Category: Trading & Small figures

Barnaby Brooks Jr – Chess Piece

Just a small loot item today, Barnaby as a chess piece:

I like the pose in this figure, and the backdrop. And the fact it doesn’t even look like a chess piece. The paint is pretty decent for a figure of this size, and he has the translucent pieces he should do. 

Left:

Here we see he’s very close up to the backdrop. His chest is done well, and nicely detailed. Here we can also see his eyes are painted, and he has paint details on his inner arm. And the “TV” part of the “Hero TV” logo.

Right:

Here we have a goodly amount of detail too – he has his thrusters, and all his back plates. 

Back:

Not much to see here, though apparently I have the base rotated, so the only clue that he’s a chess piece is back here. You’d need a pretty big board if this is the size of a chess piece… the base isn’t too big, but he’s the size of a trading figure, so you’d need a good-sized board if you had a set of pieces… However, researching it, it’s more of a ‘concept’ set, where you’d just collect one of each, rather than a chess set’s worth. 

Here’s an angled shot:

I really like this piece. I’d collect the others, if I came across them for a decent price. A good amount of detail has been put into the sculpting and the painting for this figure. I’d recommend these figures, but maybe not for actually playing chess. 

Christmas Rei Ayanami – Evangelion – Sega

So… it’s summer. So let’s review a Christmas figure.

Of Rei, naturally:

This is a really nice figure imo – her hair is nicely detailed, she has a good expression, and for the most part, she’s well painted. I like the way she’s posed, holding her jacket because it gives us a good view of her plugsuit-inspired dress. The figure also features a couple of different finishes, so her dress and boots are pearlescent, her coat is shiny and the other elements are more matte.

Face:

A fair amount of detail went into her face, which is a bit rare for prize figures. The fluffy parts suffer for being plastic, but I don’t find them too bad on this figure, and not as distracting as other figures I’ve blogged about. I love the red shininess of her jacket, and the badge on it is painted well. Some of the red does escape onto the edging, though. Also she’s one of the few Rei figures where the hair doesn’t go flat, and I really like this about this figure.

Left:

She sports a headband, which is a nice addition to help hide the seams, but being flat to her head it does look a little odd. She has quite a slender pose, which fits Rei. I like the red band at the top of her shoes.

Right:

Here we can see the fact her hair is moulded fully at the back, which is a rarity. The creases in her jacket give a sense of realism. We can see a bit of a seamline in her dress, but it doesn’t stand out much. Her legs aren’t shaded, but not much shows, so I don’t find that fact too significant. We can also see the headset she’s wearing, not sure why. Maybe she’s posing during a music video or some stage show…?

Back:

A bit of a miss with the red paint on her jacket, d’oh. Her bum sticks out slightly, which works well. I like the way the logo is printed on her jacket – I think silver paint was a nice choice, and the print is nice and crisp. The present paint looks OK from the back, but is a little dodgy on the front – some of the yellow paint wasn’t applied thickly enough.

Present boot:

Rockets… what’s possibly clips… yep, this appears to be presents from NERV! The bow is painted nicely, but there is a bit of a miss on the green paint on the ribbon, but it isn’t too bad.

Back:

Looks OK, nothing too special to say about the back. The toes on the boot feel a bit short though – feel like they could’ve lengthened them so it would feel more proportionate.

Base:

“December 24th 2004, we came in order to carry out a special duty to you tonight”. Mmm, special duty… Is Shinji getting the prize gift? I think the presents in the boot will keep Asuka happy for a bit.

Overall, I really like this figure. It’s definitely one of the nicer prize figures I have. Also being a Christmas figure she was really cheap – they don’t tend to keep their value as a lot of people don’t feel like displaying them outside of the Christmas period and end up selling them. But me being me, appreciates a good figure all year round :P. Yes, even the Christmas ones. If you need more Christmas and Rei in your life, I’d recommend this figure.

Lilith Aensland – Vampire

Just a small figure for today, but a trading figure I was excited to see:

Lilith from Vampire/Darkstalkers. I love the cute look on her face, and the strong, vibrant colours used for this figure. Her hair has come out nicely, along with all her wings. For a small trading figure, it has been painted well, and looks the part.

Left:

I like her jaunty pose. The wing paint is mostly where it should be,with only a little bit out of place. The bats on her leggings are nicely defined. Here we can see Lord Raptor’s face – it is nicely detailed, so you can see him well. The tongue is also a separate part – it came detached in the bag I bought it in, and it took me a bit to work out where it went XD. The figure likely came in a gachapon, so it is supposed to disassemble, but likely originally had assembly instructions. Fortunately these things aren’t too hard to construct.

Right:

Whilst Lord Raptor is one colour, they’ve done a good job with the texturing, so he looks good. It’s so easy for translucent figure and figure parts to look bad and cheesy, but here I think it works well. The backs of her wings don’t have too much to them, but that’s more the design of Lilth than the figure itself. It has the one notable detail she has – the creases on her wings.

Back:

Here we see Lord Raptor’s impressive mane :). And Lilith’s back, which has some definition to it. The paint and sculpt is impressive on this tiny figure, especially so for a trading figure.

I’m glad I was able to pick this one up, and would recommend it to anyone who likes it.. if you can get hold of it.

Etna – Disgaea – Toranoana

So, one Etna in the basket. So what do we need now? More Etna of course!

And this one comes in its own display box! Unfortunately she doesn’t clip to the bottom of the box, so the box suffered in transit, and now has some small marks. Fortunately the figure herself didn’t seem worse for wear (though that is the origin of the ones that are paint transfers…)

Here she is out of the box:

Aww, cute. Paint a bit sloppy on her right leg, and looks like there is some on her stomach. Overall, she’s OK for a small figure. 

Left:

Her thin body has mostly been recreated here, and her earrings look the part. The lighter areas of her outfit are very white – not sure what’s entirely most accurate, but it is pretty stark compared to the pics I’ve found. 

Right:

Her gun looks nice. Not hugely detailed, but seems OK to me. 

Back:

Her tail and wings match her hair colour, which does leave her on the gaudy side. Again, not hugely detailed, but she is a small figure. 

With this figure, if you can pick it up cheap, and you want a small Etna, this one is OK. I wouldn’t recommend paying a huge amount for her. 

Shinji Ikari – Evangelion

This is the third of these figures I have, and the final one that I currently own. Not sure if I will get any more of the set if I come across them. Maybe, maybe not.

So without further ado:

I feel his face is the weakest part of this figure – it has a very retro/old feel to it. Does almost make him more like a doll (but not of the expensive variety). Again, his suit is on the plain side, but does feature enough that it looks like Shinji. 

Left:

Not too much of a leaning issue here, and more paint details than Rei. Also the paint is more neatly done than Rei’s. Hair does look plastered to his head though, unlike Rei’s.

Right:

Shiny hair! Yeah, that’s not a good finish for his hair, and I think a big part of the old-but-not-good look. Rei’s hair looks to have been done separately, and has a matt finish. Dark blue paint is a bit messy on his arm, but the rest looks fine on his suit.

Back:

Here you can really see the shiny hair. Uh, lay off the hair gel there Shinji. His body looks a little “square” around his butt imo. Doesn’t seem quite natural. The paint is good though. 

Rei Ayanami – Evangelion

These are two older figures. I own the Asuka of this set, which I’ve previously reviewed. No idea what year these were produced, but they’re certainly on the older end! 

First up, Rei:

Definitely a “miffed Rei” look going on. For a basic figure, the sculpt hits all the important parts. The paint however, does show that this is a basic figure. There’s a little bit of escaping the lines, and no shading to speak of. 

Left:

Yeahhhh… she really does have a leaning problem. I did almost fix it, but was likely too impatient waiting for the plastic to “set”, so she ended up leaning again. Here we can see where the dark blue escapes the lines a bit, but the “bolts” on her shoulder and arm mark are good. Hair surprisingly looks decent to me. 

Right:

Pretty much the same observations as the left side. Though here you can see a seam line running down from her below and down her leg. 

Back:

The “0″ feels a little big on her backpack. Hair has been sculpted back here. She has a bit of creasing in her suit behind her knees – I think this is the only nod to the plugsuit being clothing, but to be fair it is usually skintight on most figures. 

Overall, these older Evangelion figures I more collect for nostalgia of an era I never had, and well, Evangelion. They were cheap, but I wouldn’t really recommend them. 

Minecraft Chest Series Blind Boxes

Found these at Poundland, so I picked up the 6 that they had.

The first two, zombie, and zombie on fire:

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Originally these retailed for £3. You only get one of these per box, so I think £3 is a LOT to pay for such a tiny figure (they’re around 2cm in height). £1 is still…. kind of a bit. At least they’re painted OK. 

Sides:

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Fire zombie has more to look at, by virtue of the fire. Sleeves aren’t painted too straight on him though. The normal zombie has pretty blobby paint. though the textured areas are nice. 

Back:

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Hm. Yeah. Distinctly average. 

Alex and Steve:

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These two are more interesting than the zombies, but you can see the seeming cheapness of the plastic, with the patterns on Steve’s armour. There is a bit of overpaint here and there, but no too noticeable.

Sides:

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I like the design of Steve’s shield, but it is poorly painted. Alex seems to have had a hard life, and there’s a number of paint scratches in her hair. Pickaxe has a number of paint flaws, but at least they’ve done the head in a proper gold. 

Back:

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Here you can see where the plastic was poured into the mould. Not much hiding Paint on Alex is much neater back here. /sigh. 

And finally, Blaze and Snow Golem:

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Brown paint missed on the Golem. Blaze paint is also a bit messy. The transparent bit on the Blaze is kind of a nice touch. 

Sides:

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Snow Golem looks fine, but the red paint on the Blaze is a bit of a mess. The paint is mostly where it should be, but with the groove going all away around the edge of the Blaze, it makes it look like the paint didn’t quite come up to the edge it should do. 

Back:

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Again, clear mould marks from where the moulds were filled. Paint is neat back here though. 

Even at £1, I wouldn’t particularly recommend these. Definitely not for £3! Would’ve liked to see some of the more interesting picks from this collection, but overall, the quality and size doesn’t justify a premium price for these figures. Unless you’re hardcore into Minecraft and really want these, I wouldn’t particularly recommend them.

Whilst I was at Poundland, I also bought this minecart:

The print quality of these vary, so I’d recommend inspecting it in the packet, if you care. Some of them are not printed straight at all. I’ve decided to leave this one in the packet, so not sure of the quality of the wheels etc. 

If we look at the back:

… we can see that they’ve released the same minecart, in various different packaging. Collect them all? Nah, think I’ll pass on that. I don’t think I really need more than one of these tbh…

Joker, Harley, Cyborg & Mr Freeze – Metal Nanofigs

Ended up getting some more Nanofigs from Asda. Not sure quite why I keep doing this… oh yeah – they’re cheap… 

So first up, Joker:

Well-painted, for such a small figure. He has purple boots though… and the shiny jacket might be an acquired taste, 

Left:

A little bit of an ear going on, and a very red smile. Hair has some shape to it. 

Right:

Bit more definition in the green hair paint on this side. And a sea of shiny purple. Good thing I like shiny purple.

Back:

Some details in the sculpt back here. Am happy with this nanofig. 

Next up, how did his ‘partner’ Harley go?

Ah. Hm. Yeah, she didn’t fare so well. Missed paint on her hair, by the bat and the lines aren’t too crisp on the jacket. Not sure what’s going on with the bat, being flesh-coloured… that doesn’t quite work. She has a full face though, unlike some of the nanofigs, which is a nice change. 

Left:

Yeah, definitely evidence of some painty mess here.

Right:

Seems to be some mess going on with her hip, and her foot seems poorly moulded. Or maybe overpainted. 

Back:

Faaail. A number of black marks, and not much attention paid to paint edges. You can’t see the back of the figures, and this one shows it. 

Cyborg:

Recognisably Cyborg, but he does have some mutant growths on his shoulders. There isn’t a large amount of detail in the paintwork, but what’s there has largely been done neatly. 

Left:

A sea of silver. Think some definition has been lost in the legs from the thick paint apps, but probably better this than seeing through the paint. 

Right:

Head paint has been done well, rest of it is what it is, lol.

Back:

Yeah, looking decent back here, no real complaints. 

Overall, he’s pretty decent, but does suffer from the lack of paint details these figures have. 

Lastly, Mr Freeze:

Mr Melty Face! His head looks distinctly mutant, like they couldn’t decide if it was his helmet or his head. I think it would’ve looked far better if they shortened his skull, so he didn’t have his helmet on. Paint on his left arm looks like a “yeah, that’s about right” job. Rest of the paint, such as it is, looks like it has gone where it was supposed to. 

Left:

Not much definition here. Looks OK. 

Right:

His glove and boot lack detail in the moulding imo, and look overly plain. 

Back:

One large paint gouge here, at his mid-back :(. His left glove looks really good from this angle, with the gun… looks better here than on the front!

Overall, Mr Freeze looks OK, barring that stupid head. Argh. Goggles could’ve done with more work too. 

My favourite out of these is the Joker. Harley is probably the weakest out of this set. For less than £2 each, they’re pretty decent, and better than what you can get out of some pricier blind bags. And you can pick the ones you want! Wouldn’t recommend ordering these off the internet (unless you’ve got good pics of the ones you’re buying) as the paint jobs can vary massively. Did try to pick the better looking ones, where I could. I remember there only being one Mr Freeze though. 

Sinclair – Bad Taste Bears

Saw this in a collectables store, and simply had to buy it, seeing as it’s become topical again:

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So what’s he surprised about, with his VR? Is it Skyrim?

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Ah, probably not Skyrim…. maybe Witcher? 

Left:

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Here we see the haptic feedback system. We’re not here yet, but hopefully we won’t need to wear a large “backpack” when we do get there… However, it looks like it works well, judging by a certain part of the sculpt. Some bits of stray paint, but nothing too significant. 

Right:

Pretty much the same story as the left, but there’s a bit more of the black wires that haven’t been painted properly. It doesn’t show too much, but it’s pretty obvious if you’re looking closely at it. Having one of the wires as a real wire is a nice touch though. 

Back:

Ah, VR as imagined in the early 2000s. Such an industrial-looking box. Should imagine these days, it’d be a sleek black box. Maybe even teadrop-shaped. 

Top:

At first,  I thought this was way too fat, but on reflect, I think it’s fairly comparable to a Rift/Vive. 

Overall, I like this bear. The sculpting is good, and the subject is amusing. However, the painting is a bit lacking in a couple of places, which brings it down a bit. Now to see what the actual future brings for VR!

Accel World – Toy’s Works Collection… the other one

Finally ordered the other set of figures… but as separate lots, as it was cheaper than ordering the 5 as a set at Suruga-ya. Go figure. It was just these 5 mini-figures, just to see if Suruga-ya had small boxes. And the answer was… kind of. The box fit into small packet, so I didn’t have to pay for repackaging, but man, they were overpacked:

So yeah…. probably worse than AmiAmi. Probably doesn’t make much odds domestically for the shipping cost, and the domestic shipping is free when you spend over ¥1,500, so it mostly costs me the repackaging fee. 

First of the figures we have is Black Lotus:

It’s an OK figure, but I prefer the Dengeki one, as that one a bit better and a more matte plastic. Plus the Dengeki one has the purple parts in her head “fins”. 

Side:

Back:

Overall the sculpt seems good. I haven’t straightened out the pointy bits, but the box does advise heating these in water and straightening them. They’re not too bad on this one, so haven’t tried fixing them up. 

Harayuki with food:

I love this cute Haruyuki Arita. The paint is really well done on Arita, pancakes are slightly on the sloppy side, but not really noticeably so for me. Love the stars in his eyes… he must be happy to have a whole stack of pancakes to himself!

Arita playing squash:

Another iconic activity of Arita’s. Love the little eyebrows, conveying concentration. I really like these Aritas, as he’s depicted doing two of his most iconic activities – eating and playing squash. Really fits with the character, and gives him more accessories than all the other little avatar-Aritas I have. 

Scarlet Rain, with gun:

The one thing I really like about the Scarlet Rain figures – they have a bit more articulation than the others, and you can move her arms and head pieces around. However, the finish on her head on both figures I received is a bit rough. Not sure if this is an issue peculiar to mine, or a problem with the manufacture. She’s lovely and shiny though, and the colours stand out well. Kinda sad that they didn’t put the wires into the figure, that they had on the box art – she usually has two wires coming from her back, or can do. 

Scarlet Rain in grump-mode:

Yep, this is the Red King we know and love :). Again, this one has the funny finish on her head. There isn’t a huge amount to differentiate between these two Scarlet Rain figures, but with the poseable parts, it is possible to make them look sufficiently different. 

Overall, I’m happy with this set, and my favourite figures out of this set are the Aritas. If it weren’t for the oddity of the finish on the Scarlet Rain figures, I’d probably like them a lot more. I paid £4.20 each (with shipping factored in), which is around about the asking price for these kinds of small figures. If you can pick them up for a few quid each, and are an Accel World fan, I’d definitely recommend the Aritas, and possibly the Scarlet Rains… or maybe whichever’s your favourite. The Black Lotus… I prefer the Dengeki one, though this one was half the cost. So if you were to get one, I’d recommend the Dengeki one, unless you want this set, or you don’t want to spend more on the Dengeki one (if you can find it…). 

Cute But Deadly – Kerrigan

Now back to series 1 of the Cute But Deadlies! Finally caved and bought this one on eBay, after missing out on her a few times in the past:

Glad to finally have her, though she cost a bit more than I initially planned to spend on her. But Kerrigan is worth it, even if I don’t play Starcraft :P. Love her angry, screaming face. And she’s a character that can make purple, brown and green work. The wings on her back can be moved up and down. 

Left:

She’s been to the stylist, and has plenty of purple, wormlike hair. 

Right:

I love the way the wings come out of her back, also the small detail on the back of her right leg. 

Back:

Lots of purple tentacles. What’s not to love?!

Glad I finally caved and got her. Always wanted something Kerrigan. Maybe one day I’ll get a scale of her or something. 

Cute But Deadly – Rainbow Goblin

After buying the two boxes from GAME, I walked into a collectable store and found this for a fiver:

One of the ones I really wanted, for less than the box price! Woo! I have the “normal” goblin, but I really wanted to have the rainbow one to go with him. I took a risk in buying him, as I hadn’t opened up the other boxes yet, but if I ended up with two, I could very likely get my money back on this one via selling it. But I didn’t get a dupe of this one, so happy days!

Left side:

Another figure with bright and vibrant colours :). Love the smiley cloud on his bag. And that cheeky grin he’s sporting. 

Right:

Aww, a little heart. Love the purple they’ve painted his outfit with. Love the little swords poking out of his loot bag. 

Front:

He has a good headbutting head. And I love his pale blue colour. 

Back:

Here we can have a closer look at his loot. See a little bit of stray grey paint, but nothing particularly noticeable. 

Overall, I really like this figure, and was super-glad to be able to get him 😀

Cute But Deadly – Pharah

GAME had reduced the price on the Cute But Deadly Series II figures, so I picked up two of the boxes. One of them was a repeat (Tyrande), but the other one was Pharah:

I don’t play Overwatch, but this little figure is too amazing to give up. I love the bold, striking colours and that screaming expression. Which came off like shock, in an ad-hoc picture of a lewd figure I sent to a Discord channel I’m in. Oops, haha. 

Left:

Some stray yellow paint at the top, but other than that, painted well. Surprisingly the smaller details are neater than the big ones.

Right:

Similar story here. This side is pretty much a mirror-image of the other one. This one pegs into the stand, but also propped up by the downward-pointing fins. 

Back:

Plain-looking for the back of her head, but the fins jutting out of her back prevent her looking totally plain. Love this part of the character’s design. 

Overall, I really like this character, even though I don’t have any familiarity with her. The paintwork is largely good, and the expression interesting, and would likely work well in photoshoots. I still think these are a bit on the pricey side in the UK, but the quality does justify a higher price tag than a lot of other blind boxes imo. 

Blind Box Pack

The stall that sold me the Harley Quinn XXRay figure also had a blind bag on display, and I was, for whatever reason, determined to buy some kind of blind bag at FACTS. I looked around his stall, and he seemed to have a decent selection of blind box stuff, so I decided to go for it and buy the bag:

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So… let’s see what we got. The figures were brand new and sealed, but I didn’t take pics of the items whilst they were still boxed. 

First up was this “Vamou” figure:

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Decently made, lookin’ pretty dead. Would’ve preferred to get a purple one. The box was a choice of this dude in various colours. Not too interesting, but well-made. 

Side:

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Back:

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He’s decent enough, and has ended up on a shelf of other small collectables.

Next up was a Be@rbrick. Was kind of excited to get this, as I wanted to see what these are like. Inside I got one entitled “Animal”:

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An interesting texture, and the articulation was better than I thought it would be – the arms are on ball joints, so you can move them into many positions, unlike a minifig. The legs also bend outwards slightly. He can rotate at the hips, head and wrists, which is good. Not the best pattern, not the worst. He also came with a card, which I didn’t take a pic of, as it’s already in a drawer. 

Side:

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Back:

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Close-up of the text:

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Interesting addition on the back. I guess it makes the copyright text less boring! 

Lastly, Shah Mat chess pieces:

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Each set comes with 4 tiles that clip together (each tile is a separate piece) and a pawn. My bind box figure was the king, who is the rare one, uh, yay! If I could find a buyer, it would likely be worth something, but I don’t think people are clamouring for a chess set that you have to get through pricey blind boxes… They do make pretty display pieces though! 

Back:

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And they are cute. 

Overall, I felt I broke even on this. Buying the boxes would’ve likely cost me more, but would I have bought them….? I’d say definitely “no” for the Vamou, and a likely “no” for the Shah Mat dunnies. Though none of them are headed to the the “box of trading figures”, so I got things that I like. Maybe not the wisest use of €15, but it was a fun one. Out of blind bags, I could’ve done much worse, so glad how it turned out. 

And here concludes my loot at FACTS! Money well spent I say!

Harley Quinn – XXRay

The stall had a bunch of XXRay figures for €15, including this deluxe edition. Price is about average for the normal editions, but couldn’t resist this deluxe edition, especially as it was Harley Quinn. 

Here she is, out of the box:

I’m a sucker for novelty figures, and have been looking at these XXRay figures, but usually they’re either too expensive, or not a character I want. 

Her internals have been well-sculpted and painted. It’s nice having one of these figures, but I feel having a lot of them would be kind of “meh”, as they seem to largely do humanoid characters, so the internals don’t vary much. On the externals, there’s a couple of bits of stray paint (you can see one above her left bobble). 

For accessories, she comes with the hammer as pictured above, plus these pieces:

Unfortunately taking her apart is not easy, so I haven’t actually tried these pieces out, but it’s good they included other weapons for her to hold. I’d likely pick the hammer for her anyway, as it’s the most iconic item of the three. Bomb has a noticeable seam though, which isn’t so good. 

Left:

Here we see her, as if she was whole. Paintwork is mostly OK, with a little escaping here and there. 

Right:

Bony! I like the way they’ve done the cutaway. Her cutaway foot seems too flat though. Would’ve been good if these bones were raised like the ribs. 

Back:

Imo the back looks good. No real complaints back here. 

I think these XXRay figures are a neat idea, but I don’t think I’d collect a lot of them as it’s much of the same. Having a couple makes for a good novelty, having a collection would just water down their impact for me. All in all, I’m happy with this one and maybe I’ll pick up a Joker if I come across one going cheap or one or two others. If you like what you see, I would recommend them, but not paying a lot for them, as they aren’t that big. 

Compiler – Story Image Figure – Yamato

I’m a sucker for StoryImageFigures if I see them cheaply enough. And this was the case with this one, at €5. 

So here she is:

I love the swimsuit she is wearing, and wish I could look good wearing one like that, but alas, it’d look odd on me. Not to mention that ring is probably metal and I have a nickel allergy… As an older figure, there’s a noticeable lack of dfetail in her face and hair. Some of the StoryImageFigures haven’t aged too well due to this, but on this one it isn’t enough to put me off it. The contrasting textures of her body and her swimsuit is nice.

Left:

She’s got a good pose, with one hand on her hip. Hair has some shading, They have gone for a poofy hair look, but it didn’t quite work in the mould I think. Just something about it seems to say “low detail”. 

Right:

This angle looks OK. Hair shading a bit suspect towards the top. Is a hair seam, but I don’t find it distracting. 

Back:

You can see where they’ve aimed to shade her hair, with the darkest parts on the ridges. Which I think worked. Just maybe needed to persist to the top. 

The stand is simplistic, but OK. Helps her stand up just fine, but the texture isn’t anything to write home about. She didn’t quite want to stand up originally – I think some bending has occurred in the box, but once I got her to settle, she’s been fine. 

A good addition to my collection, and was easy to place on a shelf, with a couple of other StoryImageFigures. Nice to get the odd small thing, now that I have a sizeable collection XD. 

Kuroyukihime & Arita Haruyuki – Banpresto

I saw these appear on an Urban Mine auction some time ago, but I believe that they went for more than I wanted to pay for them.

Then I was just browsing Mandarake randomly – and found they were in the store! And for the grand sum of ¥100! I quickly put a Mandarake order together for these two, and they arrived some time later. 

So here they are:

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Yay! A cute pair of prize figures. Arita’s avatar form isn’t much to look at, but it has been nicely painted. Kuroyukihime in avatar form though… is nicely detailed and well-painted. Definitely worthy of a B-Prize. Kuroyukihime’s base has her name on, and does have some of a design, but it’s mostly covered up by her dress. I like the way Arita’s base has a curly pink tail on it, and he sits in the middle, but it would’ve been nice to have his name on the base, to match Kuroyukihime’s. 

Left:

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Here we can see Kuroyukihime’s wings, which have been well reproduced in chibi-form. She has two pegs on her feet and this head stand, so she is stable. The dress is a nice texture, but her hair is on the shiny side. We can also see Arita’s cute, curly tail. 

Right:

Nice amount of strands in her hair on this side, helping it not look flat, though the top of the hair is standard for this kind of chibi figure. 

Back:

Here we can see more of the wings, which have been very nicely done. The paint and detailing is good. The dress also looks really nice, with the purple trim and the folded fabric. Not much to see with Arita, not that anything is really expected. His ears are shaped nicely though. 

Super-pleased with this set. I don’t usually go for these small chibi figures, but I really like this pair. Her hair does suffer from prize-figure shininess, but the rest of her is really well done. Glad I picked these up, especially for the cheap price! 

And just before I finish this blog, a quick addition:

I also bought these with this Mandarake order, but they’re not really worthy of their own blog post XD. Been on the fence about ordering them for some time, but decided to go for it. They’re a nice addition to one of my keychain rails. I think they look better than I was expecting, but I don’t think they’ll be a “favourite thing”. Still happy to get Evangelion loot though :D. 

Paréo Paradiso – Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft

This figure I bought shortly after the other one, at FACTS. It is entitle “Paréo Paradiso” which would imply she’s wearing a wraparound dress. I remember seeing the pose she’s based on (was it in one of the cinematics? Or just some out-of-game artwork?) and in that, it definitely looked more like a towel. So not sure if the original model was wrong or this one is “wrong” :P. 

Here she is, in her towel/dress:

As with the other one, there’s some noticeable paint flaws going on. Mine’s got a bit of stray paint on her foot, and a bit of blobbiness in one of her hair strands. With the fabric wrapping around her, it definitely looks more like a dress fabric than a towel, due to the way the creases are moulded. 

Left:

Her face looks OK, not sure she’s entirely pleased to see us looking at her in just a thin piece of fabric… The moulding looks really good from this angle imo, and probably is a better display angle than front on, where you can’t see her face too well. 

Right:

Mostly looks OK from this angle, but the dress is too flat against her right leg, which leaves it looking painted on. Could’ve done with a line of shading or to actually mould it, like it is on the left leg. 

Back:

Admire her shapley backside :P. It would’ve been nice if they added some detail to the dress, as it does look a bit like she’s been papier-mâché’d. With this one, there is a couple of rubbing marks on the back. Not entirely surprising, as she’s probably been kicking around for awhile. The forked hair looks a little odd – may’ve been better to either not fork it, or have the bits “lean” the same way. 

I paid €5 for her, so a cheap figure. Was glad I could find another one of this “set”. 

Lara Croft – Angel of Darkness – Strahov Complex

I bought this figure in a collectables shop, along with the zombie head. This figure originates from France, but I can’t find out a lot of information about this series of figures. 

So in lieu of information, here is a pic:

It’s quite a solid figure, paint job is on the sloppier side, but good enough at a distance. Love the camo on her shorts, and her face came out well imo. The sculpt is decent, but not overly detailed. 

Left side:

The black paint appears like it didn’t want to go where it was intended to go :P. Having the hair as strands is nice. Not sure what’s going on with that back shoe – looks like they wanted to have her feet more level, and tried to use the floor colour to make her soles an even shape. Yeah… didn’t quite work, and looks like she’s wearing one platform shoe… d’oh. 

The text across the bottom is “L’Ange des Ténèbres, Strahov Complex”, which is the name of the game in French, followed by the level she’s in. 

Right side:

Copyright to Core Design, showing these are official figures. And some serious platform shoe going on. The black paint is neater on this side, but mine has a couple of marks. Fortunately this is on the back, so it doesn’t show when displayed. Hair is a little sloppily painted on this side. 

Back:

The back looks fine, some nice details in the sculpt. Most noticeable paint flaw here for me is the strap on her left thigh, followed by the shoe top. 

Overall, this is nice for a cheaper collectable. I paid £8, and that would probably be the max I’d recommend spending on her. If you want a small statue of Lara, I think these are pretty decent, but there will be paint flaws. 

Daenerys Targaryen – Eaglemoss

Two collectables that don’t have much to do with each other, but are both going to be quick entries I think… 

First up, this small Daenerys Targaryen:

Unfortunately she was broken across the feet when she came – you can see the lines across her boots where I’ve reglued her. As to why I didn’t return her: I won her for 99p + postage, so it wasn’t worth the hassle of returning it. It’s not very well painted, and is probably about the level I hope to achieve with a garage kit :P. Thinking of repainting her boots as practice, and cover up the break lines. The die-cast material she’s made out of isn’t very strong, so not sure if she was already broken (image for the auction was poor), or it happened in her journey to me. 

Sometimes Eaglemoss does an OK paint job. Sometimes they… do this. I guess the GoT line is one of the ones that’s going to/has binned hard. 

Here she is from the right:

Admire the… thing she is holding and blue paint in her hair. Base is also a bit naffed. Her This is probably the best angle for the moulding on Daenerys goes. The gold part is supposed to be one item, with a tassel coming off the end, but the tassel isn’t aligned to the base of the item. The tassel moulding looks OK irl. 

Left:

Apologies for the out-of-focus shot. Her face paint is actually pretty good close up, but the quality of her hair really mars it. It looks like they overpainted blue on the hair that’s on her shoulders, and it’s way too fat to look right. And that hand paint is damn awful, as well as a total lack of definition for her fingers on this hand. Part of the hair is the same colour as her cloak – the side of the hair that’s facing us, plus a bit on her back is the same way. I don’t think cloaks come up to meet your hair… 

Back:

Paint overruns everywhere. If you look at the hair dangling down her back, you can see the blue side on the left that I mentioned in the last paragraph. The bottom tip of her coat is also missing dark blue paint. 

This could’ve been a good figure, if more care was paid to the painting. This feels like a figure that shouldn’t have passed QA – there’s some nice bits like the clasps painted in silver in her hair, and the bead on the tassel of the… thing. The face weirdly was done well, considering the rest of it. The blue detailing on her front though, comes off very much like “cheap blind bag figure”, which is a shame. 

I don’t think I’ll pick up any of these GoT figures unless I can see them in person, and can verify the paint job isn’t turd. The LotR figures were marred with the same issues, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this line is similarly affected.