ZOMBIE COP & LICKER

 

At the begining of this century we got small scale Resident Evil figures based on the first two games thanks to Toy Biz and then we had huge high end japanese figures of the third game thanks to Moby Dick Toys but Plisades Marketing was responsible to gives us Resident Evil figures in a standar scale to fit with the rest of the figures in thr market, and based on CODE: Veronica with a mix of some other RE games.

Each series had a human character, two small monsters packed together and two bosses creatures individually and series 2 started with Claire Redfield on her CODE: Veronica outfit for the human part, and the small enemys coming together were a Zombie Cop and a Licker, this time from Resident Evil 2 (to pair them up with Leon Kennedy from series 1 i guess).

The Zombie Cop is in the same scale McFarlane figures and NECA had back then and is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, waist, legs, knes and ankles. This time around the neck, shoulders and ankles are ball jointed, soo they have a much better movility than the Zombie Soldier from series 1, tough the ball ankles makes him a little difficult to stand at times.

No worrys there since he comes with a base, but overall while the articulations aren´t that complex, they let him some more room of movement and poseability than the series 1 figures, specially on the head since tilt his head adds a lot dor the display since this guy is based on an specific character render from the game.

The sculpt is really good!! It matches the character render artwork pretty closelly tough it still beats the kind of comic book feel this figures have. The dead expression, rigor mortis shaped hands and all the wrinkles on his uniform looks really good. The paint this time around i also much better than in series two soo he have pretty strong and vibrant blues on his uniform while his skin tone is completelly white and dosnt mix with his uniform.

The withe skin have also a lot of grey washes to make him look dirty....dirty, not much dead, the paint still make shim looks like a toy, but given he is a corpse i guess thats not bad. The face have the same extremelly dirty grey washes but still, his white eyes and teeth are completelly clean and thats shows how carefull was Plisades with paint this time around.

The blood also stands out more given the blues and withes and the blood on the face leave a pretty strong impression I think this is the zombie we all remember from the Raccon Police department.

The Licker is a little bit smaller than a human being, soo while on his crouched possition he looks really tiny. He is preposed and have a ball joint on his neck and a cut joint on the shoulder and legs. Of course the shoulders and legs articulations are kinda usless becaus move them would prevent him from stand (tough to be fair, he is in all four soo he is really easy to stand) soo most of the posing comes from his head.

The scult is also really nice, with the muscle tissue opening and showing some bone structure as well as veins and other nasty stuff. The misshaped hands looks almost like that of an elephant from the back and the tongue, while not bendy, is made of soft plastic (and that makes it kinda delicate).

The paint tough is weird...is kinda....brown with some yellow tones. I cant stop thinking on a half made piece of meat here and while tehres splotch of blood and gore here and there, i was expecting him to be more red. The yellow brain is a nice touch as well as the tiny fangs and bloody inside on hos mouth, but i find the paint less spectacular than that of the Zombie Cop.

Interesting enough, there is an accesory here: a gun. Just like the Zombie Soldier, this guy comes with a beretta tough he cant hold it but instead is designed to go in the holster on his waist. Sadly i think i lose the weapon after 21 years but i am not very worryed about it....

There is also the base, with the same design as the rest, an oval wall of bricks with the logo of the game and this time around, it really helps to get this guy standing. This guy really shows how much Plisades was improving the quality with each series and also delivered one of the most iconic monster of the Resident Evil series. He even looks good on any horror themed collection.

LEON SCOTT KENNEDY & LICKER

 After the big succes of the first "Videogame Super Stars" action figures series based on Resident Evil, ToyBiz didnt doubt a second to launch the serires based on Resident Evil 2, this time both action figures and games will launch at the same time, and even in the videogame boocklet we say previews of the figures. Releasing packs of two figures and a stand alone boss, this time tough the series was much more smaller only consiting on 3 packs.

The first pack comes with Leon S. Kennedy along side a Licker, the brand new and spectacular enemy of Resident Evil 2. In a pretty small scale - the standar for back then - this guys are even smaller than modern Figmas and given the position of theyr bodys they are smaller than Chris or Jill as well. 

While the Licker stand on his own liying on the ground like a roach, Leon really cant stand on his own at all. Given the weird pisition of his legs, small feet and bent back, is extremelly difficult to balance him!! He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, legs, knes and ankles with very basic cut joints that only let him bend each section on a single direction and even this time he dosnt have the ball joints in the shoulders that Chris and Jill have.

This make him even more difficult to pose aside of a couple pointing at front pose, also the shape of his legs dosnt help either since once you find the rigth spot to balance him, is adviced to leave his legs alone.

The sculpt is weird....all the details on his unniform are very accurate, even the wrinkles on his clothes looks good tough his entire shape is pretty strange. Instead of give him his towering position from the game, he is bent over a little and i am not sure wath he is doing with his legs....sure he is not runing, but just standing as a frog. I cant see anyone pointing a weapon in such position.

Also his legs are soo thin. His face is extremelly generic and his hair line too high soo he have a hufe forehead. Thanks to his blanck face features and silly hair he looks more like a "Karen" than Leon. I can see the resemblance with the CG opening of the game but i think the hair position really ruins the whole ffect.

Paint is OK tough with his body cast on navy blue and only the shoes, belt and hands are painted as well as the R.P.D. logo on his chest. The logo on his shoulders is extremelly good looking and his face with blue eyes and pink lips is perfectly painted tough he have ligth brown hair, again to mimic the CG version of him but i think it looks more orange.

Licker looks good with his body close to the ground and the big claws, i specially like the bones on his back that looks like wings and unlike the Cerberus dog and the Web Spinner spider, this guy is actually articulated on the shoulders and legs with cut joints. This lets him stand a little bit but not too much since his knes are sculpted bent, but enough for him to haras Leon.

The paint on his body is excelent, with blacks and pretty deep reds, he looks like a fresh skined body, like bloody muscular tissue while his hands gradually turns into ligther brown. Tough i wish the same details had been put on his brain and teeth, his teeth are just white and the brain too with very little ligth blues here and there, they looks way too clean compared to his body.

Leon accesorys consist on his base gun from the game with the modfied parts for easyer handle. Theres no paint and the sculpt is kind of bland but the detail of the chstom parts is nice. Then theres the always trusty shotgun and this time the sculpt and paint are really good looking. I am really glad they didnt give him a gigantic ridiculous weapon like the characters from the first serries and while the gun is a little troublesome to put on his hand, the shotgun fits perfectly.

As ToyBix figures this two need action features. Leon have exactly the same as Chris and Jill´s: and ugly level on his back than once pulled make him turn his head and raise his arm to point his weapon towarss the Licker togh like Jill´s, the mechanism dosnt work too well.

With the Licker you puch a small bone on his back and he twists his tongue with a sping action to attack Leon. Twists his tongue back to repeat. This feature is a little strange, i understand he shoting out his tongue from his mouth but twistsing it like a drill???

Overall, i think Leon is the figure i like the least from this series, he is not very good looking and not very fun to play and the Licker is much better tough back in 1998 we didnt care, this figure was as exciting as the rest and be able to crossover Leon with the STARS was pretty exciting as well.

Besides back then Leon wasnt even one of the popular characters, we actually expected him to fade and never seen him again like Rebecca. World wasnt in love of him yet.