Sculpting - ***
Once again, I think the headsculpts are pretty much on. I had less
trouble with the soft plastic this time - no deformed Snoopy neck - so the
head sculpts don't hurt this score.
But the arms and bodies still leave me disappointed. I
did manage to get Sally to hold the smaller pumpkin, but she can't hold the
Welcome sign - and there's no where else to put it! I really wish we'd
gotten better hand sculpts.
Part of what hurts these, I think, is the scale. As
figures get larger in scale, most assume they'll have greater detail.
It hurts the look of things like the 9" Simpsons, where the basic
design of the characters doesn't allow for much detail, but the buyer still
expects it.
I think that hurts these as well. You can see from the
comparison photo I had in the
other review that these are much larger than many people expected, and the
style is fairly basic. I think going with a smaller scale would have
helped quite a bit.
Paint - **1/2
The paint ops were a little cleaner on my GP set than on the GOCB set.
Still, the flesh tone on the arms was often gloppy or thick.
The faces weren't quite as nicely lined up on this set
either. Schroeder's smile was a smidge off, and several of the eyes on
different characters weren't quite level. Not quite as much slop as
the previous set, but still a ways to go.
Articulation - **1/2
These have the same articulation as the previous set. All have neck,
shoulders, elbows and waist, except for Snoopy and Schroeder.
Schroeder hurts the set overall, as he loose any sort of
waist or leg articulation, and is permanently sitting. I don't
remember him standing a whole lot on the cartoon, but it does limit things.
Snoopy helps the set overall though, with leg articulation
added, and a waist joint cut on an angle. This allows Snoopy to take a
perfect sitting position, which will be necessary with the Dog House Playset.
Accessories - ***
While all the accessories in this set make sense, I'm less excited by
them than the previous set.
Lucy has the most exciting Halloween costume. She comes with her
famous witch mask, cloth shirt, and red hat. It is a great looking
outfit, until you try to get the hat on.
The hat is sculpted to fit on her three 'lumps' of hair in front.
You position the indentations in the brim of the hat on those lumps, and it
should look great. The only problem is that the hat sits at a slight
angle, and the top of the hat is too heavy to allow it to stay. It
slides right off the back of her head! I had to position it at other
funky angles to get it to stay, and I was very disappointed that they'd
taken the trouble to TRY to get it to work, and came up short.
The mask and shirt fit great though, and she's the most interesting
dressed up. Chuck has his trademark ghost costume, along with a bag of
rocks. While both of them look great, He has a very tough time holding
the bag of rocks. Work hard enough and you can get his hands at just
the right angle and the bag balanced just right... and then it falls again.
Schroeder has the same piano of course, just repainted, along with a candelabra
that is all yellow - flame, candle and base.
Snoopy has some great accessories, but again they just fall short.
His helmet and goggles are one piece of soft rubber that fits over his head
fine, and the red scarf works well. However, this Woodstock is a
different sculpt than the previous, and his feet are together this
time. That means he can't stand without leaning against something.
Linus comes with his blanket again, and clearly the single coolest
accessory - a light up Jack-o-lantern! Press down on the top, and the
soft rubber pumpkin lights up inside. Very neat, and a great item for
the display.
Finally, there's Sally. She has an extra small pumpkin (at least I
think it's her's - I bought these in the boxed set), and her Welcome Great
Pumpkin! sign. I did manage to get her and the others to hold the
pumpkin, but the sign is another story all together.
She can't hold the sign, except if you lean it at some very odd
angles. This seriously hurts the score, especially since another
option would have been to put a hole in her base to hold it.
Which brings us to the bases. Every figure comes with a piece of
the pumpkin patch to stand or sit on. But every base is exactly the
same, and they don't actually attach to one another, but simply sit next to
each other. I don't have a huge problem with that - if they had
snapped together it might have limited how I could put them together - but
having them all identical limits their usefulness. Schroeder has a
tough time sitting on the standard base, and as I mentioned, there's nothing
you can do with the Welcome sign.
