This figure was an instant preorder for me – I like monster characters, especially of the aquatic variety. I did have some small reservations as I didn’t think Tomato Girl came out as well as it could’ve done. I don’t actually own Tomato Girl, but haven’t been that impressed by the photos I’ve seen. However, for an octopus girl I was prepared to risk it.

I preordered this before orders in Japan were available so didn’t get to get the AmiAmi scroll. Would’ve been a nice bonus to have.

So let’s see what we got!

Box

The box colours work well with the black and the muted blue. The tentacle designs are a nice inclusion to decorate the box instead of leaving it plain.
The box unfolds to reveal a lid, and underneath there is supposed to be the two pairs of ribbons tied in the middle. However on mine these were already untied as the proxy had done an inspection so wasn’t sure how they were supposed to go – there are photos from other users in the MFC gallery for her, if you wish to see the inside of the box. The figure and her accessories are in a cut EPE foam block, so everything is held securely. Which, based on the rough time that the figure I had her shipped with (ODD Lille – see previous blog), is a good thing!
Overall the box is good-looking and functional. Two very good traits for a figure box!

Sadtiems

When I first inspected the figure, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was talking to someone on Discord who mentioned they sent theirs back for a break. What break? I inspected the figure more closely and:

Damnit. Some glue on the end of a sharpened BBQ stick later and I had it repaired. I left the figure for 24 hours to check if the glue was going to hold and luckily it did. Looks like there’s a QC issue where this bundle of tentacle wasn’t given enough glue and the slime pulls on it a bit, resulting in it separating like this. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad to repair as it may look – pull it down slightly, apply glue with stick, then hold in place for 1-2 mins. I held it longer than I normally would due to the weight and the slime potentially not helping! If you need to do this repair yourself, I’d recommend a long pointy object for glue application and to do a test fit before starting glue application – you have to push it in a certain way to go back into the right place, and the damaged paint should be fully hidden if it’s back in its original position.

Figure overview

The figure mostly comes as one piece, so didn’t do an accessories section – there is a small amount of assembly with putting on the treasure chest lid, sword, dagger and necklaces.
The figure comes with various paper bits, which are folded up like a sealed treasure map. I forgot to take a photo, so here is one by Toprharley:

Annoyingly, the loyalty card is slightly bigger than credit card size but did just fit in my card holder.

So let’s look at her set up:

Wow, certainly a lot to look at here – no shortage of tentacles and she has been hoarding some treasure. I love the shiny finish on the tentacles and the colours came out well. We also have plenty of slime.

A couple of other angles:

Colours so pretty… prior to getting her, I was worried she was going to be a bit too washed out but was glad to find out that was not the case, and I love her purple-blue hues.

Left:

The slime looks good, plus there is a good amount of ‘animation’ in the tentacles.

Back:

She also has tentacles back here, guarding the back of the chest.

Top:

From this angle you can get a feel for her size. She’s not a small lass! From here we can see she’s about as wide as she is long. But as a 1/3 scale, she wasn’t going to be small XD.

Figure close-ups

Now we’ve seen the figure in its entirety, let’s look at the smaller details.
Top of her head:

The shading nicely converges towards the middle of her tentacle ‘hair’. The spikes are also nicely shaded, but only one of them seems to have green speckles, which makes it look a little odd.

Face:

She has a cute face nested in the tentacles. There is some purple shading on her face.

Body:

Her body sculpt is good, but the shading is lacking in my opinion – she has painted nipples which is nice, but the body doesn’t have much distinction otherwise. I feel this is partly stylistic but I think would’ve benefitted from a bit more subtle shading around her chest/belly button.

Legs:

She has very lean legs – not much in the way of muscle or fat here.

Feet:

If you like your figures barefoot this is a part of the figure that may appeal. I like the way she’s spreading her toes on one foot to give her more character.

Weapons:

She’s not left unarmed to protect her treasure – she has a sword and a dagger to keep her jewels safe. Getting the sword into place was a little bit difficult – needed to use the light on my phone to find the hole it slots into. Once you know which way to direct it, it slots into the hole easily. If it won’t go, try rotating the sword. Both weapons look nice and are sturdy once assembled.

Chest lid:

The connector is pretty small for this part but feels decently sturdy once in place. The sculpting and shading has been nicely done on this part, though the metal banding could possibly do with more shading to sell the damage more. The wood finish is pretty shiny which is a bit of an odd choice to me.

Nestled gems:

She has a couple of these translucent balls – not quite sure what they are. I like the way she’s holding one instead of them just lying about the place. As for what they do and what they’re worth… who knows?

Necklaces:

She comes with two necklaces to hang off of the chest ‘teeth’. They’re a little awkward to get into the right place, but do look nice when added.
With the chest having these green spiky teeth, I do wonder if it could protect itself if it wanted. Or maybe it’s some kind of trap set by the octopus girl herself? Maybe this is some kind of interesting couple? Monster and the Mimic? Whichever way, the shading is nicely done on these protrusions.

Gooey slime:

Liquidy parts on figures often look bad, but I’m glad to report the slime looks slimy. It is rubbery to the touch. I’m really happy with the way the stretchy slime parts came out.

Suckers:

Also really happy with the way the suckers came out – they’re actually sucker-shaped unlike Idol Cthulhu’s. The bottoms of the tentacles nicely transition to paler colours. If she grabs on, she isn’t going to be easy to shake loose!

Back tentacle:

Just admiring the shiny finish and the speckles :). The purple sheen really adds to the figure.

Gem decorations

She comes with some gems to decorate the base with:

A fun way of making a boring base not boring! However they will likely go all over the place when setting them up – the bits vary in size a lot so you may find the smaller and larger bits pinging off in various directions as you pour out the gems. Initially they do start plastic-wrapped, but the ones in the hessian sack the bag burst at the bottom, so pulling them out just ended up with a plastic bag in my hand XD.
These photos is with roughly half of the hessian sack contents, with none of the extra golden ovals (whatever they are? Not sure).
If you buy this figure, I would suggest putting it where you intend to display then pour the gems out carefully a bit at a time to cover the base. Putting them back in the bag after the photo session was a mildly time-consuming process.
I’d say they’re worth the effort though – it does a good job of decorating the base.

Conclusion

She’s a big beast, and here she is displayed in my cabinet:

Whew, just fits on the shelf! At ~8kg I wouldn’t recommend trying to display her in a detolf lest it breaks the shelf. This cabinet is a shop display cabinet so is designed to be able to take a good amount of weight.
I haven’t put all the gems on the base – there are a lot of them! So I’ve left the extras in the bag and displayed it next to her. To get the gems on the base, I cupped my hand and poured some into the larger spaces available on her base. From there, I spread them out before pouring more. Some went flying, but not too many.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this figure and glad I got her. Some may find her rather small for a 1/3 but I was expecting it to be like that. The paint is mostly great, though I’d like to see a tad more shading on her body. The manufacturing flaw with too little glue on the tentacle is not great – I’m not the only person that had them separate – but easily fixable. And if you squidge out any glue… hey, more slime! There are some parts that should’ve probably been sculpted to touch like the tentacle going through the chest teeth, but they don’t stand out enough to bother me.
I think most people will be pleased with this figure so long as it survives the journey, though it does have its imperfections. Whichever way, it’s nice to have a monster girl that isn’t some kind of cat.

This figure is an unlicensed resin. I bought this figure as I fell in love with the succubus design – as of time of writing, I haven’t read/watched My Dress Up Darling.

The box

Front:

On the front of the box, we get to see both versions of the figure, and I get a banner on mine saying the first 100 preorders get a womb tattoo. Ooh! And some quality censoring on the nipples 😆

Box sides:

The left side is the contiunation of the image on the back of the box. On the right we have a list of information you usually get at the time of preorder, and a QR code that is the link to their QQ group.

Back of the box:

We have a nicely posed photo of the figure 🙂

Top of the box:

Not much to see up here.

Foam (with the pieces taken out):

We have a decently compact layout, and everything was well-protected so everything came intact. Each hole held one part, so no poking around for missing parts.

The extras

As I preordered early, the figure came with this transfer you can apply to the figure. Haven’t decided yet if I will apply it.

The clothed body:

Assembling was a bit involoved when it came to the head, neck ruff and wings, so didn’t want to reassemble on this body. Not a bad looking body, but the top does look weird whilst the body is unassembled like this. There is a lot of part reuse between the bodies – feet, tail, arms, wings, ruff and head. So not hugely convenient if you want to switch between bodies.

The rest of the review is NSFW, so click the button below to see more.

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Decided to do some showcase blogs of some figures I’ve got recently, that aren’t necessarily featured on MFC. As I won’t be providing much in the way of analysis, I’m filing these under the “loot” category, rather than review.

This figure is of a sleeping female Cthulhu in a can. The figure is by WeArtDoing. I now have two of the three variants – this one I bought in stock from a random store on Taobao. She was 1188rmb with 15rmb freight collect. International shipping ended up being 270rmb – may’ve been cheaper if I had them remove the batteries, but I was juggling a couple of other parcels at the time, so just shipped as-is.

The figure comes with an edition card and three mediocre-quality postcards. I got #19/299 – which is ironically a lower edition number than the one I preordered.

Photos of the figure:

I do love the strange theming and the blue colorations. The body is a bit plain for its shininess – in some lights it does look a bit like bootleg plastic, so it would’ve been nice to see some extra shading to offset that.

Tentacle close-ups:

I love the texture moulded into the tentacles and the colour transition.

But wait… there’s a feature:

There’s a hidden switch that turns on an LED in the can. The can bottom is held on by magnets, so it’s easy to take off and put back on again.

Here’s some photos with the LEDs on:

The light is quite pretty and does add to the figure.

Overall, I’m happy with my purchase. It’s a fairly unique figure, and I do love me some Cthulhu-themed things. Out of the blue and pink variants, I think I prefer the pink one, but both are pretty.
I have her displayed with the pink variant, with another one of WeArtDoing’s figures:

This shelf is a work in progress, so it’s fairly empty right now. If you like to see a similar blog for either of the other two figures in the above photo, let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!

Do you like your figures cute, but just a bit scary? Then this figure is for you!
This review is pretty long – feel free to scroll past any sections that don’t appeal.

About Fengrong Culture

Fengrong Culture is a Chinese manufacturer, so you won’t find this figure in the MFC database.
Fengrong Culture was established in 2017, but this is their first release – they did intend to release another figure prior, but was cancelled before being available for order, likely for licensing reasons.

One thing to note this is the review of the figure without the DX base – the DX base is a separate release in China, and I do have this on preorder. Fengrong currently estimate 15th-20th August for the base’s release. The base was originally going to be resin, but due to the number of orders received, they changed it to be PVC & ABS. Oh, and it has lights and a speaker…

My history with the figure

I believe this figure was first revealed at Wonfes Shanghai 2019 – my first glimpse of it via an image posted to a Discord server I was on. I then promptly forgot which server it was posted on, and then couldn’t find it a week or so later. Thankfully awhile later someone reposted it, which allowed me to track down the details.
From there, I discovered Fengrong’s Weibo, which allowed me to keep track of the figure. I also discovered hpoi’s site (a Chinese MFC), so also watched the figure there.
Not knowing if the figure would see any international distribution, I registered with a Taobao proxy and did a couple of in-stock purchases to investigate how it worked, as well as looking into how deposits/preorders worked.
I decided to preorder this figure with hpoi’s store, as it was highly rated and seemed to be a good bet.
Then came the usual preorder wait. And delay. Then delay again… At one point the release date wasn’t known, but eventually Fengrong published that she’ll be sent out at the end of July. True to their word this time around, I was able to pay the replenishment (final) payment, and she was at my proxy very shortly after.
EMS from China to the UK took 11 days, so didn’t have too long to wait once she was enroute.

Figure box size and weight

As some of you reading this are likely waiting on their preorder from AmiAmi, the box weight & dimensions are:
Weight: 1875g
Dimensions: 330 x 265 x 190mm
So prepare for hefty shipping.

Figure’s box

Front:

We have an interestingly-shaped window here, showing off most of the figure. We have some glossy-printed tentacles which give a nice texture and detail to the box.
We also have the figure’s name in Chinese and English, plus the tagline “Rhythm from R’lyeh”, which I like.

Sides:

Not too much to see here – some little star windows, and the continuation of the front and back designs.

Back:

We have the figure in front of her illustration. Interesting choice, works OK. At the bottom we have mostly the standard warning text and figure information, plus an authenticity shiny from Fengrong and the barcode.
The design is pretty enough, but not hugely exciting.

Top:

This was taken after I did the photoshoot, so we can’t see the top of her head here, but it wasn’t the most exciting angle in the window. Does the job.

Bottom:

Nothing to see here. Move along. S’gone all moiré though…

Liner:

Seem to have a jumper pattern here. You don’t really see a lot of it through the box’s windows when the figure is in the box, so it’s fine. Not sure how they decided on this pattern – doesn’t really have anything to do with the figure.

Info card:

Has some basic safety/warranty information. However, we have some kind of exchange code at the bottom – for an app/website that doesn’t exist yet… Well, I’ll keep an eye on their Weibo for more info! See if I can get anything good, despite not being in China.

Box inner, if you’re curious:

Blister

It’s a reasonably sturdy blister, but has bent a fair bit on the front. As a blister, it clips together well, and kept the items secure as I pulled it out of the box.
Looking at the blister contents, we have the main figure, a basic base and her mic. We also have an empty hole to the bottom right – nothing was in here, and looks like that’s the case for other people’s copies. Maybe they planned to include some headphones for her at one point?

Base

Top:

I swear this came pre-fingerprinted. Ah well, it was gonna invariably gain some of mine at some point anyway, plus I have the deluxe base coming soon. Not a very exciting base – some detail to the edges and that’s about all we get. And one bit to support her foot.
This was more base than anticipated, as the prototype shots just showed her balanced on her tentacles.

Peg:

The plastic pieces didn’t go together so well here, so we have some protruding edges. They’re hidden once she’s on the stand though.
A decently long metal peg here, to keep her stable – nice to see a metal peg, as that’ll stay nice and sturdy when displayed.

Bottom:

No copyrights, no nothing. Plastic grid might be useful if you want to put her on a display plinth smaller than her diameter though.

Unpacking the parts

Mic:

Not too much to see here – it is pretty small, so the details are sufficient. No notable paint mishaps here.

Cthulhu with her protective materials:

She comes with a good amount of plastic separating the parts, stopping her from scraping against herself. She also has a foam block behind her legs to stop her from swinging back and hitting her hair.
Closer look at the foam:

There weren’t any instructions with her, so I just squidged it up and squeezed it out between her leg and tentacle, being careful not to nudge the bow on the back of her ankle off. I did waggle her body around, but not sure if it detaches, so left it be.

Propped without base:

She can be balanced without the base like the prototype images show, but she looked a little wonky when I did this.

Assembly

Foot hole:

This fit fine onto the metal peg – was fairly easy to slide her on once I got the correct angle for the peg. Is a little bit of marking on her sole on my copy.

Hand for the mic:

This is what her hand looks like without the mic. You may see some excess rubbery stuff on her hand – I noticed this after this photo, but it just brushed off with a little force, thankfully.

*plop*:

It fit into her hand just fine, no issues here. Seems to be in there firmly enough too. Also note the lack of cruft on the back of her hand.

OK, that’s everything unpacked and assembled. Let’s give ‘er a spin.

Spin-around

Yep, she’s definitely a statement piece of a figure. A bold green and definitely tentacle-y. Very heavy too – guessing that the tentacles were cast solid, as she’s a weighty beast. Complete opposite of a B’Full/Insight figure. Unfortunately that means she’ll cost a pretty penny to ship.

Close-ups

Face:

She has quite a cute singing face. For some reason, her hair is propped a bit away from her face – I don’t think it shows much on display, but does look a little odd. The cast isn’t the best but it isn’t the worst I’ve seen. We do have some nice shading here though. Her stray hair has some stark contrast on it – it doesn’t bother me personally, but I can some people finding this to be a bit of a paint flaw.
Looking at her hair accessories, the cast is a little blobby, and the gold-y part hasn’t been painted neatly.
Her face skin hasn’t been shaded, so it relies on natural shadow to give it depth. We do have some shading in her mouth though, and two cute fangs.
Her eyes might be a bit divisive – it’s an unusual pattern that fits her, but they do look like faces, which is a bit annoying when you notice it.
Looking at her head wings, we do have some paint detail, but nothing really in sculpt detail.

From the side of her face:

I think her head and mic hand have been posed well – really gives off the vibe she’s singing whilst she waves at her fans.
Her sleeve is shaded nicely, and her cuffs add some nice detail to the figure. The lines on the cuff look neat, and the ruff has been nicely sculpted.
We’ve also got a couple of starfish in her “hair” here too. I do like these little details.

Cthulhu bow detail:

This li’l dude is neat imo. He’s been sculpted well, and the greens are nice. His eyes are painted neatly… but the stars, not so much – here the paint is too sloppy imo – the one to the right of the photo has a fair amount of overspill. In close proximity it’s very noticeable, a bit of distance less so, but you can see it’s there if you’re looking.

Lower half of the dress:

This angle we can see the sloppy gold paint more in focus. If you wanted to…
The dress itself I think has been moulded well, and feels like there’s some life to it with the bottom ruffles rolling upwards in the middle. There is a little shading on the green panel, but it is a bit indistinct. The white parts do have quite noticeable shading.
Loving the three layers they’ve given her dress – adds volume and detail to the dress.

Bow:

Close up it looks a little chonk – that’s to say a little blobby in the sculpt. Being close up to it doesn’t do it any favours, but looks fine from a viewing distance.

Wings:

Unlike the head wings, I feel like these two have had full attention paid to them – much more detail in the sculpt and paint here. These two wings add to her cuteness and cthulhuness :D.

Legs:

Looking at the top of the stockings, it does look like the dark blue banding is a bit different in widths between the two legs, but I don’t think it is something particularly noticeable unless you’re looking up close.
She has bits of shading on her stockings, which help add depth, and a little bit of wrinkling at the back of her knee. I also like the little star details here too.
Her shoes match her tentacles in colour, but have been done with a gloss finish. Unfortunately where the paint blobs out ever so slightly it does produce quite a dark tone which makes her straps look like they’re a little dirty up close.
The bows behind her legs don’t stand out too much, but are a nice additional detail.

Boat:

I love this little cute detail – it does look like a boat tossing in the sea of her tentacles. Again, this is a detail that looks fine from a distance, but up close the sails are rather blobby and unshaded. If I was to change this bit, I’d probably add some grey shading to the sails to hide some of the deficiencies in the sculpting. Though I think a more experienced manufacturer might be able to work on getting a better cast for the sails.

Top of the tentacle-hair:

Isn’t the most attractive meeting of hair, but the lower parts of the tentacle joins is fine. We can also see the shading on the tentacles – I was worried they wouldn’t have much shading, so I was very happy to see this. The shading is pretty striking from a distance, which can be seen in the spin-around shots.
For the backs of the wings, we can see the head wings lack detail on this side, but her body wings are also shaded and sculpted back here. Though one is notably darker than the other. I don’t mind a bit of variance, but some people may find this bothersome.

Lower meeting of the tentacles:

These tentacles meet up nicely.

Wiggly tentacles:

Here we can see more of the shading, and I do like the wiggly lines of these tentacles at the back. The top is slightly glossy, which I think works well.

Suckers:

She wants to stick right to you }:). The undersides of her tentacles have some subtle shading to add depth. The suckers aren’t sucker-shaped, but do mostly look the part. Now I’ve mentioned that, it’s probably going to annoy someone :P.

And that’s a tour of Idol Cthulhu!

Conclusion

So is she winning any awards? I think she deserves an award the concept – I love the idea of a Cthulhu idol. The figure definitely has a fun vibe to her, and I think the shading is better on the figure than I was hoping – most of her has some elements of shading, though her face doesn’t. With the liveliness of the figure, I think she’s fine on a simple base, though there is the complex base being released later.
Some of the paint details could’ve had more attention put in – though the only one that really bothers me is the stars on the chest Cthulhu. There are a couple of bits of sculpting that could do with refining, but nothing I find particularly bothersome.
I’m glad I went through the journey I did to order this unique figure, and I think it’s a solid first figure for Fengrong. Her recommended retail is around ¥12,000, which looking at the figures around that price point in my collection is a fair price for her.
With postage, she cost me around ¥18,550. If you’re in Europe, I’ll be curious how much she cost to ship (I shipped her via EMS from China) – see how ordering from AmiAmi compares when they have her.

Do you feel she’s worth her retail? Have you ordered her from China/AmiAmi? Excited or scared for her?
Thanks for reading this review! And a thank you from Idol Cthulhu!