Here are two snake figures from Snake Gorge, both of a Chinese moccasin (Deinagkistrodon). The Chinese common name translates to “five-step snake”, so that’s what shows up on Taobao.
First is the snake equivalent of a bust:
Snappy bugger that he is!
Continue reading “Snake Gorge – Chinese Moccasins”This is the last of the busts I currently have to review, and it’s The Joker:
From the front, this one has a lot more to look at than the other ones, which I think really helps with the overall look and feel. Not a big fan of the paint on his bowtie – the darker lines aren’t blended at all, which makes it looks sloppy close-up. However, the bold colours overall work well together, and this figure does work at a bit of a distance.
Face:
I appreciate them including some pink paint to represent his tongue, and this surprisingly works. His lips are OK, and they can get away with some rough paint here, what with the Joker being a bit slapdash himself. The eyebrows feel a bit severe though, as there is no detailing to them. The hair is really nice in of itself – there is shading present here, which really helps it look like hair. Some bits are missed though, as you can see on the left-hand side of his face. The right is pretty much the same on mine, but with a bit of paint on his ear.
The gun:
The lettering came out well here, but mine has some marks on this side. Also you can see how the gun started off bent – this part is a softer rubbery material, which does mean it won’t break in the box, but you may have to straighten it out. What is more annoying than the black splotches is the super-lazy painting on his hand… really? This passed QA? As it’s black, maybe I’ll actually repaint this…
Here is how bent the gun was when I got him out of the box:
I heated it up with a hairdryer, held it in position, then doused it for awhile in cold water:
Ah! Much better! I’m not too bothered about this, as it’s not the first bendy figure I’ve had and it’s pretty easy to fix, but I feel that they may have been able to go stiffer with this or use a metal wire/rod inside of it to hold it straight. Especially if someone’s new to collecting, this is going to be a really disappointing feature, and I don’t think there’s any need to have it this soft.
Left:
I like this pose – there is a dynamic quality to it, and his face looks good in profile. The main messy edge here is the edge of his glove. The paint line between him and the base seems neater on this side than some of the others I have.
Right:
This side of the BANG! banner is a neater than the other side, and looks good. The paint is a lot neater on this side too, with a lot less to complain about. There is a seam that goes down his side, but I don’t think this really disrupts the figure.
Back:
Looks like some dints got into the mould – not sure what happened here. The paint itself is smooth though, and the back of his hair is painted well. We don’t have much in the way of fabric movement back here, but it looks passable. We have one detail in the form of a suit seam running down the back, but I’m not sure it really adds anything. Collar moulding I think could’ve gone a bit better. Sleeves look nice though.
Overall, I think this is a decent entry, and probably works better than the others as a concept – there is more going on here, which means he doesn’t look overly plain, as they decided not to fully shade these. However, there are some pretty sloppy painting mistakes and lack of paint blending that you’d get in a more premium product. I think if you set him off at a bit of a distance, it’s quite a striking piece, so would recommend if you’d like to see him sat on your shelf. Just be prepared to straighten out the gun!
So after buying the other two busts, I decided to take advantage of Eaglemoss’s introductory offer for the first three busts in the series. I will only be reviewing two, as I plan to sell the Batman bust.
First up, we have Harley Quinn:
I like the colours and design on this one – it feels less plain than the other two I reviewed, but there is still a fair amount of block colour going on. I love that they’ve included the hammer, as it definitely adds something to the bust.
Face close-up:
The eye shadow colours fee a bit overdone and severe close up, though the pain seems to be neatly done on the face. Here we can also see the apint isn’t overly neat in certain places – especially her right breast, where there is red showing from underneath the black.
Left:
Here we get to see mostly hammer. Not sure what the back blobby bits are about, under the lower thin ring. I appreciate the weathering effect though. What I appreciate less is the escaping black paint on the side of her jacket.
Right:
Here we can see they can do some blending with the paint – her hair doesn’t look too bad. Though the orange doesn’t match the pink that the hair and eyeshadow should be, if you’re choosy about this kind of thing. Her hairband here is also hair-coloured. Again, there’s some marks and missing bits in the paint – red dots on her sleeve, her belt is a bit skin-coloured, and a couple of dots on her hip.
Not sure if the munch in her hair was a divot that was supposed to line up with the mallet at some point or an air bubble in the mould. Whichever, it is a bit odd.
Back:
The design on her back in of itself is printed nicely, but not quite straight. I think this would’ve come out better if the design was a bit smaller – it feels like it takes up just a bit too much of the jacket. Again, the painting is a bit hit-and-miss, but I do like the sculpted wrinkles in the jacket.
Overall, an OK bust, but with Eaglemoss’ varied paint job qualities, you may not want to risk ordering this one from Eaglemoss directly, as I think the paint errors do show up fairly well unless you have her at a distance.
This is the second bust I bought in Forbidden Planet, featuring Poison Ivy:
Initially, the design kind of appealed, but… this didn’t grown on me (pun partially intended). The paint is neat on her face, but her hair painting definitely seems to leave something to be desired, and the paint jobs varied on her leafy clothing. This one was OK, but still a bit messy in places.
Overall, from the front of this figure, she suffers from plainness – her top is nice, but the large amount of flat-coloured skin just makes it feel like there should be.. more. Her hair could have done with some shadows and highlights, and some of the edges tidying so it doesn’t look like her hair is fusing into her skin in places.
Left:
Here we can see where a bit of the green paint blobbed onto her hair, and some unfinished edges around the hair. Here, you can see a particularly sloppy job of the top painting – all of the edges here feature inaccurate paint.
Right:
The edges of her top are better painted on this side – passable for a cheaper bust figure. However, there are little dots in her hair that don’t look very good.
Back:
Definitely not a fan of this angle. There’s some attempts at shading, but the overall look is Cousin Itt waterfall of hair. The overall shape isn’t very pleasing to me, and the moulding is… enthusiastic, but just doesn’t feel like it fits to me.
Overall, I not too happy with this bust, and question my wisdom in buying it. I bought it was it was Poison Ivy… and kind of because I was buying the other one already. I did try to go for a better painted one – some of the paint jobs were really questionable. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this one. Save your money and go and buy a Kotobukiya figure or something.
I saw this in Forbidden Planet, and decided to pick it up with another bust, which will be tomorrow’s blog.
So here she is:
I like the shininess of her outfit, and the face is painted neatly. I also like the interesting pose, with her getting ready for shenanigans,.
Left:
Her fingers are posed a bit oddly – I don’t think that finger spacing is particularly natural. Her chest looks a good size though, and the buckle for her hood loks good. The finish on her hip doesn’t seem to be too well applied though, which doesn’t help distinguish it form her belt.
Right:
Buckle also looks good from this side, but again, the shininess of her outfit seems to decrease on the way down. Looks like some black paint went a bit stray on the strap of her goggles. Also we have the strange finger posing on this side. Not entirely sure what’s up with that, but does look OK if you don’t focus on it.
Back:
Some suit seamlines sculpted in the back here, which look good. I like the way they shiny paint goes around her belt, to help the strands of it stand out. Paint looks a little janky around her google strap, but not too bad.
Overall, I think a decent amount of detail has been put into this bust. I think for the price point, this is a decent bust, and glad I bought it. I got it a bit cheaper than the RRP, which I think was a fair price for it.
This is the first of the purchases I made at the comic book shop that ended up eating half of my budget… Forbidden Zone in Brussels. So the next four blogs will be the purchases I made there :).
First up is Hellboy:
Love the paint on this dude. One small mark on his right shoulder, but otherwise is in excellent condition. Love the strong red of his chest, complemented by the shading. But I agree with one review I read for him… he does have a lack of nipples. He could do with more in the nipple region :P.
Close-up of his face:
Hair/sideburn paint is a bit sloppy in places. And you can see the mark on his jacket in the corner of this photo. When looking at this picture, I do notice they’ve missed out some copper paint on the fasteners(?) on his jacket. The shading on his face seems kind of unfocused, but it works OK from a distance. I do like his eyes,
Left:
Here we have his gun hand. We can see a good amount of shading on his jacket too. The gun looks good and weighty, and looks the part imo. You can see the tendons in this hand, which makes it a good sculpt in my book.
Close-up of the gun:
Texture looks good on the gun, and seems to have the right details to my untrained eye.
Right side:
Love the straps going down the arm of his jacket. The stone texture on his arm is really good, pleased with how that came out.
Closer look at the arm:
Looking good 🙂
Back:
His jacket has some lovely shading in it – love the fact they didn’t go for a super-plain look, and does give the feeling it’s a more “lived in” jacket. Some minor marking here too, but it just kind of adds to the jacket :P.
Overall, I really like this bust. Think it was worth the money I paid for it :).
This was the second figure for Christmas, but for this one I only saw the box beforehand, as it doesn’t have a window in the box (and the figure itself was in a well-taped polystyrene cube).
And this one is ¾ of Harley Quinn – one of my favourite characters. This figure was more detailed than expected, so am pleased about that. I like the two textures used on the base.
Here is a close-up of her face:
I like the expression she has, and the contrast in her face. Her ruff is pearlescent, which stops it from blending too much with the skin.
Harley’s left side:
She has a tattoo on this side, which is a nice touch, and in this photo you can see the leather strap that holds the hammer in place. I thought this was a nice touch, as it does its job well, without being intrusive. It’s nice having the hammer as a separate part, as it helps it to look realistic (some figures have the accessories moulded in, and it always shows to some extent).
Harley’s right:
Here you can see the detail on the hammer, which is nicely wood-like, and her nicely painted glove. The belt of bullets also looks good.
Back of Harley:
She has a nice cape. but the paint in the middle isn’t quite done right, which is a bit of a shame. However, this doesn’t bother me much, as I won’t be seeing this side often.
Am glad I got this figure – it was nicer than I anticipated it to be, which is always a good thing. The mixed media, with the straps on the top and the leather holding the hammer are very nice touches, which help the figure stand out. I’m particularly pleased with the hammer’s texture too.
Can never have too much Harley 🙂
I have a soft spot for Harley, and despite the poopness of the Suicide Squad movie, I do love the Harley design:
This was made by an artist at the con, “Arkham-Arts (Ski)”. I did a Google search for him, but all he seems to have is an inactive deviantART page :(.
Here’s a close-up of the face, showing the her choker:
and a close-up of the base:
And what she looks like from the back:
A lovely little Harley to add to my collection 🙂
