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Sculpting - Hellboy **;
Nuada ***
I opened Nuada first,
and my first impressions were quite good. The detail work on
Nuada's costume is quite good, even though it does have the usual lack
of texture that has plagued most of GG's bust lines.
Nuada
benefits from a cool costume that translated well into this format. He
also benefits from a very dynamic pose, but more on that in the Design
section.
However, on closer inspection,
one glaring issue started
to really bother me. It's the open mouth, sculpted without any tongue
or teeth. Huh? He certainly had teeth and a tongue in the movie, and
we've seen well sculpted open mouths on figures far smaller than this.
Hell, Gentle Giant has done it with past busts! This empty mouth looks
odd, and ends up bringing down a sculpt that is otherwise solid work.
Unfortunately,
I can't say the same for Hellboy. The lack of texture on the body and
coat hurts him more than Nuada, since he has such large expanses of
bare polystone. The coat and skin blend in together, making the bust
look cheaper than it should.
Another problem is with the
Right Hand of Doom. It has good detail, but it looks too thin to me,
especially along the forearm.
But
the biggest issue isn't from the neck down. The detail work on the gun,
his Right Hand of Doom, and even the belt goes a long way to make the
lower 2/3rds of the bust more than acceptable. Nope, it's the head
sculpt that pulls this one way down for me.
When I pulled
this bust out of the box, my initial impression was that Seth Rogan was
dressing up for Comic-Con. The nose and mouth look nothing like the
movie character as played by Ron Perlman, and he has a dopey
expression. It's not so much a matter of detail (I like what they did
with the horns in particular), but rather in matching the on screen
character.
On a side note, this version of
Hellboy does not have
nipples. Contrary to what some folks seem to believe, the movie Hellboy
DOES have nipples, but the are fairly low and toward the outside edge
of his pecs, and is very similar in color to his chest. You can clearly
see it here...but
GG decided not to include them.
Paint - **1/2
The paint work has very similar issues to the sculpt, but there's
enough positive here to balance things at least a bit.
For
Nuada, the major issue is that mouth again. Painted white inside, with
sloppy lips that are a shade too light, it's the one area that doesn't
work. The rest of the face paint, including the eyes, looks good, and I
love the light to dark varitone hair.
Hellboy's big issue is his
eyes, which are slightly cross eyed, lending more goofiness to an
already goofy expression. He doesn't suffer from any slop on the rest
of his clothing or body, and his colors are sharp and clean.
If you can overlook his eyes and
Nuada's mouth, this is some of the better paint work I've seen on a GG
bust in awhile.
Design/Quality - ***
This was a tough one for me, because these were so close to excellent.
The goofy mouth on Nuada hurts him, but had they added some detail
inside, or better yet closed his mouth, this would have been another
full star higher here.
I
also love the slightly dynamic nature of the Hellboy pose. Had the
basic issues of the Sculpt quality been corrected, the design choice
would have been great.
Value - **
If you pick these up for $40 - $45 (which is possible with one of the
suggestions below), you can add another half star here for an average
value. However, I'm grading this assuming you're paying something
closer to the $55 that most people are charging.
Things To Watch Out For
-
Not much. There's nothing here that's likely to break, at least any
more than a normal mini-bust.
Overall - Hellboy **1/2; Nuada ***
These are tricky busts - at first glance, I was impressed, but after
looking them over, the issues started to add up. By the time I got done
shooting them, I was far less impressed. Nuada's biggest issue is the
mouth of course, but if you don't look at him straight in the face (and
his head is sculpted downward) it becomes less of an issue, so the rest
of the sculpting work managed to get him a B overall. Unfortunately for
this Cosplay Hellboy, you can't avoid seeing his inaccurate mug.
I still have high hopes for
Wink and Johann, but I wish these first two had turned out a bit better.
Score Recap:
Packaging - ***
Sculpting - Hellboy **; Nuada ***
Paint - **1/2
Design/Quality - ***
Value - **
Overall - Hellboy **1/2; Nuada ***
Where to Buy -
Online options include:
- Alter Ego has
Hellboy (but not Nuada) for $54.
- Urban Collector
has a great price on these at just $44 each.
- Andrew's
Toyz has them at $55 each.
- Entertainment
Earth has them for $55 each.
can search
ebay for a deal.
Related
Links -
I've reviewed a metric TON of Hellboy goodies:
- if you're looking for an
expensive collectible, check out the 1:1
replica Samaritan.
- there's the 3 3/4" line of action
figures from Mezco, the SDCC
exclusive Hellboy that is also in that scale, as well as
their 18" HB II
figure, and the smaller scale Angel
of Death.
- Mezco released series 1 of
their movie figures, which are covered in two guest reviews, one here and one here.
- I ran two 'retro
reviews of
the old Hellboy movie line - one for Hellboy,
and one for Sammael.
- Gentle Giant did some animated
versions, including one
included in the most recent release of the movies, and there
was also a guest review by Poe Ghostal of the first DVD release of Hellboy. I looked at the
regular release animated
figures as well.
- I also have guest reviews of
some of the comic based figures, including Kreigaffe #10, Lobster Johnson, and the
old
Graphitti Designs version.
- I have my own reviews of the
comic based battle damaged Hellboy
and 18" version,
the stylized Extreme Hellboy,
the movie 8" line
(including the Nazi
Kroenen in the second series), the 18"
version, and even some Mez-itz.
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