Toy Review: Tron Legacy Clu and Kevin Flynn's Light Cycle

Like many of you, I had been waiting until the time was right to buy anything from the Tron Legacy toy line. I saw the movie and enjoyed it, but the toys were not quite impressive enough to make me go on a crazy shopping spree. I was waiting for the line's inevitable demotion to the clearance bin, but I got a Walmart gift card for my birthday so I decided that now was as good a time as any to pick up a few Tron toys. I've been drooling over Flynn's Light Cycle for the past few months, so that was a no-brainer. But who would be the pilot? I passed over Kevin and Sam Flynn, both of which had questionable face sculpts and poor paint apps. I decided upon Clu, in part because of the importance of his character in the movie, and in part because I thought his yellow circuitry would go best with the white Light Cycle. Let's check them both out.

Artwork: Infection 2.0, Kabuto Mushi Beetle Battle

1600 x 900

If you've been watching TGB Customs Blog, you likely know about Marty's new collaboration with Matt Doughty of Onell Design: Kabuto Mushi and a new Infection wave!  Marty commissioned me yet again to do an illustration for this release, but this one would be a bit more involved than the usual piece. Somebody along the line (I forgot who, I think it was Matt) came up with the idea of a triptych, i.e. a work that's a composite of three sections that are separate in and of themselves, but together form a more comprehensive piece.

Toy Pix: MOTU Stinkor, Then and Now

Stinkor has always been one of my favorite Masters of the Universe figures, probably because it was a cool redeco of an already cool figure: Mer-Man. (In fact, I thought that Mer-Man was so awesome that he was the very first MOTU figure I chose to buy.) So, add a stark black-and-white coloration to a MOTU favorite, and you have a recipe for success.

Toy Tribute: William T. Riker

Next up in the Star Trek: TNG Archive is everyone's favorite first officer: Riker, William T! I always liked Riker but he often seemed to be the Trek equivalent of a wallflower, standing in the background just watching the action go on around him. I think that's because his role changed over the years from its initial concept. At first, Gene Rodenberry was really pushing the idea that the Captain of the Enterprise is so important that he should stay on the ship instead of leading dangerous away missions. You see that a lot in the first few seasons, with Riker playing the action hero on the away team. But as the series continued you see more of a concentration on Picard in heroic situations, which, of course, meant that Riker's initial role became redundant. So much so that his solution of saving the Enterprise from collision with the USS Bozeman by decompressing the main shuttlebay was rejected countless times and was eventually accepted only when Data had definite proof that his own solution sucked. (If you've seen Cause and Effect, you know what I'm talking about.) But Riker was a fun character anyway and he had some pretty cool action figures in the Playmates TNG line. Let's check them out... in the order in which they appeared on the show, of course! (Note: Many of the Rikers are shown with a customized phaser so that the phaser blast doesn't get in the way of the figure.)

Toy Pix: Clawshine

As per the custom, Marty (TGB Customs) sent me a couple of samples for my work in designing the header card art for his Clawshine release (sculpted by Jason Frailey). The figures look incredible in person, so I thought I'd snap a few shots of them. The clear plastic is so clear that I had to play with directional lighting in order to get the details to stand out.

Toy Review: Revoltech Rodan

American collectors might be unfamiliar with the Japanese Revoltech line, so here's the concept in a nutshell: Revoltech is a line of hyper-articulated, hyper-detailed anime-themed action figures from Japan. I have little experience with the line myself, limited exclusively to this open-faced Gaiking. The figure looks awesome and has plenty of articulation, but for whatever reason, it just wasn't the impetus it needed to be in order to get me into the line. Maybe it's the fact that the Revoltech joints can be difficult to pose, or maybe it's my preference towards jumbo-sized Shogun Warriors. Whatever the case, I wrote off Revoltechs... until the recent science fiction waves featuring kaiju, that is. I just couldn't resist picking up one of my favorite kaiju of all time, Rodan.