MAYOR

 I love The Nightmare Before Christmas. When i was a kid that movie was my main fixation and obsession and not only show me a new way of animation and a new face of Disney (that never saw again) but turned me into a follower of an specific director for the first time; Tim Burton. And while the toys Hasbro did in the 90s were pretty much my favorite ones and i took them with me averywhere, it wasnt until NECA release they action figures series that i found the ultimate version of the characters in plastic form.

But long before NECA and while Hasbro was doing his thing, in Japan there was this company called Jun Planing that released the first figures of the movie in that part of the world. For the longest time i hear theyr figures are the best ones yet based on the work of Tim Burton and i must admit, theyr Corpse Bride figures looks beyond perfection but i was never able to afford theyr products, specially since now they are deffinetly discontinued.

In the end i take a chance and got The Mayor from theyr 1/6 scale figures. Aside of the box being damn pretty, this is in scale with Hot Toys, Sideshow, ThreeZero, Asmus, Mondo and other premium high quality brands and just like them, this Mayor have real fabric clothes. And just for reference, The Mayor is a small guy that reaches the chest of a standar human being or the belly of a Predator but his hat is HUGE and goes beyond the 8´ mark. 

For startetes, he cna stand on his own perfectly and thats a HUGE plsu given how small are his feet and his round shape, this gigure shows an impresive balance and i think this is the very first time i see a figure of The Mayor standing on his own. He is articulated on his neck of course, but also the shoulders, elbows and the left wrists and thats it. Honestly with this character design is pretty difficult to articulate him since any articulation on the legs would destroy his balance soo this is the maximum movement one can get in this guy.

I am not sure how the shoulders are articulated, i think they are ball jointed since they open very nicelly but the jacket make the arms be back at the starting point soo i got the feeling the shoulders articulations are kind of delicate. The elbows have a one direction joint and botht the head a wrists can rotate.

The sculpt is really magnifiscent, the texture on the hat is on point with the one on screen and the shape on the face and huge mouth size and eyes are also perfectly sculpted as well as each one of the big teeth. Really, this character is extra cartoony but not always they manage to sculpt the rigth proportions....just like Diamond Sleect did. The hands are funny looking and the spider bow tie and the ribbon on his chest looks terrific!!

His pants have a pretty good fabric texture as well while the shoes are simple, sculpted, but still just plain black. The pants are grey with light gray lines and both the red onf the ribbon with MAYOR written inside as the spider on his neck are perfectly painted and stand out a lot. The color of his arms is consistent with the color of his happy face and he have red fingernails.

Each teeth have a black line to divide them and the soft punk gums as well as the spiral aya are perfectly painted. The other face with the white skin and blue lips and fangs and bulging eyes is soo good looking i am not sure wich one display.

The jacket tailoring is really high quality, specially on the tiny and perfect buttons in front and the neck build. The fabric is thin and is made with velvet wich makes it feel really elegant but i am afraid it will be a dust magnet. The sleeves are kinda lose but that soo they dosnt limit the arms articulations and the end part of the sleves have a wire to open them or wrap them around his wrists. Its seems the jacket could be removed but the ribbon keept it in place.

He has no accesorys aside of his megaphone. The design and color of the item is very simple but effective and have an extra hand attached to it soo the left hand must be removed to swap it with the megaphone hand. Tough the shoulder articulation is not strong enough to keep the megaphone up and sometimes this item make The Mayor lose his balance.

While the figure is really huge, is completelly hollow soo it makes me anxious to consider how resistant that spheric body and hat coud be is he lose balance tough the fact is soo light deffinetly help the figure.

Overall, i always considered the NECA mayor as the ultimate figure of the character and while that one have a toon of accesorys, this one is much better on every possible level and thats quiet impresive considering this is a 1998 figure. This is the closest i can get to own an actual replica of a puppet from the movie.

This collection is not that big tough, aside of this guy theres Jack, Sally, Ooogie Boogie, Dr Flinckenstein and Lock, Shock and Barrel and while i like Jack and Sally, i seen them hundreds of times already but i am very excited to get Lock, Shock and Barrel.

MUMMY

More horror and monsters for th halloween reviews and more nostalgia from past times!!! This time from the XX century, when Sideshow made its debut in the figure collectors market, they did it with the Universal Monsters and released a chibi line, an action figure line, a 1/6 scale with real rabric line as well as mixed media statues. Those times were pretty amazing to be alive for any Universal Monster fan!!

Sadly i missed many of those and while i am still missing The Creature From the Black Lagoon from the 1/6 line, i am still missing the Frankenstein Monster and the Phantom of the Opera from the action figure line, but here we have The Mummy!! Imhotep!!! Why? Well, years ago i got this figure but with no accesorys and was custom repainted. I liked quiet a lot the new colors the artists gives him but his looked a little bit out of palce with the rest of the line but weeks ago i was able to get the original colored version complete with accesorys.

Soo basically this is a figure i review years ago and i am pretty sure no one will notice soo lets talk about The Mummy!! For a 1998 figure this guy was amde in quiet a tall scale, he is bigger than the NECA version and cant balance himself pretty well but thankfully, Sideshow gives him a pretty elegant base to deal with that.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs and knees. all of this are basic cut articulations soo they can only rotate and theres not much sense on moving his legs since he wouldnt be able to stand. Both the knees and elbows have a very basic hinge but this are very delicate. I seen lots of this figures with the arms broken exactly in the elbows.

Soo this figure is not very articulated and dont have a lot of display options but this was the way of the 90s, something that McFarlane was starting to make popular in that moment but Imhotep is not a pretty dynamic character full of movement either and this was the starting point of the "adult collectible" market soo articulations were used to be seen as something "childish". Tough the articulations are extremelly well hidden and almost invisible thanks to the bandages.

The sculpt is FANTASTIC!!! This is Boris Karloff face perfectly rendered along the Mummy make up, the wrinkled skin covering his face, the mark on the nose, the muddy hair, and under all those elements is pretty easy to see Karloff sad and serious expression. The slim body shape and wrinkled hands looks great as well as the bettle ring and the texture of the bandages looks quiet realistic, old and rotten and they wrap around his body with perfect sense. Even the bandages than hang around flows with the body naturally. Of course this is all thanks to Matt Falls, the sculptor that was in chargue to sculpt all this characters for Sideshow using the actors likenes.

The painting is divisive, but thats expected from a character of a black and white movie. The paint job on the bandages is superv, a bone color with some grey washes aplyed carefully as well as a weet texture make the bandages looks extremelly real and covered in oil. Details like the beetle ring and the eyes looks really good and the paint jov on the aged exposed flesh and face have a very subtle wash to make the wrinkles stand out nicelly, all in a grey......green tone? I am not sure wath color is this soo i am not sure if i like it. It makes the Mummy to look too monochrome but i guess this isnt a colorfull character, but also i feel this color is a little too dark and make difficult to notice the details of the sculpt.

This line came with a pretty mini diorama base with a plate in front with the logo of the movie, the actor of the character and the year if release (1932 for The Mummy), this make this figures looks like museum pieces. For The Mummy the base is basically made of sand with a mix of rocks and a couple of big rocks coming out of the sand with hieroglyps on them. While the rocks with the marks looks really good, the paint job on the sand and the other rocks is pretty bad and cheap looking. The tones dont mix at alll and the rocks looks very plain.

The rest of the accesorys tough are much better looking tough: a rock plate with more hieroglyps, a chest that cotains Toth scrool and the Toth scrool. The sculpt on the plate is really good, with cracks all over it and the marks are pretty clear and easy to see while the paint is a mix of yellow and light browns and gives it the looks and feel of an acient piece of rock the base dosnt have.

The chest is the same, it have two Horus sculpted at front just like in the movie and the golden seal on top. The coloring have the same mix of yellow and light brown that makes it looks mudy, ancient and dirty in a very natural way. Sadly it canot be open.

The scrool is a piece of yelowish paper with the edges cut all rough and more hieroglyps printed on it. We never see the scroll fully open on the front side of the movie but since this is the main object of interest n the movie, its very nice they detailed it this much. the scrool can be rolled up and it also have a golden ring to hold it in plce soo Imhotep can hold him.

Sideshow always add accesorys that are top quality and exact replicas to the items on screen soo they never disapoint in this. The paint of the base is the only dissapointing part and Imhotep face paint could be a little bit ligther but aside of that, this is the perfect representatio of the classic monster.

This line could looks silly now tough, with the limited articulations and sometimes odd paint choices, but from 1998 to 2021, this figures were the best loosking toys based on the Universl Movies and also the only ones using the actors likens. Not even Diamond Select came close to this even with its best peices and i find amazing that this figures were the Rolls-Royce of the horror collectors aroudn the world for more than 20 years.

Even tough i already have this guy in my collection with a totally different color palette, i am very happy to have him on his original form as well as with all his accesorys. Now if only The Phantom and the Frankenstein Creature could apeare like this in front of me....

WOLFMAN

 

And speaking of the now gone Diamons Select, my very thin relationship with the brand was born from the Universal Monsters, just like with Sideshow. They started releasing toys of the Monsters in a moment were the characters had not much popularity. The line had up and downs, like for example, Dracula; they didnt get the rigths of Lugosi familly soo they had to make a completelly generic Dracula and the same happened with the Bride of Frankenstein but they also had some really amazing pieces, like the Mummy that came with his sarcophagus and the Creature of the Black Lagoon that included Kay Lawrence for display.

Pretty soon those figures started to be more and more rare soo i wasnt able to complete the collection but just recently i found the Wolfman lose but complete and in very good condition. This is the black and white version of the figure and is very rare for me to get this version of the Monsters but given how difficult to get is this figure, i cant complain at all.

This Wolfman is in the same scale as most action figures like McFarlane and NECA and fits perfectly with the rest of the Diamons Monsters and, to my very big surprise, this guy can stand on hiw own!!! I mean, the Wolfman is digitigrade and it dosnt matter the scale, this guy always ALWAYS need a base to stand but this one in particular dont need it and thats a very particular achivement from Diamond Sleect.

Back in 2010 the Diamond Select toys didnt had too much articulation at all, just like NECA. Soo this furry guy only have articulation on his head, waist, shoulders, elbows and wrists. The ehad have a ball joint but the up and down movement is minimum and while the shoulders are also ball jointed and have a much better range, the sculp dont let them move totally up. The elbows have a very basic hinge articulation while the wrists and waist only rotate.

Soo from the waist down he is totally static and maybe thats why he can stand on hiw own soo well because this figure feels extremelly sturdy. Wath we got here is the Wolfman in his classic stalking position, with his back crouched to the front and one leg in front. The sculpt on the shirt and legs is really really good, the wrinkles of the pants flows nicelly with his legs movement and the shirt hangs from his torso in a very natural way.

I love the sculpting on his long fingernails and the stance of his hands looks perfect and his feet are super cute, round with pointy tiny claws like a kitty but the hair sculpt looks realistuc enough. The hair sculpt on his head is good but theres something on the shape of his ehad that i really dislike...he dosnt looks too much like Lon Chaney Wolfman soo i think it was a rigths thing, but the shape of the head isnt rigth at all tough i really like his open mouth and little fangs sculpted.

I seen pictures of the color version of this figure and somehow the face sculpt looks much worse on it, in the black and white the different sculpt is somehow hidden and dosnt looks that much different of the on screen Wolfman. I have to say, i am really imprsed with the color of this figure!!! Yes is black and white but it have a HUGE array of greys in here is stuning!!

Is pretty easy to notice the difference of color between the pants ans shirt, the buttons, the furt and the base, every single element have a different grey that stands out on his own and at the same time looks pretty harmonious as a whole. But also the shirt and pants have a darkery grey wash that gives a much better flow to the wrinkles and the fur also have a different dark wash.

The eyes, fangs and claws are completelly white soo they stand out a lot, but overall, this figures looks pretty natural with this black and white palette.

His only accesory is a base soo yes, he stand on his own perfectly but the base helps keep him in perfect blaance and also help make the display looks better and consist ona  rocky surface and nothing more. The sculpt and grey coloring are really good since the greys used on the base are different to those in the Woflamn soo it looks like a realistic rock texture. Also the base includes a small and dry tree that can be attached at front but it falls pretty easy. But again the black used on this thing make it looks like it was burnt.

Overall, i am impressed by how good looking is the black and white paint and make this figure looks not only elegant but very natural and i like how sturdy it is but the lack of articulation dont give him much options for display and the face looks like a generic random wolf than the actual Chaney Wolfman.

Years later Diamond Slelect released a much better version with a bigger diorama stand as well as more articulations and more screen accurate sculpt but that one is very very rare....and i am still looking for it in a descent price. I regret not colecting this series despite i dont like some of this figures and also the very few i have are colored, soo this Wolfman looks out of place......mmmmm.....i guess my hunt for more Diamond Select figures continue.

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.

ENDEAVOR

 Its interesting how fixation works, specially on specific characters and not in whole series because i got a big liking for Endeavor from My Hero Academia but i dont like exactly My Hero Academia at all...actually i find most of its characters irritating but Endeavor have a very special place in my heart despite all his faults, and as action figures he have a most perfect design to shine as an excting sculpt.

Before the pandemic there was nothing about him but after 2020 he got a lot of love from figure brands, specially Banpresto and Bandai that started adding him to every My Hero Cademia collection and pretty soon, my collection growth pretty fast and now i cant even take a picture of all my Endeavor figures together because they are too many, and just randomly i found a brand new one i didnt even knew existed at all.

Again, like most figures of this character, this is from Banda/Banpresto and have a beautifull price tag....i really wish all other figure brands stick wth this price range but i guess that too fantastic to be real. The box names him MY HERO ACADEMIA THE AMAZING HEROES - PLUS - ENDEAVOR and it dosnt have any info of wath other characters form this collection but that dosnt worry me at all (up at this point i impsible to know wich character belongs to wath collection with the amount of Hero Academia stuff coming out). 

This guy is exactly the same size of the rest of the Endeavor figures i posted here - matches perfectly the NECA or McFarlane scale figures but given his pose, he is shorter than the rest. I am not sure if he can stand on his own but he comes with a base that consist on a thin yellow square plate with a hole in the middle with the shape of his boot. As simple as this small piece of plastic is, it works amazing to make him stand and keep his balance all the time. This kind of simple bases are such a wonderfull acesory that shows theres no reason to have a figure with no balance, just basic engineering works perfectly.

This is a statue soo no articulations and no accesorys asid eof the small base and he is divided only in two pieces: upper body and lower body tough put this peices together is pretty easy soo this figure is pretty effiscient from every perspective. Here we have Endeavor crouching, legs open and with a fireball on his back hand just about to throw it but wath stands out the most is that he hsi missing his fire mask and beard. This is pretty much the very first figure i see him with his face clean of fire!!

His cheeks are puffy and his eyes have no pupils and have a mad expression, he is evidently collecting all his strenght on the next attack and the sculpt pn the face details are really good!! The shape of his mouth, the cheeks, the whole pose with his head lower, the body expression is really good and let us know waths going on here perfectly and the anatomy of his muscles is, like always, way too good. Also he is missing his giant shoulder pads (and i am glad, i hated them but i guess they would not work in this specific pose).

The fire on his boots and hand looks really good specially the big fireball on the hand tough they are made of normal plastic, no transluscent bits here and that rest spectacularity to the figure. Also while theres scartches on the metalic ganutlet and the suir, theres no painted details at all and every section is painted in a single color, like the gauntlets are just plain grey, the suit is plain blue and the orange sections are just brigth orange an theres nothing to highligth the muscle structure.

Tough the red details on the suit are a little shacky and they invade the bklue or orange section pretty poorly, the paint on the face is pretty good with the mouth detail and the scare as well as the hair beard and eyes perfectly painted, the way the eyes are painted is evidently pretty cartoony and since there just plain colors on the entire figure, this gives it a pretty "cell shading" or anime look.

The boots tough and fire ball are painted with a soft mix of yellow and oranges that makes the flames stand out nicelly.

I am very happy with this guy tough thanks to his pose (before the action and not during the action) and simplistic color he dosnt stand out as much as the other Endeavor figures but the sculpt and áint details on his face are really good and i am loving to see his face finally under all that fire. Makes me wish they make more figures like this one with less fire soo my Endeavor altar keeps growing.

GARRADOR

 With Resident Evi 4 landing on the Playstation 2 and PC after the huge succes it had in Gamecube (and virtually landing on any other console shortly after), NECA was feeding on that hype with theyr two action figure series that covered the main characters (Leon and Ada), enemies (Chainsaw Ganado, Iluminados monks and Regenerador) as well as bosses (Verdugo, Krauser) and also they even added a few alternative versions of some characters (Leon dressed as a RPD police and the Regenerador in infrared view). Now day is hard to belive and imposible to see this many figures of a same series to be released at once but those were deffinetly other times.

The final Resident Evil 4 figure NECA released was Garrador, a kind of boss that eventually turned into a smaller enemie (i hate when they do that) but also one of the most unique designs of the game since he wasnt a monster or a "human" but he was a tortured creature more fitting into Hellraiser than in Biohazard, but this made him one of the most memorable enemies of that game.

Garrador is in human size soo he pretty much is the same size as Krauser or Ada and fits perfectly with any 1/10 scale figure of other companys. He can stand on his own perfectly like the rest of the figures (something i am gratefull) and like the rest, have very limited articulation. Like....very VEEEERRRRYYY limited making him the most statuesque figure NECA released soo far and almost not being able to get the action figure label....he have rotating swivels on his biceps, and thats it.

Theres no other articulation than the one on the buceps and rotating it broke the arms articulation soo dosnt looks too good but i guess NECA had no choice and they ahd to add this articulation in order to fit this guy into his clamshell since this is one of the most anoying figures i ever own; he takes wa too much shelf space.

Garrador is reposed like the main spalsh art of him in the game, growling at the sky with bot his arms open with the huge claws pointing out to the sides. The rorating biceps can help soo his claws dont take too much space but thats it. The sculpt is really good since the muscle structure is fantastic and he have a very realistic skin texture and the neck piece feels like made with leather while the chains hanging from his mask are real metalic chains.

The pants and claws are very simple but the Plaga parasite on his back looks really disgusting  and realistic, almost insectoid...and how it inserts inside his body and broke the skin around his back, the whole area is swollen with a red paint and the Plagua looks very alien with the brigth red pink mixed with white, really looks like an organ.

The skin paint is very good as well, specially on the front with the painted hair and the open wounds around his torso. Both the pants and neck piece have a mix with black and grey that makes them looks like real leather and while the metal helmeth looks kinda simple with only grey color, the sewn eyes inside the helmeth are masterfully painted since even the thread is visible.

The claws structure looks good and have some blood mixed with rust painted on them but i really find the claws the less interesting part of this design since the torture and parasitic nature of it makes this creature more disturbing than the rest of the Resident Evil fauna.

Its a shame this figure is completelly static, but just like the Regenerador, this guy fits nicelly on any horror collection and it really helps to mae the Resident Evil display much more exciting. At this poitn i trully regret not getting Leon.