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Review : Slimer Ghostbusters Select (Diamond Select) Wave/Series : Series 3 Released : October 2016 Price : £19.95 - £22.95 If you are going to do a Ghostbuster range of figure then your first job is to do the 4 main Ghostbusters, your 2nd is to do Slimer. It has taken until Series 3 for Diamond to release their version of the bright green eating machine, but here he is for us to look at. Like the previous two series, Slimer comes on the standard large blister card that is synonymous with the Select range. The right hand panel shows a cartoon depiction of Slimer rather than the movie images we have seen on the other figures to date - which will make Slimer stand out a little on a display, although the Ghostbusters logo remains in place on the bottom half of the spine. The same cartoon type image is replicated on the front corner panel along with the character name. The front side panel runs up from this name card and carries the Ghostbuster logo again alongside the Diamond logo. Round the back and the card moves from a silhouetted view of the Ghostbusters firing their proton streams and blends up to the streams crossing in an explosion of electrical activity. Over this is laid a paragraph about Slimer and his role in the film and this sits neatly against a full length shot of the figure himself. For the picky out there you will find an error in this background text with the misspelling of the hotel as the Sedewick (it should be Sedgewick). Under the text, and with a yellow and black hazard border, are the "also available" figures from Series 2 - Quitting Time Ray and Janine. Slimer himself looks a little lost in the packaging being a relatively small piece in this giant blister. He is surrounded by the two alternative heads, but that doesn't fill out the pack enough to look "value for money". Out of the box and rest of the plastic tray is filled by Slimer's clear flying base. Behind this sits the diorama piece which we will look at a little later. Slimer sits just four inches high from the lowered hands through to the head. The sculpt is a really great piece of work, capturing the impish look of Slimer, his ravenous mouth with tombstone like teeth and down through the rolls of fat to his truncated body. The arms repeat the same gelatinous sculpt down to some very manly looking hands. All of this is painted in a vibrant green with subtle highlights to finish him off. The mouth is coloured in a very dark red flesh colour, with the teeth a gruesome off white and then washed with a dark brown to fill in the cavities with a dark rotting look. The eyes are a little too plain, simply a white eyeball with a single black dot. These eyes don't live up to the detail of the mouth and could have done with some depth around the eye sockets. The head can be swapped out to two other versions. This is a simple operation popping out the head and pushing the replacement into the slot. This isn't a seamless join, although they have done really well to disguise a lot of the join under the rolls of Slimer's body fat. Side on however there is a clear gap and you can see daylight through the figure. The two standard heads are too similar for my liking, with one with more "surprised" eyes than the other. I would have preferred more variation - perhaps the "attacking " Slimer or even the "Bus Driver" version from Ghostbusters 2. The final head is the hot dog head, with a jaw rammed full of hot dogs as seen in the final half of the film when Slimer is released along with all the other ghosts by Walter Peck. The hot dogs are well painted and look realistic enough, and this head option does add a touch of comedy to a display - as Silmer should always do. Articulation is restricted solely to the arms, so essentially this is a 6 points of articulation figure. This starts with ball jointed arms which can go out to the side of the main body or up above the head, this allows you to give Slimer a more dynamic look or have him attacking. The elbows are a single bend, to 90 degrees, and also rotate. The hands are on a peg joint which does bend a little front and back and these too rotate. The trickiest part of any Slimer figure is how to display him, after all he is a free floating spirit. Diamond have packed in a multi point stand with Slimer which is made up of a base disk and three jointed arms. The idea is to put the two larger joints together into the base, and the final shorter piece into the hole in Slimer's back. Disappointingly the stand in this configuration can't hold the weight of Slimer and it simply flops over. The only combo I could get to work is to disregard one of the longer lengths, which then has Slimer hovering about 3 inches off the floor. I have seen examples of Slimer working with all three parts of the stand, and I guess that this would be achieved with carefully balancing and perhaps trying to tighten the screws that are used on each of the articulated joints. Slimer is packed with an upright wall piece for the rooftop diorama, which comes with an eagle head protrusion. The head slots into two corresponding slots on the side of the panel easily enough, and eventually this panel will make up the side wall of the portal through which Gozer appears. Diamond have included a hole in this side piece which also accepts the uprights of the stand. This means that when the rooftop is built you can display Slimer floating near this wall section (even though he was never in this part of the film). Slimer is a brilliant figure, I just feel underwhelmed with what Diamond have done with the pack. The extra heads are great, but two of them are so alike I had to check a couple of times to make sure there wasn't a packing error. The stand doesn't work all that well (let me know if I am missing anything) and considering Slimer has just 6 points of articulation he feels lacking vs the other releases. He almost feels like he should have been an accessory himself with say Louis Tully or Dana? They could have even thrown in a crude food trolley for Slimer to snack on to represent the scene from the Sedgewick hotel - this would have looked great alongside the Slimed Peter that is coming in Series 4. I love Slimer, I have done since the 80's, and this is the best figure I have ever had of the menace and deserves a score to reflect that - whilst taking off points for the negatives, Slimer therefore comes out at a 3 out of 5. A better stand and some more added value would have made this perfect. Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US Buy from Forbidden Planet

Review : The Goblin Hellboy II (Mezco) Wave/Series : Series 2 Released : 2008 Price : N/A One of the very interesting creature designs from the Hellboy sequel, The Golden Army, was that of The Goblin. This character was the original creator of the Golden Army and turned up towards the end of the film to allow Hellboy into Bethmora and brought him before The Angel of Death. The Goblin was released in action figure form in 2008 in the 2nd Series of Hellboy II figures from Mezco. He was packed in a blister pack with the backing card carrying a full image of Hellboy which sat behind the figure in the blister. On front of the blister was a lower card which carried the Golden Army log and the character name and series number. Round the back is a brief plot outline for Hellboy II and then a pictorial checklist of the other figures in Series 2 as well as the highly sought after deluxe release of The Angel of Death. Out of the pack and you are presented with the Goblin, the rear of his card and then a number of accessories. There is no clear instructions on how to build the figure, but using common sense and the picture from the back of the pack it isn't too hard to clip the front and back of the cart together. You then have two lanterns that click on arms either side of the cart near the Goblin arms, and two buckets which use hooks to hook over the rear of the cart. The Goblin stands 5 and 1/4 inches in height and 7 inches in length. The sculpt, as I have come to expect from Mezco is pretty impressive. The head is a good match to the film prop as played by John Alexander, albeit under heavy make up and prosthetics. The face has defined lines and depth and very emotive eyes which sit under three horns, one of which is broken off. Down into the body and the same depth of sculpt continues with the chubby Goblin's roll's of fat around his stomach that then sit into the straw of his cart. Round his neck are a number of pendents and charms and these are individually picked out. All the skin tones are a very sickly green, with subtle dry-brushing to bring out the almost reptilian scales of the skin. Yet despite this detail, the figure then has some crab like creatures sculpted front and back and these are really soft in the detail - they are almost cartoonish and painted in a hideous gloss green with orange legs and almost look mismatched in term of quality and finish to the rest of the figure. Onto the cart which in its construction is well designed and also replicates the wooden ramshackle look from the movie. The ropes down each side are particularly realistic and well painted whilst also disguising the side clips that connect the two halves of the piece. On the cart back are a number of pieces including what look like shells, furs and some strange fruits or similar. Like the crabs, this section is a little soft in places and quite basic looking - a real contrast with the other parts of the cart. The figure comes with one crutch already sculpted into his hand while the other is an accessory that fits into the right hand. This piece is also nicely done with a wooden grained effect. It sits securely into the right hand once you've negotiated it round a little bit and can then be posed as you wish. Articulation is limited to the head and arms only, with the head on a ball joint which allows the Goblin to look round fully and lean forward to look down as well as straight ahead. The arms are the same as you would find on a normal figure with ball joints to allow the arms to go out to the side to about 45 degrees. They also rotate so they can be raised above his head. The elbows are single joint and very cleverly on the left arm this joint is replicated on the wooden splint which also bends with the arm. Unusually both wrists are fixed. The articulation does extend to the cart also, with the front wheel rotating to steer the cart. The back wheels also turn on a fully working axle. The Goblin is a very unique piece based on a very unusual character design. Most of it is really well done, but in direct contrast their are some lazy parts like those funny spider/crab creatures and their odd paint. That aside this is still a good sculpt and a well engineered piece and deserves a steady score of 3 out of 5. Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US

Marvel Cinematic Universe "inspired" Wolverine, X-Men Origins Marvel Select 7" scale Recipe Diamond Select Sin City Marv Diamond Select Expendables Hale Caesar Marvel Select The Wolverine (spare head) Hair / Bobby Pins x 6 Model putty Paints - Revell Aquacolor Flesh 35 matt and Leather 84 matt (mixed 2:1 for flesh tone) Silver 90 metallic (adamantium claws & dog tags) White 05 matt (vest patch up at reverse) The great thing about the Marvel Select Wolverine movie figure from 2013 was the fact it came with 3 heads and 3 hand options. I wanted to make the most out of all three head options, and this is my second Wolverine after the Funeral Scene Logan from The Wolverine. This figure dovetails nicely with the Nick Fury custom I made as all the spare parts from that go to building this figure. I took the Marv torso and legs and into this placed the Expendable Hale Caesar arms. The holes in the Marv torso were a little small, but they can be drilled larger and then when heated the arms will pop into place. The arms and neck section were painted in a mix of Flesh 35 and Leather 84 in about a 2:1 ratio. This made the flesh a darker, more tanned tone to match the face as best I could. The neck peg from Marv is a little small for the Wolverine head, but if you pack the socket on the Wolverine head with some tissue it will slot into place and be fully articulated. The back of the Marv vest used to connect to Marv's coat so there was a large hole left over. You could leave this if you wanted but I mixed up some green stuff putty and filled it and did my best to smooth it out and match the pattern of the vest. This was then over painted in white. Marv came with a crucifix round his neck, and I used this to make the Dog Tags by cutting out two shapes of card and overlaying these on the cross. These were then painted silver. I originally was going to simply have Logan with plain hands. But thanks to a tip on Facebook I made the claws by cutting out lengths of flat metal from 6 hair pins (bobby pins). These had the rubber coating scraped away and were snipped flat. I then took some spare hands (origin unknown) and warmed them in hot water. The pins can then be secured in a grip and slid into the soft rubber between each knuckle. When cooled I snipped each one to length. These were still painted to give them a high sheen metallic finish.

Marvel Cinematic Universe "inspired" Yellowjacket, Ant-Man Marvel Select 7" scale Recipe Tron Legacy Deluxe Black Guard from Spinmasters Wacky Wobbler Yellowjacket from Funko Lego Technic Axle x 2 Lego Technic Bus x 4 Paints - Revell Aquacolor Yellow 12 gloss, all the yellow paneling Black 07 gloss, repainting Lego on back-pack and touching up Silver 90 metallic, dry-brushing Like many I was disappointed with only getting Ant-Man from the 2015 Ant-Man movie, particularly when Yellowjacket was such a great design. My "interpretation" of the Yellowjacket suit started life as a Spinmasters Deluxe Tron Legacy Figure, The Black Guard. You could use a number of the Tron Legacy figures, but I chose this one in terms of the helmet being most interesting. The Legacy figures do stand about 8 inches in height, but that isn't hugely noticeable when you line the figure up against Ant-Man or other MCU Select figures, in fact I do like the fact he is a touch taller and imposing. All the figure needed was a repaint, picking out the recessed textured panels in a gloss yellow finish, the head was also painted to match the lens layout on the Yellowjacket character. The yellow was given more depth with some gloss varnish over the top. The backpack started as part of a Funko Wacky Wobbler. Once heated up in boiling water the back pack can be peeled off the Wobbler. I then trimmed down the back to shape it to the back of the Tron figure. The tron already has the start of a socket on his back where the round throwing disks would go, this was drilled and a peg made from Lego. This allows the back pack to be plugged onto the figure. Because the Wobbler back pack is stylised the lower arms are too short, I cut off the points and used some Lego Technic axles and bushes to extend the arms out, these were all painted. The plan is that at some point I can expand or amend these with bends and sockets to make the arms more articulated. The Lego sections were painted black and the yellow on the backpack repainted with the same gloss used on the figure to provide a mask. As a finish silver dry-brushing was added to a lot of the figure's raised parts and piping to add some depth. The figure retains full articulation, and also still lights up - the Tron figures all had light up features. The stand used for flight mode is a Kaiser 2075.

Happy Sat-TOY-Day everyone! CLICK HERE for this week's issue. In this weeks issue we look at the news coming out of Japan and the Tamashii Nations 2016 event. There is also a round up of NECA news, Aliens in particular, as well as some new Ghostbusters product coming from Playmobil of all people. Checkout the links as well for our new sections - Action Figure Stand Reviews and our Custom Figure Archive www.facebook.com/mephitsu www.twitter.com/mephitsu www.issuu.com/mephitsu

This weeks Facehugger Friday teaser from NECA shed a little more light on the Queen Facehugger that will be coming in Series 10 of the Alien series. The Queen Facehugger, which was from a deleted scene in Alien 3, will be packed two per blister. Reading between the lines it seems one will be an homage to the Kenner figure from the 1990's while the smaller version could arguably be based on the deleted scene appearance from the movie. "Series 10 Queen Facehugger Kenner homage - you're getting 2 in one set! #facehuggerfriday (unpainted test shots shown) "

Marvel Cinematic Universe "inspired" Nick Fury (Mark 2) Marvel Select 7" scale Recipe Diamond Select Expendables Hale Caeser Diamond Select Sin City Marv Kent32 cast head Paints - Revell Aquacolor Anthacite 09 matt (chest) Black 08 matt (beard and eye brows) Black 07 gloss (eye patch) Leather 84 matt (head & neck) The very talented Kent 32 has within his catalogue a Nick Fury Marvel Cinematic headsculpt in 1/10 Marvel Select scale. I picked it up a few months back when ordering the Daredevil head and finally got hold of the rest of the parts to have a second stab at a MCU Nick Fury. The bulk of the body is taken from the Expendables Hale Caeser 7" figure from Diamond. The figure should be heated in boiling water and can then be popped apart. For the Nick Fury you will need to remove the head and arms (keep the arms as they come in handy for a future custom). The second donor figure is the Diamond Select Sin City Marv. Either colour or black and white version will do. From this you heat up and remove the arms and then peel the coat away. The coat is sat into a section of the back of Marv's vest so peel this away carefully to avoid it ripping. Again, put the rest of Marv with the arms from Caesar as these will do for another project. The body needed very little work, although I painted the chest section in Anthracite as I didn't particularly like the striped version. The coat needed the section at the back trimming away with a knife so it sat flush to the Expendables chest. The arms for Marv used a smaller peg than the holes on the Expendables torso, to fix this I built up the two balls with putty and then sanded them smooth, they then plugged back into the holes and retain full articulation. I swapped the hands on Marv, which are quite large, with the hands from Caesar - these do sit a bit further back in the sleeve but shouldn't need painting. The head will need undercoating in black then painting. I use Revell Aquacolor paints, and for the head their 84 Leather Matt works well as an African American skin tone. The eye is painted in white with a black iris and white spot as a highlight. The eye patch was painted in a gloss black (07) and the beard and eye brows in matt black (08). You could use the McFarlane Shaft head as an alternative for this project. It will need more work to remove the neck and create a neck slot. You will then need to add in the eye patch and strap. I used this head on the Mark 1 and simply cut out a cardboard circle for the eye patch and then painted on the strap.

Marvel Cinematic Universe "inspired" Wolverine, Funeral Scene from The Wolverine Marvel Select 7" scale Recipe Diamond Select Sin City Hartigan Marvel Select The Wolverine (spare head and hands) Paints - Revell Aquacolor Black 08 matt (Tie) The great thing about the Marvel Select Wolverine movie figure from 2013 was the fact it came with 3 heads and 3 hand options. I wanted to make the most out of all three head options, and the first Wolverine custom was this version - inspired by the funeral scene in The Wolverine. The base figure is the black and white Hartigan from Diamond Select's Sin City line. The first thing to do is to boil the figure and pop off the head and the hands. This leaves them ready for the Wolverine version. The tie, which comes white, needed painting a matt black. There is also a police badge which you may want to remove, I left mine on as it is hidden behind the lapel and I am not sure I could have tidied up the coat after slicing this away. I chose not to paint any more of the figure as I quite liked the variant greys and blacks of the shirt, coat and trousers - the purist may go with a black coat of paint on the trousers at least. The head peg for the Sin City figure is not a direct fit for Wolverine head, so you will need a spare of the right size. I didn't have one available so I went with the cheat of using a blu tack to hold the head on the neck. This means I can still swap the heads around if needed and I won't spoil the spare head. The hands will slot into the sleeves, but they are a tad loose. Originally I went for a bone claw hand and a gripping hand with the Samurai sword. I later swapped this for the Adamantium claws that are a better fit to the scene in the movie. Hartigan also comes with a lovely base that also seems to fit really well with this new Wolverine as a display piece.

Marvel Cinematic Universe "inspired" Nick Fury (Mark 1) Marvel Select 7" scale Recipe McFarlane Movie Maniacs Shaft Diamond Select Expendables Hale Caeser (optional for lower legs) Paints - Revell Aquacolor Black 07 gloss (eye patch) For those who want a Director Nick Fury in their Marvel Select collection, then the simplest answer is to get hold of the McFarlane Movie Maniacs Shaft figure. Despite it's age, the figure still stands up in terms of a likeness to Samuel L Jackson, as well as scales well to Diamond's Marvel Select range. I added the eye patch by cutting out a circle of thin card and applying this over the eye, I then painted on the strap. To go one stage further I swapped out the lower legs to the lower combat trousers from the Diamond Expendables Hale Caesar figures. To do this, heat both up in boiling water then pop the legs from the torso at the waist. The Shaft torso doesn't have a compatible plug to the McFarlane, but you can cut off the McFarlane peg a the torso, then slowly drill a corresponding hole to the Caesar legs. This should then allow the legs to plug into the torso whilst maintaining articulation. You can choose to swap the hands round also from the Expendables to the Shaft figure, this again needs a boil and pop and then the expendable hands should plug directly into the Shaft sleeves.

The Tamashii Nations 2016 event continues to revel exciting new product for 2017 and beyond, and the following Star Wars SH Figuart figures have us more than a little excited. SH Figuarts have already given us some brilliant figures, but the Rey shown below looks to be one of the best yet. Based on her outfit from the very last scene of The Force Awakens, Rey comes with Luke's lightsaber as well as her staff. It isn't clear if BB8, who is also pictured, will be included in the pack. But this is his debut in the range also. Also on his way from The Force Awakens is Finn in his Stormtrooper Armour. And as Figuarts love affair with the prequels continues we go to Attack of the Clones, from which we are getting an Anakin Skywalker A final image of the larger booth of SH Figuarts figures also gives us some hints about other figures we may see. Although grainy the image seems to show either an Episode 7 Han Solo or possibly a Bespin (Empire Strikes Back) version of the Han sculpt.

We have had Movie Realization figures from Tamashii Nations of Spider-Man and Iron-Man. And now it seems another Marvel Alumni is joining this concept range of Feudal Japan inspired figures - Captain America. Cap is Samurai inspired, with a winged helmet and Samurai type armour. His trademark shield is included, but has been redesigned as segmented wooden shield. No more details are known at this time,

Back at Star Wars Celebration we showed you images from the Tamashii Nations booth of some concept art for future Star Wars Movie Realization figures. It seems the first of these is now coming to market with the Samurai inspired Darth Maul being on display at the Tamashii Nations Event this week in Japan. No more details are known as yet, and the images we have seen so far are not overly clear - we look forward to more official news and images for this release.