Delta Assault
Member
I recently started getting back into Transformers and picked up the 2 foot tall Metroplex. It's pretty plain from the default Hasbro deco. I mean, it comes with stickers, but even so... to avoid staring at a vast white plastic block, I went and painted highlights to make it stand out a bit more. Also got Masterpiece Optimus Prime, Prowl, Sideswipe, and Bluestreak (who strangely isn't blue at all). Optimus Prime is about as good of a G1 figure as you can hope for. Prowl and Sideswipe have hollow legs though, which you can see from certain angles unfortunately. I've also got a Masterpiece Starscream boxed up somewhere.
Ordered a third party Masterpiece Megatron to join em but that delivery keeps getting delayed so who knows when it'll arrive.
Also been collecting Diamond Select's line of Star Trek ships. Here, I've got three Enterprises and an Excelsior, next to a Playmates Vorcha attack cruiser and MP Optimus Prime's trailer. These are pretty good for the price (roughly 16 inch long ships for 60-70 dollars) but the quality control varies quite a bit. The best one is definitely the Enterprise Refit (Wrath of Khan version). The photo doesn't really show it well, but the whole hull's given a shiny satin white paint job that tries to recreate (on a budget) the pearlescent paint finish of the original TMP model. I think it works really well and helps the light catch the molded aztec patterns on the hull. If you want to order it, make sure you get the Wrath of Khan version, because Diamond Select is now selling an Enterprise A version from the later films that has a traditional flat paint application, and looks much different from the pearly satin white WoK ship.
The Enterprise D is also really good, being basically a much more detailed and faithful version of the Playmates Enterprise D toy that came out in the early 90s while the show was on. The only inaccuracy is that the real Enterprise D has a structure right below the nacelles that connects to the struts, shaped like a really long triangle. The Diamond Select sculpt strangely doesn't have this structure. Guess they just overlooked that one detail. But otherwise, the ship is great, and actually can perform saucer separation. The two pieces are held together by really strong magnets. Oh yeah... I did have to get a custom stand for it, since the Diamond Select one in the box was really flimsy and couldn't handle the stress of holding the ship. It's mostly down to the fact that the Enterprise D is incredibly front heavy, as you'd expect, and this imbalance created cracks in the stand.
The Enterprise E has great paint applications and definitely seems faithful to the real ship. Unfortunately, they decided to skimp out on the windows and left them unpainted. This is the only Diamond Select ship to have unpainted windows, but they are molded into the hull, so basically I spent one or two afternoons with a fine Sharpie pen coloring them in. And Jesus Christ, there are a shitload of windows on that thing.
The Excelsior is a reworking of the Enterprise B that they released a couple years ago. And it's definitely an improvement, because that Ent B had some horrible quality control issues, along with a dirty "weathered" wash that made no sense. For the most part, the Excelsior has fixed those problems, though it's still missing those side fins on the ends of the nacelles. The Excelsior's my favorite starship design, so this was a must buy.
The two Diamond Select ships I just picked up recently:
The Klingon Bird of Prey is built with really sturdy plastic and also has a weathered dirty wash applied to the paint which makes sense. The really neat feature is that the wings actually move up and down, just like the actual ship. I've got the wings in the up position, trying to mimic the look of the K'Vort class from TNG (though these are a bit too high, I think). The other two positions available are level with the hull, like at the beginning of Star Trek III, and lowered for attack configuration. On the quality control side of things, this is probably one of the best ships.
The Enterprise D refit from the TNG episode "All Good Things..." on top of my rotating display stand. This is pretty much Diamond Select taking their regular Ent D and gluing a bunch of crap onto it. And it looks awesome, I gotta say. They're all really accurate to the attachments on the show version. The big ass phaser cannon on the bottom of the saucer is partitioned, so you can still perform the saucer separation like you could with the regular version. The only real issue I've found is that there is a very annoying seam at the bottom of the strut for the third nacelle, where the two pieces of the strut meet together. You can actually see it in the photo, it's a big gap. Seems like they just didn't bother screwing or gluing the two sections together. This can easily be fixed with some krazy glue though. The additions that look the best and fit most organically with the original hull are the three phaser strip attachments on top of the warp nacelles. They fit quite seamlessly and look natural.
When I was just a wee little boy, I'd occasionally venture inside this local anime and hobby shop called Heroes Club (what a dull name, btw). It was full of the usual sci-fi anime models and action figures and whatnot that you'd expect. Ya know, it's probably when I first noticed that, hey... all these damn Gundam robot models looked almost identical to each other... what was the point? Anyways, back to the main reason for this... the shop was also damn full of Godzilla figures. Just tons of them cramming the shelves, looking incredible to my young impressionable eyes. But among the teeming figures of Big G and various other Toho kaiju was their immense centerpiece: a two foot tall model that towered over everything. Of course, being a little kid, I certainly didn't have any money and couldn't buy any of these amazing looking figures. Well, and I think most of what they sold were model kits, and I certainly wasn't dexterous and skilled enough to put those together and painstakingly paint them.
But I never completely forgot that impressive two foot tall Godzilla. It stayed just in the back recesses of my mind, one of those impossible gifts from childhood. When I grew up and thought to look it up, I found out through the power of Google that it was the Super Premium Godzilla 1994 by Bandai for the release of Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla. Bandai never ended up making a larger Godzilla figure after that, given the rather limited space of your average Japanese home, which makes sense. Of course, such a limited product from 1994 would command rather extreme prices on Ebay. Right around 600-700 dollars on average.
Then Google turned up an interesting find. Apparently, a rather new Japanese company by the name of X-Plus had started producing high quality, very detailed vinyl figures of Godzilla and other Toho monsters. And their new Gigantic series was going to release an 18 inch vinyl figure of Burning Godzilla (or DesuGoji as he's known in Japan) from the final Heisei Godzilla film "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah." (Yes, they really did go and name a monster Destoroyah instead of Destroyer, for trademark reasons. Apparently you can't trademark Destroyer as a name.)
So I went and pulled the trigger. The whole thing's about 18 inches tall, 18 inches wide, and 34 inches long.
As you can tell, the teeth are all individually sculpted and actually super sharp. Not to where you'd cut yourself, since they are made out of some sort of vinyl, so there is some give, but they probably could if they'd been made of hard material. The eyes are just right for his burning form and stare straight in front, seemingly with a singular focus. The tongue is also incredibly detailed with a rough texture, reminding me of the tongues of lions and other big cats. I think they nailed the feline-like face that made the Heisei Godzilla stand out from all the rest of the Godzillas. You'll note that the ears are also well represented.
it should be noted that the figure itself is not meant to be a faithful 1:1 representation of the suit from the movie. X-Plus's Gigantic series presents itself as a stylized interpretation of the Godzillas from those movies, with exaggerated and powerful proportions to convey the immense nature of these kaiju. In other words, they are not trying to recreate the suits worn in the movie, but the actual monsters as if they leapt out of your imagination after watching the movie. And this is definitely something that's noticeable, because the bulk of the figure is just overwhelming and much more than what we saw in the 1995 movie. I mean, the figure is 18 inches tall and 18 inches wide, so the pyramidal body structure is much more evident. The lower body and legs in particular are really hulked out in comparison to the suit, and the head looks somewhat smaller in comparison to the rest of the body. I think the stylized look works and makes Godzilla appear that much more fearsome.
Now, with the burning changes to the film Godzilla, you might be wondering if it's actually a light-up figure with batteries and whatnot. Well... no, it's not one of those figures that lights up. However, there is a great sense of luminescence, because X-Plus went and added a second layer of resin behind the outer layer. The outer layer seems to be made out of a clear vinyl material, which was spraypainted charcoal black for most of the body. But it seems like they added a second layer of yellow-orange resin beneath this, to add dimension to the burning sections. Thus, when you turn and look at the figure from different angles, you get a changing sense of depth, which is really cool. That's hard to convey with these photos, but in person you can certainly see and admire it. So no, no light up in the dark, but when you have something that looks this good, it doesn't really need any extra gimmicks.
Here it's paired with my X-Plus 12 inch Godzilla 1989. The 1989 suit is pretty much my favorite Godzilla suit and I figured it'd make sense to get a regular non-burning Godzilla representation. The 12 inch figure is also extremely suit accurate, which would be a nice difference from the very stylized and exaggerated design of the 1995 Gigantic figure.
Now, one unique gimmick of this figure is that it has an articulated mouth. Unlike the other vinyl figures made by X-Plus that are solely meant to be statues, you can move Godzilla's lower jaw so his mouth is either wide open or somewhat closed. I say somewhat closed, because you certainly aren't able to close it. The range is quite limited:
That's about the extent that my figure will close. Now, while it seems like a neat feature... I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to do this, as the closing of the jaw opens up a huge seam right underneath the jaw, where it meets the neck. This big ugly gap under the jaw looks horrible and guarantees that I will never be closing his mouth.
