Sculpting - ***1/2
This is a great Price sculpt. They've captured the look in the style
of his mouth, shape of his head and nose, and the hair style.
The hands are also a nice sculpt, although they are rubber -
they have bendy fingers! The hands are sturdy, with a realistic size
and design.
Paint - **1/2
The paint ops aren't quite as nice as the sculpt. The flesh tone seems
a bit off, and the rouge and wash is too heavy. Weak paint application
can hurt an excellent sculpt like this, making it appear not quite as good
as it really is.
Although the wash and rouge are a bit much, the lines are clean, with no
slop. The
eyes are particularly well done, and they've painted them looking upward in
classic Price style. That's a touch that many companies would have
missed completely. It's one of the most evil, mean looks you can do -
it's a staple of the Clint Eastwood characters as well. He didn't just
squint, he squinted with the top half of his eye. Try it yourself
sometime - look into a mirror, and cover the top half of your eye with your
lids, leaving the bottom half showing some white. Scared yourself,
didn't you?
Outfit - ***1/2
The outfit features extremely nice material and stitching. We're
talking top quality, and the coat is just amazing.
But let's talk about the bad part first, since there's so little in that
department. The belt is basic pleather, with an interesting belt
buckle. However, the buckle doesn't hold very well, and I had a heck
of a time with it. It looks like you'll need to use a spot of glue to
keep it in place.
On to the good stuff - everything else! The rest of the outfit
consists of boots, flared pants, the over shirt, the large coat, and
his turban style hat.
The boots are large, and go on and off the feet easily. The
hat...well, the sculpt on the hat is good, and it looks like the source
material, but poor Vinnie just doesn't look good in it.
The pants are very well tailored, and have a pirate look to them.
They do use velcro though, and I would have preferred a snap. The
silky shirt uses snaps, and has full length sleeves. It also has a
very nicely sculpted pin at the top, also true to the source material I
believe.
But the piece de resistance is the coat. The purple is a soft,
velvety material, with the fuzzy gray edges. Quality material,
excellent stitching, and great tailoring make it an exceptionally good
looking coat.
Articulation - ****
Now here was the big surprise. Let's face it, most small companies
just getting into the sixth scale market tend to skimp on the body.
It's pretty common to get a CC style Joe body perhaps, at least when they
are first starting out.
Not so here - Mr. Price is far more flexible than I suspect
he ever was in real life. He has a ball jointed neck, interesting ball
jointed shoulders (they also move up and down on a separate joint to
increase the range of motion), cut joint biceps, double jointed elbows,
unique wrist joints, bendable fingers, chest, waist, ball jointed hips with
deep cuts in the pelvis to allow for a greater range, cut joint hips,
somewhat unique knees with deep cut thighs and calves to again add more
range of motion, ankle joints with cut joints just above, and a final joint
mid-foot.
I swear I've seen this body someplace before, but it may
just be that some of the joints, like the knees and ankles, have been used
in combination with other body styles. Overall, this is one of the
best bodies for posing I've ever seen, and I was also impressed with the
sturdiness of the joints and the quality of the construction.
The bendy fingers aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea,
and I have to admit that on a figure that would be required to hold a lot of
accessories I might not find them as useful, but with this type of character
they allow for tons of cool hand poses.
This body might not work as well for the spandex crowd, as
the deep cuts in the pelvis and legs might show with such tight fitting
clothes. But for this type of character it's absolutely perfect.
Accessories - **
The accessories are very light - probably to offset the cost of the
body, sculpt and outfit. All we get is the fairly obvious Raven, and
while the scale and sculpt are good, he's simply solid black with no paint
ops of any kind.
Value - **1/2
Most places are selling these for $30-$35, and that's a pretty steep tab in
the sixth scale market. We're talking about bbi and Dragon pricing,
and the amount of accessories and extras you get with those figures is
pretty amazing.
Still, it's a licensed figure, and the value is pretty
similar to Sideshow figures, which also run about the same price.
Overall - ***
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this figure, considering
it's a first foray into the 12" market for NECA,
and considering their past work. The transfusion new blood into the
company has clearly made a major difference, and I'm now looking forward to
see how the 12" Crow turns out.
I put Vinnie up with the Sideshow Universal figures, and he
looks great. The style and size matches up pretty well, and it's nice
to finally have a classic Price figure to go along with all the Universal
monsters. Now if we can get a great Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing
we'd be all set. And for our next Vincent Price figure, can we please,
pretty please with sugar on top get a Doctor Phibes? That would kick
all kinds of butt!
Where to Buy -
Your local comic shop may have this guy, and stores like Media Play or
Suncoast might end up with it as well.
On-line:
- the best deal I found was at Monsters
In Motion, where he is $32.99. They have tons of cool monster and
sci-fi stuff. The main page is here.
- It's also at Entertainment
Earth, but more expensive at $34.99 plus shipping. (MROTW
Affiliate)