October 12, 2009
SFIV Guile and a new HELLside comic!

The wait is over — we finally have new content on Scary-Crayon! First up, the more substantial piece: a review of NECA’s Street Fighter IV Guile figure, complete with many (many) sprite-matched photos. He’s probably my least favorite of NECA’s SFIV figures to date, though I think that might say more about my feelings for the character than it does about the quality of the toy. Even so, he’s no Chun-Li.

Then there’s Dusty Plastic HELLside #10, which stars Sakura, Flint, and a Plasma Kreaps Zombie that I never finished reviewing! I totally meant to, and I started taking photos of the packaging, but then I got scared because the figure came inside a bunch of goo (hence the “plasma” thing) and could potentially have stained my lightbox backdrop. I halted my photography session to thoroughly wash the parts, but by the time I finished I just wasn’t in the mood to continue. It’s not a bad toy, though!

A few links also go hand-in-hand with this review. First, if you saw the thumbnail on the content pages and wondered where that cool Flint sprite came from, it’s available — along with a lot of other nifty G.I. Joe sprite creations — on this page. And as far as the Flint figure goes, I recently reviewed it over at Articulated Discussion! So yeah, check that out. 🙂

Speaking of plugs, there’s a new link to Dork Dimension on the sidebar! I think I’ve plugged it before, but it’s really a cool site that you should visit even when I’m not telling you to stop by. I mean, where else can you find current reviews of old Playmates figures like Deanna Troi, Slice ‘N’ Dice Shredder, and Psycrow? Okay, you could find stuff like that here, but I haven’t reviewed those figures. Yet. Seriously, though, it’s a cool site. Once Nathan gets those javascript issues worked out, it’ll be perfect. 😉

All for now, then! Hopefully weeks won’t pass before the next update.

-posted by Wes | 7:40 pm | Comments (15)
15 Comments »
  • BillyG says:

    always a unique review from you, Wes, i’m lovin’ it….you put so much effort reviewing your least favorite character, gotta appreciate that kind of passion from an otaku…thanks man.

    • Wes says:

      I’m glad you enjoyed the review, Billy, and thanks for commenting! In fairness, though, my least favorite Street Fighter characters are kinda like my least favorite kinds of cheesecake… while there’s other stuff I’d place above them, they still rate fairly highly in my book. 🙂

  • Ewan says:

    Nice Guile review, Wes! Recently got me a Charlie outfit Guile and it’s awesome to see how great his articulation is. Great pics! Love how you got him in all his video game poses. 😉

    • Wes says:

      Thanks, Ewan! I’d love it even more if I’d been able to get him into those poses without needing a separate stand, though… even more so because I ended up breaking one of my clips during the photo session. 😐

  • the Jax says:

    That’s the first time I’ve seen articulated abs. Who knew they could be so useful? My first thought was, the figure could be posed convincingly being punched in the stomach by a rival.

    • Wes says:

      Really? Lots of figures have ab crunches! All of the DC Universe Classics figures have them… but then, considering how awful Mattel’s distribution has been with those, it would be completely understandable if you’ve never seen them.

      But yes, they can be quite useful. Punched in the gut, hunkering down for battle, crabwalking backwards — the possibilities are numerous and diverse. 🙂

  • clark says:

    I appreciate the detailed review you’ve got here. I won’t be getting Guile, because I already have the Sota figure, and I don’t really like the looks of this one too much. The only NECA figures I’ve picked up so far are RYU (who broke, but is still poseable) and Chun-li. Well, maybe I should get this one just so Chun-li has someone in-scale to kick around (I’m tired of her beating up Tri-klops and Teela).

    • Wes says:

      Hmm… how’d Ryu break? You could probably fix him, and it’s less worrisome to experiment on broken figures since they’re already broken. But yeah, the NECA Guile’s not a bad figure, and I’d probably choose this one over the SOTA version if it weren’t for that figure’s accessories. That’s largely because of the NECA Chun-Li, though — she’s so amazing that I’d add an inch to my entire 6″ figure collection just to have them fit with her!

      DISCIPLINE, JUSTICE, COMMITMENT!!!

  • clark says:

    The hinge in his right should broke. Where there is supposed to be a solid loop of plastic for the shoulder pin to run through, there is now a half of a loop. I hope that makes sense. I’ve tried to fix it with super glue, but that did not work out (for one thing the pin that goes through the shoulder is not straight either, so trying to get it back through ended up breaking it again), so now I’m thinking of getting some epoxy and giving it another go. In the mean time I can still get him to hold his shoulder in all the poses that he would be able to if it were fixed, so I’m not going crazy over it.

    • Wes says:

      Ohhhh… that’s probably the most difficult kind of break to fix. The problem is that the motion of the shoulder works in the direction of the break. With some super strong glue you could probably pull it off, but otherwise even replacing the pin could break it anew (as you’ve said) — to say nothing of actually moving the arm once everything’s back together. I’m not sure epoxy would work for that sort of break, but then I’m not familiar with it. Is it really strong?

      • clark says:

        Well, the epoxy was supposed to be really strong but didn’t bond with the plastic very well (the package said it would only bond to most plastics) so after I got the arm back together it worked for about one minute before it broke, not just in the original place, but the whole loop came off of its pin, so now it is in three pieces. Finally I bit the bullet and bought a Guile tonight for $15.00 and just swapped all the parts between the two of them. For some reason Ryu is really expensive online (as I thought about just buying a second one), so I figured this would be the cheapest way to fix it ,and it works now.

        • Wes says:

          Huh! That’s a good call… but now you have to tell me how you did that! I gather you swapped Guile’s and Ryu’s arms from the bicep down, but how’d you get Guile’s shoulder onto Ryu’s body?

          At any rate, those extra Guile parts would probably make great custom fodder. :mrgreen:

          • clark says:

            Here is what I did. I have several of what I call “scotch glasses,” which are short glasses that have a farely wide rim. So I take one of these glasses and fill them almost to the top with water, then I microwave it for two minutes (this will bring the water to a boil, or almost a boil).

            I then dipped the arm into the water just above the bicep swivel, for about ten seconds, the plastic is then soft and let me pop off the arm at the bicep swivel. Then I take the figure and dip the rest of the shoulder into the water for about 10-15 seconds getting the plastic soft at the shoulder and where the shoulder attaches to the body. Now I’m able to take the shoulder off of the body, (this is the most difficult part, because the post in the shoulder’s swivel hinge joint goes in pretty deep, so you need to make sure that the plastic is very soft) so now I am holding the shoulder with the hinge joint in it.

            if I need to I will then throw the shoulder into the glass for another 15 seconds to make sure it’s super soft, I then fish it out with a fork and shove the pin out of the shoulder using a small screwdriver (you’ll notice that the pin is tapered, so you can push it out from the front).
            So I disassembled both Ryu’s and Guile’s arms like this, and then put them back together, always heating the plastic up again before pushing pieces back together.

            Also when I put it back together I didn’t just reverse the steps above, I started by pushing the post from the shoulder joint back into the body (since is is the hardest part). Then I put the arm back together at the bicep swivel (just heat up the bicep), then I heat the newly reattached shoulder back up before placing it over the hinge joint and shoving the pin back through.

            So there are your very detailed instructions of what I did.

  • clark says:

    Now I like the way the Guile’s flesh colored pin looks in Ryu’s shoulder so much, that I’m considering swapping pins with the other arm too (since Ryu’s original arm has a clear plastic pin with spots of flesh paint on its ends).

    • Wes says:

      Thanks for the info, Clark! I’m familiar with the heat/pop method, but I wasn’t aware that it worked for removing the NECA SFIV figures’ arms completely. That’s good to know! Too often removing arms requires torso cracking, and that’s just not something I’ve had much luck at all with.

      I’ll definitely have to grab some extra Guiles whenever they release the Survival Mode colors — they’ll definitely be handy for customs.

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