TRASHIN PUMPKIN

 The toys from the 80s are soo unique and special, not only they had sometimes big muscles, but they also came with vibrant colors, gore, ooze, mutilations, mutantions and monstruisity, some of them even transformed or were even dangerous, deffinetly an era that wont be back again. But Premium DNA has managed to reproduce that era with the remake of the Madballs action figures they produced a few years ago.

I am not sure how it worked, but after the release of the first Madball series, Premium DNA had a collaboration with the mobile game Need for Speed On Limit. The game had a scenario and a vehicle based on Madballs while Premium DNA produced an exclusive limited edtion figure based on that same collaboration, a stand alone new Madballs monster called Trashin Pumpkin.

In the same scale as the rest of the Madballs (only a head shorter than your average action figure), this guy is crazy heavy!!! But he can stand on his own perfectly thanks to his short legs and huge feet. He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles. All ball joints soo the artculation have a big range fo movement BUT he suffers from a lack of movement the same way the other Madballs do.

Since he have no neck and his body is round, his head cant tilt up or down and only move to the sides and given how short are his legs they dont have many options of movement either. Also, his best is made of hard plastic and have a lot of spikes, while his arms also have thorns soo this keep his shoulder movement pretty limited. This is, sadly, something that cant be fixed given the nature of the character design tough i wish the vest was made in softer material.

This is a totally new Madball, and i am surprised that at this point it took them soo long to release a Halloween themed character, a sort of scarecrow with a pumpkin as head, this is a design very rooted on Halloween that could be perfectly on The Nightmare Before Christmas or Medievil, or even Ghostbusters.

The sculpt is soo soo seriuslly good, the pupkin have a rugged texture and the shapes around the sockets looks soo organic, theres very deep cuts on the back of his head with ooze coming out from it and the ooze have a softish and liquid texture. At first i tough the head was hollow but is not, the black inside really evade ligth nicelly and make it looks like theres nothing inside and the evil expression with the cross shape on his eye make it incrediblly creepy.

The stitches on the vest, the rope on his waist, the wrinkles on the panths, everything looks really good but not as good as the realistic skin texture on his arms and feet. The veins on the hands and feet and rugged looks of tendons mixing with skin is really amazing! This mix is realistic details along side cartoony anatomy makes for a really strocking combination.

He have big and pointy thorns coming out from his arms and feet as well as in the ivy tentacles around them and while they are incrediblly sharp, the end of the ivy tentacles is made of soft plastic. But like i said earlyer, the vest is not made of soft plastic and is very thin, wich makes me think it demands extra care soo the peice dosnt broke but judging the quality of the plastic used here, i doubt something like that happens anytime soon.

The paint aplication is at the same level as the sculpt. The big orange pumpkin have  a lot of darker washes in the rigth spots to make it looks, ready to rot away in any moment while the green ooze on his mouth have a totally different green color than the ooze coming out on the cutson his head. All this details reminds me soo much the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys from Playmates or the Toxic Crusaders.

Aside of the golden pin in the vest, the stitches have a different color and the vest itself have many tones of brown mixed with green that gives it a lot of deep and texture. The pants have the same tones and each patch have a different color as well. 

His skin coloring looks pretty natural, aside of the fact is green, it have a lot od dark green details and veins that makes his arms and legs looks like dry and old organic tissue made of plant. The ivy have a much more healtyer color but my favorite part are his feet, sicne one of his feet have an orange/brown color that, in fact makes it looks like this is a plant rotting away. Even the nails have a totally different color than the nails of the other more fresh feet.

Maybe because this is a special edition, instead of coming with 3 pair of hands, this guy have 5 1/2 pairs. Closed fist, open hands, graby hands and pointy hands like the rest of the Madballs but they also added grab hands with no ivy and an extra open palm with ivy on it. I find this pretty unecesary since i dont see why someone would display him with clean hands....but oh well, i guess is better to have more than necesary hands than having missing hands and the sculpt and paint is really good and they can be swaped pretty easy.

His best accesory is a pitchfork, pretty integral to the scarecrow look with the rigth amount of cartoony look: worms and green ooze as well as lot of blood and intestines wraped around the it. The material is kinda soft soo is easy to warp it, the sculpt of both groos and cartoony and the paint work matches perfecty.

Next he have a tire iron with both ivy, blood and even an eyeball in one of the sides with muscle tissue wraping round the metalic structure. I am guessing this is because of the Need for Sppeed theme since i cant see how this matches the character, but oh well, this is a really fun and creppy looking items toug its made with very soft material and is pretty difficult to put it on his grab hands made with haird plastic, at least difficult without damaging it.

He also comes with a piston, a pretty old piston with lots of blood on top as well as nails. It looks like a pretty gruesome and brutal weapon tough i cant see how i can pose Trashin Pumpkin with it since it even have difficultys holding it. The metalic paint of this item is really beautifull as wlel as the copper color in the nails.

While the other Madballs have only 3 accesorys, this have a fourth one; a severed hand. It is blue with darker blue spots and a bloody cut that shows the bone. It looks very very cartoony and i am not sure wath to do with it actually....Trashin Pumpkin cant really hold it and i dont see where to put this. It looks more like a scenary item for me tough.

And the last extra in here and unique to this figure is another head designed by James Groman. Its basically the same head but meanier and even much more gruesome than before: the pumpkin skin have holes and even more damage and looks even much more realistic this times!! The ooze looks less cartoony and theres purple worms coming out from his mouth and other areas but even much worse, he have human eyes inside his sockets and one is hanging from muscle tissue and almost falling into his mouth and in the back, one of the deep cuts have the knife still sticking out from it.

The paint is soo astonishing! Specially on the eyes!! With all those red veins and green pupil as well as the muscle tissue exposed. Worms, insects, cuts, theres soo much detail on this, it trully looks like a gruesome piece of designer art.

Premium DNA shocked me with the quality of the first Madball series but this one is even more impactfull. Articulation have its limits and this is not a cheap figure, but the amazing quality of the sculpt and paint deffinetly make it more than worth the money. 

The overall design is pretty top qualty as well, like i already mentioned not only this figure materialize the spirt of the 80s toys but also it can fit with any Ghotsbuster, Medievil or any ther horror and gothic collection. They are going to release a second series of Madballs soon and i am defifnetly pretty hyped to see this gruesome collection to keep growing.

SPLITTING HEADACHE

Madballs were born in 1986 under the logo "Freaky Fun for Everyone!" amd started as a collection of soft foam balls in the shape of grotesque heads tough it later evolved into "Head Poppers" action figures, with full articulated bodys and exchangable heads that could be shot with the press of a button on theyr back. Yes there were dangerous toys and they where pretty disgusting as well, soo they surelly deserv to be back and while the balls had a lot of rebots over the years, for the first time the Head Poppers action figures are having a remake made by Premium DNA.

This remake have only four figures and while Bruise Brother is violent, Oculus Orbus is weird and Horn Head is pretty cute, the last one - Splitting Headache - is deffinetly the most....disturbing in a pretty serious way. He is smaller than your average action figure tough like the rest, he is pretty heavy given his huge head and chibi anatomy and like the rest, he can stand on his own pretty good.

He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles and since all this articulations are ball joints, they have a big rnage of movement only limited by the short size of his apendages and his voluminous body. Actually the box ways he is not modular but MADular as an action feature, instead of shot his heavy head he can be divided into pieces and rebuild in a totally different creature with the pieces of the other figures, tough i cant confirm this since he was pretty pricey and i dont want to risk broke a peg.

This thing wasnt part of the Head Poppers collection, for 35 years we only seen his head as a ball and now we are discovering his body for the first time and is really....something else. A rotting corpse with his flesh melting away and half of his skeletal structure in sight, the kind of toy that would give nightmares to parents but would gatter all the interest of a 80s kid.

The sculpt is oustanding: his skin is saggy and his hands are swallow since he has been dead for quiet some time. Theres tumors popping out in different areas and his face have a pretty....i dont know how to call it, dead expression? I find his fleshy side to be rpetty scary somehow and the other half much more cute looking.

Tough the bony side is really impresive since the bones have a totally different texture, while his skin is smoth like velvet, the bones have pores and the build of the bones is realistic enough. The rib cage area is painted in black to give it the impression of emptynes and theres a lot of....juice in between his boney and fleshy parts.

While the sculpt is terriblly detailed and realistic, the paint is pure 80s fantasy, with his skin being electric blue and his brain and melting away flesh being darker blue and all the blood being in a intense red and the green slime....he is incrediblly colorfull in a very unrealistic way and he actually reminds me a blue velvet cake with blueberry and strawberry jelly.

This thing is really conflictive to me, its soo disguting and alarming yet soo incrediblly pretty and easy to the eyes, a really werid combination that portraits the Madballs character design perfectly (or any other 80s toy design).

He comes with 3 extra set of hands aside of the closed fist, open hands, pointing hands and hands to hold items and each one is pretty easy to use tough they are really swallow and the pink fingernails...

The rest of his accesorys show how playfull and violent is this creature tough. First he comes with a skate in a pretty damaged state. The paint is really good full of dirtynes and worms and while the whells dont move, he can stand on top of it with some patience since Spitting Headache is too big for it.

Next he have a bone with insects, blood and some metaic parts on it. I find it kind of scary to see this guy using that bone as a mace to commit acts of violence tough the sculpt and paint are really good, is pretty difficult to fit this bone on his hands given how swallow they are.

Next up is a crowbar. Yep, like i said this guy looks to be really brutish and theres even rest of one of his victims still lingering on this crowbar: a brain and an eyeball including a lot of blood. I am not sure if this are supposed to be decorations of if they actually came from the head of someone Splitting Headache attacked but that would explaind his name perfectly...

Overall this is deffinetly the shock factor of the entire serires tough the quality is top notch here as well as in the rest of the Madballs, i cant find anything to complaing since every single elements shines and they looks soo pretty and cool in the shelf it makes me want to get all other characters from the line.

Sadlly, Premium DNA lose the trust of many costumers since they didnt send this figures to most people who pre-ordered them years ago and it seems they are repeating that pattern with theyr new Batletoads figures it seems they are building a bad reputation for them and thats a shame gven the quality of this guys. It would be sad if they stoped here but only time will tell of they manage to expand to another four Madballs, i would deffinetly get them for sure.

HORN HEAD

 Gargoyles, Thundecats, Silverhawks, Toxic Crusaders, Alien, He Man...all the 80s-90s characters are suddenly back to the toy shelfs and Madballs are no exception: those little grotesque and wicked foam balls in the shape of heads and, more specifically, theyr "Head Poppers" action figures versions are having a remake thanks to Premium DNA, a pretty new company that dosnt have too good of a reputation for now thanks to most of the pre-orders of this figures being still in limbo...

Aside of Premium DNA actions, when this Madballs action figures were shown they were too good to be real and people was really excited for them and after getting Bruise Brother and Oculus Orbus i can say they are as good as they initially look and they catch perfectly the weirdness of the 1986 original versions.

One of the rarest character was Horn Head, a purple cyclops beast that came exclusivelly with the Madballs vehicle soo we only seen him in the back of the package and thats all, soo Premium DNA chosed him for theyr new remake and he turns out fantatsic.

He is smaller than your average action figure, like a Figma or Figuarts but he is extremelly heavy as well thanks to his huge head and round body, but thans to this and his big feet, he can stand on his own with no problem. He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles with ball joints soo each part can turn around perfectly and fold with no issue.

Of course given the small size of his legs and big body dont expect pretty dynamic posing but he is als modular - or MADullar - soo each piece can be separated and mixed with other characters to create a unique mix-mutation. Pretty creative but i hasnt tried it yet given to my fear to broke the pegs since this guys are pretty expensive.

While Bruise Brother was violent and Oculus Orbus was weird, this guy is the most "normal" monster design, he actually looks like a character from Where the Wild Things Are with a very 80s twist. Actually find him to be the cutest. The sculpt on his hair is pretty sharp and well defined and the skin texture on his hands and head is very realistic. I love his mouth since his big fangsstands out a lot above the black empty of his mouth (there is actually a sculpted tongue behind them tough is not easy to see it!!).

His claws are soo cool in both his hands and feet and the big cuts on his head with sticthes are really gruesome, bout the wirst part is the cut on his stomach since theres blood driping out of it. I really love all the "battle damage" this figures have all over them, is pretty obvious this are violent beasts.

The color is really spectacular, i love purple and i love all the tones they used on him. His fur have darker tones in each identation to give it a pretty natural look but his skin is pretty perfectlly painted as well since it have pretty soft veins and shades to make it looks realistic even with the alien color. And with that brigth yellow eye on the center, with the red pupil and veins perfectly painted.

The blue beard, the blood on the wounds and black nails, the application is perfect and makes me wich they also released Wolf Breath with this same high quality.

Liek the rest, he comes with 3 extra set of hands: open claws, pointing with a finger and items holding hands and my favorites are the open claws deffinetly but all of them works perfecly.

He also have a big and heavy green club that looks like a cactus at times since it have big menacing spikes all around and even a skull pinned on them with blood. While the skull have pretty relistic grey paint around the rest of the item looks soo cartoony.

His ther accesory is a turkey leg with a bite on the side and lots of maggots and spiders crawiling around. This is both cute and sickening and for some reason remidns me Beetlejuice but it suits Horn Head pretty nicelly and the paint and sculpt dont dissapoint.

And finally he have a mace. While the handle is nice looking with bendages and metal parts, the best part is the ball and the chain, the chain is a real chain and the ball is sculpted with a Horn Head face!! The big eye in the middle with the big mouth full of fangs looks really cool with the silver paint and shows an oustanding attention to details!

I really strugle over wich one i like the most, this guy or Oculus Orbus, since both are kind of simple looking they are pretty cool and representative of the Madballs, and besides, while i dont have his Head Popper version i do have him on foam ball version and both looks terrific together.

OCULUS ORBUS

 

Aaahhh...toys from the 80s, soo gory, grotesque, violent and mutated, imposible to forget them and one of theyr stars was the Madballs line in both the shape of soft foam balls and "Head Popping" action figures and one of the most colorfull and representative character was Oculus Orbus, literally a giant eye ball in ball shape that was kinda boring looking, but in Head Popping version he had a body with no skin, only raw muscular tissue and sinew making him one of the goryest and more eye catching characters.

And of course Premium DNA chosed him to be one of the monsters fro theyr Madballs remake action figures since this is one of the most remembered version....like a skined Eeyeball Dad from Gegege No Kitaro. This guy is a head smaller than your random NECA/McFarlane action figures tough, just like Bruise Brother, he is extremelly heavy!!

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, legsn knes and ankles and each serction use a ball joint soo he is only limited by his body shape, he can move around a lot but given how short are his legs dont expect him to do karate poses and he can stand on his own perfectly despite his heavy head and articulations.

Despite not having ad many crazy details as the Bruise Brother, is imposible not to look at him given how gory he is, how red he is...just muscles with a vascular system and some bones popping here and there, you can see his column as well as the bones on his knes and elbows and the sinew on his fingers...

The eye sculpt is soo amazing. He is not just a ball with a painted iris and pupil, both parts are a protunding sculpt and even the little lines on the iris are sculpted as well as each vein around the whole eye ball. Is a pretty interesting sculpt to touch really and difficult to describe in words.

The rest of the body sculpt have the same attatention to detail on the muscular fibers as well as the big beins around his arms and chest tough most of the effect comes with the strong red paint with black in each fiber division and electric blue on the vascular system. The pain is not perfect tough and some of the blue is invading the red but thats to be expected such an intrincate design.

Some of the red paint on the veins is aslo invading the white of the eyeball but the blue paint on the iris as well as the black on the pupil are perfect and catches the ligth pretty good.

Like Bruise Brother, Oculus Orbus comes with open hands, painting hands as well as items holding hands and each can be exchanged pretty easy.

Unlike the rest of the monsters, this one seems more contemplative than violent soo his accesorys represent that very nicelly: he comes with a magnifying glass with pretty cartoony sculpt. The glass is grey and is broken in the middle and have insects as well as slime on the handle, a pretty cute looking instrument with good paint.

He also comes with a golden telescope with green slime coming out from the glass and insects, tough this time instead of a glass theres and eyeball!! I am not sure of this is his eyeball reflecting on the glass or if theres is an actuall...well... eyeball stuck on it but both the csulpt and paint matches the cartoon look perfectly.

Then there is a pait of binoculars with a sculpted cord around, green slime coming out from the sides and again a pair of eyeballs instead of glasses. The paint job and sculpt are soo beautifull, specially on the metalic texture since they look pretty ancient, tough they are too big for him to hold them on his hands (and he cant rise his arms enough to use them anayway).

I forget to mention it with Bruise Brother, but Premium DNA dicched the head popping action fo the original figures and instead made this guys modular, or, as the box says "MADular" soo in theory you can remove each sections of this figures and mix them together to create weird characters.

I hasnt tried it yet, i am actually afraid to broke a peg or something and this figures werent cheapt at all soo i well leave the modular part alone, is not like they need it anyway given how good looking they are.

And while i never got Oculus Orbus as a ball, i do have him as a Head Popper and the difference on size, sculpt and paint is really amazing tough they still looks pretty much the same soo i am very happy Premium DNA has stick to the original designs perfectly soo this guy turns out to be....strangelly cute and adorable while at the same time being pretty monstruos and fun to play with.

BRUISE BROTHER

 

Being a child in the 80s means a lot of toys and most of them were pretty clear with theyr themes: monsters, deformity, mutilation, mutations, skeletons, coprses, zombies, vampires, werewolfs, ghost, slime...from the Ghostbusters to the Ninja Turtles, one of the most represenative toy from back then was the Madballs, soft foam balls shaped as the head of the most sickening and disgusting monstruosistys any child could love.

I had them, they were a lot of fun but just before theyr started to be boring, they released "Head Popping Madballs": the same creatures but with a full body to turn them into fully articulated action figures and making them some of the rares and most dirty and grimiest figures from the 80s, and since we are living rigth now in the 80s part two, Premium DNA Toys just made a remake of those same Madballs action figures from 1986.

I am not sure of this is unexpected or not anymore but the first to arrive is Bruise Brother, a motorcyclist that makes me wonder if he is human or not since he only have 4 fingers and have fangs, tough he is the most "normal" looking of the Madballs. Hi s the size of a Figma or S.H. Figuarts but given his porportions, he is incrediblly heavy!!! He is a big chunk of plastic!

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, legs, knes and anklesall with ball joints soo the range of movement is pretty high considering his body type. The original Head Popping Madballs had small bodys like toodlers soo Premium DNA keep the body proportions soo his torso is literally...a spheric body of the same size as his head (that is huge) and his arms and legs are pretty short and chubby soo he cant achive pretty dynamic poses thanks to his proportions but he can move pretty nicelly, alos thanks to his big feet and low gravity center, he is an expert standing on his own with no base.

This whole set of characters are a typical 80s design, mixing the fun of the cartoon with a lot of black humor soo theres a lot going on here: he is missing an eye and theres green slime coming out from his socket, he have purple lips with pointy fangs and lots of fresh open wounds on his face, arms and torso stitched even with a clip. His helmeth is full of bullet holes with blood coming out from the holes and he have a lot of crazy tattos on his helmeth and arms.

The sculpt on the muscly torso is really nice and detailes, he even have a piercing on his nipple, wich is odd given the spheric shape of his body, the sculpt of the beard is also very natural looking and overall the plastic feel of very high quality with a soft texture to the touch that stands out specially on his helmeth and boots.

The color is vibrant neon, very 80s. While his skin is cast on flesh color plastic and have no color, the rest of the details are pretty nice looking (the coloring on his eye is soo beautyfull!!). His boots have a very realistic look with brown washes that makes them look real and his helmeth also have a lot of blue and grey scratches to make it looks like real metal, tough all the blood and open wounds and slime are painted in pretty neon red and greens to give him a carton look.

The printing of the tattoes are flawless and the belt with bullets around his torso is a separate peice soo it can be removed. Serisully, theres is a TOON of details going on here and given his chibi proportions each details is big enough to be seen pretty easy.

He have a lot of extra hands that can be exchanged pretty easy: open palms, holding hands and hands pointing with a finger. Each hand have the exact same details reproduced perfectly: a fresh bleeding cut on the rigth hand and a stitched cut with a bandaged finger on the left hand as well as black fingernails.

Unlike the 1986 version this guy have a whole ste of wacky accesorys to go with. First he have a knife that can be stored on the sheath on his back. This is the most simple looking accesory since is not even painted, its just a grey piece of plastic tough the sculpt is good.

Then he have a baseball bat with a big crack on the middle, insects, nails pooping here and there and a lot of tooth pinned as well as a bite mark. The violence here is evident, this looks like a weapon capable of high brutality with those nails and the tooth of his victims proof it. The sculpt is terrific as well as the pint job, the wood of the bat looks incrediblly realistic while the tooth and insects looks more cartoony.

Then there is a bee hive on a stick....yes, its soo weird, maybe this is some kind of grenade? Throw the bee hive to your enemies to see them fighting against the insects? the hive and the stick looks very similar on sculpt and paint soo its a little hard to discern wath is it, but theres honey dripping around as well as black and yellow bees that poops a lot.

And finally there is a big box glove that cna act as an extra hand as well. The glove have a nice strong red color and black washes to make it look natural, but it also have shiny green slime as well as tooth pinned from his victims, a pretty fun attention to detail.

This figure is soo...unique...soo 80s, soo violent and brutal looking yet soo playfull and childish at the same time, soo fun to play with him thanks to his accesorys and articulations but soo fun to just look at him and get lost on all those crazy details. Bruise Brother wasnt cheap but he was worth it, specially since i never had him as a Madball or a Head Popper either