

The only complaing i could have in here are her eyes, i think they should have been a little higher to make her looks perfect with different view points. Aside of that, i am loving this highlly sexual and delicious toy.