So when I heard that DC Direct was going to be producing figures, I was eager to plop my money down to get my hands on those beauties. However, there were endless delays and it took more than 8 months to finally receive these guys in the mail. Now the majority of the figures were well done and the characters were realized quite well, but as usual with DC Direct, I found that the figure were only about 95% of the way there. It was like DCD went "that's good enough" and pushed them through design without finishing off minor (sometimes major) details that left the maddeningly lacking.
Seriously, they were so close but didn't actually care to see what the N7 logo really looked like? What about Tali's visor? Grunt's paint job (fantastic on the head, nonexistent on the arms)? And the one / two punch of Thane's hunchback and shrunken head?
So close, but the devil's in the details. So, I was inspired to pick up the tools and tweak them to the best of my abilities:
- Shepard : One of the best things about ME is the ability to customize the lead character to whatever visual you want to have as your protagonist. In my version, I made Shepard in my likeness, so I did the same with this figure. Simple process to pop off the head and replace him with a new sculpt of yours truly (if you've ever wondered what I would look like in plastic form, this would be it.) Likewise, I had to correct the N7 logo on the chestplate. I mean seriously, did anyone at DCD licensing even look at the source materials? Sigh.
- Tali : I have to say I was the most impressed with her likeness, with my only gripe being that they wussed out on her helmet and visor plate something fierce. Sculpt was okay, but it was cast in opaque silver toned plastic and then painted a light lavender. Due to the biological condition of her race Tali's face is never seen beyond fleeting shadows behind her visor. There is a sense of mystery about her and a guarded quality, making her both delicate and tough as nails simultaneously. To simulate this element I recast her head sculpt in clear resin, ensuring that the color of her visor was a deep purple, shrouding the face of the inhabitant inside. Cooler and way more accurate.
- Thane : Where to start? This figure was the weakest of the bunch by a mile. He was permanently shaped in this bizarre hunchbacked form that really only lent itself to one pose. Now, this was a good action pose, but I honestly prefer my figures in a more neutral position with enough articulation to place them into dynamic poses as I see fit. Any other pose except for the one "hard coded" into the figure and Thane looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon with a severe case of scoliosis. However, unless I really wanted to do a tear down on the figure and rebuild almost from scratch I would have to make due with what I had to work with. The biggest issue I had with the Thane figure was the wildly disproportionate head. It was waaay to small for the figure, seeming to eschew an anime quality. This figure was the most stylized of them all and seemed to almost come from a completely different figure line. Likewise the sculpt seemed very off to me, almost too thin with the likeness seeming to be more of a cross between Kevin Bacon and Zoolander. Also the coloring, way off from the source material again. So, in the end I sculpted a new head from scratch, applied a more game accurate color scheme and reworked the neck joint so that he would have the ability to actually look UP.
That being said, it's a shame that this was the first an only wave of the ME figures. I was so anticipating Garrus and even a FemShep, but alas these are not to be. Unless of course, I start really feeling ambitious....Gotta have something to do while I'm waiting for ME3.
Cheers!
