TITANIC CREATIONS GORGO | Figure Review

As a Kaiju figure collector, nothing gives me more joy then pairing different figures together and imagining all sorts of wild scenarios, whether it be the Godzilla vs. Gamera crossover we'll never get or having Kong go toe to toe with a Jaeger.

But there's one Kaiju in particular that many monster movie fans harbor a strong nostalgia for that has sadly gone underutilized in terms of collectables, Gorgo. Well now thanks to Titanic Creations, a company specializing in their own original monster figures and comics, we now have the very first officially licensed and fully articulated figure of everyone's favorite giant monster from across the pond. 

The creation of this figure came about via a crowd funded campaign from Titanic Creations. Basically, if the figure received 350 pre-orders, production of the figure was guaranteed. That goal was met the very next day!
The sculpt of this figure was done by an artist named Dopepope (https://linktr.ee/DopePope) and I gotta hand it to him, he did a great job at capturing Gorgo's unique design!
This figure can act as both the Mama and Baby Gorgo since the same suit was used in the movie for both.

This head sculpt looks great. If I had to make a small nitpick, it'd be that the teeth look a little bit funky on the left side of mine, but then again, I only really notice it if I'm looking at them up close. Other than that, the rest of the head is great.

The rest of the detail on Gorgo's body is sculpted very nicely. I don't know if it was intentional, but the wrinkles on the torso give me man in suit vibes and it makes me feel giddy. Of course, the detailing on the scales and the plates on the back are magnified by the wonderful paint job. The coloring also looks like it has some gloss to it, appropriate given that Gorgo is a sea creature.
The claws have some nice shading as well. Speaking of which, careful handling the hands, the claws will poke your fingers something fierce.

♪IF I RULED THE WORLD, EVERYDAY WOULD BE THE FIRST DAY OF *ow* SPRING!♪

Gorgo comes with a good deal of articulation.

Gorgo's head can fully rotate, move up/down and tilt side to side. The mouth can open super wide. 
Neck lean back, turn left/right and tilt side to side.

The arms can fully rotate and move in/out at the shoulder. Arms bend and rotate at the shoulder. Hands can bend and rotate at the wrist.

Gorgo's waist can lightly lean forward, though forcing may cause you to pop her joint loose. Putting it back in place is easily done though.
Other than that, the waist can freely rotate and tilt side to side. 

Legs can fully rotate, move in/out at the waist and bend and rotate at the knee. The feet are where you may have to fiddle with the position of the ball joints to get the desired movement. Her feet get full rotation, a bend and the toes are on a hinge for up and down movement. 

The pegs on the feet will occasionally pop out during movement, but can easily put back to not ruin the immersion. 

Finally, Gorgo's tail features a fantastic range of movement and can hold it's pose nicely. 

Along with putting the figure into production, more pre-orders for this figure meant more accessories would be included with this figure. Every single one of them were met and Titanic Creations delivered in spades!

The one accessory that was guaranteed with the creation of the figure was a Baby Gorgo. While not as detailed as the mother, this is one good looking mini figure and having them together just feels right. 

We have a Bell Sub so you can recreate the capture of Baby Gorgo. There's even a small hole at the top of it you could attach a string through if ya wanted to.

Next you can unleash the fury of the jets with 3 included jet fighters that come with bendy wires that can plug into a small stand. Positioning them may take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, the sky's the limit in terms of posing them. (pun absolutely intended)

One of the best accessories in this set is a miniature Big Ben, this thing looks great. Yes, you can pull the top part off.

The last accessory included is an extra head with glow in the dark eyes. Hold it up against a light for a few minutes and the glow effect looks very nice. 
Also in my opinion, the teeth on this head look a lot nicer than the standard head. I think I'm gonna use this head for general display.

I have to comment on this nice open box display featuring wraparound artwork by Matt Frank and like most of his stuff, it looks spectacular. 

The fine folks at Titanic Creations have given us a fine Kaiju figure. I'd been following the production of this figure since it's announcement and it's met all my expectations. Big thanks to them for giving some love to this fan favorite movie monster and giving me many opportunities to have Gorgo stand with other monster figures and letting my imagination run wild. 
I would gladly say go and get one of these figures for yourself, but you cant right now, unless Titanic Creations decides to do another production run. Only time will tell...

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and thank you for joining me here in my lair.

So long...

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and if you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. 

Thanks for reading!

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HIYA TOYS GODZILLA (2019) | Figure Review

Quite a bit happened during my absence from writing blogs.
One such occurrence was the emergence of a new company making MonsterVerse Godzilla figures, the China based Hiya Toys. Boy howdy, let me tell you there was quite a bit of drama surrounding their first Godzilla figure. In nearly every Godzilla Facebook group I'm in (Hi guys!), it's endless war/debate over the quality of those figures vs the SH MonsterArts ones. 
Debates that I myself had no say in. 

Picture taken from JobbytheHong's review.

The figure in question looked good in promotion, but had it's share of shortcomings in hand, including exposed joints on it's neck.
It's because of this that I ended up not purchasing one for myself. Thus it made me weary of future figures including Kong, Mothra and Rodan. Even if I wanted to make any sort of judgements, getting hands on these figures became difficult as US retailers suddenly sold out and Hiya became unwilling to stock figures outside of their home country. 
Then the scalpers struck...

Needless to say, I was beginning to think the chances of me ever making a Hiya Toys figure review were slim to none.
But only recently has Hiya taken notes that people in the US actually want their figures and took actions to make them more accessible than before. 
Which brings us to now.

Despite only having one of them, the best way I could describe the Hiya Toy is NECA 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Most of the old NECA Godzilla figures had terrific sculpts that look like they were ripped straight from the films. But where the NECA 2019 Godzilla left a lot to be desired, Hiya's figure exceeds expectations!
Godzilla is sculpted amazingly, from head to tail it appears no detail was overlooked. 
This figure is slightly larger than past articulated 2019 Godzilla figures, it is hefty and has some fair weight to it. I could chuck this thing like a baseball and it could very well break several windows if not the figure itself and I'll have wasted $50 bucks.
But I'm getting off topic here...

The head has a ton of excellent details. The eyes look good, I just wish there could have been better paint around them to make them more noticeable. The inside of the mouth is exceptional in my opinion. 
Godzilla's teeth don't look completely lazy, but why didn't they paint them? That's probably the most distracting thing about his figure.

The rest of Godzilla's body also looks fantastic overall and I even appreciate the tan paint used to accentuate the details against his dark grey body. It's a color choice that is actually film accurate and not just added color for a bit of artistic license. *cough* 

Godzilla's dorsal fins look good as always, just don't be surprised if some of the fins become bent due to the packaging. It should be an easy fix though.

Hiya's Godzilla has a pretty good range of movement. It's like if they took the best attributes of NECA and SH MonsterArts figures. 

While the figure is made of hard plastic, the neck pieces are made of a soft rubber allowing it to look  up for a victory roar, looking down is not as possible. The head and neck can turn left/right and tilt side to side. 
Moving the neck can expose the figures joints breaking the immersion, but you can fiddle with the neck parts enough to where it'll cover them up and not look as noticeable. A luxury the first Hiya Godzilla wishes it had. 
The mouth can open and close, while the tongue can move up and down.

The arms can fully rotate and slightly move in/out at the shoulders. Elbows can rotate and bend. Hands can rotate and slightly pivot at the wrist.

Godzilla has waist rotation and his upper body can move forward (something essential to avoid the dorsal fins overlapping) and tilt side to side. 

The legs can fully rotate and move in/out a bit at the hips. Knees have a good bend and the leg can sort of swivel below the knee. The feet can rotate and pivot. 

The tail features 9 points of articulation allowing it to curve back and forth very nicely. 

No accessories. 

Despite being quite skeptical towards Hiya Toys at first, the moment I saw their Godzilla 2019 figure reveal, I thought it looked great and it convinced me to pre-order it. Now that I have it in hand I can say that I love this figure a lot. 
Perhaps more than the SHMA figure. 
I'm quite excited for what the future holds for the Hiya Toys MonsterVerse line, including figures from 'Kong: Skull Island' including a Skull Crawler and the 2014 Godzilla where we are FINALLY getting an articulated MUTO figure!!!
There's even talks of some classic series Godzilla figures coming soon. So not only do I highly recommend this 2019 Godzilla figure, but I also suggest watching Hiya Toys with great interest. 

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and thank you for joining me here in my lair.

So long...

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and if you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. 

Thanks for reading!

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SH MONSTERARTS GIGAN (1972) | Figure Review

Did you guys know my favorite monster from the Godzilla series besides the Big G himself is Gigan?
Yeah, I think I might've mentioned it a couple of times...

Whether it's the classic Showa design or the badass Millennium update, Gigan will always hold a special place in my heart. So it goes without saying that an SH MonsterArts figure of the Showa version was long overdue in my book (along with the MUTO's, but I guess we'll see how Hiya Toys does with their upcoming figure...)

And, OH...
MY.
MOTHRA!

This figure looks incredible. The sculpt is damn near immaculate. Every time I look at this thing from head to tail, I find myself amazed at how detailed this figure looks.
The visor especially stands out nicely.

The paint work is pretty good as well. I've noticed the green might be a tad darker than what we're used to with Gigan but I really like it a lot. The gold compliments the figure well. I did notice a few stray spots on my figure that didn't get painted though, but that's not a big issue for me with this figure, we'll get to that later. The silver on the horns, claws and spikes look on point and yes...they are varying degrees of sharp!
I also really like what they did with the tips of Gigan's fins. 

I really cannot express enough how much I love this Gigan figure. You could tell me I'm looking at a shrunken version of the actual suit and I'd believe you!

Gigan has a decent bit of articulation, but it's here where things might get a bit iffy. 

Gigan's head can't look up too high but it can look down pretty far. He can look left/right and the neck can tilt side to side. 
The mouth can open, though not very wide and the mandibles can move in and out, just handle them gently.

The torso is completely immobile. I've heard some complaints that the buzzsaw can't at least move up and down. But honestly, it's not something I'm losing sleep over. 

Gigans arms are capable of rotating all the way at the shoulder. The elbows do bend, but maybe not as much as you'd like. At least the forearms can rotate freely.

The legs can move forward/backward and in and out, but you'll probably have to maneuver the thigh piece a bit to do it. We have a pretty good bend at the knee and the feet can rotate and pivot. The feet on my Gigan like to pop off a lot.

As for Gigan's tail, I'm happy that the spikes on this tail are nowhere near as fragile as the ones on the 2004 figures meaning I can handle this tail without much worry. The movement of the tail is very nice and it can hold a pose well. The movement is hindered a bit by the lower tips of the fins.

Oh yeah...I didn't mention the fins when talking about the body, did I?
Well, here come my issues.

This figure is advertised as having moveable fins to get Gigan into a flight mode. To do this, you'll have to gently pull them up at the base, exposing one delicate looking joint holding the fins and you can move them side to side and even rotate the outer fins if you're insane enough. Just looking at this one little joint, it looks so fragile and thanks to many rumors of it breaking, I'm now not ever going to handle the fins on my Gigan, ever. 

If you want my humble opinion, I don't think the fins should have been movable anyway. Because that's not even what Gigan looks like when he's flying, THIS is:

I'm going full fanboy here and I don't care. Go watch Godzilla vs. Gigan, Godzilla vs. Megalon or even the Zone Fighter episode with Gigan in it, that's what his fins look like when he's flying.
If I'd have been in charge of this release, I'd have the sails removable via several pegs and replaceable with the fight mode sails. Oh, and included an appropriate flight stand.
But without any of that, or even a hypothetical laser effect part, I do have to ask why does this figure costs over $100? I get that this was to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of 'Godzilla vs. Gigan', but I dunno, does that really justify the recent trend of pricing figures without accessories nearly the same price as ones that do?

But with all that said, I do have to say I am pleased with this figure regardless. Being a Gigan superfan, the sculpt and paint of this figure is more than enough to get me to not regret purchasing it for my collection. If you can get him, go for it. If you can get him for a deal, even better.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and thank you for joining me here in my lair.

So long...

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and if you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. 

Thanks for reading!

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