Musings of an Inkd Geek

Here's a stop motion short I did.

I recently purchased the S.H. Monsterarts / Chokogin Ohrai Noriyoshi Mechagodzilla. I had always liked this figure, but was wary due to several reviews I read about the challenges of assembling it. Now that I own it, I can say that it wasn't as bad as I had imagined. You will need to take your time to assemble the 3 pieces to form Mechagodzilla, and there are certain details that the instructions don't specify. Luckily, there's always YouTube videos, and I found Diego Doom's video very helpful in helping get past a block I was having. If you have time, check out his videos on YouTube. He's one of the best figure reviewers out there.  For the most part, I was able to put him together much easier and faster then I assumed. However, like I said, take your time. This could be a fun figure if you practice a little patience  (which I don't always have).   There's quite a lot of nice details to this figure. He's mostly made of die-cast parts, w...

  Today I received S.H. Figuarts Ultraman Geed Royal Megamaster. It's a very nicely detailed and colored figure, standing out in bright gold and yellow highlights. The head sculpt is a standout as well, the points can be sharp, so you may want to be careful handling it. Handle carefully is a good way to describe this figure, as there are several pegs that can pop off easily. This is primarily evident in the cape design. It comes in 3 parts, and the outer sections can move in and out, and all 3 sections can move back as if to mimic it blowing in the wind.     The shoulder pads also seem to be on a small ball joint, so those should also be handled carefully to keep them from popping out or (eek!) snapping.   I kind of wish the cape had been cloth instead of plastic, because, as nice as it looks, it can hinder the articulation somewhat. It can also weigh down the figure, making it a bit of a challenge to stand up straight. On the other hand, a...

Here's a short stop motion I did with my Mattel Wonder Woman and S.H. Figuarts First Order storm trooper. The last bottle of wine......

My latest NECA horror figure that I got is Pennywise from the 2017 film adaption of Stephen King's It. It's a very nicely detailed figure that comes with just the right amount of accessories. This is the 4th horror figure I own from this line, the other 3 being Freddy Krueger from Nightmare 2, Leatherface and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th IV.  It comes with 3 heads (smiling, serious and open mouth scary), 2 sets of hands (open hands and a pair of holding hands for holding the paper boat and balloon, which you can thread the wire through a small little hole between the fingers.  The articulation includes the head, shoulders, elbows, elbow swivel, hands, waist, legs, knees and a bit at the ankles, though not too much. The elbows only move back to certain degree, it would've been nice if they were double jointed for more movement and expressive poses. Still, you can get him in some decent poses. Pennywise stands pretty tall, 7", sli...

  My latest figures to get are Bandai Ultra Action Ultraman Rosso and Ultraman Blu, from the new Tsuburaya show Ultraman R/B. I recently became aware of these action figures when browsing through Instagram. They’re articulated figures, but less expensive than most standard S.H. Figuarts. Now, their articulation isn’t as “expressive” as the Tamashii Nations offerings, nor is the paint job as great (the backs of them tend to be not detailed, like the standard Bandai figures), but they’re pretty decent and passable for an articulated action figure. S.H. Figuarts are releasing both Rosso and Blu, and they’re releasing 2 different color variants for both, so I plan on getting the Figuarts Purple and Tan versions of them. As for standard forms, I’m happy with the Bandai Ultra Action.   They’re about the same size as the Figuarts, perhaps a tiny bit taller. As far as their hands, they only have one pair, but the fingers are articulated in 2 spots, 2 sets of finger...

S.H. Figuarts Twin Tail arrived yesterday. I ordered it off of Bandaionline.com (one of the sites I often get my pre-order figures from). Twin Tail is a kaiju that appeared in episodes 5 & 6 of Return of Ultraman (1971 – 1972). He’s a weird looking fish/silverfish/worm-like kaiju that hatched from an egg and gave Ultraman Jack a hard time when it, as well as the kaiju Gudon, both rampaged in Tokyo. His design stands out as he tends to stand upright, with his head on the floor and his tail up in the air. Twin Tail is one of the more unique kaiju from the various Ultra series, one of the things about Japanese kaiju and tokusatsu series I always enjoyed, the unique monsters.   As far as design, Figuarts knocked this one out of the park, as they often do with their Ultraman line. They once again accurately capture the look of Twin Tail, from the ridges of his backside, his tentacles/whips (thus his name Twin Tail), the green “eyes” on the section that holds h...

                I sat and watched this the day it premiered on Netflix. I went into it pretty sure I would not enjoy it. I did not like the first entry at all, and based on what I saw in the trailer (and some brief plot synopses I had read about online), my expectations for this one were significantly lowered.                   Perhaps it’s because of that that I actually enjoyed this one. I found that many of the elements that I disliked from the 1 st entry were improved upon here (I found the main character Haruo extremely annoying and one-note, the other characters were dull and did not stand out, too much drawn out tech babble that made the dialogue uninteresting, the story seemed unfocused and uneven, the monster action seemed like more of an after-thought, making it dull, etc.). Haruo seemed to have more depth instea...

Here's a stop motion short I did with my S.H. Figuarts Gomora and Baltan. Enjoy....

I recently purchased this Fireman through a seller on ebay. This is my first figure from the Evolution Toy company (all my other articulated figures have been Ultra Act, S.H. Figuarts, S.H. Monsterarts and Revoltech). I was aware that their first release of Zone Fighter from several years ago had flimsy articulation, loose joints that popped off easily, etc. However I read that they had made improvements for their new Tokusatsu heroes, so I decided to give this guy a shot. And also, there's not a lot of figures of Fireman available. This guy so far is pretty good. The joints are similar to the Ultra Act line, so I knew what to expect, as well as what to be wary of. The photo above has arrows pointing to all the points of articulation this guy has. There are some joints that are a bit tight, and the swivel shoulders tend to be slightly loose, but not too bad. Fireman comes with a 10 interchangeable hands, Fire Knife, Fire Jack and 2 Fire Bracelets. ...