Upcoming posts for August 2016

ME Minimates, SDCC Monster High, Carpatina Diya

August has been a rainy month here, so I haven't been able to take many photos, and that's translated into my not posting very much lately. I wanted to make a quick post to say hello though, and I do have three new arrivals coming soon, and hopefully the weather will give me a chance to share them.  The three in question are the Series 2 Mass Effect Minimates (which were available as a set this time versus the old blind bags), Monster High's SDCC exclusive Hexiciah Steam (I won't be getting Robecca as I'm splitting the set with someone else), and the newest Carpatina doll, Diya.

Hope your summer (or winter for the southerners) has been fabulous, and if you're following the Olympics, I hope your favourites have been doing well!

Out of the Box: Titan Vinyl's Mass Effect Mystery Minis

L-R: Wrex, Kaidan, Liara

A year after unboxing Titan's Dragon Age Mystery Minis,  I'm looking at some Titan minis from another Bioware franchise, Mass Effect.  The figures I'll be looking this time are my favourites from the original game: Liara, Wrex and Kaidan (although he's called "Kaiden" on the packaging).

Having learned from all the duplicates in my Game of Thrones blind box collection (all of which have now been sold, luckily), I decided to trade the element of surprise for the certainty of character and picked up these three pre-opened on eBay.

Out of the Box: Mass Effect's Tali'Zorah (Kotobukiya Bishoujo)

Tali'Zorah watches for Geth (or Cerberus, or Reapers)...

I've shared a number of Mass Effect figures from a variety of lines in the past, but one thing I've been on the fence about are the Kotobukiya's Bishoujo figures.  For those who aren't familiar with them, the Bishoujo line produces figures that the "sexy lady" version of a variety of female game and anime characters.  They have Kotobukiya's usual great level of detail, but the sexy poses always struck me as a little silly, so I passed on the earlier Mass Effect releases from the line (Liara and Jane Shepard) - but I've regretted not picking up the Liara figure since then (she is available on the secondary market, but at ridiculous mark-ups, and I'm just not willing to pay $250+USD for a figure that originally retailed for less than $80).  So when the Tali figure was announced I decided that silly or not, I'd probably pick her up.

And fortune smiled on me, because not only did I find her in stock recently, but also at a 20% discount!  She arrived on Sunday, so let's open the box and take a look at her.

Minimates Week: Mass Effect Blind Bags

Wrex, Liara and Tali

I've been on the fence about Diamond Select's Minimates line for a while now.  On the one hand, they offer a wide variety of pop culture figures which are generally very detailed for the size.  On the other, they're Lego-style figures (although slightly larger than actual Lego-brand people), which makes them challenging to display in a non-cluttered way.  That would make sense if they were sold as play figures, but they're very much aimed at the collector market.

Out of the Box: Play Arts Commander Shepard

The Play Arts Commander Shepard

I've posted before about the DC direct Mass Effect figures and the limitations of that line, so this figure makes an interesting comparison piece, since it's a character from the same franchise produced by a different company.  To be fair though, this figure is in a larger scale and at a higher price point, so it goes without saying that the smaller, less costly figures are going to suffer by comparison - this toy is simply superior in almost every way: sculpt detail, paint work, articulation and accessories.  It does lack some of the charm that a few of the less detailed figures had (namely the Mordin figure), but some of that is simply due to the fact that this is a human character.

I actually hesitated in picking up this figure originally as I'm not generally a fan of default character figures from games that allow for character customization, but ultimately I decided that the default Shepard was iconic enough that I wasn't really bothered by the fact that he doesn't particularly look like my version of the character.

The Box

The figure is packaged in a standard cardboard package - all sided, but with a book-style flap that's secured with Velcro.  The box art is quite attractive - it actually looks quite similar to the game's box art, but with the action figure front and centre. I actually took longer than usual to de-box this figure specifically because I was so fond of the look of the box that I considered keeping him on display inside it.  Ultimately though, my desire to save on space (and to handle the figure) won out.

With the flap open.

The figure comes with a solid set of accessories: two firearms of different sizes, a second set of hands (posed to hold the weapons - the default hands are fists), and an omniblade (the orange dagger/personal computer/communicator device from the game).  The details on all of the accessories are top notch, although I found it a little challenging to fit the fingers of the gun-hands around the guns.  I was also less than thrilled that the omniblade can't be slipped onto the figure without first removing a hand.  It seems like it would have been simply enough to add a slit to the straps, and I may end up modifying it along those lines (depending on how I decide to display this guy).

Standing on his own.

In terms of balance, the figure is nicely symmetrical,  but not to an unnatural degree.  He's also very well balanced and can easily stay upright without the assistance of a stand and without too much fiddling with the pose.

In terms of articulation, the figure is well-jointed and can move through a variety of poses.  I'd expected the head movement to be somewhat limited by the collar on the armour, and it is, but not nearly to the extent that I'd feared. 

The only issue I had in terms of joints was in removing the figure's left hand - although one only needs to take off the hand itself to swap hands, I found it a little too easy to take off the wrist piece along with it.  That may be an issue unique to this particular piece though, as the right hand worked perfectly, and I've not had the same problem with other Play Arts figures with option hands.

Imagine some waist-high cover here. ;)

A closer view of the armour

Overall, I'm very pleased with this figure.  His posing is solid, the details of his paint and sculpt are spot-on, and the accessories are nearly perfect. 

Out of the Box: The Normandy Crew (DC Direct's Mass Effect series)

L-R: Grunt, Mordin, Tali, Thane

I mentioned having unpacked one of these figures (Tali) back in January, but now they've all been put out on display - I suppose I missed them!

Unlike the higher-priced (and higher quality) Play Arts series that includes many of the same video game characters, DC Direct's Mass Effect line are fairly simple figures.  Each has a reasonably (but not spectacularly) sculpted face, a single weapon accessory and a simple black stand.  The figures and weapons are sturdy (they were packed loosely for the move and all arrived intact), but the stands are surprisingly flimsy for such simple pieces - two of my four broke in transit.

Mordin: Probably the best figure in the series

The quality of the figures themselves varies: Mordin and Grunt look solidly like their in-game counterparts and can pose fairly naturally.  Tali is reasonable, but is painted with non-game colours while Thane is well-sculpted, but awkwardly posed, and isn't articulated enough to compensate for that awkwardness.  There were several other figures in this series that I passed on altogether because they were both poor likenesses to the characters and awkwardly posed (I had the opportunity to buy the Miranda figure for $5CDN and still stayed away).

Grunt and Thane, with weapons

If these figures hadn't been released more than a year prior to the Play Arts line, I probably would have skipped over them entirely due to the poor quality of all but a handful of the figures (and in retrospect, I should have skipped buying the Thane figure).  But ultimately this is a case where my fondness for the franchise overcomes my dislike for the actual products in question - I keep the toys on display because I more because I loved the game series than because I consider the figures to be works of art on their own.  Still, the ones I have do work as talking pieces, so at least three of them will be staying on display.