Wednesday, June 15, 2011

SCRE4M: Ghost Face "Zombie Mask" Figure Review

Flavor Text:


"Ghost Face (The Icon of Halloween):

The icon of Halloween returns with this brand new action figure complete with knife accessory and over 14 points of articulation.  Highly detailed and fully poseable.  Watch for more Ghost Face figures & collectibles coming soon!"



Sculpt:


Although I liked NECA's utilization of cloth for their Dante figure, I'm not a fan of "cloth" incorporated Ghost Face figure.  While the cloth streams are appropriate for GF's elbows, the cloth skirt isn't impressive and is quite a distraction from the overall figure.  The top-half of Ghost Face is adorned with wrinkles and creases in his outfit.  However, as your eye wanders downward, the semi-transparent and unwrinkled fabric "skirt" just stares conspicuously right in your face.


Despite all the expertly sculpted wrinkles and creases of the overall body of the figure, Ghost Face is one plain-looking figure.  After all, there's only so much you can do with someone dressed in all black.  However, the sculpt of Ghost Face's hood is actually very good.  The fold and wrinkles (all over the hood) are realistic and there's even a tip left on the back of the hood which you can slightly fiddle with.


The "hood" part of the figure is composed of two separate pieces: the inner ("meat and potatoes") piece is sculpted with the Ghost Face mask; the outer piece is composed of slightly pliable plastic.  Unfortunately, I couldn't separate the outer piece from the inner piece, most likely because it's glued or molded together.  It's too bad because it would've been interesting to see Ghost Face without the outer cowl.


If you lift up Ghost Face's "skirt" (sorry, old habits die hard) you'll notice the ugly-looking joints.  When I say ugly-looking, I'm referring mostly to Ghost Face's "tight jeans" butt.  While this type of joint/sculpt gives Ghost Face maximum leg articulation, there's got to be a better way because it looks real ugly.  And I mean "Marvel Legends" and "G.I. Joe" type ugly.


There's also space right below the [swivel] waist where the elastic of the fabric "skirt" is kept in place.


However, the sculpted creases and wrinkles detail found all over the bottom-half (the pants and pant legs) are superb.  It's also interesting to see how NECA's sculptors went about covering the knee articulation (the front of both knees are sculpted long enough to cover the joints).


Like your average figure, on the bottom of Ghost Face's right foot, you'll see "NECA 20XX Made in China" stamp.




Articulation:

Ghost Face has seen the light

Ghost Face is endowed with: ball-jointed neck, ball-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed elbows, ball-jointed wrists, swivel waist, ball-jointed hips, ball-jointed knees, and ball-jointed ankles.


Although Ghost Face has a fair amount of articulation, there aren't many poses you can do given Ghost Face's occupation.  The figure's range of movement is also restricted by the strange ball-jointed hip design and the fabric "skirt".  You may recall NECA's previous offering of the Ezio action figure (from Assassin's Creed 2) and the similar ball-jointed hip articulation.  Trying to pose Ezio with that articulation was more trouble than it's worth.  My only guess as to why they've incorporated the ball-jointed hip into these figures is due to budgeting concerns.

I do love how NECA finds innovative ways to enhance their offerings to their customers, whether it be through incorporating LED lights or including fabric with their figures.  However, the fabric "skirt" falls short and is more of a hindrance.  I don't understand the purpose of incorporating articulation in the bottom half of the figure just to have it restricted by a fabric "skirt".




Paint Application:


A character that dresses up in all black is pretty hard to screw up, right?  Unfortunately, under Ghost Face's fabric "skirt" was a strange splotch of light brown paint (not really sure how that even happened).  Also the color of Ghost Face's jeans is navy blue; I don't know if that's movie-accurate or not for the Ghost Face character.  There's also some "yellow stain" marks in Ghost Face's mouth and some paint missing from it as well.



Accessories:


Ghost Face comes with his trusty slasher knife, which fits perfectly in his [right] hand.  I've read from other reviews that the knife wasn't big enough, but I disagree.  In proportion to the Ghost Face figure, I think the knife is just about the right size.  I do wish however, that the knife handle were a little bit longer, that's all.  It would've been interesting to see NECA include a "chase" version of a bloodied knife, since NECA is well-known to do these types of variations across their action figure lines.



Packaging:


Ghost Face comes in your typical clamshell packaging with a display front that is large enough to show the entire figure and accessory.  The background design of splashed blood is nice and fitting of Ghost Face himself.




Price:


I purchased this online via eBay for $12.00 (a damn good deal, if I may say so myself).  I admit, the price is what prompted my purchase.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have even bothered with this figure.




Additional Information:

Product Development
Randy Falk

Sculpt
Kyle Windrix

Paint
Jon Wardell
Geoffrey Trapp

Fabrication
Brad Haskins

Prototypes
Adam Smith

Photography
Stephen Mazurek

Packaging
Nick Scragg

Special Thanks
Fun World Staff
Nate Ragon




The Good:

* Got it for a relatively cheap price.
* Impressive details (creases and wrinkles) in outfit.
* Given more than enough articulation.



The Bad:

* Fabric "skirt" is distracting and doesn't provide that much space for extreme leg poses.
* Finding hairballs and strings each time I handle the figure.
* Strange and ugly hip joints (reminds me of Ezio's flawed articulation).


The Ugly:

* The fabric "skirt"!



Score: 

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