Sculpting - ***
The sculpt on Ted is pretty good. His face is a little soft, but I think that has more to do with the paint apps than the sculpt.

There are mold lines on the shoulders, and a small rectangle on his back that has obviously been filled in. At first I thought it might have been for some aborted attempt at an action feature, but then I remembered this line reuses a lot of the same bodies for other figures, so Ted’s torso must have been used for someone with wings or a jetpack.
He is also has places on his right leg where it is starting to split at the mold lines. It isn’t real obvious and hasn’t gotten any bigger since I purchase him. I just need to keep an eye on it. I might be able to put some superglue on it to keep it form splitting more. 

The only other real issue for me, and it is more of a personal issue than a sculpting issue, is that he’s a little too buff across the chest and shoulders. I know that since parts are being reused, some characters won’t look like their comic counterparts, but to me Blue Beetle needs a little less muscle across the top. To me the second Blue Beetle action figure that DC Direct produced has the best body representation so far.

Paint - ***
Blue Beetle only has 5 colors on him and for the most part the colors are good. Let’s start with the face.

I mentioned in the sculpt section that the face is a little soft. I honestly think it is the paint on this and not the sculpt. Why? There is no color variation on the face. Meaning that the nose, lips and chin all blend together. You have to get him in a bright light to pick put the details. A little more color on the lips and nose would have made them stand out. You can just barely see under his goggles that his eyes and the skin around them are painted also. I’m not sure if this is on all Blue Beetles or just mine. There was only one on the shelf when I bought it, so I couldn’t pick the best one. My local Wal-Mart has a backlog of Riddler figures and only puts out one or two new figures a day.
The colors and lines and lines on his arms, legs and lower torso are sharp. The beetle emblem on his chest is not as clean, in fact it is a little fuzzy. The emblem on the back is clean and sharp.

There is a small black beetle on his right wrist. I thought that he had a beetle on each wrist, but I could be remembering wrong.

Articulation - ***1/2
Articulation is good. Since this is my first DC Universe figure, some of the joints are taking me some time to get used to. All the joints are tight. I haven’t had any problems with sticking joints or anything like that.

Since this is my first one DC Universe figure, I assume he has articulation like other figures.

Accessories - ****
Blue Beetle comes with two accessories. His BB gun and the right leg of Atom Smasher.
 
The BB gun is a good sculpt with more detail than I thought there would be at this size. It is painted silver wit some light blue detailing. It fits in either hand. It might look a little over sized, but the one in the comics was big also. 

There is a soft plastic holster attached to his belt that the gun fits in nicely. The holster looks oversized also, but it needs to be for the gun to fit. The holster is attached to the belt on a post, and it swivels back and forwards. There is a strap that goes over the gun to keep it in.

The other accessory is the right leg of Atom Smasher. If you are into the Collect and Connect figures, then this is an essential accessory. If not, toss it in the toy box.