Review of Dark Wolf - Fire and Ice
Action Figure

Introduction

Frank Frazetta was a renowned artist who worked on everything from comic books to album covers, but is probably best known for his work around the fantasy and sci-fi genres. His work on the Robert E. Howard Conan book covers inspired future generations of artists, and altered the face of fantasy forever.

In 1983, he worked with the legendary director Ralph Bakshi in creating Fire and Ice, a fantasy film following the adventures of Teegra, Larn, and the subject of today's review, Darkwolf. For those of you that are regular listeners to the podcast HotToyCast, with myself, Jeff Parker, and Eamon O'Donoghue, you'll know that Eamon is a huge fan of all things barbarian. You'll also know he's a terrific action figure designer himself, working for multiple companies including Mezco on their One:12 line.

He's branched out even further, working in conjunction with Frazetta Girls to create their own line of figures based on the movie. The first release in the series is Darkwolf, who has been shipping for a few weeks. He'll run you around $90, depending on the retailer.

Packaging - ****
The cover art is based on the gorgeous theatrical release poster, in bright, vibrant colors. Inside, the figure and accessories are visible through the window under the fifth panel, and everything is safe and sound, packed in a very collector friendly way. You can easily remove the figure and accessories with no damage to the package, a big plus to collectors like me.

Sculpting - ****
This is a beautiful sculpt, from head to toe. He stands about 6 3/4", giving him a little height on the One:12 Conan, and creating an impressive presence on the shelf. I've included a photo at the end of the review with this figure flanked by the One:12 Conan as well as the Legendary Comic Book Heroes Conan.

The wolf fur hat looks amazing, with lots of fine detail in the hair. The material is slightly soft, which makes it eaiser to pose than I expected, but it's still a bit restrictive. There are three lower face plates, rather than completely re-done heads. This allows you to change the expression, while keeping the upper half the same.

The standard face plate is stoic and grim, but not extreme. He's definitely not happy, but he's still sizing up the situation.

The second is screaming full bore, completely in attack mode. The shape of the mouth and lips is perfect for a battle scream, rather than expressing pain or fear. Sometimes sculptors get this wrong, and you end up with 'constipation face'. Not so here, where it's clear he's swinging that axe with intent.

Finally, there's the third lower face, also with an open mouth. This time the teeth are gritted, giving the overall look a lot of intensity.

Of the three, I think I'm going with either the closed mouth, or the screaming mouth - these two work best for me with the most poses. But the great thing about getting all three is you get to swap it up and decide what looks best for now with your display.

There's an assortment of sculpted hands that work nicely with the other accessories, done up in various poses. The body itself follows the rules of anatomy, but also matches Frazetta's style extremely well. You'd recognize this as based on his art immediately.

The nicely done texture is also evident on the skin, and the various other plastic pieces of clothing, like the loincloth and boots. Overall, it's just about a perfect rendition of the character.

Paint - ***1/2
The paint work is clean, with most small details looking good. The skin tone is slightly tan and rugged, and there's decent consistency from face to hands to body.

The yellow eyes are particularly nice. Super clean edges, with no over spray or slop, they add a lot to the feeling of quality with the figure.

There's also a bit of wash that's been applied to bring out some of the details on the skin texture as well as areas like the bones in the necklace. Most of it is well done, but I do have to admit that the teeth are a bit much. While I wouldn't expect particularly good dental hygiene from Darkwolf, the grim on his teeth in the two open mouth face plates is a bit over the top.

Still, that's a pretty minor nit with an otherwise excellent paint application.

Articulation - ***1/2
The overall work on the articulation is extremely good, and I found getting natural poses and even very deep stances was quite easy.

The wolf head cover does impact the neck, of course, but it's not quite as much as I expected. I can get some forward lean and side to side tilt, but tilting backwards is pretty much out. The head turns easily though, which is the most critical.

The rotating pin shoulders, elbows, and wrists work great, and allow for most arm poses. I couldn't quite get a full on bow firing pose, but it was close. The rolling torso joint can turn, tilt and lean, and the ball hips, rotating knees, and hinge/rocker ankles combine to give you shallow to deep stances. Really deep stances!  And I had no trouble keeping the feet flat on the ground in even these deep stances.

Accessories - ***
I've already mentioned the two additional face plates, which give you three options for the expression. You'll need to pop the whole head off each time to swap them - it's possible to do without taking it off, but it's way easier to simply pop it off, remove and insert  the face plate, and pop it back on again.

There's also nine different hands, including fists, various posed versions, and several to use with the weapons. They swap easily enough, and I had no fear of breakage.

There's two weapons - a bow and an ax. The ax is just like the one from the poster and movie. The bow has a very tight string, but I found that having it posed in a drawn way for awhile did tend to stretch it out.

Also be very careful with the ax. The handle is thin, the hands tight, and putting pressure on the handle in the wrong spot could result in breakage.

Lastly, there are three arrows for the bow. There's no place on his body to put the arrows, like a quiver, but you will have extras in case you lose one.

Fun Factor - ****
Thanks to the posability and face plate options, this guy is a lot of fun. On top of that, he's not the end but rather the beginning, with hopefully many more to come. Teegra is already well underway! Once you've got a group of these on the shelf, the display will really pop.

Value - *1/2
If you're looking for a rough spot, here it is. At almost a hundred bucks, he's not cheap. But this is a small production run figure from a niche license, done with high quality materials and manufacturing. If you're looking for a great barbarian, this is it. If you're a Frazetta fan, this is perfect. It fits a particularly market extremely well, and for those folks the cost will be less of an issue.

Things to Watch Out For -
The only area where I was a bit worried was when working with the ax handle and the hands. It is thin, and can be tough putting it inside the grip. Take some care!

Overall - ***1/2
Let's face it - I'm going to be a bit biased here. Eamon and I have been friends a long time, and I'm thrilled to see him succeeding in his dream occupation as an artist and designer in the toy industry.

Putting that aside, this is a terrific figure in its own right. Great sculpting, nice paint, and much better articulation than I anticipated. Overall I'm really happy with the first release, and I can't wait to see Teegra and the rest of the series.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ****
Sculpting - ****
Paint - ***1/2
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - ***
Fun Factor - ****
Value - *1/2
Overall - ***1/2

Where to Buy 
Online options include these site sponsors:

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
Of course, there's the One:12 Conan, but there's also the Legendary Comic Book Heroes version.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

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