Packaging -
***
Unlike the regular
reviewer (Mr. Crawford – henceforth MWC) I really don’t care about the
packaging. As long as the figure makes it to my house in one piece
they could send it to me in a brown sack and give an extra accessory in
place of it.
That said, these boxes harken back to
the earlier “non-flap” style boxes (the “Vampyre” figure for
example). They have the one twist tie which drives MWC crazy and one
of them even had the around the arms tie method which is a bit maddening
(especially as tightly as these Knights chainmail fits). On the plus
side the packaging does have various “Monty Pythonesque” sayings and
warnings on it that made me chuckle.
Sculpting - ***
The hands sculpts are very nice, but
difficult to force through the shield handles (the softness of the hands
helps, but I can’t help but wonder how the paint will hold up over the
course of several insertions/removals).
I think Sir Galahad is a bit puffy
looking but all of the other likenesses are good. Unfortunately all
of them except for King Arthur and Sir Galahad are also quite bald.
The King’s crown is also sculpted as part of his head, as is Sir
Bedevere’s helmet -- this disappointed me quite a bit.
I thought it would be either this
category or the clothing category that would be the weak link on these
toys, but I ended up being wrong!
Paint - ***
The paint applications are very well
done but there are some other problems I found with
mine.
One of mine (Sir Launcelot) has a
chipped nose. I don’t know what they could do to remedy this, but
with this company going more toward mail order and online sales where the
customer cannot pick out his own figures little problems like this become
more important.
Also they have the overall Sideshow
sickly skin-tone that seems to appear on their normal human figures
(compare them to other 1/6 companies figures and you’ll see what I
mean). It works well on the monsters they do (and the old film
characters like Fritz), but looks bad on figures like this and the Buffy
figure. Unfortunately now that they have started this series of
figures off with this grayish/sepia-ish skin tone they will need to
continue with it to have the other figures fit in when
displayed.
My Galahad also seems to be quite
cross-eyed (I have not seen others so I don’t know if this is a common
problem, or if I just got “lucky”). There is also an overall sadness
that seems to hang around these figures faces, I haven’t quite determined
if it is in the sculpt, the painting, or a combination of the
two.
Clothing - ** 1/2
I thought that this would be the
Achilles heel of these figures but was I wrong.
There is some room for improvement in
some areas, but the cloth chainmail – which I thought would look terrible
-- proved to look fine. If you buy these planning on using them to
make other Knights you may have some problems. The “mail shirts”
which they wear have chest and back pieces that are of a silver fabric
(non-metallic) unlike the rest of the patterned fabric. If you have
plans to use these on other kitbashes prepare to cover their torso in some
way to hide this. The mail fabric also fits fairly tight (which I
think helps its appearance) and binds a bit in some poses, as it seems to
be fairly unwilling to stretch. The slight binding doesn’t matter so
much for posing as it does when it causes them to form “leg warmers”
around their ankles if you don’t keep adjusting it upward (and one of mine
came out of the box with this condition).
The belts are acceptable but not really
all that nice. King Arthur should have brass colored mail on this
head (I am pretty sure of this) and not silver like the others. In
addition the mail bottoms end in “feetie pajama” feet that make standing
the figures difficult. They have a build-up of seams that makes it
nearly impossible to get the figure’s foot to meet a flat surface
evenly. I don’t know what the answer there would have been. To
make the foot wearing a slipper-type mail piece might have looked odd, but
it would have added functionality.
They have done a decent job of giving
the different characters a different feel but I will always be
disappointed in the lack of a removable helmet on Bedevere and the King’s
crown being attached. Their armour consists of many generic pieces,
but some touches to individualize them have been made (and to make them
movie accurate). The clothing is nice.
Accessories - ***
The problem isn’t so much with the
quality of the accessories (with one exception) as with the lack of
them.
You get a sword (all the same except
the King’s, but understandable with Knights of the Round Table), a shield,
and one accessory with each character. The swords can be sheathed in
their scabbards (and this works nicely). The shields are nicely
weathered and Sir Robin’s is appropriately large. The other
accessories are nicely sculpted (especially the Grail-shaped lantern with
an opening door and a candle inside) except for the duck. The duck
is nice, but he won’t stand up. I guess they figure you will be
dunking him, but mine needs a small piece of cardboard under his one foot
to get him to stand.
I am not sure what would be good to use
as additional accessories, but one more for each Knight would have been
nice. I don’t know if it could have been a small dagger, but you
just felt there should have been one or two more small items with these
when you opened them up. Also (as I have previously whined about)
the King’s crown and Bedevere’s helmet should have been removable and
would have been the best accessories of all. I do admit I am very
fond of the swords and shields.
Articulation:
**
This was the big
surprise for me. They use the standard Sideshow body and I figured
this category would be one not to worry about -- I was
wrong.
They are poseable, but won’t stand
up! For some reason all of them have weirdly articulated ankles
(except Sir Robin) and on top of the strange axis of articulation
(side-to-side instead of up-down – see photo) mine have loose
ankles. This greatly aggravates me. If you buy them plan on
spending another couple of bucks for stands or driving yourself mad trying
to keep them vertical.
Also, I have a one-handed King Arthur
now. I tried to put his shield on his left arm and the end of it
came off (they are attached a little bit up the forearm). I am
trying to tell myself this is just an isolated incident, but looking at
the small nub of plastic which is supposed to keep the hand on doesn’t
give me much confidence in how long my other Knights will remain
two-fisted warriors.
I guess I would rate this category as
adequate, but clearly a surprise and a disappointment after the quality of
the Fritz I recently bought. If you plan on moving these heads to
other bodies you will lose the very nice and distinctive hands that have
been molded as part of the body design.
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