Sculpt: Akuma is essentially just a bigger, beefier version of Ken and Ryu. That isn’t to say that he’s not still a unique sculpt - he is. He just shares their look. His gi is nicely sculpted, and I like the way SOTA puts a flexible rubber over-coat on these figures and leaves them with full bare torsos sculpted underneath. That way the sculpt can’t hinder the poseability. Genius! Akuma’s sculpt really shines in his “mean” facial expressions and the chunks and blocks of his very stylized hair. His hands look good too. He has good hands.

Paint: He gets the SOTA drybrushing treatment on his clothing and flesh tones to pull out the texture there. His “wooden” beads are painted up with a good wash to make them, well, wooden.

Articulation: Akuma has the “big guy” model, so no double elbows. Here’s the full breakdown (this is consistent across the board for SF figs): ball neck, ab crunch, waist swivel, ball shoulders, bicep cuts, elbow hinge, wrist twist, wrist hinge, ball hips, thigh cuts, double knee hinges, calve swivel, ankle tilt, toe hinge, and diagonal foot slice for side-to-side ankle tilt action. w00t!

Accessories: Akuma has two swappable heads, and energy effect that clips onto his fist, and an extra pair of swappable “open finger” hands.

Value: Akuma is “marquis” Street Fighter character and he pretty much anchors this series. I consider him a “must have” for the line. If you can snag this figure for 12 bucks or less, you’ll be plenty happy with the purchase.

Sculpt: Birdie wins! In Round 3 I gushed about how much I love Balrog just because he has such a neat design and a clever sculpt. Well, Birdie is this series’ Balrog. His sculpt is awesome! He’s a huge guy, with unrealistic proportions (huge arms and chest, skinny little legs). He has curled up pointed toe boots, skinny jeans, a neat wingtip collared vest, wrist cuffs (with a real chain attached) and… oh look at those heads! Dude has a protruding fu manchu mustache and a freakin’ shark fin mohawk. Then, the swappable had amps things up even further by giving him a huge “tongue sticking out” expression. Ha! I love this guy. SOTA sculpts so much character into their figures that you just can’t help but get “attached” to them.

Paint: Birdie’s paint totally does his sculpt justice. His pants and vest are drybrushed to simulated the look of denim and his boots are brushed as well to give them a worn-in look. He has airbrushing in his arms and chest to accent his mucles and all the other detail work is tight and crisp. Beautiful work, SOTA!

Articulation: He gets the big guy model, so his artic is the same as Akuma’s. His arm motion is a little restricted by how big his muscles are, but it’s not really by that much at all. My Birdie does have a problem with really loose hips and I’ve read that this common for this figure. The looseness does make posing him a bit of a hassle at times.

Accessories: Birdie has the two heads I mentioned, a switchblade comb (yes, it really flips open and shut), and three extra hands: a “thumbs up” hand, an open fingers hand, and a hand to hold his switchblade comb. Neato!

Value: Go buy him! If you’re into this line at all, then this guy is a figure you shouldn’t go without. He’s just too cool. And he has so much fun packed in with all his accessories that he’s really worth pretty much whatever you pay for him!

Sculpt: I guess Remy is SF’s resident emo. Or maybe he’s just really Euro or something. Either way, he’s a tall lanky dude who likes to wear snug-fitting flared cuff jeans and contoured dress shirts while he fights. I can respect that. Actually, Remy’s sculpt is really nice. It’s kind of simple, but that’s more a function of the character design than anything else. He gets two great head sculpts from SOTA. That “blowing hair” thing they did for him is really really neat.

Paint: Remy is the only figure from the entire line that I have bad things to say about in the paint department. I don’t know what happened, but SOTA kinda dropped the ball here. His knees and the balls of his hips are a completely different color than the rest of red in his pants. And he does have some airbrushing on his jeans to highlight them, but there’s no real logic to the application of the brushing so he just kind of ended up looking dirty. Also, my Remy in particular has lots of specks of paint “flecks” on his face and around his body. Overall, he’s just sloppily done. I wonder if I just got “a bad one” or if all Remy’s are like this? Hmmmm…

Articulation: Since Remy’s of slender build he gets double-elbows. All the other artic is the same as noted in Akuma’s breakdown. One really neat thing about Remy is the way SOTA engineered his pants’ cuffs. His lower leg is spliced on about halfway down the calf with a soft rubber overcoating. So the legs of his jeans are actually very pliable at the bottom. This allows his ankel artic to function without being hindered by the sculpt. Brilliant, SOTA. Brilliant!

Accessories: Remy is loaded down. He has the two swappable heads, an energy effect (that I for the life of me can’t figure out how it snaps on his fist), and several pairs of hands. He has a pair of “karate chop” hands and a pair of “open finger, look at my rings!” hands. So, with his standard fists he has six hands altogether.

Value: Hmmm. Remy’s a tough one. He’s a good figure with good accessories, but the paint problems kind of muck him up a bit. He’s a “second string” character in my opinion, so I say pick him up if you find him for sale cheap (as he’s apt to be found on clearance at various online stores) but don’t pay more than 8-10 bucks for him.

Sculpt: Fei Long is the most “human” looking of all the SF figures. That is to say that has realistic proportions and a realistic overall body tone. As such… he doesn’t really fit in! Heh. Really though, SOTA did a nice job with him, as they do with all their figures. But he’s just kind of “boring” looking compared to the other more dynamic characters in this line. He’d make a nice Bruce Lee custom though… Oh, and what the heck is going on with the mouth on that second head? Are he and Guile having a “ridiculous facial expression” contest or something?

Paint: Fei gets the SOTA standard airbrushing on his flesh tones and a nice drybrush on his hair to give texture. His nipples are nicely painted too.

Articulation: He gets the “skinny” guy breakdown, so same as Remy.

Accessories: Fei Long has the two heads I mentioned, a pair of open-finger hands, a pointed finger hand, and a pair of nunchuks connected on a real chain.

Value: Fei Long is pretty cool but to me he’s kind of a “throway character”. There’s nothing particularly “cool” about him. I guess the Street Fighter powers that be decided they needed at least one “just plain old kung fu guy” in the game. I prefer the other more whimsical SF characters, myself. I say grab Fei if you find him in the bargain bin, but don’t go out of your way for him.

Sculpt: Yay, Ibuki! Where I was knocking on Fei Long for being “boring” looking, Ibuki takes up the slack by being the exact opposite of boring! In fact, she’s my favorite female in the line. This chick is just oozing with fun characterization. She has big legs, ploomed out with thick folds of fabric, and cute little bare feet (good work on that toe sculpting, SOTA!). She has big ribbons on her uniform and a stalk of hair that shoots up considerable above her head. Her hands are all really nicely done (and she has a bunch of them). Ibuki comes with her trusy Raccoon sidekick (I forget his name. It’s something like “Dennis” I think) and he’s sculpted well as well.

Paint: Ibuki relies solely on the SOTA airbrush for detail, and it works for her. The raccoon has good paint detail too, actually.

Articulation: She’s a female, so she gets the good breakdown with the double elbows. And her slight build lets her get maximum range out of all of her joints. Her hips are a little limited by the sculpt of her “baggy” thighs, but overall all she’s still the most poseable figure in this Round.

Accessories: Yowza! Ibuki has three pairs of hands - fists, crooked finger hands, and weapon-holding hands, a throwing dagger, her Raccoon pack-in, and a swappable mask/bandanna that kind of replaces her swappable head, since it either obscures or reveals her face. Very clever, SOTA!

Value: I love this figure and I recommend it to everyone! I think you can find her for pretty cheap these days, but she’s easily worth 10-12 bucks.

Check out the Street Fighter checklist to see a full listing of all the various player color variants from this Round.

Sculpt: Guile is one of my favorite figures from this line. He’s big. He’s thick. He looks mean and he looks tough. Everything about his sculpt conveys Guile’s serious attitude about kickin’ some Street Fighter ass! The highlights are his well-detailed boots and super-awesome stove-pipe hairdo. Both of Guile’s head sculpts (he has two swappable heads) are very well done, but the second is a little “too” well done for me. The exaggerated scream is just a little too exaggerated. It’s like SOTA sculpted Guile’s “2 Girls 1 Cup” reaction shot or something.

Paint: The paint is solid. Guile gets his camo patter done nicely on his pants and his boots have good drybrushing to pull out the detail. He has a subtle wash in his hair to add texture there and in his open mouth screaming face there are a lot of subtle paint variations from pink to red inside his gullet to make his gaping maw look authentically… um, mawish.

Articulation: Guile has the SOTA standard breakdown for “big” guys. Ball neck, ab crunch, waist twist, ball shoulders, bicep cuts, single elbows, twist wrists, hinge wrists, ball hips, thigh cuts, double knees, calf swivel, ankle tilt, toe bend, and diagonal foot slice swivel action for that oh-so-coveted side-to-side ankle action! (SOTA gets it right every time on the artic front!)

Accessories: Guile is hooked up. He has the two heads I mentioned, a pair of blue “sonic boom” energy effects that clip on his fists, removable dog tags on a necklace chain, and several swappable hands. He has a flat “saluting” hand, a hand that is sculpted to grip his pocket comb, and his “thumbs up” hand. I really love the comb hand. Awesome, SOTA. Just awesome.

Value: You can’t go wrong with Guile. He’s one of the top figs in the line. No SF collection is complete without him.

Sculpt: So, Adon joined the Street Fighter roster after I’d lost interest in the game (back in the 90s) so I don’t really have any familiarity with the character. But, I’m assuming based on SOTA’s sculpt that the guy is a bit of a jackass. Both of his head sculpts just scream, “I’m a jerk” with their pompous smirks and devilish grins. He has a slighter build than Guile, but his musculature is very pronounced. His boxing trunks looks great, with plenty of detail in the folds and the waistband. And the bandages around his hands and feet are extremely well sculpted with lots of shreds and tears and folds and layers. Nicely done!

Paint: Adon benefits from some heavy airbrushing on his flesh parts and then washing and drybrushing on his tape/bandages on his wrists and ankles. The detail work in his face and eyes is really tight and helps to convey that “attitude” I mentioned above.

Articulation: Since Adon is a little slighter of build he benefits from the double-elbow joints that Guile didn’t get. Everything else is the same as the breakdown for Guile.

Accessories: Adon gets the two swappable heads I mentioned, and three swappable hands. A pair of open-finger “claw” hands and then another one to give the thumbs up. Street Fighters were all about the thumbs up, apparently.

Value: Adon’s a cool fig and he’d look great in any Street Fighter display. He’s not a terribly sought-after figure, so you can still find him these days for pretty cheap. At 10 bucks or less, I’d say he’s a solid purchase. But I wouldn’t pay scalperish prices for him or anything.

Sculpt: Gen is a rarity in the Street Fighter, in that his body is actually mostly covered in clothing. Heh. As such, his sculpt mostly relies on folds and wrinkles and the “motion” of cloth to give him a style and detail. As a novice customizer who has attempted to sculpt clothing folds before, I can tell you that it’s not as easy as it looks. SOTA is packing serious talent in their sculpting team, and it shows through on Gen. Other than his body/clothing detail, he also shines in his two heads, one with just a subtle smirk and other with a plain, stoic expression. His swappable hands are all done well too, especially the “holding chop sticks” ones.

Paint: Gen has airbrushing in his clothing to highlight those folds and creases, and he gets a wash in his hair and beard to add texture there.

Articulation: He has the same POA model as Adon. So, he’s plenty hooked up on the poseability.

Accessories: Gen gets the two head I mentioned, and an assortment of hands. He has a pair of splayed finger hands and a pair of “holding chop sticks” hands with his fingers sort of aligned in a point. These are both in addition to his standard fists, so he has six hands altogether. Neat!

Value: Gen, to me, is kind of like Adon. He’s a great figure and you can still find him these days for pretty cheap. There’s no reason to pass on him if you find him.

Sculpt: Boo-yah! Heh. Balrog’s not necessarily my favorite figure from the SF line, but his sculpt is probably one of my favorites of all my action figures. You can tell SOTA was having fun when they made this guy. He’s huge, and his muscles are ridiculously big. His shoulders are sloped and rounded, like a boxer who is hunched in a guard, and the shreds and tatters of his ripped up undershirt look great. But the reason I love him so much is because of those hilarious expressions on his heads. He has one “gapped tooth” grin (that is more than a little of a likeness to a young Mike Tyson!) and the secone one is this whacked out “big eye little eye” expression that never fails to put a smile on my face. I guess I’m a guy who’s easily entertained… because I really love this figure.

Paint: Balrog has airbrushing on his flesh tones, as is the Sota way. His boots are dry-brushed for detail and his swappable “taped up” hands have equally nice drybrushing done on them as well.

Articulation: Balrog gets the “big guy” breakdown, so he’s lacking the double elbows. He is a little less poseable than some of the other figures in this line because his muscles are just so ridiculously huge for his body, they kind of restrict his range of motion a bit. It’s not that bad, though. It’s mostly only a problem in the hips, and Balrog is after all a boxer. And boxers aren’t really known for doing splits. So it works for him.

Accessories: Balrog has the two awesome heads I talked about above and two pairs of hands: boxing gloves and the “taped up” fists.

Value: If you don’t have him, get him! I consider this figure a “must have”.

Sculpt: Sakura is this wave’s resident female (as each series gets one and only one!). Her sculpt is pretty basic, as is the case with most of the females in this line, but she has some nice detail in her pleated skirt and her little tie and uniform shirt. Her shoes are also nicely done. I dig the little laces.

Paint: Sakura doesn’t have too much happening in terms of paint detail, but it works for her since she’s pretty “anime” looking. She does have the SOTA standard airbrushing happening, and that’s enough to not make her looks flat and cartoony.

Articulation: Sakura has the same breakdown as Gen and Adon. And since she’s a girl and her limbs are small, she really maximizes the range of motion she gets out of her joints.

Accessories: Wow. Where to begin. Sakura comes with a truckload of random stuff. She has two swappable heads, the standard one and a second “close eye open mouth” head. She gets several pairs of hands: a pointing finger hand and a pair of open finger “claw” hands (in addition to her standard fists). She gets a neat little backpack that slings over one shoulder and opens up to hold other stuff. The “other stuff” I refer to is a pair of books, a camera, and a shoe. I don’t know what the deal is with the shoe. I guess she through at people in the game or something.

Value: Sakura just comes with so much extra stuff that it’s impossible not to rate her as a good value. She’s probably my least favorite female in the SF line, but she’s still a really neat figure and a worth addition to the collection.

Check out the Street Fighter checklist for a breakdown of all the player color variants from this Round.

First things first. There are a LOT of figure released in this series if you count up all the different exclusives and armor variations. Here’s how it breaks down:

Campaign Figures: Master Chief, Drone, Arbiter, Brute Stalker, ODST - You can see pics of all these at Spawn.com.

Matchmaking Figures: Red CQB, Blue EOD, White EVA, Tan Scout, Steel ODST, Pink Mark VI, Olive EOD, Cyan ODST, Brown EVA, Gold Mark VI - Whew! You can see pics of all these at Spawn.com as well. And the Spawn site will break down the exclusives for you so you can know where to actually find them (should you want to track down all of them!)

Now, on to my reviews!

Sculpt: All of the Spartan armors reuse the same basic sculpt from the first series. Which is fine, because it’s a good one. The ODST armor is distinguished only by the head, and the new ODST helmet looks pretty good to me. The detail in the sculpts of these figures is pretty great. McFarlane has always done a nice job with packing in lots of sculpt detail.

Paint: Again, it’s all pretty darn good. There is drybrushing on the black body pieces between armor segments to pull out the detail there and the grungy wash and blacklining on the arm pieces really makes them look worn and battle-hardened. Good stuff.

Articulation: The artic model on the Spartans is great. They have upwards of 30 POAs and they are all very functional. If there’s a pose you want to put this guy in, I’m pretty sure you can make it happen. This is a very poseable action figure!

Accessories: The ODST comes with a battle rifle and a frag grenade. Each has a little removable peg that lets the weapon attach to various points on the figure’s body. It’s a neat addition and it adds a lot of versatility to posing and displaying these figures.

Value: The Steel ODST is a Gamestop exclusive, so you won’t find him for less than 13 bucks. I think that’s a bit steep, given that pretty much all the other figures can be had for 9.99 a piece. At 10 bucks, I’d consider him a fair value. But 13 puts him in the “red” zone for me.

Sculpt: Like the ODST, the Scout permutation is just the basic Spartan body plus new shoulder pieces, head, and chest piece. Those three pieces, however, do a lot to distinguish this guy as a unique figure. I love the head sculpt of the Scout. The helmet is pointed and angular and very sharp looking, like an arrow. The body and shoulder pieces are equally nice and every panel and rivot is sharp and symmetrical. Very good sculpt.

Paint: Same as with the ODST. Plenty of washes and drybrushes here to accent the great sculpt. And the detailing work is all crisp with no slop or bleed.

Articulation: Same as all the other Spartans. Great poseability.’

Accessories: The Scout also gets a battle rifle and a grenade, but for some reason the Scout’s BR is significantly smaller than the same gun that comes with the ODST. I think McToys goofed on that one.

Value: I got mine from Amazon for 9.99 with no tax and free super-saver shipping. That, to me, is a great values since this a very nice toy.

Sculpt: I think the EOD is my favorite armor permutation of the series. I really like the robotic look of the head and the “heavy” sculpt of the unique chestplate. Again, McFarlane has done a great job of keeping all the panel edges straight and clean and symmetrical. I think the symmetry of the sculpts on these figs is the thing that impresses me the most.

Paint: Same as the other Spartans. All good.

Articulation: Again, same as the others.

Accessories: The EOD gets a shotgun as his primary weapon and the obligatory grenade. The shotty is a very cool looking weapon and it adds a lot to the figure in terms of display variety.

Value: This was another 9.99 Amazon deal for me. He’s well worth the ten bucks, in my opinion.

Sculpt: The Brute Stalker reuses the basic body type of the Brute Chieftain from the first series with a couple key exceptions: his head and his armor pieces. The head is really awesome on this guy. The helmet is removable and you get see his little noggin’ with his angry, toothy snout and tiny, beady little eyes! The new armor pieces on this figure really help distinguish it from the chieftain. Side by the side, the two look totally different. My only complaint about the sculpt is that without the skirt pieces that the chieftain had, the stalker’s legs look disproportionately long to me. It’s not that bad though.

Paint: The paint job is great. He has plenty of dry-brushing to highlight his sculpt details and there is a ton of fine detailing done on all the lines and patterns in his armor that are all clean and sharp. McFarlane should hold a painting workshop and invite Hasbro over to show them how it’s done right!

Articulation: The Brute Stalker is every bit as poseable as the Spartan armors. I’ll try to break it down: Barbell double ball neck, ball waist, ball shoulders, bicep cuts, double-swivel hinge elbows (swivel at either end of the joint), ball wrist, T-cut hip joint, semi-ball hip, hip swivel, double-swivel hinge knees, and double-swivel hinge ankles. So he can keep his feet flat on the ground from any stance. The articulation model on these figures is one of the best I’ve ever seen on any toy. Really nicely engineered by McFarlane.

Accessories: The Brute Stalker is dual-wielding a pair of bladed pistols that look wicked awesome. It’s a bit tough getting them in out of his hands though. He also has the pegs to attach them to a Spartan’s body, should he be lucky enough to kill him and swipe them from him!

Value: At ten bucks this guy is a steal. Go get one!

Sculpt: Arby is looking good. His proportions seem just about right and he has a ton of ornate detail in his golden armor pieces. His face sculpt too is a real standout, with his wide-jawed toothy screaming expression.

Paint: Like all the other figures in this line, the paint is great. The Arbiter has a wash to his gold armor that seeps into the grooves and lines of the segments and the flesh of him underneath is drybrushed to highlight the sculpt of his hide. His face is painted very well, and his little teeth are kind of yellowed and dirty looking. Awesome.

Articulation: Arby has a little less artic than the Brute and the Spartans, but he’s still very poseable. He has single hinge elbows and knees, and just true ball hips. Pretty much everything else is the same though. He has good shoulder artic and great ankle artic, so he can keep those big feet flat on the ground in wide stances. He poses really well.

Accessories: The Arbiter comes with an Energy Sword that looks great but is a royal pain to get in and out of his hand because of the way his fingers are sculpted. It also has a slot for a weapon peg and the Arbiter has weapon peg slots on his body as well, but he didn’t actually come with any pegs. Bummer.

Value: Not bad. If you can get him for 10 I bet you’ll be happy with him.

Master Chief - This Master Chief is pretty much identical to the MC from the first series, except he comes with a new, different, bigger and more bad-ass gun. The gun wasn’t incentive enough for me to buy a second MC though.

ODST - The regular Orbital Shock Drop Trooper has some downfalls. To be in proper scale, he had to be tiny. And in this tiny size McFarlane short-changed him on articulation. His hips are pretty much a t-crotch. He is considerably less poseable than the spartan figures. At 10 dollars per fig, I couldn’t see buying something as small and poorly articulated as him.

Drone - The Drone is actually really cool: very well sculpted and very well articulated. But… He’s huge! It’s way out of scale compared to the size the Drones are in the game. That wasn’t really the dealbreaker for me, though. I just passed because I wasn’t too keen on the “giant bug” concept of him. I’d rather just buy another Brute to add to my enemy ranks!

Spartans - You really can’t go wrong with any of the Spartan armor permutations. I just passed on the others available because I’m trying to limit myself to just one figure of each armor type in this line. If I were a completist, this line would be brutal on my bank account…

As I mentioned above, this line only lasted through two series, although there were also several variants and exclusives that broadened things out a bit.

Series 1 was Hellboy, Liz, Kriegaffe #10 and Lobster Johnson. Check out Mezco’s archive to see all the variants and the entire assortment.

Series 2 delivered Rocket Pack Hellboy, the Alien, Roger and Johann. You can see all of them in Mezco’s wave 2 Archive.

Now on to my reviews!

Sculpt - The thing that sets these comic Hellboy figures apart from most other comic figures is the exceptional degree to which their sculpts capture the original artwork. If Mike Mignola were a sculptor himself I doubt even he could have produced a more authentic version of his creation than what Mezco has provided. From the big, blocky, angular torso to the disproportionate limbs to the tiny needle ankles, Hellboy is spot on to the source work. And the little divots and pock marks all over really add to his detail and help capture that comic book look even better. Amazing stuff here.

Paint - Mezco is kind of the master of the airbrush. They do a great job of detailing the musculature on their figs with subtle airbrushing down in the grooves. HB also has a black wash that pulls out this little pocks and divots. His belt has a lot of drybrushing and detail work, as do his boots.

Articulation - HB has a ball neck, ball torso joint, waist swivel, double-disk shoulders, single elbows, forearm cuts, wrist hinges, ball hips, thigh cuts, and single knees. He also has a couple POAs in his tail. The only thing he’s missing is any kind of ankle artic, but given how small his ankles are and how heavy he is, I doubt ankle artic would have worked out very well.

Accessories - Hellboy comes with his big gun (which fits nicely in his belt holster) as well as a horseshoe and a radio/walkie talkie. I gather the horseshoe is some significant relic of his from the comics.

Value - At 15 bucks, you’re getting a very well sculpted and detailed figure that is big and sturdy and quite poseable. If you’re a toy fan or a fan of HB comics, this guy is a must have.

Sculpt - From a sculpt standpoint, Liz is every bit as awesome as Hellboy. Her jacket is big and thick and has lots of deep folds and ripples. Her gloves look great and her body overall has a pretty nice shape to it. But where Liz really shines is in her “goth” looking face sculpt. She seems so despondent and unhappy to be here. It’s awesome!

Paint - Liz really benefits from a nice paint job. From the detailing in her hair to the character in her eyes to the drybrushing on her coat and her boots and her backpack, there is no shortage of paint apps here. Everything is very nicely done.

Articulation - Boo! What is it with Mezco and short-changing their Liz figures on the artic? Liz has everything Hellboy has minus the mid-torso joint (which is fine, because that joint would have looked strange on a female figure) and … bicep cuts! Why no bicep cuts? Gah! This would have been a “figure of the year” contender if it just had those two POA. I mean, Liz comes with a cigarette accessory that she can’t bring anywhere near her face because her arms don’t bend in. Bummer.

Accessories - Liz gets two different flame effects that plug into her left hand, as well as a big BPRD backpack and the little fiery cigarette mentioned above. Pretty neat.

Value - The value on Liz is good. You won’t feel any buyer’s remorse if you pick this figure up but you probably will find yourself scratching your head as to why she has no bicep cuts…

Sculpt - Heck yeah! Lobster Johnson is another outstanding sculpt from Mezco. From his “I mean business” facial expression to his trademark goggles and all the pockets, wrinkles, folds and zippers of his uniform, this one very well done figure!

Paint - The pain is also great. There are a couple of tones of orange shading in the lenses of his goggles that makes them almost seem to glow. He is drybrushed over his uniform to pull out the detail, and the fine work in his lobster logo and on the accessories on his belt is all tight and clean.

Articulation - LJ is very poseable. He has a double ball jointed neck, mid-torso joint, waist cut, ball shoulders, single elbows, bicep cuts, ball wrists, ball hips, thigh cuts, single knees, and ankle hinges. You couldn’t really ask for much more in terms of articulation.

Accessories - He gets his pistol (that fits very snugly in his holster) and a big green brain on a poseable wire-insert stem. I need to read more of the comics to figure out what that’s supposed to be.

Value - LJ is the resident clearance bin fodder from the HB Comic line so you should be able to pick him up for 8-10 bucks, and at that price he’s a steal!

Sculpt - Johann rules! I hope the pics captured this guy’s awesomeness. Johann himself is extremely detailed, with a great looking suit with a neat vest, lots of flaps and pockets, and really cool boots and gloves. But where he really sets himself apart is in his swappable ectoplasmic effects hands! One has the screaming face of a ghost sculpted in and the other is a long hand reaching out with crooked fingers. This guy looks great!

Paint - Johann’s uniform is drybrushed all over with a bluish grey, and it does the job of pulling out all the detail in his sculpt. The BPRD logo on the back of his vest is tight and crisp and he has gloss black on his boots and gloves to make them look shiny and rubbery. All good stuff!

Articulation - Johann has a ball neck, mid-torso joint, double-disk shoulders, single elbows, wrist twists, ball hips, single knees, and ankle hinges. The only thing he’s missing is thigh cuts, but the ball hips rotate around well and it’s nice to finally get a figure in this series with ankle artic, so that sort of makes up for it.

Accessories - Johann has those two awesome swappable hands I described above, and that’s it. But what else does he really need?!

Value - I love this figure. If you’re at all a fan of Hellboy then this guy should be at the top of your list to add to the collection!

Sculpt - They just keep getting better! As much as I love Johann, I really think Roger is my favorite figure from this line. This guy just has way too much going on with his sculpt. I mean, look at that face! I tried to capture it from different angles. The emotion and character in his face sculpt is mind-blowing. And everything below that is good too. His body looks just like the naked rock guy that he is, with his clenched fist and big bare feet. His wooden block cod-piece is striated and splintered and looks just like an actual block of aged wood. This guy looks amazing in-hand.

Paint - Roger’s paint is simple but effective. He mostly has airbrushing on his body, with a subtle wash down in the pocks of his sculpt like Hellboy has. His accessories (his vest and book) have a lot of drybrushing to pull out their detail. And like Johann, the BPRD logo on the back of his vest is sharp and clean. No bleed or slop.

Articulation - Roger might be the most poseable figure in this series. He isn’t missing any key POAs. This guy poses really nicely.

Accessories - He just has his vest and book, but I can’t really think of anything else they could have included with him. The book itself was a nice touch.

Value - Like Johann, I consider this guy a must-have if you’re into the line. And Roger is actually the “cheapo” of the series. It’s pretty easy to find him on sale/clearance for around 10 bucks. He’s worth 15, but at 10 he’d be a steal.

This is one of several exclusive versions of Hellboy that included a soft-goods hand-stitched coat. The figure itself is the exact same as the standard release shown above, so the real draw here is… the coat! This particular version also came with an assortment of floating heads, but those haven’t shown up in the mail yet. I’ll add them later.

Abe was Mezco’s 2007 SDCC exclusive and that was a nasty move, in my opinion. I hate it when companies make unique (and highly sought after!) character con exclusives. Nevertheless, Abe has a great sculpt with excellent paint detail and solid articulation. He comes with a removable vest and a spear/harpoon. To pick this guy up now you’re looking at paying at least 30 bucks for him. Tough to rate the value as particularly good when you’re paying double for him what you’d pay for his cohorts, but it’s Abe. If you love the books, you’re gonna have to have him.

Sculpt & Detail - Ken reuses the Ryu body from Round 1, which makes sense, since he and Ryu were practically clones in the game. As such, the detailing in the folds of his gi and the deep grooves of his musculature are all sharp and precise. He has two heads each with unique expressions, one featuring a fierce gritted teeth look and the other more of an expression of smug confidence. Each is really well done and carries through a lot of emotion.

Paint - The Sota figures seem simplistic as far as paint goes, but close inspection will show lots of airbrushing in his musculature and the folds of his clothing and nice shading in his hair and on the little details in his costume. My Ken has a little slop here and there and a few blemishes, so he’s not perfect. But there’s nothing that really “ruins” the figure.

Articulation - Like I said above, he’s a Ryu re-use so he’s got all those POAs. Pretty much everything you could ask for.

Accessories - Ken is loaded down with extras, as you’d expect from this line. He has two swappable heads as mentioned above, and two extra swappable hands - one giving a “come and get it” finger crook and the other delivering the thumbs up. He also has a snap-on “power effect” red streak thing that clips over his fist and makes him look all powerful and stuff.

Value - You can’t go wrong with this figure. At 12-15 bucks, he’s worth every penny. (Actually, pretty much all SF figs are worth whatever you pay for them. This is an amazing line!)

Sculpt & Detail - Meowwwww. It’s a cute chick in a thong! Heh. Actually, Cammy turned out really nice. It’s tough to sculpt a buff superhero type female and have her still look feminine but Sota nailed it. Her musculature is just detailed enough to make her look fit without being too much and making her look mannish. Her face sculpts are very simple, like Chun Li’s, leaving them more like blank canvasses on which to work work with paint.

Paint - Yep. Cammy is very clean and crisp all over. The camo splotches on her legs are all precise with clean edges and her face has sharp painting in the eyes and on her little cheek scar. The braids of her hair have nice shading and all the other detail work is very nicely done.

Articulation - Cammy has it all. Ball neck, ball shoulders, bicep cuts, double elbows, ab crunch, waist twist, wrist hinge and swivel, ball hips, thigh cuts, double knees, ankle tilt, toe artic, and side-to-side foot pivot. That’s the standard breakdown for all SF figs that are “lean”. The thicker guys lose the double-elbows. It’s the consistency in the articulation model that really makes this line stand out.

Accessories - Like Ken, Cammy has no shortage of extras. She gets the two swappable heads - one normal and one winking, a clip on headset communicator piece, three extra swappable hands so she has both a set of fists, a set of karate chop hands, and a hand flashing the piece sign. Plenty of playability here!

Value - Yeah. I might just nix the value critique from these reviews. They’re all worth it!

Sculpt & Detail - Vega is a sexy beast. He has very pronounced musculature in his pectorals and his abs. He has great sculpt detail in his pants and socks and shoes, and his two heads both have really cool looking hair pieces. I also like the flowing sash and crooked fingers of his various hands.

Paint - Like Ken, Vega has a few blemishes here and there, but overall he’s very nice. His wrapping snake tattoo is the highlight, and it has clean edges and its very tight all around. He has good drybrushing in his shoes and some airbrushed highlights to his clothing. Good stuff.

Articulation - Same model as Cammy. I think I counted something like 32 POA.

Accessories - Vega gets his standard head plus an unmasked “tongue out” head. He has two extra swappable hands and his little rose to toss out after the fight is won. Neato!

Value - Awesome figure. Go buy him.

Sculpt & Detail - First thing you’ll notice is that not only is T.Hawk huge, but he’s really heavy too! This is guy is one big hunk of plastic! His face sculpt is tremendous, with lots of angry nobility showing through. He has big, buff chest and arms, and the little tassels on his vest and boots are soft rubber and very flexible.

Paint - Like the other figures in this line most of T.Hawk’s paint detail is tight and crisp and then he gets subtle airbrushing on his skin tones and clothing to pull out the detail. He gets some gritty brush work done on his boots to make them look worn and weathered. Solid paint apps here.

Articulation - Standard artic model for the big guys - which means everything but double elbows. T.Hawk’s poseability is really high. For a large figure with big limbs, he gets a great range of motion out of his joints. His lower legs can fold almost all the way back to touch the backs of his thighs. On other lines, like Marvel Legends, often the bigger figures can’t get that kind of range even with double joints. Sota engineers their figures very well.

Accessories - T.Hawk is a big figure so he comes with a little less than the others. He has his bird that mounts on a peg into his shoulder and he comes with a pair of swappable “slap hands”.

Value - This is a huge, well-detailed figure. He probably gives you the most bang for your buck of anyone in this series.

Sculpt & Detail - The psychotic Brazilian mutant has just leaped off your video game screen and onto your toy shelf! From his wild chunky hair, to his tuft of chest fur, to his shredded pants legs and big gnarly finger and toenails, Blanka is a work of art. Very nicely done, Sota!

Paint - Blanka gets shading done in the recesses of his hair piece and nice drybrushing on his pants to simulate the texture of fabric. He has some soft airbrushing on his green skin to highlight his musculature, as is the Sota way.

Ariculation - He get’s the big guy model with single elbows. And just like T.Hawk, everything works smoothly and gets a good range of motion. He’s a very poseable little toy!

Accessories - Blanka wins the price for most accessories in this series. He gets a swappable open mouth “screaming” head, two swappable hands so he has fists and splayed finger hands. And he also comes with a slice of watermelon, a pineapple, and a little skull. Super-neato!

Sota released a ton of different player color variants for all of these figures. To get a complete list of everything that was available, scope the Street Fighter Checklist.

Mezco actually released two series of figures for the first movie. There was a series 1 and a series 1.5. Here’s the breakdown:

Series 1 - Hellboy with Plastic Coat & Corpse, Gritting Teeth Hellboy with No Coat, Abe Sapien, Kroenen, Rasputin with Baby Hellboy, Sammael, and several variants. Check out Mezco’s Series 1 Archive for pics of all these figs.

Series 1.5 - Anung un Rama HB, Shirtless Hellboy, Battle Damaged Hellboy, Officer Kroenen, and Battle Damaged Abe. You can see pics of all these figs in Mezco’s Series 1.5 Archive.

Now onto my reviews! I’ve only managed to get a hold of a few of these figures, so just consider this a broad cross-section of the line.

I should have saved this guy for last but I just couldn’t wait to start talking about him. This is the SDCC exclusive from 2004. It’s a high-end version of Hellboy that features a cloth pleather coat, a pewter Samaritan hand-gun and a rock-like right hand of doom. This figure is one of the highlights of my entire toy collection and easily one of my favorite action figures of all time.

Sculpt & Detail - I could make this a very simple review by just saying “perfect”. From the head down, there are no flaws and nothing I could see improving upon. HB’s stern grimace in his face sculpt captures the character perfectly. The zipper and collar and texture of his shirt is… um, perfect. His pants, clothing wrinkles, boot cuffs… all… per… fect. And then there’s the right hand of doom - it’s cast in that super-hard plastic like what you see on those really expensive sideshow collectibles. It actually feels like rock and it makes a little “gritting” sound when you turn the wrist. It’s crazy. And the gun is pewter. Yeah. That sucker has some heft to it. Hellboy is sporting an actual metal gun! Awesome! And that’s just Hellboy. Ivan (the reanimated corpse on his back) is equally exquisite. Check the close-up pic of his face. Mezco is sitting on some serious talent in their sculpting department.

Paint - Yeah. Same as above. Flawless. Wash in the RHOD. Dry brush on the pants. Crisp clean lines in the eyes and on the costume details. Tons of gritty detail in the belt and the gun has a grungy wash to it. And then look at Ivan. He really looks like he’s been rotting in the ground for a hundred years. Outstanding.

Articulation - HB’s got all the basics. Ball neck, ball shoulders, single elbows, swivel wrists, ab cruch, waist swivel, ball hips, thigh cuts, single knees, hinge ankles and side-to-side ankle rock. He also has a couple POAs in his tail. And Ivan got some artic too! He has swivel shoulders and a swivel neck. Nice touch, considering he was an accessory that really could have been pre-posed. But the ability to position his head really gives him a lot of character and allows for some really neat poses with these two together.

Accessories - Well, you’ve got Ivan with his little rope noose. And then there’s the coat. (One of the finest pieces of soft goods I’ve ever seen on any figure. It has a liner, double collar, double stitching all around, plastic buttons, feux pockets, and a little burned in stamp of the BPRD logo on the collar.). Plus, of course, the pewter Samaritan!

Value - This fig sold for 25 bucks at the con. And it’s well worth that considering the quality. These days you can still find them on Ebay and I’ve seen him going for around 40 there. If you’re a fan of the character and you want a definitive Hellbo