Once again, Boss Fight Studio reuses tooling from the first release of a figure to add some new life into an updated version of that character. Jenny, a cat creature known as an Artificer Witch of Aldeberan has always been Bucky’s First Mate, and is also from a race of creatures with supernatural mystical abilities. This race of creatures can fire psionic blasts, and also has the ability to project themselves into the astral plane. According to Larry Hama (who wrote a spectacular new filecard for this figure) Jenny used her astral projection form to infiltrate KOMPLEX.
This version of Jenny is reminiscent of version 1, only as an astral projection, is produced in semi-translucent plastic, a somewhat smokey clear color that looks impressive enough, only made more impressive by the addition of pearlescent plastic at the hair and tail, giving the character and the figure a fantastic spectral appearance.
The paint applications are similar to the original Jenny, but side-by-side you can really tell just how different they are. Blue trim on the pearl hair and blue jewels instead of purple, she’s a vibrant color variation of the original release, which also serves a clear purpose in the story as well. An amazing looking new version of an already great base figure.
Along with the new colors, the figure maintains the flawless sculpting of the original, with an elaborately sculpted, dynamic hairdo that doesn’t impact posing thanks to the excellent counterbalance of the sculpted tail. Like Bucky himself, she looks animated and full of character, yet is fully poseable. She has incredibly narrow limbs, which are still nicely movable.
Toy collectors (and certainly kids) can often miss the connection between action figures and art, but the fact is, for nearly every toy out there, there are strong influences of artistic ability and intrinsic talent woven within the design work of the figure. Yes, sometimes budget and money gets in the way of a designer doing what they want, but Boss Fight Studio seems very able to cram as much unique artistic ability into each figure they produce.
Jenny is certainly no exception. The combination of the fantastic translucent color pallet and the pearl shine on the trim is spectacular, and makes this figure a truly remarkable addition to an already impressive line up of cartoon animals.
Accessories
Like the Stealth Mission Bucky, this Jenny update comes with all of the same accessories, just in different colors. The hands are semi-clear, the faces are all that great pearl color, and the energy projections are a vibrant clear blue instead of the pinkish/purple. Beyond those aesthetic changes, they’re all just as fun and great as the originals and capable of enhancing the basic figure to great levels.
I still love how the energy beams and magical projections form together to look like she’s launching magic energy bolts at those nasty Storm Toads, and the facial expressions are unique and fun as always.
As I continue to mention, the package art is really great. Gorgeous artwork, and an always enjoyable file card update by Larry Hama himself.
What a neat update. Striking, beautiful new paint scheme laid over an already impressive figure, gives us a great second version of Jenny. Two waves into this new Bucky O’Hare line and already two more Jenny figures than the previous line could boast. That’s progress! 😀
First Mate Jenny
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
4.2
Summary
Jenny unleashes her mystical psionic powers in a great way with this action figure update featuring gorgeous semi-translucent plastic and a unique pearlescent paint sheen. A truly remarkable looking figure that looks as great as it poses and plays. Another winner in the Bucky O’Hare line.
It’s a fact of life these days that most action figures are sculpted and tooled with multiple uses in mind in order to offset the costs of creating the tooling, and Bucky O’Hare is no different. What matters is how those parts are reused and to what effect. With a line like Vitruvian HACKS, the parts are designed to be interchangeable, so being able to swap in and out various parts goes a long way towards giving the figures new life, even if there isn’t a whole lot of new tooling. This is far more challenging with a line like Bucky O’Hare, which have characters very uniquely styled and sculpted, so repaints have to be done in an effective way.
So far, so good.
“Stealth Mission” Bucky O’Hare is a great looking update to the initial release of the Bucky figure. According to the file card, Bucky’s suit contains holographic technology that allows it to be put into “stealth mode” with the various shades of green and black, including some really awesome camouflage on the green, furry flesh.
Stealth Mission Bucky O’Hare is an exceptionally fun (and functional) repaint. His base uniform is an awesome darker green/teal color which looks dark and looks as if it would blend with a stealth mission, but still has a fantastic shade of green that looks excellent and meshes with the lighter green of Bucky’s skin well.
Where the original Bucky is vibrant and bright, the Stealth Mission upgrade is more subdued, yet still very colorful. I love the black trim and offset on the gloves, belt and boots, and I really dig the face camouflage as well, which helps bring the color pallet of the entire figure down into a more stealth aesthetic. He looks really gorgeous, and I dig the idea of a tech oriented uniform that can shift in and out of stealth at a whim.
Like the original figure, this update has immaculate sculpting, posing, balance and articulation, a perfect example of what an amazing toy design team are capable of. He can stand on one large foot, move seamlessly, pose well, and the interchangeable hands and faces work very, very well. You may have to use a little heat to soften the material, but beyond that, the way this figure moves and balances is close to perfection. It’s incredible to me that a figure designed to be so animated in aesthetic manages to maintain such a supreme sense of articulation, but the capable folks behind Boss Fight Studio simply make it work, every single time. Great stuff.
Accessories
Stealth Mission Bucky comes with the same gear as the first release, only in darker colors (and with the appropriate face paint) and work just as well as the previous ones. I love the different facial expressions along with the different posed hands, they are awesome conceptually and in execution.
Like the original release, the packaging is spectacular with a really appealing layout and brand new file cards written by the man himself, Larry Hama.
What a great action figure line this is. Each release is chock full of fun, character, personality, and style, all while being flat out greatly executed action figures. Huge continued kudos on these, Boss Fight.
Stealth Mission Bucky O'Hare
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
4.5
Summary
As Boss Fight Studio’s first “non canon” Bucky O’Hare figure, they did a really great job putting a new coat of paint on an already amazing action figure. I love the Stealth Mission concept and the paint applications manage to be “stealthy” without being drab or boring and balance both angles remarkably well. All the fun of the original release with a little twist. A great update, for sure.
When Boss Fight Studio first announced the Bucky O’Hare license, there was an almost immediate enthusiasm from the fandom and collector base, many of them inquiring as to when Boss Fight might tackle Deadeye Duck, the iconic four-armed, cigarette smoking Chief Gunner’s Mate of the Righteous Indignation. Many folks were wondering just how well the figure could be translated at this scale.
The answer should be obvious – they absolutely killed it. The first thing that strikes home about Deadeye Duck is the engineering, and somehow, someway, the folks at Boss Fight managed to engineer the torso to not be a whole lot larger or longer, yet still flawlessly maintain a four-armed buck that is aesthetically pleasing and 100% functional.
Mind = blown.
Each arm is individually pegged and positioned with their ball joint shoulders so they all move independently of each other, allowing for some amazingly flexible poses with the various pistols that Deadeye is packaged with. Each arm moves freely with full articulation, or they can be positioned together in various action-packed poses, either concentrating all of his fire on a central location or systematically blasting away at four separate targets.
It’s pretty amazing.
Colored in his trademark shades of orange and yellow, he looks like he stepped right out of the pages of the comic book or toy package, with an exceptionally emotive facial sculpt (with swappable beaks!) and like the Bucky figures, universal pegs that can hold the pistols in various ways. I love the sculpting his head with the trademark eye patch and cap, as well as the tooth-filled smirking bill.
Like Bucky and Jenny, the joints move freely, but are tight and rigid, allowing for posing and holding those poses very well. The oversized feet give a great sense of balance and aesthetics, making the figure easy to stand in any number of poses. Add to that, the character-driven alternate hands and bills, and you’ve got a ton of play value crammed into a very small, cost-effective package. One heck of a great figure and the best Bucky figure to date, based purely on engineering.
Accessories
As mentioned in the review itself, Deadeye comes with several alternate hands (including one holding his trademark piece of chalk cigarette... (apparently I need to bone up on my Bucky -ed) and different expressive bills. Also, he comes with four pistols, with three different sculpts. It would have been easy to just put four of the same pistol in there, but they looked at the various weapon designs and actually gave him different, more accurate pistols. Excellent work on the accessories, and they’re all easily swappable with existing parts.
Do I have to keep talking about the packaging? Well, when it’s as awesome as it continues to be here, yeah. Larry continues to do great work on the filecards, and Brian Hickey nails the layouts.
Wave 2 brought us two repaints (both of which were still pretty amazing) and then absolutely blasted this figure out of the park. Not just the best Bucky figure to date, but one of the greatest examples of engineering, accessories, and execution I’ve seen on a figure in this scale or any other. What a terrific pleasure this one was!
First Mate Jenny
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
5
Summary
Perfection in plastic. Fantastic engineering, terrific sculpting, picture perfect paint applications, and a wonderful character all wrapped up into a single spectacular package. An awesome addition to the Bucky O’Hare figure assortment, filling a key character role and executing it to perfection. Don’t wait – get this one!
So I’ve had these figures in my hands for a short period of time, and wanted to be sure to do as thorough a review as I possibly could. It’s obvious that Jason and the folks involved with this project put a ton of blood, sweat and tears into it, so it seemed only fair that I spend a fraction of that time doing the actual review.
The short version is – these action figures are a ton of fun. The fact that he was able to put together this Kickstarter, get these things produced and shipped in such a short amount of time is astounding, and the end result on quality is really impressive.
There are some (very minor) areas of improvement, which Jason has acknowledged, but I think we can all feel comfortable those things will be addressed going forward, and to be honest, they’re so minor that they didn’t significantly impact my enjoyment of the figures. These are really, really cool. The Kickstarter is over, but all of these action figures are available at SperoToys.com. Check them out, I think you’ll really dig ’em.
The collectible action figure landscape is changing. It may, in fact, have already changed, especially when looking at figures in the 1:18 scale. For a few years now, offerings of quality figures at that scale have shifted out of the retail place and into another realm – Kickstarter. Since Marauder and Boss Fight Studio combined to blow the doors off the 1:18 collectible action figure market on Kickstarter a few years ago, there’s been several other iterations, and so far, Animal Warriors of the Kingdom are among the first of that second generation to deliver.
Considering the potential obstacles and bottle necks, the fact that these figures were turned around in less than a year is truly remarkable. In fact, the target delivery date of the Kickstarter was November, 2018 and here we sit nearly seven months ahead of that target with many folks getting these figures in hand. An impressive first attempt by Jason Bienvenu and Spero Studios.
As for the figures themselves – again, a very impressive introduction to action figure making.
What I love most about this line is its refreshing return to the action figure roots that brought most of us to the table. Brightly colored, vibrant characters, a property completely self-developed and not merely licensed out from the latest multi-million dollar brand, Animal Warriors of the Kingdom is a story with characters completely out of Jason’s mind, and they work exceedingly well. Anyone who has been following GeneralsJoes.com for any period of time knows that I have a weakness for the concept of animal/human hybrids (my first work as a non-G.I. Joe author involved a werewolf military commando for crying out loud). AWOK is simply right up my alley.
Due to costing concerns, the first batch of figures uses the same base body across the board. A sculpted fur “animal on two legs” style kind of figure buck, which is amazingly versatile, able to work for apes, chimps, skunks, raccoons, wolves, tigers and nearly everything in between. Even some creative reuse of head sculpts manages to cross breed borders and bring several different unique species to life.
The base body isn’t 100% perfect, but it is exceptionally well done. There feels like a bit of glitchiness with the knee joints, but it’s a minor issue and the advanced articulation and impressive overall sculpting of the figures overcomes any minor fit issues, in my mind. Each figure also comes with an alternate head that really drives up the army building mentality and provides a ton of awesome flexibility.
Along with repurposed bodies and heads, they use a few different sets of armor, with again, creative color alterations to create a wealth of different styles that bring these characters to life exceptionally well. Everything from a single diagonal bandolier to a fully wrap around torso armor. AWOK doesn’t deal much with those peksy peg-and-hole closing mechanisms for their armor, instead having it sort of “wrap around” the figure and I like that. It stays on quite well and is very easy to swap and remove.
There are gauntlets and leg armor, which aren’t quite as functional, as they tend to shift somewhat when posing and feel a bit loose. A little blue tack or something on the inside resolves that problem nicely, and it’s those sort of things that Spero will use as learning moments and certainly look to resolve minor issues going forward.
The weapons as well are very nicely done. Spears and swords, sais and other curved armaments all combine to provide a wide array of different choices for the figures. The design work is exceptional on some of these (I love the curved short sword and narrow sai-like daggers). All in all, the line does everything it sets out to do, and everyone involved should be incredibly proud of what they’ve accomplished, taking what was essentially an image in their mind and translating it into a fun, colorful, highly articulated and customizable action figure line.
Next I want to look at some of the figures individually:
Pale
Pale is the main “hero” character of the AWOK universe, using a unique head sculpt with the same base body as the rest of the line. His cross-torso strap is simple, but looks great, as does the armored belt.
He has red gauntlets and shin armor which contrast really nicely with his light gray base body creating a very cool looking hero figure. He comes with a secondary “wolf” style head sculpt which can be used to create another kind of trooper.
Pale is a really terrific figure with a fantastically unique individualized head sculpt and excellent array of weapons.
Baron Kahlee
The primary villain of the AWOK universe, Baron Kahlee also has a unique head sculpt (two of them in fact!). One featuring his sinister sneering visage, the second with a very cool and unique elaborate ceremonial helmet.
His figure contains very cool variations of blue for the fur and mixes quite nicely with his armor and cross-torso strap. The sculpting on his face is fantastic, looking cocky, sinister, and downright mean, and I really dig his weapons as well. He’s a great, really fun figure for sure. I love the long pony tail sculpt at the back of his head as well, there’s a lot of really cool uniqueness to this figure that lifts it above some of its peers.
Horrid Assassins
As Kahlee’s personal assassins, these creatures are chimps that are very reminiscent of the Baron’s look and feel. Their color schemes are similar, but they have some different heads and armor configurations, giving them some really great uniqueness.
Like the other figures, the base body works really well, giving him the same great fur sculpting and articulation. His shoulder pad his similar to Kahlee’s but less ornamental, but still looks terrific. As I’ve mentioned with a few other figures, the gauntlets and shin armor don’t always stay on perfectly, but again those are minor gripes for what is a really great figure. His two heads offer an eye patch and non-eye patch look, and I find myself truly loving the accessories here. The bow, two sais, simple knife and wicked curved blade are a great combination. Excellent stuff, and one of the cooler figures to be sure.
Horrid Knights
Standing apart slightly from Kahlee and the Assassins, the Horrid Knights are gibbons (I believe) that are lighter in color, yet still excellent foot soldiers for the Baron’s nasty monkey army.
Unlike Kahlee and the Assassins, the Knights have full blown suits of armor, with a great piece of chest armor and armored belt that look very, very cool. I find myself enjoying the fit and feel of the torso armor especially, which slides over the shoulders and stays secure without the peg/hole system. All decked out, the Horrid Knight looks like a formidable foe indeed with his long sword and nasty spiked club. He comes with both a basic soldier head and the “captain of the guard” head with a really awesome spiked helmet to make him look nice and ornamental.
Chunari Soldier
Like Baron Kahlee has his troops, Pale works with the Chunari, a great looking ape army in and of itself that battles the Horrid Knights at every opportunity. What’s really cool to me is that the Chunari soldier is essentially the same kind of figure as the Horrid Knight, a monkey with armor, yet they manage to make them look so completely different.
The Chunari Soldier has double pieces of armor that goes from shoulder to legs but looks a bit different from the armor that the Horrid Knights have. The effect is a much different looking soldier that looks great battling against the Horrid Knights. I really love the colors on this one, too, with a great shade of brown for the base body, complimented perfectly with yellow and red for the armor. Like the Horrid Knights, two different heads are included, one for a basic soldier and one for a leader-type, only instead of a spiked helmet, this one has an awesome, elongated fin. Great accessories make for another really fun addition to the AWOK tribe.
Crueler
Ahhh, Crueler. This figure is awesome. As a panther warrior, this guy demonstrates just how flexible this relatively straight forward body type is. Not only does this terrific furred body work for monkeys, but it also works well for cat creatures as well. Crueler has an awesome head sculpt with painted scars, showing an old school fighter who has been through the ringer.
The two head sculpts here represent both Crueler himself as well as a generic “panther trooper” who might follow his lead. He wears the same armor as the Chunari but with the blue and gray color pallet, it looks considerably different. His light purple fur is a really great color scheme as well. For pure character purposes, this one is a winner.
Tiberius
This one might be it. Tiberius might be my absolute favorite figure from the entire first run of Animal Warriors of the Kingdom. Like Crueler, the body here was used to represent a cat creature and did it to near perfection. It’s the colors for Tiberius that really win me over. Obviously he’s a tiger, so he’s got the orange with black stripes, but I also love the pale tan chest and legs, the awesome head which works well for a cat as well as a skunk and a racoon (or a wolf). Complimenting the orange and black excellently is a fantastic, vibrant shade of blue.
Combine this with his great accessories (love the sword and sais) and the alternate head to make generic tiger troopers, and this figure is a home run. Love his shoulder strap and double belt as well.
Atreiu
Another figure another cat creature, and this one is another winner. Based on a lion (I believe) Atreiu is described as a “Wandering Warrior” and takes some evident inspiration from a classic property that many collectors of this line will love.
The tan base body looks great with the brown hair and the teal armor, combining to create a really fun looking and creative figure that manages to pull the aforementioned vintage inspiration, yet also blend seamlessly with the straight AWOK releases.
His alternate head sculpt is terrific and I really dig the axe and long sword as well.
Toxious
Once again some creative color selections show the versatility and uniqueness possible even with the same base body throughout. Like with Tiberius, the greatness of this figure isn’t necessarily just with the base color choices (black and white to resemble a skunk) but with the complimentary colors. The orange armor looks fantastic on top of the black and white, and the work done on the tattoos is really outstanding as well.
I find myself really enjoying Toxious, and being so pleasantly surprised at how a common head used throughout several figures can manage to work so well for so many different purposes. The two piece armor is great, and I love that he comes with the sais, the curved blade, and the long sword. This is a heck of a nice looking figure, even if he doesn’t smell so hot. 😉
Scraps
This is one I’ve been waiting for. Although technically Scraps is a racoon (and works really well as one, too) I’ve been looking forward to using him for a personal werewolf project that the parts work well for, too. The overall gray color with the lightly darkened spots around the eyes makes for a really unique looking racoon, and although they couldn’t find a way to make the striped tail work, the results are still very effective.
Again, the complimentary colors (light green, some yellow) work just as well as the primary colors in creating an effective and appealing color pallet. Scraps is just another cool figure in an assortment of them from Animal Warriors of the Kingdom.
Seriously, every step of the way through this review I just grew more and more impressed at what Jason and Spero Studios were able to put together. The base figures used work remarkably well in spite of some minor joint issues in a few spots, and the issues with somewhat loose armor were not significant enough to not warrant my full recommendation. If you’re a fan of 1:18/3 3.4″/4″ figures this is absolutely a line you need to at least test the waters on. The builds are unique, the color pallet is vibrant and exciting, and the property offers a wealth of different cool things that could be coming down the line.
First and foremost – this review was done with some early painted prototypes and the final product may vary slightly. That being said, these items are very close to production status… and a ton of fun to boot!
Ever since I first started making dio-stories like 16 years ago (good grief how old am I?) I’ve been dying for a modular diorama/base system to use with my G.I. Joe figures. Some things have come and gone over the years, and recently I’ve been drawn to the Chain Base model, but those can be complicated and usually have to be imported from Japan.
But now, Raginspoon toys is ramping up to start offering their own customizable base model, including swappable floor panels and wall panels with a ton of expandability and some great features for 1:18 action figure fanatics.
NOTE – The color of “Desert Tan” will be much more tan and much less yellow in the final version! The below color is a closer match:
Above is a Complex “Wall Panel” which comes in two separate colors, “Urban Gray” or “Desert Tan”, and as you can see above you can remove the two panels (or just one) to create a door or window. When you do remove just one of the panels to create a window, there is a hole in the lower panel that works with some of the connectors from one of your favorite 1:18 military toy lines…
As you can also see, the smaller holes here (and throughout the rest of the base parts) can accommodate backpacks (or other similarly sized peg items) from the same or similar toy lines.
Along with these wall panels are different types of floor panels, also available in “Urban Gray” or “Desert Tan”.
These floor panels can also double as additional wall panels if you need to expand your base. The floor panels (like the walls) reversible to show a metal grate pattern or a more concrete pattern on the opposite side. Then, in order to combine the floor panels with the wall panels, connectors are available as well.
The gray connectors seen above slide into grooves within the walls and floors in order to assemble the bases into any number of different configurations. As you can see above, the connectors can have one tab, two tabs, three tabs, or a fully decked out four tab system in order to provide flexibility and aesthetics when connecting the pieces together.
The last two images above are a “Desert Tan” end connector with a step. The end connector is designed to go underneath one of the wall panels with the step plugging into it to create a “step up” look for a door.
Note: The end connector and step will be colored in the same “Urban Gray” as the other parts in the final version, NOT the yellowish/tan.
So, the real question – how does this all work?
Really, REALLY well. I was fortunate enough to get some of these ahead of release so I could play around with them, and I am having a blast. The walls and floors slide together via the gray connectors really smoothly and are easy to take apart and put together, yet also hold together amazingly well. You can design single level bases, or lift the walls up higher by stacking, which makes these things exceptionally flexible. The various holes throughout the bases provide any number of points for adding tech detail or other things, and with a little creativity you can totally ramp up the usability of all of these pieces.
These items are NOT cast items, they are factory produced overseas and currently available for pre-order at SmallJoes.com. The material is solid and durable for the walls, floors, and all connecting pieces as well. Trust me when I say I beat on these pretty hard while taking pictures for the review and suffered no breakages or even weakness in any of the connecting joints at all. They work remarkably well and are only hindered by your imagination.
As I mentioned, the floors are double-sided and can be used as either floor pieces or wall pieces. The walls themselves are also double-sided and provide some cool additional detail on the external facing side, so not only do these make for great interior dio’s, but there’s some good flexibility for outside appearance as well.
In my nearly two decades of looking for unique ways to put together dioramas and dio-stories, this has been one of the most user-friendly and flexible ways to put together excellent next generation bases for your favorite action figures, big or small. The folks at Raginspoon also have some BIG things in the works for a second wave and going forward, which will take these sets and ramp them up big time. If these move there are even more fantastic items in the works for the future, so get them while you can over at SmallJoes.com!
Also, make sure you are following the Raginspoon Facebook Page and Instagram for the latest information on these sets and potential future sets to come.
Complex Base Building System
Sculpt
Durability
Paint Deco
Flexibility
5
Summary
A brand new, factory produced system for building and enhancing bases and dioramas for your favorite action figures of any scale! Whether you’re a fan of 1:18 military figures, convertible robots, space battle figures, or any other manner of awesome mass produced toys, these Complex Base Systems will work for it all. Tons of options, a wealth of customizing and enhancement capacity, and the building blocks for what looks like a truly impressive line going forward. Get on the ground floor on this one, you won’t want to miss it!
