March 2, 2020March 2, 2020

Official vs Bootleg: Kotobukiya Harley Quinn (Bishoujo New 52)

This figure is the first one that was not on the original poll, but I suspect it would have garnered a reasonable number of votes, so here she is.

And talking about voting… I now have a website where you can register your interest in what figures I feature in the Official vs Bootleg series. The website is https://ovbvote.tharglet.me.uk. You can vote for figures in my collection that are marked as having a counterfeit version on MFC and that I haven’t already planned to blog or blogged about.
If you have any questions/comments about the site, feel free to comment down below or send a PM on MFC.

And now for the main feature!

The bootleg didn’t come with a box, so no box comparison for this one. So let’s get straight onto the figure!

Spin-around

https://i.ibb.co/yX6j5LR/koto-harley-right.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/wdsGsbq/koto-harley-back.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/R6JYmw6/koto-harley-left.jpg

Firstly, no your eyes do not deceive you – the bootleg is indeed a couple of cm shorter than the official. The bootleg figure has been scaled smaller than the original. Guess this saves on the plastic! The other immediately noticeable thing is the way bootleg Harley “holds” her mallet – floating roughly in front of her arm. That’s some holding ability! One thing to note about the bootleg is getting the hammer in was not easy and is very much prone to falling out. The original has some of the falling-out problem, but not as bad as the bootleg.

Due to some of the parts being mangled during the production of the bootleg cast, this one was another one that was hard to line up certain shots for. The two notable parts in this regard are the hammer-holding arm and the cape.

Hammer

Here we can clearly see the scale difference – the bootleg hammer is noticeably smaller than the official one when they’re side by side. The colours are also markedly different – the bootleg looks like a painted wood colour to me, instead of an actual wood colour.

Top of the hammers:

https://i.ibb.co/ngfKJJ3/koto-harley-hammer-top.jpg

The bandings are a fair bit worse on the bootleg, being uneven and losing the sharp definition of the bumps. We’ve also gained a mould line around one of the bandings. The middle of the hammer has also seen some “damage”, and isn’t cylindrical like it should be.
The bootleg has also been painted post-assembly, leaving lots of paint slop of both paints.

Hammer handles:

https://i.ibb.co/cJ8xjWS/koto-harley-hammer-hilts.jpg

The red paint on the official is paint transfer from the figure, and was not originally on there. My bad.
The bootleg’s handle has lost much of the finer texturing detail on the leather wrap, leaving it looking a lot less like leather. The original also features a shiny finish on the end-cap and a matte finish on the leather wrapping, whereas the bootleg has a semi-glossy finish throughout.

Pegs:

And this is why the bootleg was so hard to assemble… the peg is so much bigger than the original, and doesn’t have a proper shape. The hole on the figure isn’t much different, so it took some heat and shoving to actually get the darned thing in. The official, on the other hand, slips in easily, and it’s just a case of getting the angle right for assembly and to balance the hammer correctly on her shoulder.

The bootleg hammer also has some scratchy defects:

https://i.ibb.co/tXjyhgJ/koto-harley-hammer-boot-scratches.jpg

What? Is this a rusty hammer?

Overall, the bootleg hammer is fairly clearly the inferior product in my opinion. Couldn’t be used as a replacement for the original due to the scale and the defective peg. Whilst the peg could potentially be fixed, the scale cannot.

Figure close-ups

Before we get onto the figure proper, let’s have a quick look at the bottom of the base:

https://i.ibb.co/9n45zXv/koto-harley-base-bottom.jpg

The original has the copyright information, and most notably, a screw. The original comes as one piece with the figure screwed to the base whilst the bootleg actually pegs onto the base. If you see her displayed loose turning her over to see if there’s a screw on the base is probably the fastest way of seeing if she’s bootleg. If there’s no screw, she’s not Kotobukiya.
We can also see here that the original base has a much better finish quality, whilst the bootleg has a bunch of defect lines and mould marks.

OK, back to the top. Here’s their faces:

https://i.ibb.co/0s2gmCf/koto-harley-face.jpg

The first thing that strikes me is the much less pleasing tones of her hair colours. Kotobukiya’s chosen a blue and red that pop and complement well. The bootleggers have gone with whatever paint they could find. The bootleggers have also seemed to have put a glossier finish on the blue part of her fringe which makes it look quite odd indeed.
I think bootleg Harley did her makeup when drunk – much too heavy on the eyeshadow and wtf is up with that lipstick?! My official seems to have her right eye stamped incorrectly, but I’ll take that over the poor colour definition on the bootleg. And to complete her facial features, the bootleg seems like she’s been rubbing her nose in the dirt, and the tip of her nose is a greenish colour. Not too pleasant to look at up close.
Lastly, we have her ruff – the official is decent, with one bit of moulding left that I can see, but the bootleg is an unfinished mess. All of the edges are rough, and it’s not something I can really ignore.

Top of her head:

https://i.ibb.co/7SVxbmG/koto-harley-head-top.jpg

The official isn’t flawless here – we have a tiny amount of paint bleed between the halves, and the way her part-in doesn’t line up between the parts may annoy some.
Now onto the bootleg… here, we are really not lining up, and have a large unpainted gap between the halves of her hair. The red hairband has become more of a bead and doesn’t really match her hair. Not sure why we’ve gone shiny just for this bit. The hair across the top of her hair has lost some of the finer details, so doesn’t look as nicely bunched as the original.

Top of her chest:

https://i.ibb.co/3FdWpmV/koto-harley-chest-top.jpg

Here we can see where her bodice didn’t fit correctly to the chest on the bootleg, leaving an odd ridge that follows the edge of the bodice. Interestingly, the ring on her cape is more rounded on the bootleg to the official. And if you’re keeping a good eye on her cleavage, then you may have noticed the speck of dirt embedded into the bootleg’s left boob.

Now to “admire” the bodice closer:

https://i.ibb.co/fpw7zQ8/koto-harley-bodice.jpg

Yeesh. This is really where the bootleg falls down, if the face didn’t do it for yah.
The official could be neater – where the red and blue paint joint doesn’t look as neat as it could, but the laces are nicely detailed and look like actual laces.
And the bootleg? An attempt was made. Blue and red paint have been quickly slopped on, without much regard for coverage. The eyelets have been completely ignored and painted over. And the lacing? All the fine moulding details have gone, and the top ones have suffered badly during moulding and don’t look like they’re pulled tight. And to finish the whole thing off, there’s semigloss sloshed over the lot of it to further make the lacing look incorrect.

Let’s take a look at her arms. First the more statically-posed one:

https://i.ibb.co/DzdFVtt/koto-harley-arm-right.jpg

Here we can get a good feel for how different the skin tones are for these figures – the official is much more of a pinkish-white tone, whilst the bootleg is a much more peachy-based skin colour.
Under her armpit, we can see a very distinct seam line on the bootleg, as well as part of the bodice banding being missing.
For the arms themselves, they are pretty similar, but the diamond paint is a bit messier on the bootleg. With the blue-red we can see the official has a much stronger contrasting colour scheme whilst the bootleg is more muted.

Hammer-holding arm:

https://i.ibb.co/kcwLSNF/koto-harley-forearm.jpg

This was the photo I was editing that made me notice the arm on my official Harley has come slightly loose – it does push down so her arm doesn’t look so misshapen. So I’m going to ignore that ¬¬.
Here we can see why the peg is such a pain on the bootleg. For the official, we have a perfectly-shaped square hole that matches with the hammer peg. (You may also notice the peg hole is painted, which is why there is a paint transfer on the official’s peg). On the bootleg we have… a roughly-hewn mess. I think they tried to add a keyed slot looking at the hammer peg, but instead we got whateverthefuckthatis. With the official arm guard, we have some subtle red shading, but on the bootleg it is simply a flat colour.

Holding of the hammer:

https://i.ibb.co/CKDxkmZ/koto-harley-hammer-arm.jpg

With the official, we can see she is leaning on the hammer so that it balances on her shoulder. The pose looks natural and carefree, matching Harley’s “doesn’t give a fuck” nature.
Now to the bootleg. She seems to have attached a spike to the hammer and rammed it through her wrist. Ouch! The self-injuries don’t end here – on her hand we have some holes and scrapes in the form of moulding issues. Her fingernails also lack the sharp points they’re supposed to have. Not sure what’s going on with the thumbnail paint on either of them, but the rest of the fingernails are painted nicer on the original. However, this detail is very small, so you wouldn’t really notice unless you look up close.

Belt and stomach:

https://i.ibb.co/mCrrfxY/koto-harley-belt.jpg

Bootleg Harley’s belt looks like it has been through the wars – the poorly-painted buckle leaves the black paint poking through, and the bullets look like they’re rusting copper oxide. The belt doesn’t seem to have been scaled down as much as the rest of the figure, which leaves it sitting higher up on her hips. It kind of looks like they attempted to re-add the detail on her buckle and ended up with a misshapen mess on the front of it. The bootleg bullets look much more of a brassy colour than their official counterparts.
The bootleg Harley’s stomach has less shading, but we seem to have some bonus warehouse dirt baked in. Yay? I really like the shading on the original as it helps give the figure more definition, so this is lost on the bootleg.

Holster:

Here we can see how the belt sits differently on the bootleg – on the original the holster sits below her shorts, on the bootleg it has ended up sitting at the end of the shorts line, due to the belt riding up.
The gun’s grip on the bootleg has lost some definition, but it isn’t particularly noticeable. The more matte finish is, though.
The holster on the original looks like its outer layer is made from plastic/pleather. The bootleg… I’m not sure what this looks like.
With the shorts, we can see how the official is glossy but the bootleg is not. Also we have a bonus seam line on the bootleg. Another bootleg that’s been to the Chinese knockoff clothing store.

Feet & base:

https://i.ibb.co/ScS2h4Z/koto-harley-feetr.jpg

Massive overspray here on the bootleg – her left shoe didn’t know where to stop. We’ve also got some grey scratches on the base and not entirely sure why. With the bases, we actually have more contrast on the bootleg than the official, which is a switch compared to the figure itself.

Cape:

Here we can see the different colour and finish of the capes – the original is brighter and has a more matte finish. The bootleg cape curves in different amounts in certain places, which makes it look more different than it truly is in my opinion.

Bum:

https://i.ibb.co/vw6Q9Rs/koto-harley-bum.jpg

With the cape, holsters and her arm, there isn’t much backside action going on here. Here we can see the massive difference in the finish on the shorts though – on the official you can see plenty of shine, and the bootleg is super-dull. We can also see some mould defects on the back of the bootleg’s right leg – the small wormy lines. The nail polish is passable though – it didn’t quite get to the ends of her fingernails, but at least it isn’t blobbled out over everywhere.

Conclusion

This bootleg isn’t really going incognito with the poorly-done hammer peg and pose alterations. May fool a non-seasoned collector at a distance, but a close-ish inspection will reveal the poor quality. Was also interesting to find out she was scaled down – I’ve seen this with action figures but less so with bootleg scales. If you were hoping to pick this one up to use for spare parts, I’d give it a miss as it won’t work with the scaled-down pieces.

February 3, 2020March 29, 2020

Official vs Bootleg: Aquamarine Hatsuse Izuna

Today’s blog brings us Hatsuse Izuna by Aquamarine. And one not by Aquamarine.

I did not get the box with the bootleg, so there will be no box comparison. Though there were two problems with the bootleg figure prior to the final photoshoot – on arrival, her foot was snapped off, and then her tail became unglued prior to the test photoshoot. Not the best start!
Here are some photos of the damage, which I repaired before the photoshoot:

Base

For this figure, the base is a very plain one:

The official is an off-white, and the bootleg is stark white. Not a huge difference, unless you have them side-by-side.

Bottom of the bases:

On the official, we have the copyright information. And the bootleg has some sticky residue from the tape holding it into the remains of the blister packaging, plus some of my hair (might’ve had this lying around my room for awhile…).

The bases feel the same, so from visual inspection it’s only the colour and the copyright information that are noticeable differences. The official base weighs 40g and the bootleg weighs 36g, so there is some difference in the plastic used. On a personal level, I don’t like either base, and don’t use the official one with my official figure – she currently sits on a glass shelf, so the base only has the attribute of taking up space. However, the bootleg does show that the official base isn’t quite as plain as it could be.

Figure spin-around

Here are some photos showing the figures side-by-side in the same shot:

The most noticeable difference I’d say is the hair – the gradient is fairly different on the bootleg, leaving the hair having much more yellow than the official. The second thing that stands out to me is the tail – the gradient isn’t as nice on the bootleg as it is the official.

Close-ups

Let’s take a look at her face first:

The hair gradient is much smoother on the official and doesn’t dominate her hair. If we look to the left side of her hair, it looks liken they sprayed it after assembly instead of before, leaving large amounts of yellow undertones.
The seams at the top of her fringe have significant gaps on the bootleg, plus yellow paint seemingly seeping out. Her headband also doesn’t fare too well, with a less golden paint and purple paint overspray.
For her face, the printing is of a lower quality and the blush on her cheeks hasn’t been blended in, giving her a more “comic” look.

A closer look at her headband:

Here we can see that it’s not just the hair colour getting onto her band, but her band colour has seeped onto the top of her fringe with the bootleg. Original is definitely taking it here! If we look to the upper part of her hair, we can see where the purple paint wasn’t thick enough to cover the initial yellow coat and one bit of purple paint is straight-up missing on the front-facing part of her hair.
For the fringe, we can see where the bootleggers have stuck with a more basic red paint instead of blending to the nice subtle red of the original.

Back of her hair:

Here we can see how the bootleg’s hair was originally painted yellow and had the other colours layered on top. This deprives us of the nice, solid tone of purple the original has. Due to the quick sprays the bootleg has, we can see how the gradient and coverage suffers. It also hasn’t been handled well, leaving marks in the paint.

Ear close-up:

Buy one bootleg, get warehouse dirt free!
Most (if not all) of the dirt we see on the bootleg came with the figure. Not entirely sure if it’ll all wash off, but chances are some is embedded in the paint, so there will be some black dirt clearly visible against the pale colours of the inner ear.
We can see where the remoulding has gone kinda wrong here too – the points on her ears have been lost and the whole thing curls up far more than it should. They’ve also seemingly used the same cream colour as the base colour for the ear and the tuft, presumably to save time and cost. On the original, it is painted a bright white like a tuft should be. Lastly for the ear, the purple on the bootleg is marred with bits of yellow paint.

Chest:

For me, these parts are surprisingly close for a bootleg and official. The writing actually looks OK to me on the bootleg – the bit on the end may’ve been squeezed in a bit though. We can see where the label paint overshot – it should’ve followed the raised line on the right, but it is extended out, giving the label a weird rumpled look. They’ve also neglected to paint the lines on her swimsuit, but I’m not entirely sure this was a bad choice given the blobbiness of the original.
The shading on the swimsuit makes less sense on the bootleg, but isn’t distractingly bad. What is mildly distracting when looking up close is how there is a gap between her upper chest and the swimsuit on the right-hand side of this photo.
With her body wrap, we can see how the not-great seams on the original are now even worse on the bootleg, and don’t even attempt to join up really. By both not-joints there is missing paint, plus the scratched paint just below her chest.
It’s not overly visible in the photos, but the swimsuit on the bootleg doesn’t have as glossier finish as the original.
At the top of the photo, you can see the usual mess that bootleg figure hair usually is – the official comes to nice, neat points whilst the bootleg has very obvious seams and blobbiness.

Upper arm:

Here we can see how the “print” on the bootleg has been roughly painted on this part of the wrap and there’s no background shading. The rest of it isn’t so bad, but this part really suffered. Moving onto the red crisscross pattern, the original is a bit flawed, but the bootleg tops it, especially the part where two of the diamond parts don’t even touch.
In the crook of her elbow we can see the bootleg has less subtle shading, leaving her looking a little sunburned. She’s also developed a skin condition and has some surplus plastic poking off her hand.

Close-up of the wrap:

Again, these are surprisingly close in appearance. The printing on the bootleg didn’t suffer too much, and contains pretty much all the details of the original. If we pretend there was a lack of warehouse dirt, there are some small tells though. Near the top of the image, we can see where the paint has been scratched during production of the bootleg. With the print itself, we can see where it interferes with the gold banding and we have some whitish bits overlapping. Another subtle print issue is where the design goes onto the very edge of the wrap, where it does not on the original. Finally, the pink shading is not blended as well on the bootleg.

Leg:

The legs themselves aren’t that different, nor is there anything particularly wrong with the bootleg one. However, this all falls apart when we get to the sock and notice a distinct seam line on the bootleg. The paint is also rough here, giving a very cheap feel to her sock. On the official, we have a much more vibrant, pleasing red on the sandal strap compared to the bootleg. The shading on the base of the sandal has been simplified, so the dark shading isn’t concentrated to the inner-ish parts of the sandal base.

Foot:

Here we can really see the difference between Aquamarine’s super-gloss and the bootleg’s… whatever. The roughness of the paint is particularly bad here, and looks like she’s been using those sandals a fair bit! We also don’t have the nice gradient the original has.

Tail:

Here we can see the original tail transitions fairly smoothly between around four colours, and the bootleg jerkily transitions between three. We also have a shinier finish on the tail on the bootleg, but it’s not massively noticeable. The bootleg is also marred with marks, straight out of the factory. The lower picture shows just how different the colouration is and how scratched up the tail is on the bootleg.

Underside:

Let’s see what’s going on underneath… The bootleg has shiny knees, but not a shiny swimsuit. The original has highly-contrasting finishes whereas the bootleg is the same level of half-shininess throughout. We also see some gapping between her swimsuit and her legs, where the parts don’t quite fit together. The difference between the paint colours of the bottom of her wrap are pretty stark too. and then there’s the much-maligned tail seam… On the original it isn’t too hidden, but there’s definitely no ignoring it on the bootleg. On the original they’ve at least attempted to blend it in (though some people’s copies are far worse than mine), but the bootleg it is just… there.

Conclusion

This bootleg may fool some people, but has some pretty distinctive differences from the original. The hair and the ears are the big giveaways, with smaller flaws throughout. If the thing hasn’t fallen apart. The base is also a distinctive clue – if it is bright white, then you’re looking at the bootleg. If you can only get a good look at her body then the missing black lines and lack of shiny finish are the biggest differences.

January 18, 2020December 31, 2020

Official vs Bootleg: Kotobukiya Freddy Krueger (Bishoujo, 2nd Edition)

This figure was voted for by NAYANMORI, and I commend them on an excellent choice.
I own the 2nd Edition, and wasn’t sure what the bootleg would purport to be – upon receiving it, the box was a copy of the 2nd Edition one so I get to compare “like” with “like”.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥7,800
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): £53.99
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $20.65 (£15.83)

The official I bought from eBay.

Box

Front:

Yep, two very similar boxes, both claiming to be the 2nd Edition. The bootleg’s box print is a bit paler and the Kotobukiya logo has been removed from the top right. Still crediting the arrangement to Shunya on the bootleg, but not sure how much he’d approve.

Right:

Another copied side with the Kotobukiya logo removed.

Left:

No Kotobukiya logo here either on the bootleg. The colour difference on this side is more obvious due to the fact the bright red of the blood didn’t come out right on the bootleg print. We do still have the box slash “holes”, though the bootleg cutouts are more smoothed around the edges.

Back:

There is no Kotobukiya logo on the back of the official box, so the bootleg is a straight-up copy on this side. With the figure photos, we can see the bootleg’s print is a bit muddy. In the bottom-left, the green didn’t come out right at all, and is more a forest green.

Bottom:

Here we can see a lot of information has been left off of the bootleg version. The barcodes have been copied over, but we have a credit to Marvel. Uh, this isn’t a Marvel character, bootleggers! We’ve also got a credit to a sculptor (Abe Junnosuke) who does superhero characters, suggesting this area of the box was copied from another Kotobukiya figure.
We’ve also got an age-rating of 15 on the bootleg instead of 18 like the official.
Looking at the box structure itself, the official’s has a singular flap whilst the bootleg is the “4-flap” arrangement.

Top:

Moving onto our last missing logo that should be in the top-left. The writing at the bottom has more of a gap underneath it on the bootleg.

Box lip:

The official box is black all the way to the edges but the bootleg’s they’ve cheaped out on the print and left the flaps white.

Inner liner:

The official’s liner has a shinier finish, as which can be seen with the reflection of the photography lights.
The print quality is really poor on the bootleg – for some bizarre reason the fog effect has a very dotty “pattern” to it on the bootleg, which makes it look rather ugly. The thinner bits of fog that should be towards the top of the liner are pretty much entirely absent on the bootleg too.

Overall, the bootleg box is pretty similar to the official’s. The lack of Kotobukiya logos gives it away, and the bottom of the box is entirely different in construction and design, making it an easy side to compare.

Blister

Front:

Bootleg blister is the usual crinkly, weak mess that is typical of bootleg blisters. The bootleg also lacks the hole that reveals the face and has a lot less plastic sheeting to protect the figure – just one sheet protecting her front. The blister has also been modified slightly to accommodate the base.

Back:

Here we can see the bootleg’s blister is clearer than the official. Whilst this does allow us to see the figure more, it’s probably more a testament to the thinness of the plastic used.

Base

The selling point for the 2nd Edition was the revised base. Let’s see what revised base goodness the bootleg gives us…

Top:

Oh, hm. Not looking good from this angle. The bootleg base is entirely plastic instead of metal, which means the bootleggers have added pegs to the base to hold the figure. The official’s base is made of metal, and the figure has magnets to hold the figure to the base.
The bootleg’s base is also a bit scratched up, fresh outta the box.

Bottom:

The official’s base has some fabric so it doesn’t scratch your shelving, plus some copyright information.
The bootleg’s has… plastic. Lotsa plastic. And no writing.

Bases from the side:

The bootleg base is MUCH thicker than the official’s, and I believe thicker than the first version. The thick, flat sides of the bootleg doesn’t really help to ‘sell’ it as a pool of blood. Last I checked, blood doesn’t stack like that.

Shape comparison:

The blood shapes don’t line up at all, suggesting the bootleg is an entire recreation of the base (unless the v1 is more different than I think it is).

The bases are quite dissimilar – the bootleg base only partially resembles the official base. It’s better than just substituting in a plain disc, but it managed to emphasise the v1 base’s flaw of being too fat. The pegs are also a large giveaway that the bootleg isn’t the official figure. Overall, the bootleg’s is a downgrade from even the first edition base.

Figure spin-around

Getting the figure out of the box we had a bit of a mishap:

The bootleg’s arm wasn’t glued to the body anymore, but it did just peg back into place. Not the most secure attachments without any glue, but did stay in place for this review. Was being careful not to knock the arm off, though.

From the front, we have a noticeable difference in head and hand pose, plus the leg scratches are very much not in the same place. The base also gives the bootleg a little extra height.
The poses are more similar from other angles, but there’s a few seams marring the view, along with differences in colouring & paint.

Figure close-ups

Face:

Looking at her eyes, the bootleg’s seem darker and a bit more sunken-in. The official has the eyelid lip painted in a paler pink, which likely helps the eyes look lighter.
Moving to the lips, the official’s are a pinker colour and we have her teeth and inner mouth painted. There’s also some darker lines on the lips to add shape and definition. Looking to the bootleg, her teeth and mouth have been painted with the same colour as her lips making it look like a closed-lip expression instead. Looking closely at the bootleg it is possible to see the sculpt of the teeth is there, just painted over.

Hand:

The bootleg’s glove claws are a definite downgrade – nowhere near as long as the original’s and the parts aren’t embedded into the gloves properly. The paint is also a less shiny silver. The arm and wrist have been posed incorrectly, so the bootleg’s hand pose doesn’t add to her alluring expression.

Back of the glove:

The bootleg’s glove leather is a noticeably lighter shade. Looking at the black part of the glove, some of the sculpt detail has been lost and the less shiny paints make the bootleg look a lot flatter in design. The bootleg blades are also hilariously chonky compared to the official’s, which also ruins the look. Bootleg definitely loses out here.

Top of the hat:

The bootleg’s hat seems to have much more of a purple undertone to it, and we have some dust preapplied to the figure. Supposed to be my own laziness that means my figures are dusty!
Looking at where the hat has become ragged, some of the sculpt’s definition has been lost on the bootleg, making the hat look just misshapen rather than worn.

Side of the hat:

Yeah, it didn’t quite survive the bootlegging process with a less distinctive shape and colouring. Looking at the hair join, this fared even worse – the bootleg has a noticeable gap just above her ear where the hair should meet. The hair is also dangling down a bit, so we can see the tops of it.

Back of the hair:

Here we can see the hair colours vary quite wildly. The official’s has some greenish tone added to it, to give it more definition whilst the bootleg’s is an unpainted solid yellow. Looking at the ends, we can definitely see some misshapen and blunt bits on the bootleg.
Whilst I’m not the biggest fan of the official’s hair colour, it does have more definition to it than the translucent bootleg hair.

Closeup on the bootleg’s right hair:

The bootleg has a few spatters of red paint on her hair. They don’t look particularly good and I’m pretty sure they’re unintentional.

Left shoulder:

The blood on the bootleg’s shoulder is a bit more orangey and the slashes curve slightly differently over her arm.
Moving to her top, the top edge of it is thick and lumpy – not looking good! The seam running across the top of her arm is a lot more visible, making it look like her top is splitting apart.
The paint is a lot sloppier on the bootleg and not as nice colours as the official’s.
Looking to her bra strap, the bootleg’s doesn’t tuck into the top and the pink paint is very sloppily applied.
The creasing at the top of the top has pretty much gone on the bootleg, as well as the rips near the bra strap.

Closer look at that arm seam:

Oof, the halves of the top on the bootleg really don’t join correctly. This angle really doesn’t look good.
The longer ragged bits on the end of her sleeve are also a lot shorter on the bootleg.

Ungloved hand:

The nails are painted neater on the official – no surprises there. The nails also longer on the official, as the bootleg’s have lost the overhanging part. The shading is nicer on the official’s skin, in my opinion.
The bootleg also has more errant red paint here.
The bootleg’s pinky finger suffered the most – looks like it got bent after being moulded, making it look mutant.
And we’re also seeing that weird semi-shiny paint on the bootleg’s sleeve.

Back of the right arm:

The right arm has much of the issues of the left – the seam is possibly even worse here. The casting is rough on the bootleg’s tattered sleeve. We’ve also got the arm’s join showing a fair amount on the bootleg as this piece is no longer glued. Or was never glued in the first place!
The sleeve paint looks pretty scratched up here too on the upper part of her arm.

Assets:

Here we can see the very different hand poses – the official’s blades are much more visible in this shot.
Looking to the hair, the bootleg’s hair ends are definitely looking rough with excess plastic.
Moving to the chest, the bootleg boobs look like they’ve been squished flat to some extent and has some excess glue on her left breast.
The bootleg’s bra hasn’t been cast well – the scalloped edge has pretty much been lost. Along with the poor edge, the pink paint has been squiggled on and the black paint has ended up a bit lumpy.
Moving to the top, the “window” on the bootleg makes the top look more like plastic – the edges aren’t very thin and are painted solidly, which does nothing to hide the poor cast.

Top:

The overly dark colours on the bootleg’s top is very apparent here. The paint colours are also flat on the bootleg – the official has some shading on the wrinkles to emphasise them.
Looing at the stripes, both have some flaws where the paint isn’t quite following the lines, but the bootleg does have a scratch next to her right boob.
Looking at the torn part at the bottom, the bootleg has lost a bunch of the detail of the ragged shapes.

Stomach:

The official has some of a muffin top, but the bootleg is definitely goin’ muffin top. The bootleg’s shorts don’t join up well with the body, leaving a fairly visible gap. Bootleg Freddy looks like she bites her fingernails, with the shortness and the shape.
Looking to the stomach itself, the bootleg’s belly button is less deep than the official’s. The skin is a slightly different shade but definitely not as noticeable as other bootlegs I’ve looked at.
From this angle, we can see the shininess of the bootleg’s top paint as well… hm, maybe the bootleg’s top is wet? Almost works for that, lol.

Shorts:

Those are some short shorts…
In terms of detail, this is one of my favourite parts of the figure. In line with the rest of the figure, the moulding has lost a bunch of detail from the official – the double stitching on the pocket is now single, the indent for the stitching isn’t very even making her shorts look pockmarked.
The jeans button interestingly looks more like your average jeans button on the bootleg, but that’s as far as the complements go. The paint detail from the distressed jean fabric isn’t present and the shredded jean at the bottom is just lumpy. Most of the creasing made it to the bootleg, but there are some little bits missing here and there.
The metal studs on the pockets are misplaced on the bootleg.

Side of the shorts:

Say hello to the inside of the bootleg… Yeah, we get a good look at the gap in the bootleg from this angle. Some more stray red paint here too, just above the shorts.
This side also shows a lack of detail on the bootleg… and the pocket rivet that is now in the middle of her arse. Not sure what happened there!
The bootleg’s trim really is just a muddy mess on this side.

Bum:

Yep, the detailing defects extend around to this side too. The “Freddy vs Jason” ‘logo’ on the bootleg has become strangely curved, not sure what that’s about. There’s also a fair bit of overspray onto the jeans ‘badge’, making the finish not very good.
The official’s body sits nicely in her shorts, giving you a glimpse of the goods, the bootleg looks partly odd and podgy.

Crotch:

The attachment of the bootleg’s right leg is not good – it hasn’t been set in right, leaving it looking mutated. We’ve also got excess glue and a lot of dirt in the leg seam. Looking at the shorts edge there’s a thick part exposed, not making the shorts look very material-like.

Cuts on the right leg:

The bootleg’s cuts are a darker colour, which I kind of wish the actual cut was that colour on the official, with the dripping blood being paler. However, the bootleg’s blood is currently defying gravity as the print was put onto the wrong side of her leg – instead of being on top of the leg, it’s more on the inside of her thigh.
The linework is a bit thicker on the bootleg, but I don’t think it really detracts from its appearance – if it was on the correct part of her leg it would be a decent replication.
Again, we have a bit of a fit issue with the bootleg – there is some of a gap between the leg and the stocking.

Right leg:

More lost definition here, in the form of the creases in the stocking – most of it survived intact, but looking close you can see missing bits. We’ve also got a seam that runs down the front of the stocking and the boot.
The colour of the stocking isn’t too far off, but the bootleg’s is shinier. The boot colour is a lot more off – the boots on the bootleg look like they’re actually purple instead of black with some shading.

Top of boot closeup:

Yep, those bootleg boots are looking less classy and less shiny. Stud on the inside of the boot looks fine, but the one on the outside is a smudgy mess.
The bootleg boot seam line is pretty bad.

Side of the boot:

The silver ring and straps are decent on both. We’ve got a bit of a purple scrape on the top of the bootleg boot though.

Side of the left leg:

At the top of the bootleg’s leg we have a good glob of excess glue and some black smudge marks.
The top of the stocking is a shinier black on the bootleg, plus we have some unevenness in the paint.
The stocking itself has smaller holes and doesn’t hug her leg as well, leaving a gap in her stocking behind the knee and some excess going into her boot.
The stocking seam is also much more visible on the bootleg from this angle.

Back of the left leg:

Yeah, that bootleg is looking like a baggy, old stocking. Not particularly impressive, especially with the large overlap used to stitch it together.

Bottom of the feet:

With their different attachment methods, they’re not compatible with each other’s bases. For the official, we have a pair of magnets that securely attach her to her metal base. For the bootelg we have two pegholes that work fine with the respective pegs. We’ve also got a visible mould mark here too, and the very purple underlayer of the bootleg boots. Looking at the soles, the bootleg’s shoes aren’t as pointy as the official’s.
I guess purple paint is cheaper than dark blue… not the first bootleg I’ve had where the boots have been like this.

Conclusion

Telling the boxes isn’t too hard, seeing as the Kotobukiya logo has been removed from all sides. The bottom is also quite different, plus the inner flaps show where the printing doesn’t go to the edges of the box’s cardboard.
Telling the figures apart, the clawed glove is the biggest clue – the knives look nothing like they should. Next up is the mouth – no teeth on the bootleg! The scratches on the legs is also going to be a big clue, if they’re all misprinted like mine. However, if you have them on the base, the base is a massive tell with the bootleg’s having flat sides.
In terms of quality, the bootleg does the job from afar, but looking at the details it really falls down. We’ve got a mispainted mouth and a top that just looks plain odd. From the sides you’ve got bad seamlines on her top, from the front we’ve got a bad join at the waist. I don’t think the purple boots fit in well either. The bootleg’s base definitely isn’t second edition – that’s definitely new and unimproved.
Next to the official, she looks like a massive step down in quality to me. As a standalone piece, she’s not awful, but not great either. The paint on her chest is definitely messed up, as well as some of the top sculpt, and we do have antigravity blood on her leg. If someone swapped out my official for the bootleg, I’d definitely notice.

January 6, 2020January 6, 2020

Official vs Bootleg: Jibril – Great War Ver.

For my inaugural Official Vs Bootleg, I’ve chosen to do the most-voted for option: Jibril. I own the Great War version, as I liked the darker wings and more warlike vibe.

The official version of this figure can be found on MFC here.

Images will be clickable throughout the blog, if you wish to see the full-sized images.

As this is the first blog, see if you can guess which side I have the bootleg on in this picture:

So… did you guess correctly which figure is which?

I should imagine most of you worked out which is which :). To me, the thing that stands out the most is the drunken angle which she is holding her scythe – her arm on this side has been mis-manufactured, causing this kind of odd angle. This, coupled with her expression, makes the bootleg look drunk to me, and she’s in the kind of state where she can hold onto things, but not really too concerned with what angle they’re at.

For this figure, I ordered the bootleg with the box, so if you’re interested in how the boxes compare, see the content of the spoiler below

Front of the box:

Overall, it is very similar to the original, but they have edited out the “Phat” logo in the middle of the right-hand side. Notice the extra “fluffy” black where the logo was. Another missing piece of text is the copyright in the bottom-left.
Also, unsurprisingly, there is now Kadokawa authenticity sticker on the bootleg.
Looking at the inside of the box, you can see that the decorative card did not come with the bootleg either. Some bootlegs do come with a backdrop card, but this one did not.
The box print is fuzzy and mildly off-colour, but this would be easy to miss in a photo, or to someone not used to looking for print defects. If you compare her hair on both boxes, you’ll notice the different colouring, and the wing has less contrast to it.

Left of the box:

Again, the Phat! logo has been edited out, but little difference other than this. The card cuts on this bootleg box are actually decent and match up.
One thing to note is the tape or lack thereof – the box came flat-packed, so it wasn’t taped. If someone was to package this up and sell it at a con, then you’d likely see tape common to your native country, instead of round tape here.

Right of the box:

This side is pretty much a straight copy – though the image cuts off slightly early to the left. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve blown the image up slightly, to compensate for having to perhaps crop it after scanning. This side is probably the most obvious that the print quality is poor.

Back:

Here are are two major differences – a lack of Phat! logo, and the bottom information area has been stripped of information pertaining to Goodsmile Company. There is also a minor change to the background near the information box to fill in the background area – note how the pattern of the background is very different to the right of the box.
With these changes – this is why I advise if you can’t work out who made the figure by looking at the box for 10 seconds, start to be suspicious you have a fake in your hands.
Another thing to bring up here is the general box condition – here we can see several bends and creases from it being folded up in transport. Again, if a figure has a creased up box, especially similar to this, I’d advise caution. Some people do fold their boxes, but it is rare. If you see it at a con though, you’re generally looking at a bootleg. The crease that gives away the box was flat-packed is the one that runs through the edited info box (towards the right-hand side).

Top:

The box bend on the back is more obvious from this angle. Would be less obvious if taped up though. Here, the replication is spot-on, barring the print quality, so not much clues this is a fake from this side.

Bottom:

Not too much to see here either, but again, a lack of tape. In my country, you don’t get to get the type of tape used here, so chances are if someone taped up the bottom of the box, it wouldn’t be the same tape type. Font for the text here is very subtlety different, but not something you could pick up without having the boxes side-by-side. The barcode matches, as most of this box is a photocopy.

All in all, I’d say this bootleg box is a close match to the original, but has key differences to make it obvious you’re looking at a bootleg. One to fool the casual buyer, but thankfully not a total replica, making it easy for someone avoiding bootlegs to avoid it.

Before we get onto looking at Jibril herself, let’s look at the accessories she comes with.

Base

Here are the bases:

Interestingly, the bootleg has one thing over the original, with not having a mould mark in the centre. Other than that, it is mildly inferior – the white isn’t quite as good, and has some mistakes in it. The bases are exactly the same size, so it has that going for it.

Close-up of the worst of the paint issues:

Here you can see where the paint has blobbed out of where it belongs, and doesn’t go over the rounded edge neatly.

Bottom of the base:

The colours of the bases are more closely matched than shown here – I edited the official so that the copyright information can be seen more easily in the photo.
For the official, the copyright information can be seen in the centre of the base. For the bootleg, we just get some remnants of tape glue (where it was taped into the plastic clamshell) and a bit of my hair. Ew. That tape residue would be a pain in the ass to get off, if you wanted to. Thankfully no horrible tape residue to be seen on the official, as the clamshell was properly packed into a box. One thing to note is most bootlegs aren’t sent in a shipping box, and this particular one was no exception, being sent in plastic wrap (as of time of writing, only one of the bootlegs for this series actually had a shipping box).

Overall, I’d say the base would be a decent replacement to the original, but does lack some of the quality.

Scythe

Top of the scythe:

The scythe head is the same size as the original, but isn’t the same colour and has defects. The paint job here isn’t bad, but doesn’t match the original’s colour. However, if you follow the lower edge of the bootleg scythe, you’ll see two places where the curve isn’t smooth, where either there wasn’t enough plastic in the mould or have been damaged prior to painting. The nicked parts are painted over, so this defect happened during or just after moulding. The tip of the scythe is also more blunt.

Scythe peg:

Here, we see how bootleggers get overenthusiastic with the paint sometimes – here, the peg is actually painted on the bootleg for some bizarre reason. Also note how the peg is slightly bent and rough – this makes assembly a lot more awkward, and took a bit of force to get the parts together. Taking apart the original is a bit of a pain, but the bootleg is even more annoying due to the defective peg. Other than the peg, the shaft of the scythe is pretty similar to the original.

Overall, the scythe isn’t bad once assembled. The damaged scythe blade does add to the whole “drunk Jibril” thing. Dunno what she’s been bashing the scythe on, but it seems to have broken it.

Headpiece

In NGNL, certain characters have little floating discs above their head. Jibril is one of these characters, so here we have her disc:

Not too different at a first glance, other the colours. However, if you look at the spikes to the top of the photo, you’ll notice the black is missing on most of them on the bootleg. The spikes towards the bottom of the photo also show the worst of the print misalignment that is present throughout. Also the coloured parts do not align properly with the black part.

Now to see where the bootleggers cheated:

Here we can see where the bootleggers printed the black on the bottom and the coloured bits on the top. With the original, all of the print is on the underside, and properly aligned, so both sides look the same. On the bootleg, the black print “cuts through” the coloured print, which makes it look inferior from underneath. Another thing to note is the peg and hole on the bootleg don’t match anywhere as neatly as the original, making the headpiece much harder to get in place.

Can’t recommend this bootleg accessory.

Azriel

Jibril did indeed come with her little chibi Azriel:

First thing that immediately comes to my attention is the shininess of the bootleg’s face – no matte finish here. A significant amount of detail has been lost at her hairline, and the large, curving part of her hair just looks sad. The paint on her face has been done with thicker lines than the original, which loses the detail around her eyes, and leaves her with panda-eyes. Her tooth is also escaping her mouth!
Her top also amuses me on the bootleg – the official it connects up with her neck… and the bootleg they’ve given her some kind of weird boob tube arrangement.
The paint transitions on her hair are poorer than the original, which contributes significantly to her cheapy feel.

Back, with her hair disc:

Here, we immediately see the hair disc doesn’t sit at the same angle on the bootleg. Another notable attribute is the plastic hasn’t been polished, leaving it looking “grainy”, with many lines. The print alignment is better on her disc than Jibril’s though, making it look better than hers.

Back, without disc:

Here we can see why the disc doesn’t sit at the same angle – the hole isn’t quite in the same place, and has some flashing in it. Here, the lack of matte finish on the hair is particularly obvious. Her wings also look like a blobby mess on the bootleg. The stand plastic is also different – the original has a slightly purple tinge that the bootleg does not. Probably cheaper plastic, but I’m not about to go breaking it to find out.

Sides:

Here we can see the overall poor quality of the finish of the bootleg. Very visible seams, particularly on the right, and a missing band of paint on her sock on the left. Also her arms are weirdly bent…

Overall, the bootleg has some amusing differences, but would work as a chibi chucked to the back of a display. If she’s upfront, you’re going to see the sloppy paint and poor finish though.

Jibril!

Now onto the Main Event – Jibril herself. Let’s start with that face of hers:

Well… there’s a superficial match here…
OK, so the hair. The hair is a blobby mess. Lots of bits of flashing and hairtips that are just fat blobs of plastic and paint. The hair undertone is a yellowy colour, which produces a less flattering colour than the white-purple of the original.
The eye decals are particularly poor imo – the originals have nice, crisp detail and a pleasing gradient. The black lines inside her eye aren’t distracting to the overall look. To me, it looks like the bootleg Jibril stuffed a mascara brush into her eyes. Ouch! Also some of the finer details are lost with the poorer eye print. Her mouth is pretty decent overall, and has much of the shading of the original, however her teeth are a bit pink to one side. One notable thing about most of the paint on her face is how it is all darker shades, which means it lacks the subtlety of the original.
Finally, her collar is a matte silver instead of shiny like the original, which gives off a bit of a “cheap toy” vibe.

OK, let’s move around back:

Ow. Here, the original is nicely smoothed and her hair parts nicely match. Some seams visible, but nothing too distracting. And the bootleg? I don’t know what dye job she went for, but her fringe is nowhere near matching the back of her hair. The yellow undertone isn’t the worst thing ever, but it’s not accurate to how her hair should be. Little care and attention has been given during assembly, so the parts don’t line up properly, leaving fairly visible gaps at this angle. The hair strand that sticks out to the right is a very notable example – not only does it not match up right, you see where the purple paint stops, giving it a very strange appearance.

Top of the hair:

This angle reveals exactly how nasty and shoddy the hair on the bootleg is. Some of the finer line details have been lost and the parts just don’t match up properly. We have some covering up of the seam at her parting on the original and the bootleg just has a gap. Overall, just a terrible mismatch in both paint and moulding.

Side of her hair & arm:

Mmm, much shoddiness. Here we see the transparent “proto-wings” in her hair are at the wrong angle, and are kind of cloudy and miscoloured. The purple line on her top has been painted shoddily, and lacks paint at the bottom. The original has a minor paint defect here, but I’d take that over the missing paint on the bootleg! We can also see where the clothing and her boob don’t fit together right on the bootleg, leaving a very odd-looking seam.
Here we can see exactly why she holds her scythe drunkenly – the purple part of her sleeve/arm has been moulded incorrectly, causing her hand angle to be entirely wrong. They have seemingly changed this part significantly for some reason, which has introduced a visible seam line. If there is a seam on the original on this part, it will be hidden underneath her chest. We can also see significant bits of flashing in the crook of her arm, and just by her elbow – guess they couldn’t be bothered to get into the arm gap to clean that out. The purple part is also not shaded very well at all, compared to the original. Looks like some black paint was used in spots – two different shades of purple were probably too expensive! The silver part on her hand also shows significant moulding defects and is painted with the inferior silver paint, which brings down the “class” of the figure significantly.

Hm, let’s take a look at her other arm:

Don’t adjust your set. Yep, that’s indeed the colour of her arm on the bootleg! Sorry about the botched focus… For some utterly bizarre reason, whoever painted this one chose to paint the skin visible through the rips in her sleeve green. Utterly, utterly bizarre. Maybe they thought this was some funky pattern instead of her arm? Whatever, I think Bootleg Jibril is diseased… Or maybe she’ll turn into a zombie… eep!

Upper of the diseased arm:

First thing that pops out to me here is the way her lower arm does not connect properly to the upper arm on the bootleg, leaving a pretty noticeable gap. The silver paint here has really been slopped on, without any attention to the details present. Probably isn’t helped by the mould being a bit crap and losing half the detail here either. We can also see the blobbly hair with lots of flashing here too.
Next thing to stand out here (other than Zombie Arm) is the seamline that runs right through the arm tattoo, making it look broken up and misprinted.
Finally, we have the band on her top that’s kinda pinkish for no reason – the original the band matches the top, but here, the front of her top is white and the back is pink. Guess she’s been buying her clothes from China too…

Let’s go for a full view ’round back:

Yeah, that hair definitely doesn’t look good around the back. The colours don’t transition properly, and she has a massive seam, disrupting the appearance of her hair. Her back is also weirdly pink, which is super-unusual seeing as the original doesn’t have much shading here. Wondering if this was intentional or a sign that the hair painting may have been done post-assembly. Makes it look like she has sunburn on her back. Here we see how the hair sculpt does differ quite a bit for the strands that are on the floor – note how some of them go underneath her body wrap, and it’s almost like tentacles on the right. Also something that can be partially seen from this picture is how her body wrap is more translucent on the bootleg. If you’re a booty fan, you’re also going to get a bit less of that with the bootleg with how the wrap sits – on the original it shows her panties slightly, and the bootleg she’s more covered up.

So, onto that hair:

This pesky mismatch of the hair caused me to have to redo some shots, thanks to making it harder to line up shots to make them similar enough for comparison. The bootleg’s hair is MUCH more curved inwards, which does make her overall footprint smaller. Not entirely sure why this happened, but this is the way it is. here we can see a much more visible seam on the bootleg, and some bits of shoddy shading. Not entirely awful, but room for improvement. Most notably the pink goes further down her hair than it should, and the purplish colour is missing off the end of some strands.

Hair on her left:

Again, this shot was a pain to take, as both her wing and hair are in different orientations compared to the original. her back hairs have become overlaid, and the curvy one in the middle-ish now all curls one way, instead of one part curving out. We can also see dull, blunt ends to the hair on the bootleg, thanks to poor moulds. Bootleg Jibril also kinda had a techno-hair vibe from the way the purple paint was applied somewhat haphazardly to the ends of her hair. It does look like one of the bits of hair towards the back moved after the painting process – there’s a blue stripe, and that looks to correspond with the hair that overlaps it. Overall, the layout of the bootleg hair isn’t too bad, but with the original to compare it to, I prefer how the original’s hair sits.
With her wing, we can see how it sits much closer to her hair on the bootleg, with it curving down more towards the floor.

Let’s take a closer look at that wing:

The original has a very nice finish and some rich, deep colours (and a little bit of house dust ahem). Meanwhile, the bootleg wing colours are nowhere as vibrant, with the black looking especially off-black. The plastic also seems to be less translucent than the original, which also ruins the look of the wings. The wing details all appear to be tehre though, however some of the wing tips have ended up rounded instead of pointy.

Left leg:

This part is one I’ve previously used as a “tell” to ascertain if someone is looking at a Jibril bootleg. Here we can see several common bootleg defects, and this part can be used to detect if either variants of this figure is a bootleg.
First thing to note is the leg print – the original has some colour variation in it, and neatly sits above the lower part of her leg. On the bootleg it goes into the crease of her leg. We can also see that her body wrap is a different shade of pink, which is usually reasonably evident in photos, even given changing lighting conditions. Her leg is poorly joined, leaving a noticeable gap. The paint is very poor on her sock, and almost looks like they used Tippex for the white part. Geting to the end of her leg, her show has a very noticeable seam that is barely noticeable on the original. Again, we have some of the red “sunburn” paint used for shading… whyyyyy.
And if you thought your Jibril’s hand was floaty in the original… take a good look at the bootleg’s – twisted at such an angle, it stands no chance of being flat to the ground.

Finally, let’s take a look underneath:

The most striking thing here is the wrap – much more see-through on the bootleg. If you get someone to take a pic from this angle, then it should be dead-obvious if it is an official figure or not. Next, we have the curly-in hair that doesn’t sit anywhere near the correct positions, and the poor, unfinished painting some parts have. There are nice gradients on the original, but particularly for the hair towards the bottom of the picture, it’s been painted from one angle, and then not finished off. The shading on her boots isn’t too bad, but doesn’t really match the original. Again, we seem to have a fascination with pink-ish paint, and her legs seem to have sunburn and her panties have pink undertones. Here we can also see areas where parts of the figure have a matte finish in the original, but shiny on the bootleg – most notably the skin and her boots. Her arse is shiny on both, though.
And the last thing that stands out to me is her hand – on the bootleg, the hand colour doesn’t match her leg colour, and predictably whoever painted this couldn’t be arsed to paint her sleeve ring on the underside – it is actually painted on top, but not here. If you look at the original’s hand, you’ll see the silver ring around her middle finger.

Overall, a good chunk of her is similar to the original, but she has some major defects that make it easy to tell the bootleg from the official – most notably the way she holds her scythe. She has most of the defects of a bootleg – lack of matte finish, incorrect paint colours, seamlines, blunt parts and incorrect translucent plastic. I think a non-serious collector would be happy with this, but I think anyone who has collected some quality scales would be unhappy with her.

December 15, 2019March 29, 2020

Official vs Bootleg: The pre-blog

For nearly as long as I’ve been collecting, I have been curious about bootlegs. Could they pass for the real thing? How do they compare in terms of paint, materials and sculpt? Up until this point, I’ve mostly satiated my curiosity with other YouTubers and bloggers. And now I want to throw my hat into the ring, and do some blogging of my own!

Thus far, I’ve acquired some bootlegs of my own, ready to do the first set of blogs and produced a new and “improved” backdrop. If you just wish to vote for the bootleg you’d like me to cover first, feel free to skip to the end of the blog.

Creating of the backdrop
First things first, my old backdrop was just not large enough. It was already problematic for certain larger figures, but now I want to do some side-by-side figure photos, it just wouldn’t do.
My husband agreed to knock up a new wooden frame, and I cut apart an old duvet cover that we weren’t using any more to cover it.

Here it is from the back:

https://i.ibb.co/vHDJGrK/backdrop-back.jpg

This partially showcases the first attempt for the backdrop fabric – I thought the stripes might add a bit of a background. Here it is from the front:

https://i.ibb.co/2vMksHk/backdrop-take-one.jpg

However, when I did a test shot with two nearby figures, I wasn’t entirely happy:

https://i.ibb.co/fGyPgfm/test-shot-1.jpg

The lines are hard to get straight-ish, which I expected, but the lines are too “loud” in the image for my liking.
So I decided to make a new backdrop with the back of the duvet:

https://i.ibb.co/PwbV31J/backdrop-take-two.jpg

… and the corresponding test shot:

https://i.ibb.co/0mdSzBz/test-shot-2.jpg

I think this one came out much better, though I did give the backdrop a wash and another iron to get rid of more of the creasing…
One mod I’ll have to do before taking photos is to counterweight the frame. Husband didn’t account for the weight of the fabric on it, so it has a tendency to tip. For the test shots, I made do with some placemats:

https://i.ibb.co/fFQBtt7/backdrop-counterweight.jpg

The poll!
Now is your time to vote for which comparison you’d most like to see! There may be some variance in the order I do them in, but I’ll aim to do the most voted-for first.

Here is the poll. Answers are presented in a random order.

Hoping to put out my inaugural blog early in the next year. Watch this space!

September 15, 2019

Mandarake Mystery Madness – Part 1

As a frequent browser of Mandarake, I sometimes come across items that are strange or mysterious. Occasionally I think about buying them… and recently I decided to actually do so! I set a budget of ¥1800 and a max item price of ¥200 (this post isn’t sponsored, so the money’s gotta come outta my figure budget!). What resulted is 10 items of various levels of mystery, and a blog so large I’ve decided to split it into two. Images in the blog should link to their full-sized versions.

Here is the bundle of items before I unwrapped them:

https://i.ibb.co/6nZQGtZ/bubble-burrito.jpg

So time to go on a journey and see what I’ve dragged out of the dusty corners of the Sahra warehouse! Titles for each section will be what was on the listing I bought.

Sega mascot Donna
As the label is visible in the bubble wrap burrito, let’s start off with this one.
Listing photo:

So, uh, yeah this thing. Researching it before I bought it, all I could find it was some mascot for “Lisa”. I found another version of this mascot, but it didn’t have any other info about it.
Best I can find out is that it is something to do with the singer “LiSA”. Apparently she has monster mascots!

My photos:

No particular surprises from the listing, other than the cute tail and wings on the back, however it was smaller than I was expecting – about 13cm (5.1in) tall. Not sure why I thought it’d be bigger – I wasn’t exactly paying a lot, and you can see a hanging loop in the original image.

Pictures of the tag:

https://i.ibb.co/23dy072/lisa-label-front.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/fCrYBB6/lisa-label-back.jpg

Further research reveals this character is related to the album LiTTLE DEViL PARADE, and is one of the characters featured on the promotional materials. Here it can be seen on this concert advert, at the bottom-middle:

https://i.ibb.co/JvkdkJQ/Cy-Lv6-Lg-VIAA-Wyj.jpg

Overall, I like this little cute mascot, and it did take a little while to find out what it was related to! Finding the artist wasn’t hard, but getting to the album took a little while, and to finally find an image of the actual character itself. The front of the CD doesn’t seem to feature this particular three-eyed pink monstrosity.

Banpresto Ichiban KUJI Movie version ing Ren Lagan Prize E Dorirupen green Kingukitan
Listing photo:

A thing… for a thing. No idea what this is from, when I added it to my basket. Looks like it could possibly be a pen though.

Back of the packaging (as the front is clear in the above picture):

https://i.ibb.co/6tV9pf0/king-kittan-box-back.jpg

Unboxed:

https://i.ibb.co/JK1VzWp/king-kittan-front.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/5GyWhBw/king-kittan-back.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/QbvX7MX/king-kittan-pen-end.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/W5f024F/king-kattan-standing.jpg

A pen it is indeed! And the only item that seems to have made it onto MFC from my haul, as of the time of writing. His name is King Kittan, the pen has black ink and is around 10cm (3.9in), or 12cm (4.7in) with Kittan. King Kittan himself doesn’t stay too well on the top of the pen – he has a habit of coming loose, so probably not too practical to take somewhere where you’d be worried about losing him. I haven’t watched TTGL as of yet, hence my inability to recognise it, or the logo.

FuRyu yellowtail kun and mackerel-kun and together dishes with mascot yellowtail kun (red ribbon)
Listing photo:

https://i.ibb.co/BCppc7J/02301502970.jpg

Another item I ordered because of “lolwtf” factor. Some food… but cute. The listing title tells me this is “Yellowtail-kun” of “Yellowtail-kun & Mackerel-kun”. The only other fact I know about this is that it was made by FuRyu (a prize figure manufacturer).

My photos:

https://i.ibb.co/NKkgnBd/yellowtail-sideshot.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/5FrW5rz/yellowtail-front.jpg

The plate part is just under 12cm (4.7in) wide.
Label:

https://i.ibb.co/LYhQ5QV/yellowtail-sanrio-label.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/4t52zJx/yellowtail-tag-qr.jpg

QR code goes to FuRyu’s prize site (charahiroba.com), with a tracking parameter attached.

Research revealed this is a character from Sanrio’s Kirimichan series of characters, and is indeed “yellowtail-kun” or “buri-kun”. Buri-kun, or its Japanese equivalent – ブリくん – reveals more images of this character. This was a prize series from 2015 (Suruga-ya gives a date of 2015/01/20), roughly entitled “mascot with plate”. Has more in common with polystyrene packaging than a plate. The “plate” is rough-feeling fabric that seems cheap, and I think it would be better without. The mascot itself is made out of a nice material, and I think it would look pretty cute on its own. From my research online, it does look like some people have removed the plate part, just to have the mascot on its own, and am tempted to do the same.

Banpresto Ichiban KUJI EVA piece ・ of ・ Memories Prize I Komikaraizu Fusen Ray (light blue)
Listing photo:

This item I tried to find out if it was a magnet, clear file or art piece. Or possibly even a towel. My search proved fruitless, so not sure what kind of flat item this is. Only one reliable way of finding out!
Packaged:

https://i.ibb.co/X7bW2Rm/eva-stickys-wrapped-front.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/yY1gkbd/eva-stickys-wrapped-back.jpg

Outside isn’t giving many clues, at least to someone who can’t read Japanese. All I could tell at this stage is this is something thin wrapped in cardboard, and is a little smaller than A5.
Unpacking:

https://i.ibb.co/GFXRwTd/eva-stickys-outside.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/yyj6fxM/eva-stickys-inside.jpg

So, I seem to have bought myself some not-very-practical sticky notes! Maybe I’ll come up with something fun to do with them, or just end up displaying the cardboard part and forgetting there’s sticky notes in it.
After opening this, I do actually have vague memories of coming across these on Mercari once, where they did show what was inside. For fairly obvious reasons, I passed by the listing(s) featuring them, seeing as I wasn’t really interested in accruing sticky notes. Pictures on the card are nice though, and I’m probably more interested in those than the “item” itself!

Bandai movie public commemorative Kamen Rider: Ryuki (Dragon Knight (Ryuki) Ryuki ・ Night ・ Zoruda movie release Memorial HG
Wow, that title is a handful!
Listing photo:

So I can find many Ryuki figures… but couldn’t find a picture of this one unboxed. Tried Yahoo! Auctions Japan, couldn’t find any there. Tried some websearching… no luck. So what does this “special skeleton figure” look like?

Upon unboxing, apparently it looks like three figures, around 8cm (3.1in) tall:

Wouldn’t have found them on MFC, even if I wasn’t looking in the wrong category – was looking in the trading/prepainted, but these would count as “hanged up”. As of time of writing, these guys appear not to be on MFC.
Now for some pics of these guys unbagged.

Ryuki:

Knight:

Zolda:

Overall, these guys were a nice surprise. They look nice, and are painted decently well, as well as looking cool. Definitely considering hanging these guys up somewhere. Was initially expecting it to be a figure that required assembly (gachapon figure style), so this one was definitely a surprise to me.

And that concludes part 1!

August 3, 2019

Repairing Angewomon

This blog is about repairing Precious G.E.M. Angewomon, Holy Arrow version.

I bought this Angewomon on the cheap, as she was damaged. Two of her wing pieces had snapped off, and the previous owner tried to repair one of the wing pieces to little success. Here she is, laid out ready for repair:

The head needed a little heating to help pop it off – getting the angle to heat it with a hairdryer was a pain! This is the initial layout, with the glue I intended to use for both wings – it is a 2-part glue suitable for all plastics – in my experience clear plastic doesn’t take kindly to most glues, but from previous experience, this one works well.

Here is a close-up of the breaks:

They were what I would call clean – the breaks appear to have little to no shattering, however the one on the left has had glue applied (likely superglue), which may’ve caused some melty action. More on that later.

Here’s the wing edges, showing the break on this side:

So… I got out my hand drill and pinned it:

This is the first time for me pinning an actual figure piece, so it was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience. Once I got the hole started, things progressed smoothly. I glued this in with superglue, and it bonded well. Wasn’t any tugging the pin out! The pin is a piece of 1.5mm diameter silver-plated copper wire. This was actually the second piece I cut, as the first piece I trimmed too short – after drilling the two holes required I did a test fit, to ensure everything would go together as planned – would highly recommend doing this, as things can be adjusted easily at this stage. Once you glue it in, there’s no going back!

Closeup of the pin:

As the wing is translucent, you can actually see a good amount of it if you look closely.

Drilling the hole into Angewomon:

For this hole, I held the piece up against Angewomon at the right angle, and used that to work out which angle to drill into her body, and to work out the wherabouts. The hole ended up at the correct angle thankfully, though maybe a little low side, but not enough to put the piece in the wrong place.

Here she is, pieces glued, and left to dry & cure:

At this stage, I went out of the house so she had a good 9 hours to dry. Always handy to have some random bits of paper nearby – useful for propping her up so she wasn’t sat on any of the wing pieces being repaired. I did try to see if I could use the pin as a peg – it did stay there if you didn’t touch her, but it was easily nudged and slipped down into the wrong position, so I decided to permanently glue. The figure’s wings were never designed to be taken out (hence the breakages in transit…) so there’s no loss from gluing both sides of the pin.

Closeup of the repaired parts:

Not invisible, but certainly good enough, by my own standards. You can see it if you look for the repairs at a couple of angles, but it doesn’t affect viewing her from the front.

All the tools I used during the process, plus some extra scissors that decided to come along for the ride:

Here you can see the wire bag, plus the cutters to the bottom of the picture – be very careful when snipping wire of this gauge – it pings off fast in a random direction! I placed my hand over it whilst cutting so it didn’t catapult to somewhere I couldn’t find it. Next is the two glues I used (bottom tube is the activator for the glue above it), some paper I used to clean up some errant glue and a stick I use to help apply glue in tight places. It’s a disposable BBQ skewer I’ve sharpened to a point (have used it on some model kits previously, but I’ll snip the glue off the end each session I use it). Finally, we have the pin vise (aka hand drill). Was a bugger to get the tip in and I’m not sure it’ll come out now… Ah well, if it doesn’t I’ll just buy another – this kind is really cheap. Does take awhile to make a hole, even if it isn’t that deep – be patient :). I worked on the cloth so I could avoid scratching the figure – the paint isn’t particularly thick on several parts, so this allowed me to put her down without worrying about it too much. Have noticed a couple of paint scrapes, but nothing visible from the front thankfully!

Here she is! Standing proud and fully assembled!

Needed to heat the head again, so I could easily flex her hair back into place. The ball joint was happier about being put on than it was being taken off, though it did get a bit of warming.

View from the top. Love the way her wings spread:

Overall, I’m happy with how the repair went, and now I have a figure for the price I wanted to pay for her XD. She is now displayed in one of my detolfs, keeping her safe from any further damage.

February 25, 2019February 25, 2019

Figure Spotlight: Camille Noire

This figure is part of the Clive Barker’s Tortured Souls series. And is a pain to assemble. I got this figure prior to knowing heating figures allows you to assemble them far easier… So first thing’s first… was to assemble her properly. Still a pain, but at least she’s assembled now!

Bit of a gruesome one, but she’s pretty detailed. Here’s her body closer up to the camera for a better look:

Yep, she’s not holding back on the body mods! The blood effects on this one aren’t too bad, compared to other bloodied figures.

Side shot of the right wing:

These wings are the thing you had to assemble, and they’re a pain. One bit goes into her shoulder, and there are prongs into her back. Also the hooks on the armature can slip out of the wings, and they are NOT easy to get back in. The shoulder part is the one that’s the pain – I’m not sure if they were a little deformed on mine, but there was no way they were going to go in without some heat to bend it into shape.

Shot of her back:

Some impressive blood effects here… and I’m not sure how she got so much stretchiness out of her back skin. I like the blood effects here – they came out well.

Shot of the top of her head:

Not sure that’s how you’re supposed to use a saw blade!

For the Tortured Souls I have, I really like this series. I think this one has been well done, and has a good amount of detail put into her appearance. This figure certainly isn’t for everyone, but if you like horror figures, I think this is a good one, if you’re prepared for a very annoying assembly.

February 23, 2019February 25, 2019

Rei Ayanami – Seaside ver

This figure I bought secondhand from another user on MFC.

She has a small chip on her leg, that was there when I bought her. She’s a very tall figure and quite heavy, as she’s cold cast.

Left view:

Some detail to be seen here, in her armpit and wrinkle on her swimsuit.

Right view:

Little bit of a mark here too, at the bottom of her swimsuit. Doesn’t really affect looking at the front of the figure, and that side of her is obscured from where I chose to place her, so I forgot it was there, until I got her out for these photos.

Back:

Some detail to be seen here, but nothing that stands out to me. The dent in the sand on the base is a nice touch. Being a heavier material, it does cast some of its own shadows, but there’s no shading in the paint. This leaves her looking rather plain compared to other figures, especially as her skin tone is paler than the concept art for this figure.

She’s rather a mediocre part of my collection. I don’t regret buying her, but she doesn’t particularly stand out, either.

February 22, 2019February 26, 2019

Meta: OK, I’m officially done

This blog was originally published on Tumblr, after the Camille Noire figure post was deleted. If you don’t want to read a grump about Tumblr and how this blog came to be, skip this one.

So… I was going to do a post similar to this, but in about a week or two, however Tumblr has now forced my hand. So this will be today’s blog, instead of a figure post! There was a figure post…

So it started off like this:

OK, they’ve revised the email they now send out to be more expansive and professional-looking. Let’s go to my timeline and get this sorted:

Oh. Oh. Despite the new email still referring to the “flag for review” button, it has now completely gone!! I even tried all the buttons at the bottom – no, not hidden under the “cog” options either.

The figure for this blog, as can be seen from the title is Clive Barker’s Camille Noire. This figure, whilst skimpily dressed, does NOT have any nudity. She is quite gory though! But… fake gore isn’t against the guidelines, and neither is fake nudity for that matter.

I was planning on winding down or stopping my Tumblr blog, partially due to time constraints and partially…. because of this idiocy! My content is specifically not against the new guidelines, but gets flagged with alarming regularity. If I can now no longer ask for review, then I’m entirely disinterested in still blogging here.

I am currently contemplating on doing loot-style posts, but these will likely be on My Figure Collection instead of here. These posts will have less pictures of each figure, feature multiple figures and happen on a less frequent basis. Photographing then editing images takes a lot of time – and too much free time for something that I don’t gain much from.

If I go back to blogging on a more regular basis, it won’t be on Tumblr. I will be cross-posting my Tumblr content to a personally-hosted blog, so that it can be preserved in case of a tightening of the Tumblr adult rules (meaning more posts vanishing off the face of the planet).

Thank you to those who have chosen to follow me, and have been reading and reblogging my content! If I start up a new blog somewhere else, I’ll add a “last blog” here to point to it.

February 21, 2019February 25, 2019

Rei Ayanami – Poolside Ver – Evangelion

This figure was part of a Suruga-ya order. Unfortunately, this one had an unpictured extra – cigarette smell :/. So this figure got a couple of baths too…

Here she is, assembled with the pool piece:

I like the pose for this figure, which is why I chose it. Figure quality isn’t great as she’s a small gachapon figure. Main thing that bothers me is the kinda strange paint job on her hair – not sure what’s going on with the shading there.

She also has a leg piece:

.. so you can do this if you really want to. Could look cool on a shelf ledge like this, or some kind of custom display.

However, it’s more so you can do this:

If you’d prefer to display her without the poolside, this piece allows her to look complete. Though her pose is a bit odd without the poolside.

Some other angles without the pool:

“Don’t look at me”:

Back:

Here you can see where her parts need to be shoved together a bit more.. Her foot is nicely sculpted, and we do have some wrinkling in her bikini bottoms.

Front:

Not too much to see here. However, you can see the paint job that looks like some ink was spilled on her head… Probably needed to use a lighter blue here.

Other side:

Not too much to see on this side. Hair is nicely sculpted, pool handle looks good.

View from below:

She has some nice sculpting on her body, giving her good body definition.

Overall, she’s decent for a gacha figure, and would recommend as a “bonus” item to an order. Hopefully if you get one though, it won’t come with bonus smoke smell like mine :

February 20, 2019February 25, 2019

Alien – Real Action Heroes

This was another random discovery on Mandarake. The description and picture didn’t match, but decided to go for it anyway and see which of the Real Action Heroes Alien figures this was…. and it turned out to be neither of the ones I was guessing it was. This one is #41.

Here he is, on a Play Arts Kai stand:

S’cuse the derpy pose XD. Some of the threads on the joints had become loose, so I added some PTFE tape, so this is slightly visible due to his transparent nature. If it ever bothers me, I’ll replace the PTFE tape with clear nail polish, but PTFE tape is what I had to hand.

Overall, he’s one cool-looking dude, but it is a rubbery plastic outer, so it had got very sticky with age – ended up giving him two baths to get rid of the sticky residue.

‘Face’:

Scratches on his teeth were prior damage. Could get some silver paint/marker to fix this. His mouth has been sculpted well, and he has his inner mouth, as any Alien should.

Crotch (because apparently I deemed this as a shot worth taking):

Here we can see some of the mechanisms, and the way his rubber suit is almost like a swimsuit.

Feet:

Here we have some shiny silver toes. Paint and sculpt is nice.

Left:

Love the sculpt on the side of his head, and he’s a decently poseable figure. Even with his joints tightened, he doesn’t stand too well on his own, so I’d recommend getting a stand, if you get any of these Alien figures.

Hand:

These hands are just the rubbery plastic, plus some silver painting on his fingernails.

He does have a second pair of hands:

These are hard plastic, with a singular wrist joint. I prefer the spiky ones.

Right:

Looking symmetrical to the left side.

Back ‘pipes’ side:

Details look nice and crisp.

Back:

Not too much to see back here, but we can now get a good look at his tail.

Tail joint:

This is the part I dislike most about this figure – the tail goes onto a rubberised “spike” so it can fall off easily and isn’t poseable. Wish they had a hinged joint here, so you could move his tail to the side at lest.

Tail in all its glory:

This thing is long and does pose issues when placing him on a shelf. The rubberised nub does allow it to bend to the side a bit, but can be knocked off in the process.

Tail tip:

Nice bit of sculpting to end his tail.

Head dome:

The details in here are sculpted nicely, and the transparent dome works well. You do get some dots on the dome, from the spikes pressing against it. This is also probably some of the plasticiser that’s leaked out over time too.

Overall, I really like this figure, especially for the price I paid. He hasn’t aged too well, but the faults are mostly minor and fixable. For anyone interested, for getting off the plasticiser (sticky stuff) I used either hand soap or washing-up liquid, or possibly both. And some good ol’ fashioned elbow grease. Due to his head already having some potentially liquid dots in there already, I was careful not to dunk his head in the water, just in case it leaked (which would be a pain to fix).

February 19, 2019February 25, 2019

Poison Ivy – Ame-Comi – DC

This was one of the Ame-Comi figures I was after, and it eventually turned up on eBay.

Front:

I love the pose of this figure and the colour scheme. To me, she looks more like a relative of Poison Ivy, than Poison Ivy herself, but I like her in her own right.

I like the amount of detailing that has gone into her vines and leafy clothing.

Vine hands:

The texture work is nice here, and I love the grasping vine hands

Feet:

The leaves are well-sculpted here, and the shading in the paint adds a lot ot the leaves. She’s also got her toenails painted neatly.

Base:

Ignoring the marks, the base logo is nicely placed, so she isn’t covering it in any significant way. Does take up a lot of room though.

Left:

The vines curl around her hair, which I think is a nice touch. The figure has a nice amount of depth to her.

Vine close-up:

The detailing is really nice on these, and there aren’t too many joins. Here we can see one, to the left of the photo.

Right:

Some thicker vines on this side, and some transitioning of the leaves on her legs.

Arm vine:

Nice blend of colours on the vine itself, and I don’t think I want to get in its way.

Back:

Here we can see how the vines like to play with her hair,. We’ve also got plenty of leaf detail back here, so the back isn’t plain. The hair is sculpted nicely, and has a good amount of detail throughout.

Glad I was able to get this figure, and am happy with it. Maybe at some point I’ll try to get the mark off her base.

February 18, 2019February 25, 2019

Misato Katsuragi – Moto Riders ver – Evangelion

This was a figure I decided I wanted when I saw it. Came across it on Mandarake, where it quickly made its way to my basket.

Here she is:

Some of the “free” dust can still be seen on the base. This time it wasn’t my fault it was dusty! The thing that attracted me to this figure was her outfit. I like the cute look of her face, and the skintight outfit has been done nicely for a prize figure.

Face:

Her face is fairly decent, and I like the expression. Hair is a bit “eh”, but decent enough for a prize figure. I like the choker they’ve added to her neck. Her chest is actually a soft rubber, if you like to poke your figures. An interesting additional feature for a prize figure.

So… let’s see if she has her scar:

Nope, can’t find it anywhere down there. Due to the rubbery material used for her chest, I’m not surprised it wasn’t included. On her had, the rubber has denatured slightly, but her body seems fine.

The zip on her uniform has been painted neatly. Sculpting is OK for the zip – looks a bit thick close-up but OK with a bit of distance.

Left:

Here she’s leaning forward slightly, and she has a shapely upper body. I like that they’ve included some shading on her suit, instead of leaving it flat-coloured.

Right:

The creasing on her clothing looks good, and the boots have been done well. Her hair I’m not so keen on, but it does the job. Though to me, her hair doesn’t feel quite right – her hair is overly flat in places, which looks odd next to the more sculpted parts.

Back:

Hair looks good from the back – I do like the way it flows.

Overall, I’m pleased with this figure, though I do wonder how the rubberised bits will age.

February 17, 2019February 25, 2019

Alex Mercer – Prototype

This little Mercer was a promotional item, so was a nice random find at a not-very-good con. This was the only figure I bought at the con, as there weren’t many stalls there (wasn’t much of anything tbh…) and most of them were local artists. They had an “artist’s alley”, but the entire con was pretty much artist’s alley… Nothing wrong with having a lot of artists, but it would’ve been nicer if there was more variation there.

Anyways… enough drivel about a con of a con in the UK…

Here he is:

Cute-sized Alex Mercer, d’aww. The detailing is nice, and the paintwork is nice and neat. I like the way the three layers of his clothing have been sculpted, and his virus arm.

Claw arm:

I love the texture on this, and the glossier finish, which makes it have a more organic appearance.

Left:

Here we have his normal hand, I like the way they’ve posed his fingers, so it looks like he’s about to spring into action. The seam in his jeans has also been well-sculpted, along with the stressed-jeans paintwork.

Right:

Clothing looks good on this side too, love the creasing detail in his hood.

Back:

The pattern on the back of his jacket is nice and crisp. The dirty shirt effect feels a little overdone here, but isn’t really a big part. Some red paint has crept onto his collar here, so the paint at the back did get a little sloppy.

Double the Alex, double the fun!:

This guy is actually a smaller version of a larger figure that NECA produced. I bought the larger one years ago, but was never able to get the small one for a decent price, due to its more limited nature. Both have the same sculpt and articulation, so this Mercer is one that’s been shrunk in the wash :P.

February 16, 2019February 25, 2019

Max Payne

And now for the slightly infamous Max Payne figure that came with the collector’s edition!

So this was the figure that was promised:

And this is what we got:

A weird grey-coloured suit with no texturing, and a white shirt that doesn’t look like it’s been anywhere near coffee and cigarettes… is this Max Payne?

And that face:

Oh, so that’s where the coffee went. Those eyebrows also amuse me. Hair sculpt is actually rather decent – I think all the sculpting efforts went into the face and then bllerrgh.

But hey, at least we got this base:

Easily the nicest part of the figure – the wood came out well, and the scattered bullets look nice.

Left:

Some parts of the sculpt are actually quite nice – head’s pretty detailed, fabric creasing works well. Some nice detail in his hand too.

Close-up of the bullet wound:

It could have been good. Instead they stuffed some angry red paint on itand called it a day. We can see a figure seam here, but it has actually been sanded down better than I’d expect for a figure with this paint quality.

Holster:

Looks the part. Brown paint has slopped onto the ring somewhat, but overall, doesn’t look bad.

Right:

Again, sculpt is decent. His shoes look good but is suit… did he buy this from the pleather store or something? Or is that giving pleather a bad name?

Gun:

A little webbing can be seen up close, but looks fine tbh. Gun is decent enough. Not sure why there isn’t a matte finish on his hand. OK, I know why – shiny finish is cheaper.

Back:

Aww, lookit – they did actually attempt some shading somewhere! Either that, or the figure rolled around the warehouse… I almost suspect that, with the paint job the rest of the figure got…

So why did I buy this dude when I knew he was shit? 1, he was cheap and it’s Max Payne. 2, Some point in the future I aim to use this figure as painting practice – I can’t exactly make that suit look any worse! The sculpt-work is there on this figure, hidden by a shoddy, cheap paint job. Me painting him isn’t going to happen in the short-term, but when I’ve learned a couple of techniques, I plan to give it a go. And probably add a claw stand to the base (or some other mod) so that he doesn’t experience “bullet time” leans. If you do an image search for this figure, you’ll likely find ones where he’s leaning far over – apparently they didn’t use a particularly strong plastic or put rods in his legs to prevent this issue -.-

February 15, 2019February 25, 2019

Hela – Rock Candy – Thor: Ragnarok

This Rock Candy figure I bought elsewhere, but on the same day as the Harley Quinn one… I think if I saw it at a later date I wouldn’t have bought it, due to the quality of the other one. So let’s see what this one is like.

Front:

Here she is, proclaiming her unboxed glory. At a first glance I really like her outfit and her helm, but her face does feel a bit derp. Feels like her eyes and mouth don’t quite match up somehow.

Face close-up:

From this angle the effect is much less. Nose feels slightly too big though. And the paint across her nose went on the wonk. Still prefer that to Harley’s nose scrape though. Overall, I like the sculpt of her helm, and think this works well. The parts of her face work well individually, but not entirely sold on the overall look.

Outfit:

The big thing that attracts me to Hela figures – her outfit. The paint colours are nice and striking here, and seem to match up with the colours of other figures of her. However, the paint is hilariously off in places – especially the upper right part of her suit. These paint issues weren’t restricted to this one in the shop, and this was the one I chose for being least distracting with errors. As the centre of the suit attracted my eye, I was looking for the least amount of error in this part.

Here we can see the rubberised bits used to cover her arm joints… but they tend to have a mind of their own and not sit properly on her shoulders. May need to heat treat these so they sit in the right location more naturally.

Left:

Hm, apparently she stole one of my hairs. Gerroff that! Helm looks good from the side, and the paint is nice on her arms. They’ve painted her fingernails, but it is a bit blobby.

Right:

Looks OK from this side, but her shoulder does look odd… and I think the paint is a bit more pallid on her shoulders. Bit of a nasty seam there too.

Back:

I like the shininess of the cape, and the colour is lovely. The fabric wrinkles look good, so I’m pleased with this. Just wish more of this was visible from the front. The way it joins onto her back isn’t as lovely, but it does the job.

Not particularly pictured is the fact she’s a bobblehead – in the above pic you can see some of the gap around her head that allows her to “bobble”. Not sure I’m keen on this feature, but it doesn’t really take anything away… so that’s there if you like to bobble your bobbleheads.

Overall, I’m more pleased with this figure than the Harely one, but it still isn’t particularly high quality. I did get this one cheaper though, but not sure I could recommend it.

February 14, 2019February 25, 2019

Harley Quinn – Rock Candy

This was a random buy, as I came across her at a reasonable price. Was considering getting one or two of the Rock Candy figures as I like the proportions. As Harley Quinn is one of the characters I collect figures for, she was one of the natural choices.

So here she is:

With my copy, there is a slight mark on her nose – annoyingly I didn’t notice this until I unboxed her, otherwise I would’ve probably not bough her. I like the rest of her face though, the front of her collar is done well… and the hammer is nice, apart from the slight bend it has to it. However, the less good things are the fact the quadrants of her top aren’t aligned properly, leaving some overlap on the black and there’s a noticeable seam on the collar to her left side. Can also see a bit of paint mess on her hat pom-poms.

Left:

The colours are nice, the sculpt isn’t too bad (collar feels a bit thick though), but there are small paint errors dotted around – most noticeable is just above her hand.

Right:

Right looks better than the left and doesn’t have much in the way of noticeable issues. Do wish they put a rod in the hammer handle so it didn’t bend so freely. It does make assembly easier (and the figure cheaper…) but at a cost.

Hammer & leg close-up:

One thing I can say for the hammer is the sculpt job is nice, and the paint used for the bands works well… if you ignore the paint slop. The diamonds are printed well on her leg, which is nice.

Back:

Square overlap doesn’t seem as bad on the back and the paint looks mostly neat. Cuffs have a bit of slop, but this is pretty common.

The big paint slop though…

Who the heck QC’d this… or more to the point, didn’t? Pretty nasty paint flaw here, and this is why I don’t buy Funko stuff often. Wouldn’t recommend buying their figures online, unless you’re not fussed over paint mess… as this is not too uncommon.

Overall, I like the design, but the execution leaves something to be desired. A handful of paint errors and an ugly amount of flashing on her collar doesn’t make for a very premium figure. Honestly wouldn’t recommend these at full price.

February 13, 2019February 25, 2019

Figure Spotlight: McFarlane Viper King

This is one of the figures I bough early on in my collecting. Being McFarlane, it’s still a quality figure in my collection:

This figure looks cool… but has a habit of falling over. He doesn’t come with any stand holes either, so I’ve developed various ways of standing the bugger up over the years. Though after this photo session, I did manage to get him to stand up on his own!

Close-up of his face:

Very much an angry fellah :P. The arms move up and down, and his neck moves, which gives some poseability.

Viper King from the back:

The Blu-Tack mark is from the original owner – obviously the technique they used to keep him upright. I favoured stands and string, rather than tack.

Here’s a close-up of his back:

Some interesting details back here, I like the tail part on his head.

The black, red and silver colour scheme works well, and there’s a decent amount of detail in the sculpt. Just a shame they didn’t provide him with a stand so you could pose his snaketacles fully, thus making him prone to faceplanting. This issue can be resolved by sticking him down, or coming up with your own form of stand, but it’d be nice if he was provided with one.

February 12, 2019February 25, 2019

Freddy Krueger – A Nightmare on Elm Street – Bishoujo v2

Now for another horror-themed figure – Fredd Krueger, but perhaps not as you’ve seen him before!

This figure is part of Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line, which has a few gender-swapped characters, this being one of them.

So here he, uh, she is:

A very sultry-looking Freddy. I love the face and the pose from the front. With the second edition, they slimmed down the base and reshaped it a bit, to make it fit with the figure more. The base does the job, but I don’t have many feelings towards it.

Face:

I love the way the lip gloss has been done, and the hair is an interesting effect, but feels a tad green which I find a little off-putting. The glove has been sculpted and painted well. Her top is fairly decent, but doesn’t have a proper ripped effect going on with the edging, which is a minor downside to the figure.

This close-up also shows the issue I have with her body shape – her back looks rather broken at certain angles… especially this one! She’s fine from the front, but some of the side angles aren’t very flattering.

Chest:

Her cleavage has been done well, and I like the cute bra under the top.

Left:

With her arm covering her back, she doesn’t look so broken. Love the dimple in the hat, and the strands in her hair. Her boots are also nicely sculpted, and I think they pulled the ring detail off well.

Stocking close-up:

Her stocking looks especially good on this figure, and they’ve even included the stocking seam at the back, which I thought was a nice touch.

Right:

The blood effect isn’t terribly realistic, and could’ve done with a bit more shading to it. The flat red makes it look kinda bad imo. The shape of the paint works, but there’s no depth to the wound. I think a little bit of an edge would have helped.

Back:

Again, lookin’ kinda bent. However, her back is otherwise sculpted well, and the shorts are really well done. Here the “off” hair shade shows up the most I think, and could’ve done with being a tad more yellow in my opinion. He doesn’t have any hair, so it would’ve been nice to give it a more complimentary shade now he has some.

Shorts close-up:

Love the logo on the back of the shorts! The detailing on these is nice, and the frayed jeans effect I think works here. The stitching has been detailed, which really adds to the realistic look.

Overall, I’m happy with this figure, and glad to have finally got around to getting it. I think the hair could’ve been done in a better colour, which is my main gripe. Seeing as I don’t move my figures around too much, I can display her at a favourable angle, so not too bothered about the oddly shaped back. I think it’d bother me more if it wasn’t for the hair though.