Ray Harryhausen's monsters from 7th Voyage of Sinbad & Clash of the Titans

Ray Harryhausen is the master nonpareil of stop-motion animation that endangered filmmaking technique by which models are brought to life through being photographed frame by frame, moved millimetre by painstaking millimetre between exposures.
Despite all the improvement in movie special effects, I am still fascinated by stop-motion animation. Imagine all the patience and painstaking effort needed to make the models come to life. Besides being the master of stop-motion animation, Ray Harryhausen's monsters' designs are bizarre and yet excellent!
When I was younger I used to love 7th Voyage of Sinbad & Clash of the Titans. I could watch them over and over again. I was very happy that X-Plus & Gentle Giant decided to produce the Cyclops/Dragon from 7th Voyage of Sinbad & Medusa from Clash of the Titans respectively.

Cyclops & Dragon from X-plus
The Cyclops and Dragon are 8" scale and they are made of vinyl, hence they are pretty light-weight and have only basic articulation. Just like the Bandai Ultraman figures.
The sculpt for Cyclops is almost perfect and the details spot-on (almost). The only complaint is that in the movie, the Cyclops actually had 2 horns and not 1 as sculpted in the figure.
I really love the texture of the body. They managed to include all the bumps and lumps on the Cyclops' body.
The paint ops are decent enough. I do admit I like the shading done on the Cyclops which enhances the texture of the bumpy skin even more. However the color they used on the lower half of the body is a bit too dark as compared to the movie.
If you got the Cyclops, how could you not get his nemesis, the Dragon, in which he had an epic battle at the end of the movie. The sculpt of the Dragon is not as good as compared to the Cyclops. In the movie, the dragon had two really long "fangs" but in the figure the "fangs" are pretty short.
The texture and details on the body are pretty good. Again, I think the color of the Dragon is a tad too dark as compared to the movie. There is also no shading unlike the Cyclops.
When you display the Cyclops and Dragon together, I feel the proportion is a bit off. In the movie, the Dragon is actually as tall as the Cyclops and much bigger.

Medusa by Gentle Giant
The sculpting for Medusa is very good and spot on! The texture on the body is great
and very detailed. The paint ops is also very well done. I really like this figure a lot. Medusa is around 9" and has basic articulation.

Overall, these are solid figures at reasonable prices. Also it's pretty hard to come across solid figures from such movies like Clash of Titans & Sinbad’s movies

Cyclops




















Dragon
















Royal Rumble!!!!








Medusa

Paper Toys Watchmen Rorschach

It's been a while since my last paper toy. With the new Watchmen movie coming up and recently I have been reading the comic (bought by my wife...so sweet), hence was inspired to do paper toys for the Watchmen. I have decided to follow the design from the comic as I wanted to stick to the original costume designs.
First up is Rorschach. Enjoy...

Rorschach

Mattel's Ghostbusters

Mattel's "Ghostbusters" collectible line debuts with 12 inch figures in June 2009, and will be available exclusively at MattyCollector.com. Mattel will also be doing the 6 inch line and will be release in July 2009. The 6 inch line will be sculpted by the Four Horsemen.

There are already pictures of the 12 inch figures taken at the 2009 New York Comic Con. On display are Slimer, Raymond Stantz and Egon Spengler. Slimer, Raymond and Egon are basically larger version of the 6 inch figures. However there is another Raymond Stantz that is in full cloth jump suit and the equipments look sweet. I am not sure if the 12 inch line is basically blown up version of the 6 inch figures or it will be with full cloth jump suit and removable equipments (usually what is expected for 12 inch figures). Came across this blog that had pretty good explanation on this. It would be so cool if we could get the 3 original Ghostbusters in full 12 inch glory with cloth jump suit and removable equipments. It will certainly look great on any display shelf!

Judging from the pictures (the one in full cloth jump suit), I really really like the sculpt for the equipments however I am not too keen on the head sculpt.
As for the other full "plastic" figures, the sculpting is good but unfortunately they are just blown up version of the 6-inch figures.

You can read my Ghostbusters related reviews here.
More pictures at action-figure.com.

Full cloth jump suit
















Full Pastic Version

2 down 2 to go

50% of the trophies which Liverpool can win this season are now out of reach. As Liverpool crashes out of the FA cup, I reluctantly have to update my Liverpool's trophy tracking banner once again.
Looking at the bright side, these 2 trophies are the least of our priorities and at least we will not be distracted from our ultimate goal, winning the BPL title.
No matter, being a Liverpool fan, every loss leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
You'll Never Walk Alone...Forward REDS!!