Review 3A Real Steel Noisy Boy

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Knives

INTRO

There’s been few collectibles that I’ve reviewed where I’ve found myself so conflicted as I have with 3A’s Real Steel series.

On one hand, you have the film from which the toys are based. Certainly, far from the worse film ever made.. but just as far, if not further from being anything I’d consider a classic. There’s not a lot of reason to get excited when someone points at a generic box and says, “Hey, that box is full of Real Steel swag! I can’t wait to see what’s inside”, said nobody ever.

On the other hand, you have 3A who have a knack for deftly tackling technically and visually challenging figures. It’s something they do so well, they could probably make action figures pulled from Battleship Earth and people would still be hard pressed to resist picking up a figure of Jon Travolta on account of his. “amazingly realistic alien goatee and forehead weathering!”

And that’s just the thing. There’s a lot of reasons for someone to be interested in these guys. I know some of you out there really enjoyed the film and have been picking up the figures because the franchise and the characters are something you really care about. Just like I know some of you grabbed them because they’re really cool looking robots and you can’t resist a cool looking robot. I’m sure some of you even picked them up because you’d blindly buy anything 3A puts out, banking on quality. Those and all of the ones in-between are all perfect reasons I’d say, to consider adding some Real Steel goodness to your collection. For me, I take them for what they are, great looking and impressive toys.

The final bot (that I know of) from 3A’s run with the Dreamworks franchise is this big purple guy in front of me, the ever-so-glossy, samurai-esque, Noisy Boy..

and he’s puuurty. Continue reading →

Review 3A WWR EMGY Dropcloth 1.5

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Knives

INTRO

ThreeA, to me, has always been about robots. Even now, with all their Tomorrow Kings, Tommy Mission, Zombs and pointy chested, long legged vixens, big ol’ rusty robots are the first thing that pops into my head whenever the toy company comes up. It was in fact a random image of a WWRp Dirty Deeds Bertie that first caught my attention and led me, cash clinched in hand, to ThreeA’s doorstep. A few purchases under my belt later, still wide-eyed and bushy tailed as one tends to be when their toe is first dipped into ThreeA waters, I set out with the seemingly obtainable goal to get one of each kind of bot in my collection. At first, I was keeping to the smaller, more obtainable bots thinking the larger bot were just too expensive for someone like me who planned to only be a casual collector with a tidy, reasonable collection. Ha! If I only knew then what I know now.

A month or so into my earnest collecting, I accidentally purchased a incredibly well priced, WWR Dropcloth Slaughterhouse. At the time, I didn’t have a solid understanding of the various labels 3A tossed on their various lines, so the lack of the letter “p” generally tagged on the end of the “WWR”, escaped my notice. I foolishly believed it to be another 1/12th bot given the reasonable cost.

Foolishly or not, when the dual hatchet wielding, 1/6 bot arrived on my doorstep, I was thrilled. While a WWRp Bertie reeled me in, it was definitely a WWR Droppie that truly sunk it’s hooks in. Dropcloths were and still are my favorite robots from ThreeA’s arsenal of cool toys. They’re just so pose-able and fun to play around with. Also, their reasonable scale makes them easy to collect and display with a variety of other sized figures. I’ve rotated out, bought and sold quite a bit of my collection over the years for one reason or another, but I have one bot that is securely locked into my “if there was a house fire, grab that” mental category, the WWR EMGY Dropcloth.

In my opinion, he’s simply the coolest looking bot I own, standing front and center on my shelf.

The EMGY colorway is understandably popular. In many cases, it’s rarity seems to be the driving point. But for me, it’s the stark use of rusty yellow paired with dark black, silver and most importantly, red. Since the first EMGY WWRp bertie (speaking of rare), the EGMY color-way has gone through various changes. Newer bots, like Caesar and particularly Armstrong skipped the red accents altogether. It might seem like such a small thing, but in my opinion, it’s absence caused the newer bots to come out looking a lot less exciting than the original. Even the EMGY grunt, which I think is just a sick figure to have, lacks basically any other color accents at all, leaving him with a color scheme an interior designer might refer to as, “the dirty banana”.

When ThreeA teased us with the first Dropcloth follow up back at SDCC 2012, the Dropcloth 1.5, I was pretty excited. When it was announced that the EMGY color-way would be among the first available, I was even more excited. Once I saw that the paint app would be a return to EMGY glory days (ie: reds, blacks and silvers) I may have fist pumped the air, shouted, “YEAH BABY!” and held that pose for moment, freeze frame style, in true 80’s tradition.

ThreeA once again made the EMGY drop a random “rare” drop, despite it’s popularity. On the plus side, it was a rare drop seemingly far more obtainable than any other I’ve experienced. In fact, the first time I logged onto bambaland during the sale (which featured Peaceday as the regular drop) I saw EGMY up and purchased him with little fuss. Almost every other time I checked the site, he was still there. I like to think that whoever wanted him at the time had a pretty good opportunity to snag him.

With my personal EMGY history deets out of the way, I am thrilled to finally have EMGY 1.5 in my hands. Keep reading to see how well I think he stacks up to the OG.

Here we go..
Continue reading →

It’s been a bit! SDCC and other stuff.

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Knives

Hey gang!
As we gear up for San Diego Comic Con, I wanted to drop a quick note to check in and let everyone know that we’re still working hard on updating RtR with the latest and greatest. In fact, we have three reviews written, recorded and photographed. However thanks to our crazy “real world” work schedules, haven’t had a moment to edit them all for posting. That’s not an excuse… It’s just a fact. We’re a tiny family of toy enthusiast with real jobs and families and this site, as important as it is to us, doesn’t make us a dime. So sometimes, things have to be put on hold.
But we’re not going anywhere. RtR has always been about fun and sharing with the community our passion for wonderful toys that we find fascinating and inspiring.
As for the reviews, they’re coming back soon. We hope, though we’re not promising anything, to get the ones on the back burner up before SDCC hits in a couple weeks.

Speaking of which, we’re super excited for the San Diego Comic Con! Once again, we will be making the trek from our beautiful beaches here in Hawaii, to the most exciting and bustling mega event of the year.
Last year was our maiden voyage to the con and we shot a ton photos to give our readers a glimpse at the sometimes overwhelming spectacle.
This year, we’re stepping up our game. We will be covering the convention extensively with photos and HD video of artist interviews, tons of cosplay, panels and of course, toys.

To stay the most updated during the con, you should most definitely follow us on Facebook, Twitter and or new, hardly used Instagram feed at #radtoyreview. We’ll be posting steadily and heavily there during comic con a bunch of stuff that won’t necessarily make it over here to the main site. It’ll definitely be the quickest way to stay updated if you want to see practically everything we see, WHEN we see it, on the convention floor..

That’s it! That’s my sales pitch! We want to thank everyone so much for all the love and support you give our site. RtR has grown so incredibly much in the past two years its hard to believe. We wouldn’t be able to invest the time and energies to do it without ya!

See you in San Diego!

Review Damtoys – Spade J

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Knives

INTRO

I had never heard of Damtoys until a few months ago when I was perusing loose 1/6 figure parts on an online retailer’s site. Their name kept popping up as I rummaged through pages of random, realistic military clothing and weapons. I didn’t buy anything, but I remember thinking, “Man, this stuff looks really good… the people behind this know what their doing.”

Skip ahead to some random blog post I happened upon showcasing this figure that looked a HECK of a lot like the brit movie tough guy, Jason Statham, only crazy exaggerated and equally as awesome. The promo shots looked fantastic and this.. “Spade J” looked every bit as BA as his celebrity twin. As a 3S character artist, I’ve always been drawn to exaggerated, hard edged, sculpted features on characters in cartoons and on action figures.

There was that name again, “Damtoys”. I thought back to the military stuff of theirs I had looked through a few months back and googled their name to see if there were any other figures in this “Gangsters Kingdom” series. Nope. Just lots of highly realistic military figures.. and Spade all by his lonesome. I admit I was a little nervous preordering him since I’d never dealt with this company before and as cool as lone wolf sounds, it can look a little odd on the shelf in a reasonably organized collection. Sure, the promo’s looked slick.. but that’s marketing for you and expected. Plus there’s been a few toy lines in the past who’s QC and final execution of the figure was less than stellar.

I decided to take a chance on him anyway and dusted off my credit card. Now, a mere four months later, Spade J is here. Lets see how he did.

PACKAGING

This is some nice packaging. The box is a fairly heavy corrugate and the printed graphics are rich in color and crisp. Small touches like the silk pull to release the inner box is nice. Damtoys also included a single, little poker card with Spade’s likeness on it. Not sure of it’s usefulness, but it’s a cool garnish.

On the back is an illustration of some slicked hair, fat fellah who looks like he’s about to get an extra air flow option in his neck area, compliments our friend, Spade. The inclusion of that was enough to make me really hope they flesh out the Gangsters Kingdom world with more exaggerated and interesting characters.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

Spade comes with no shortage of accessories. Two pistols with removable and extra clips, a silencer, a switchblade, a real metal necklace/chain, driving cap, ankle holster, a (amaze’n!) should bag, and if you want to count it, a sweet leather jacket. He also comes with an extra “rude” hand.. making that all familiar gesture anyone who’s driven in LA, Atlanta or anywhere in Jersey traffic will immediately recognize.

THE BREAKDOWN

As I unwrapped Spade from his stylish box prison, I was immediately impressed. First thing you see is Spade’s ugly mug, dapper leather jacket and croc-skin boots. I couldn’t help myself from smiling, leaning over to my wife (who sat nearby uninterested in my proceedings) and saying, “Just.. LOOK.. at this guy!”

She glanced over and feigned a half-hearted, “Cool.” and went immediately back to pinterest.

Hmph. I would not let her dismissive response damage my enthusiasm. I quickly popped the next layer of packaging out of the way and started to dig out his many accessories. The first thing I grabbed was Spade’s shoulder bag. Now when I showed that to my wife she actually paused.. took it out of my hand and said, “Wow, this is really nice looking.. really well done.. look at the faux leather accents!”

Or something to that degree. In any case, I was now speaking her language. I let her play with the shoulder bag while I messed around with Spade’s two hand guns.

It’s pretty darn cool that you can actually chamber a round (no bullets of course) and take the clips in and out. The smaller, ankle pistol has a silencer that sticks into the barrel of it, giving it some much needed size.

The leather jacket Spade sports is one of the nicest looking coat accessories I’ve seen on an action figure. It fits perfectly on him with working zippers and pockets. There’s a logo/brand on the back of it to let you know Spade’s a bad-ass.

The driver cap was one of the things I was most excited about with this figure. That may sound silly, but I’ve been wearing them since I was a kid as my dad always wore them. I think I’ve had more driving caps than baseball caps growing up. All the promo pics of the hat show that, for ONCE, someone got the fit right. I’ve seen other action figures that come with these hats and they look ridiculous..and just scream “DOLL! YOU”RE PLAYING WITH A DOLL!”

Well, the final result for Spade is a little bit of a mixed bag. The hat doesn’t seem to fit quite as nice as it did from the promo’s, but with a little finagling, you can get it looking pretty respectable.

I almost lost the switchblade immediately after opening the box. It’s TINY… minuscule. It “looks” cool enough, but it doesn’t fold up or anything which is a little surprising given the action you get out of the pistols.

Back to Spade J’s sculpt. I love the face sculpt.. yes, it’s basically an exaggerated Jason Statham but it works amazingly well here and looks great. Not only is the sculpt great, the paint and detail work on it is very realistic.. tiny moles and freckles as well as a copious amount of man-stubble round out an already quality sculpt. The hands continue that quality with their bulky, blocky form and realistic flesh tone.

Spade’s boots are croc-skin because.. what else would this guy be caught dead in? They work great here and are pretty remarkable at keeping him balanced in all sorts of poses. I will warn you though, don’t try and pop the feet off as there is no friendly little pop in-and-out peg in there like you may be accustom to with other figures. It’s meant to stay on and does not like to go back to it’s home if you remove it. I learned this from experience, dude.

To get his jacket off, you have to remove the hands. On some figures this isn’t that big of a deal as the pegs are short and stout enough to handle a bit of pressure. Dam Toy’s wrist pegs are long thin things that I fear would snap if even the slightest ill-advised pressure was given. I managed to get them off and back on again without anything snapping.. just know that if you choose to follow suit, take it easy and slow.

So with his jacket off, Spade looks a little.. wonky. His neck is a mile long and his body looks oddly malnourished compared to the rest of his tough exterior. Pulling the t-shirt neckline up some, helps hide the awkward appearance a bit.. but he’s miles better looking with the jacket on.

So what happens with the shirt off? Yikes! OK, so the tattoo details are pretty cool to see.. but the skin tone of the body is way off from the more tanned tone of his face (which, I guess isn’t entirely unrealistic if you never go outside with your shirt off). Also, that malnourished look is even more apparent here. The biggest issue I have with the shirtless look, is the design of the body. I’ve never seen a 1/6 body like this. The shoulder joints are basically giant rotating pegs. The good side of that is they allow for quite a good bit of unrestricted movement. The bad is that it makes him look pretty bad with all that exposed goings-on. It’s like lifting the curtain and seeing all the gears working on the “It’s a Small World” ride.. loses all it’s magic.

OK, everything back on! After seeing what lies beneath, I have no reason to ever remove Spade’s shirt and jacket again. He looks too great with them on and way too weird without. Plus those wrist joints are NOT to be trusted and you have no spare ones to fall back on if you misstep. I’ll let you you use your best judgement.

So all geared up, Spade is perfect right? Well.. no. Sadly, the weapons he comes with are all pint sized. The larger of the two pistols almost works with his scale as a small gun.. but the other just looks silly in his hands. Like he’s holding a child’s water gun. The switchblade, adorned with tiny blood flecks isn’t made for Spade at all. Literally, his hands cannot hold it. I “tricked” the camera for some of these photos by having it lay in his hand (thanks gravity) and angling the shot to hide the gap. It’s like they had some extra loose tiny knives laying around at the factory and thought they’d toss them in. It’s a little odd since the art on the back of the box would suggest that the blade is pretty significant weapon to Spade.

The same feeling that “this must have been an afterthought” goes for the ankle holster as well. I challenge you get the ankle holster on, shove the pistol in there and pull his pant leg down over it. Oh, it can be done with a lot of effort.. but the result isn’t graceful or in anyway “concealed”. It basically adds massive bulk to the side of his leg. Either the pant legs are too tight or his legs are too big for it to fit naturally. It’s a massive pain to pull off and when you do you realize, “Man, they really didn’t think this part through did they?”

The last thing of concern is the hat. I love the way it looks and honestly think Spade looks best with it covering his dome. The problem is that some people have reported that the stain used to color the hat will eventually stain his head if left on. What? Why is that a thing? People have recommended making a paper/cloth sleeve or liner to put inside of the hat so this doesn’t happen. Honestly, that’s just something we shouldn’t have to worry about.

In the end, I shoved all the extra stuff I’ll never use, the small gun, ankle holster, switchblade, and sadly.. the driver’s cap.. into Spade’s shoulder bag. He’s standing on my shelf in a neutral pose, bag slung over his shoulder and pistol in his hand. I tend to keep my figures in neutral poses more for sustained balance than anything else. That being said, Spade poses up very well and is a fun figure to play around with. Thanks to his wonky looking, but very forgiving shoulder joints it’s easy to pull all sorts of bad-assery out of him even with just the one gun and his steely gaze. He’s very cool that way.

THE FINAL WORD

Spade looks fantastic and his articulation is just as good as just about any other 1/6 figure I’ve experienced. His build feels pretty solid, though his wrist pegs did appear delicate. The bag and jacket he comes with are some of them most nicely crafted accessories I’ve seen on a figure. The head-sculpt is spot-on and flawless.. and the cheeky extra hand adds a bit of edgy comedy to the character.

While he doesn’t look so amazing showing off his tats, you’re likely to never display him that way so I consider the tattoo elements as sort of a throw-away extra… they’re there if you want them, but no harm done if you don’t.

My single, but fairly significant complaint with Spade is something I can extend to ALL the toys I buy/collect:

When a toy comes with accessories, I expect that toy to be able to USE them without altering the toy or accessory in any way. Otherwise it’s just snake oil.

If I was you, I’d toss the unusable bits in his shoulder bag or leave them in the box and find him a nice quality toy assault rifle, knife and hand gun on the secondary market. That’s what I’m going to do. He’s just too cool of a figure to leave with mediocre equipment!

Whether you have or are looking to purchase Spade J, I think you’ll be getting a pretty good value for what you’re getting, even with some of the accessories lacking luster. When I bought him, I got him for under $100 shipped, that’s an incredibly reasonable price any way you slice it. The unique, dramatic head-sculpt and core character elements are exciting and really stand out. I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing what Damtoys does next in Gangsters Kingdom

PROS:

A fantastic head-sculpt just oozes character (even if that character is Jason Statham)
The leather jacket and shoulder bag is so well sewn and detailed it had my wife gasping
Great articulation throughout
A ton of extra accessories
Overall he’s a very fun figure that looks great on display

CONS: