After a couple of late night research and eBay hunting, I managed to get my paws on a reasonably priced Seven Bones Queeny and Kyoku. I had started out initially wanting to collect only WWRp and AP toys to manage my budget, but I figured I had to see what the fuss was all about with the 1/6. Queeny had received a number of good reviews and wielded a bo staff, while Kyoku was, well, just plain cool with his jacket/windbreaker thingy.
I wanted to get Wasabi to complete the set too, but I'm not too wild about his style, plus he costs a bomb right now, more than Queeny and Kyoku combined. Also, now that I've opened up Queeny, the experience has left me somewhat hesitant about 3A's 1/6 figures. I'll explain why later.
Chatting with the two old hands that I bought the toys from, I realised I was quite young compared to them. Hmm... They did share some interesting nuggets about the collectible world with newbie me, and gave me some pointers on where to shop and what to consider for future purchases.
So it begins. The poison had spread and now even Popbot, which I knew next to nothing about, was in my veins.
The first thing I noticed about the packaging, was what MISB meant. The previous owners didn't even take it out of the brown box. Being new to all this, I was really impressed. Cutting open the box revealed the actual packaging inside - 03 - signifying Queeny as the 3rd figure in the Seven Bones line.
Taking the actual box out, the artwork is gorgeous and the packaging is lovely. I'm a fan of clean art, and the cover art of Queeny against a clean white background was a delight for me. The consistent light blue colorway of the entire package gives a coherence in the design, and is close to Queeny's hair colour too!
There's even has a little write-up about our dear Queeny.
To be honest, after admiring the packaging for so long, I was really terrified to open it up and see what's inside. The box was just too pretty and I was afraid what's inside would not match the expectation set! Like a kid who just received the most expensive toy of his life (in a way, it really is!), I cut open the shrink wrap and lifted the lid with quivering hands.
A sneak peek!
Then the full reveal!
Right off the bat, I was disappointed to find that the poster accompanying Queeny had some bent marks and the paper had torn in one corner. While it's not a big deal really, since I'm not a poster person, it just sucks a little to discover flaws in your pricey product.
The posters's got a short backstory for Queeny, basically the same words from the back of the packaging, except it's now accompanied by visuals.
On to the actual goods itself! Queeny comes in three clamshell layers, the first and second being self-explanatory, while the third is solely to hold the bo staff. I'm impressed with how they've tied the staff down, using foam underneath the wires, while the wires themselves have a layer of soft plastic to prevent accidentally damaging the staff. It'd be cooler if the staff was actually wood instead of plastic though.
Queeny also comes with extra pegs. Pegs, that I would need to use sooner than I thought.
The bare bones laid out.
Perhaps I'm a little critical, but after reading all the reviews online, my expectations were really set quite high. While I liked my Bramble, its paintjob and its weathering, there were aspects of it that I felt weren't all that realistic. I'm told the 1/6 Brambles put the 1/12 ones to shame. Similarly, I was expecting Queeny, being a 1/6 and way more expensive than a Bramble, to have higher standards. Unfortunately, there were certain parts that hit and certain parts that missed for me.
The first thing I noticed was the neck. There's a very visible line across it that looks like a cut or blemish. I had to shine a torch on it to realise that it was some kind of weathering. Even then, it looked as though the plastic had some damage there and the weathering was touched on to cover it. Either way, it simply doesn't look natural. For now, I'll have to chalk it down to a near-death encounter Queeny had, a little neck scar perhaps.
There were also some lapses in the paintjob that I noticed. The inside of the right elbow had clean spots that contrasted with the rest of the figure, as though someone had missed a spot while painting. Now I'm no expert, and perhaps this is how the figures are generally made, but since I'm a virgin in this territory, I can't help but be highly sensitive to everything I notice.
That said, the things that did blow my mind away was the clothing. The shirt and the pants were realistic even for the scale, and the waist pouches were just fantastic in detail. I've seen that on the Bramble,but seeing it here again and being able to unbuckle the entire belt is just too cool.
The realism though, makes some inconsistencies eye-glaring. The velcro strap holding the EMP grenade for example, is way too big and breaks the illusion. Moreover, the velcro is spotlessly white and clean! Also, it just feels weird seeing some pouches that look like knife pouches but containing no knives. They could have given Queeny just one more weapon.
Ok, enough words. I'll let the pictures do some talking first. Pardon the crappy photography about to follow, I was planning to do a more thorough shoot once I warmed up, but things happened and I kinda trudged through the rest of the shoot. Hence the background is a little messy and there aren't much close-up shots.
Queeny does a bit of warm-up and stretching first before we get into the action stuff. A little side stretch is good. I'm impressed with the flexibility of the torso in posing!
Not so flexible on the back bends though huh. And definitely no to the forward bends. I haven't yet explored the full articulation of the knees as I'm not sure if it's single or double jointed, but so far I've only managed to bend it a 90 degree angle.
Now here comes the real bummer. 5 minutes into playing with Queeny, I decided to swap out the left hand so I could explore some poses. This being my first time, I wasn't sure if it was a simple pull or was there some way to finesse the hand. So I pulled gently and slowly as I could, only to snap the wrist peg in two! The worst part was that the piece in the hand had next to nothing sticking out. It was going to be difficult to remove.
You can imagine how upset I was at this point. This is one of my most expensive toys in a long while. I was expecting top notch quality. I had barely started playing with it. And now it's broken.
I took a break to write an email to 3A in hopes of some customer support, texted the sellers for advice, and basically tried to take my mind off it for awhile.
Then I was back at it. There were spare pegs, so it's no big deal. I just needed to know if all the pegs broke so easily. After much work with a hobby drill and a pen knife, I managed to dig the stuck part out of the hand and inserted a new peg into the wrist. Now that I successfully changed the left hand, I think it'll be staying that way for a long while until I get used to the degree of force needed when playing with these toys.
Doh! One disaster after another!
Now that the first hurdle was over, the second one soon became apparent. The foot. Oh the foot. Even Queeny is slapping her forehead over the fiasco.
I had read that 3A toys had sturdy joints and some of the figures could balance on one foot! My darling Queeny however, had a right foot that could spin circles if I just tapped it gently. The ball joint was loose and could not support Queeny's weight if the leg was anything but straight. If I tilted her just forward, the joint would not hold and the foot would give, causing her to topple forward. I managed to get her standing with the help of the bo staff for support.
I was really tempted to pull out the foot and swap the ankle pegs or tighten it with superglue like how I did for my Gundams, but after the harrowing experience of the broken wrist peg, I was reluctant to take the risk again. Fortunately, the left foot was fine, and I could pull of some simple poses later if I placed more weight on the left instead.
Queeny wonders if there's a light at the end of this dark, dark tunnel.
Begone, foul monster Misfortune. Queeny will not give up without a fight!
Notice how Queeny leans back slightly? That helps keep the weight centered and slightly more on the stronger left foot. You'll also notice she's standing on the box because the wobbly right foot prevents any chance of stable footing on my softer day bed.
Queenie ponders on the fate of her weak right foot. Years of battling bots and jumping into the high skies before cleaving their botheads off with a Bo must have taken a toll on her foot.
Well, at least her kicks are nicely detailed.
Alright, at this juncture, I'm all down and gloomy, wondering if I should even have cut open that sealed box instead of throwing it out on eBay again. Me and Queeny, we're not lucky people.
But then I thought, what's done is done, so how about some positivity. Well... Queeny has... Nipples! And soft boobs! At the risk of sounding a little sick, I remember staring at Barbie's boobs as a kid, wondering why they were so bare and hard (my three female cousins forced me to play along with their dolls). It's not so much the boobs but the level of detail and realism attempted that is what's interesting here. Her legs are quite long in proportion to the rest of her body though, but she packs a nice booty too. In general, I do like the sculpt.
Queeny also has more articulation than I'm used to. The head can turn in ways that my robot Gundams can't, and the torso can bend forwards and back, and tilt side to side in pretty realistic ways. It gets me excited, but I'm just not able to maximise the articulation for now.
So do I like Queeny? I'm not sure. In a way, I do. It just a matter of whether I feel safe handling Queeny without breaking some part, and if I can display Queeny without her falling over with the slightest blow of the wind. Perhaps when I wake up tomorrow I'll feel a little braver and my perspective might change.
With my ambivalence towards Queeny, I think I'll leave Kyoku in his shrink-wrapped box a little longer. Who knows, the ill winds might blow over by then and Kyoku will be breathtakingly awesome. Me and Queeny are keeping our fingers crossed.
No comments:
Post a Comment