Tag Archives: indie comic figures

Jul 20 2013

Hellina by Skybolt Toyz

Alrighty, folks, I’m coming off two intense weeks at work and this is my first weekend off in three weeks. I’m anxious to spend most of it unconscious, so I’m going for quick and dirty today. Wait, did someone say dirty? Ah, 90’s Indie Comic Book figures! Leather! Boobs! Whips and Swords! What’s not to like? A while back I did a handful of features on these kinds of figures, so I decided to dig back into that dusty Tote of Shame and open up another one of these chicks. This time, it’s Hellina, a character I know nothing about from a comic book that I know almost nothing about. At this point, I should remind you that this tote is full of figures that I picked out of the inventory of a closing New Jersey comic shop at about $1 a piece. Her comic was produced by Lightning Publishing, and oddly enough this is not the first time I’ve featured a joint effort between Skybolt and Lightning. Nope, that first time was the action figure of Sinthia, Princess of Hell. Sinthia was a train wreck of a figure, so this may be a bumpy ride.

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Hellina comes carded on a landscape-style card. It’s weird and it probably drove any retailer that had to find peg space for it crazy. Not that this is a figure that would have been hanging up in Toys R Us or KBToys. The left side has some nice artwork from what I understand is the cover of Hellina #1 and the bubble is situated to the right against a cheesy backdrop of “Hellina” in a diagonal staggered pattern. The package points out that this is a “Series II” release. As was often the case with these figures, Hellina would have been produced many times over as various repaints. The figure is mounted on the tray with her accessories down near her feet.

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The back of the card does a rather thorough job introducing you to the character as well as the creator. I now know the name of Joe Zyskowski’s wife, when they were married, their son’s name, and when he was born. It’s just possibly a little too much personal information for the back of an action figure card. The cardback also has a couple of pages reprinted from Hellina: Hellborn #1 to help get you into the mood. Farther to the right there are some promotional shots of other figures offered by Skybolt. I never saw the Double Impact figures, but various versions of the other two are in that dreaded tote, and god knows, we already looked at one of the Sinthia figures. I find the overall presentation here to be clumsy, but you can’t deny that it attracts attention. Let’s rip this baby open.

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Out of the package and we’ve got a ginger chick wearing a bondage harness. The portrait is pretty weak if you’re comparing it to the character art, but at least she’s not ugly and creepy looking like Sinthia is. Her hair is sculpted so as to be swept off to the side and the paintwork on her face is certainly competent enough. Overall, I’d say she looks a little too young and innocent to make this figure work, but it’s better than what I would have expected from Skybolt’s usual efforts.

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Moving on to below the neck, Hellina is certainly a busty girl, emphasized by the awkward way she’s standing. She appears to have suffered a spine injury because her back is arched in a way so that her torpedoes are actually pointing upward. Her top  is clad in only a sculpted and glossy-black painted harness. She’s got arm bands, bracers, and thigh-high stiletto boots, with a generous helping of spikes all around. This is not a girl you want to cuddle with unless you want to get impaled. The paintwork on the figure isn’t too bad. There’s a little bit of slop and bleeding, but the skin tones look good, as does the glossy black used for the leather outfit and the metallic silver used for the spikes. Her wings, or cape, or whatever it is, attaches to her back via a peg and holds on pretty well.

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The biggest downside of this figure is the articulation. Hellina sports only five points, but it isn’t the usual five basic points one might expect. Sure, the arms rotate at the shoulders and the head turns, but instead of having the legs rotate at the hips, she has swivel cuts just above her boots in the thighs and that’s it. This coupled with her awkward pose makes the figure almost impossible to stand. I often lament the uselessness of hip cuts on these figures, but here’s a good example of why they’re there. Without them, it’s almost impossible to tweak the figure into a standing position and the thigh swivels are all but useless. She does have peg holes in her feet, but there’s no figure stand supplied. Thankfully,  I have a generous supply of generic figure stands and blue-tack.

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In addition to her huge, tattered cape, Hellina comes with a dagger and a whip. The dagger is a nicely sculpted and painted little piece. The whip is just a length of thin plastic hose with a handle on it. She can hold either accessory in either hand.

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And that’s Hellina. She is certainly a product of her times, both in character design and action figure execution. Unless you’re a huge fan of the comic or are compiling an extensive collection of action figures in bondage gear, I can’t really recommend her as a worthy pick-up. Sure, I’ve seen far worse, and from this very company, but I she could have turned out so much better if the license had fallen to the likes of CS Moore Studios. Now that she’s open she’s destined to sink to the bottom of one of my miscellany totes, buried forever under a pile of McFarlane and Rendition figures. The sad thing is that there are still more variants of her in that tote of comic shop dollar figures, but I’ll save those for another day…

Feb 1 2013

Witchblade: Medieval Witchblade by Moore Action Collectibles

With the exception of encountering Sara Pezzini in a couple of my funnybooks, I have managed to avoid everything Witchblade. That’s no small feat considering it’s a fairly prolific franchise, which even managed to bust out of the comics and onto the TV screen. Nonetheless, I’m a big fan of Clayburn Moore’s sculpts and so I just so happen to have a lot of Witchblade figures in my collection. Today seemed like a good day to feature one, because I have an appointment at the corner pub and with so little background on the characters, I can probably get through it quickly.


If you’ve picked up any of Moore’s indie comic figures, you have a good idea what to expect from the packaging. The figure comes on a fairly uninspiring card with a big bubble and the figure and accessories all laid out for you. The back is a little more exciting with some decent artwork, a blurb about the character, and photos of four of the other figures available in this series.


Even if you aren’t a sculpting connoisseur, chances are you can recognize a Moore sculpt when you see one. Most of them are scantily clad ladies with ample breasts, a perfect ass, and a wide-eyed, full-lipped featured face. Katarina here hits all those points. Her face does have less of a realistic look and more of a stylized anime visage than Moore’s usual work, certainly more so than Lady Death or Ariel Darkchylde. I don’t like it as much, but I’m certainly not hating on it either. I do really dig the way her long braid snakes its way down her back and around to the front. The sculpting on the Witchblade itself is both beautiful and intricate and it makes for a striking contrast with the figure’s smooth skin. The crosshatch pattern on her boots is actually sculpted in and there’s some subtle but nice sculpted muscles as well.

While rarely poor, the paint on Moore’s figures can sometimes be a mixed bag, and Katarina here is a good example of that. The skintone is glossy bare plastic, which doesn’t give you the nice soft look of painted skin. I’m always torn on this, as I like the glossy toyish sheen and painted skin doesn’t always turn out that great. On the other hand, the bare plastic skin doesn’t photograph as well and doesn’t give you that added sense of realism. Nonetheless, the paintwork that’s here is pretty good, particularly on her face, her outfit and the Witchblade itself. The hair, on the other hand comes off as a little hamfisted. The mix of orange with black wash doesn’t give it depth as much as it just makes it look dirty. I seem to recall having a similar problem with the Darkchylde figure. Then again, considering the price point on these figures, the good certainly outweighs the subpar.

Moore figure collectors won’t be surprised by Katarina’s articulation. You get standard five points, swivels at the neck, shoulders, and hips, and only three of those are really useful. The hip cuts don’t really help at all, unless you want her awkwardly sitting on the floor with her legs spread wide. If you find that useful, please keep it to yourself while I pretend to be appalled. No, this figure is designed to stand in a wide leg stance and give you a few options on how to pose her with her weapons.

Weapons? Yes, Katarina comes with a nice array of accessories. You get a sword, spear, and battle axe. All three are beautifully sculpted and painted to look like extensions of the Witchblade. I’m particularly impressed with the sword sculpt, which includes all sorts of cool little nicks and pitting on the blade. Oh yeah, you also get a decent figure stand with the Witchblade logo on it.

A lot of collectors look down on Moore’s indie comic figures as being dated products of the 90’s. Fair enough, but I really enjoy them. One of the finest compliments I can pay an action figure line is that I’m willing to collect them when I really care nothing for the franchise they’re based on. Of course, it helps when they’re sexy chicks and when they’re cheap.  Witchblade figures can certainly be had for next to nothing these days. They’re probably still hanging in a dark corner of your local comic shop, or you can just go buy them on Ebay and probably pay more for the shipping than the actual figure. Either way, Katarina’s a cool figure in my book.