Before I can get to reviews of some of the great stuff I received for Christmas, I need to cover some of the backlog of items that built up as I was preparing to move. I'll make a bit of progress tonight by covering two recent mini-busts from DC Direct.
DC Direct has more issues with their action figure lines than I have ornaments on my Christmas tree (we have a very big tree), but one thing that I am consistently enjoying from them is their bust and statue output. Their Women of the DCU and Heroes of the DCU Mini Bust lines have been quite long-lived, especially when compared to the short attention spans DCD tends to dedicate to it's action figure series. Recent releases in each line have expanded the range of characters DCD has produced in bust form.
The Raven bust from the Women of the DC Universe Mini-Bust line is an interesting character to have Amanda Conner, the current designer for the series, do, as her art is a bit more cartoonish than the style in which we normally see Raven done, but it actually works quite well at this scale. This bust has been designed with a matching Titans Tower base to the Wonder Girl II Mini-Bust from the Terry Dodson series, and this makes them fit together well stylistically. The face sculpt on Raven is excellent, and her trademark hood overhangs her face as one would expect. The turn of her cape is quite different front the sketch - not sure if this was a packaging consideration or it was turned up so that she could show off more demon daughter booty. I trust it was the first...
A cautionary word about Raven's hood: as I discovered when I accidentally knocked the piece over right after taking this photo - it snaps off rather easily. Sigh...
On to something broken in a different way - I haven't been collecting any of the villains in the Heroes of the DC Universe Mini-Bust series, but for some reason I seem to have a weakness for Bizarro when it comes to collectibles. Gary Frank has captured a humorous aspect to Bizarro's character which really won me over. . Textures play an important part here, and they are all done very well - the wrinkled uniform, scaly skin, and slapped-on look of the backwards "S" symbol are all winners. The square earth base is also a touch of genius. All this plus the added removable "Bizarro No. 1" sign makes this a favourite piece on my shelves!
With a number of announcements for future releases already made, it's great to see both of these lines will continue strongly in 2011. I'll have pics and reviews of Sinestro (yep, I'm in with the villains now...) and Power Girl soon, and I'm very excited about Hawk and Dove next year!
You can see more pics of my DC Direct Women of the DCU Busts at Facebook here and Heroes of the DCU Busts here. You can also comment on this post at the AFB Forum, and of course comment on this post for your chance to win the AFB Comment of the Month Contest for December!
Until next time!
4 comments:
I do like Raven, but I quickly learned she takes up a lot of space with that cape. I had to put her at the back. Nice one Andy!
this time Bizarro takes all the credit & made seem opaque to Raven, for his quite detailed & a bit zombie look & the stupendous base... this is something above the average inevery sense...the villian side rules hehehe...
Don't like the Titans Tower base on Raven, but everything else is awesome (Amanda Conner is awesome).
That Bizarro is quite amazing though, that expression a square planet, its all great.
I like both of these but if i had to pick a favorite of the two am going with Bizarro.
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