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Packaging - **1/2
The packages aren't bad, and they certainly serve the basic
purposes. I think the best word to describe them is
uninspired. While the graphics aren't too bad, the photos of the
line on the back are bland, and the overall design isn't particularly eye
catching. And of course it's not collector friendly, with tons of
twisties.
On the plus side, they do a
nice job of showing of the included trading card, and I like it when they
credit those folks involved in the figure design and creation.
Paint - ****
The paint apps on Sabyr are extremely good, with lots of excellent use of
color and contrast. The detail work on the face is excellent, as you
can see in the close ups above.
This is great to see, because
one of my greatest concerns with the first series was the boring paint
ops, and lack of color contrast.
Sculpting - ***1/2
The previous series was based on several movies, and having seen the
movies I had something to compare the sculpts against. They came up
pretty short.
This time, we're dealing with
a new idea from the mind of Stan Winston, so there isn't any source
material to compare the look of these characters too. Therefore you
have to assume they look just the way they were intended.
And this time there is a much
greater level of detail in the sculpting as well. The most obvious
is the head sculpts, all of which show plenty of fine detail work.
But the bodies and
accessories are also loaded up with precision work, and I certainly can't
complain this time.
The only reason Sabyr lost a
half star is due to the design of his feet. Here you have a figure
with fairly decent articulation, yet he can't stand with out using the
supplied base. He's feet are simply too small (and have a weird
pigeon toed thing going on) to allow him to stand on his own.
Articulation - ***
Another major flaw of the first series was the almost complete lack of
articulation. What was there was pretty much useless.
This time around we've been
given quite a bit more, and most of it works well. There's a decent
neck joint, ball jointed shoulders and hips, cut wrists, a bicep cut on
the left arm, waist, ball jointed chest, and cut ankles.
The ball jointed hips don't
work as well as you'd think, and the left leg has very limited
motion. The cut joints don't make up for a lack of elbow and knee
joints though, but the joints are well hidden.
This is certainly an
improvement over the previous series, and you have to give Stan credit for
listening to the complaints.
Accessories - ****
Each figure comes with two or three weapons, a nicely detailed base, an
extra head, and a trading card.
The quality of the heads
varied a bit from figure to figure. I thought that both heads that
came with Sabyr were terrific, but some of the 'roaring' heads of the
others were somewhat weak.
The weapons are all very well
done. Sabyr comes with a dagger and spear, both designed to fit in
his hands. He also has a human skull, which I bet makes sense if you
read through the comic and get more info on this particular character.
Sabyr's base includes a bendy
snake with menacing headsculpt. There's a chain on the snake that
you can place in Sabyr's hand, indicating his control. The snake was
a little difficult to get into a good position, but with some work I found
a couple that worked well.
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