Tag Archives: red sonja

Jul 28 2023

Red Sonja by LooseCollector

This has been one of those months where several really, really, REALLY old preorders have finally started to roll in. Last time we checked out some of Cosmic Legions, which had a two year wait time, and today I’m starting in on a trio of 1:12 scale comic figures by Executive Replicas/LooseCollector that I preordered back in October of 2021. So yeah, a little less than two years on these as well. Executive Replicas seems to handle licensing in partnership with a few action figure producers. In the past they have been hooked up with Phicen/TB League to produce a number of Sixth-Scale seamless figures from smaller comic properties. while LooseCollector seems to focus on these One-Twelve Scale figures, and I’ve looked at a few of those here as well. This latest assortment of femme fatales included Vampirella, Purgatori, and Red Sonja, and I’m checking out Red Sonja today.

The packaging for these figures is pretty simple but very nice and totally collector friendly. The figure comes in a window box set in a clear plastic tray with her extras laid out around her. You get character art on the front and the Red Sonja logo up at the top. There’s more character art on the side panels, and still more on the back panel along with a blurb about the character and figure. LooseCollector hasn’t really branded this series with a name, but the figures and packaging match up perfectly with the Legacy Series figures they did for Coffin Comics.

Here’s Red Sonja out of the box and looking fabulous! The body has the same feel of the Coffin Comics figures, but there are a few changes, which I’ll run down with the articulation. The sculpting here is excellent, giving our girl a toned and muscular body. She’s wearing her iconic silver scale chainmail bikini armor, which is sculpted as part of the body. There’s some excellent detail to the boots, and I love how they are designed to have openings in the fronts, as if she weren’t showing enough skin already. You also get some sculpted thigh plates, gauntlets that run up to her elbows, bicep rings, and a framework gorget on her shoulders.

The paintwork here is very well done. There’s a deep chocolate brown used for the boots, gauntlets and various straps and belts. The silver used for the armor pops nicely, as does the gold, which is used sparingly. Finally, the skin tone is warm and even throughout.

I really do love this portrait, although I would have really liked to see a second head with a more fierce expression. The one we got gives her a, “Oh yeah, this is going to be fun” expression as she’s about to go into battle. I think it really captures the determination and beauty of the character. Her brow is downturned, there’s a little wrinkle to the bridge of her nose, and her lips are slightly parted to show a flash of teeth. Her eyes are perfectly printed and I love the high gloss red they used on her lips. The flowing red hair is also great, with wild strands flowing everywhere, and there’s a bit of a gap from the shoulders so that it doesn’t impede the head movement too badly. And I have to throw some admiration at that gorget again. It’s a pretty intricate piece for this scale, and I love how it turned out.

The articulation is nearly identical to what we got in the Coffin Comics figures, which is overall very good. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, double hinges in the knees, and hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint under the chest and at the top of the neck. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinged pegs in the wrists, and single hinges in the elbows. Now, the Coffin Comics figures changed up the single hinge elbows to rotating hinges when going from Lady Death to Hellwitch, and I would have preferred they kept that change here, but it still works fine. All the joints work fine right out of the box, which is more than I can say for some of the figures being produced by the big boys these days. I should also note that this figure has some incredible balance, especially considering her high-heeled boots. I had very little difficulty getting her to stand in some fairly dynamic action poses.

Red Sonja comes with a number of weapons, as well as three sets of hands. The hand options are fists, relaxed, and weapon gripping. Honestly, that’s the right number of hands. I get hand fatigue from some of these companies that include a thousand hands. It’s enough with the hands!!! As for the weapons, first off we have her beautiful double-handed sword, and this is gorgeous. The stout, blade is painted silver and the hilt has a gold pommel and crossguard with a black extended grip. There’s some beautiful scrollwork sculpted into the crossguard.

The articulation works well to get the figure to wield the sword with both hands.

Next up is a pair of crude fighting knives. These have dark, curved blades with a primitive hammered finish and the grips are sculpted to look like leather wrappings. I had completely forgotten that these were going to be includes, so they were a pretty cool surprise.

And finally, you get a pole-axe, which is a wonderful looking weapon. You get a single blade with a spiked back, a spiked pommel, and sculpted leather wrappings along the length of the shaft. It’s definitely an attention getter!

Red Sonja was definitely worth the wait! Granted, I had a good idea what to expect from my experience with Lady Death and Hellwitch, and I’m glad to see LooseCollector delivering on quality and consistency. And above all a figure that is an absolute joy to play around with. She looks great, the joints all behave the way they should, and there were zero QC issues, which sadly seems like an extra bonus these days. Sure, at $70 this figure clocks in at the far side of expensive, but that’s literally the price you have to pay for these smaller batched figures from smaller companies. LooseCollector has already put up some more figures for pre-order and I’m in on all of them. In the meantime, I’ll be showcasing more of this assortment in the very near future.

Mar 8 2018

Red Sonja “Scars of the She-Devil” Sixth-Scale Figure (Deluxe Edition) by Phicen/TB League

Phicen, who now seem to be calling themselves TB League, is quickly becoming my favorite Sixth-Scale action figure company behind Hot Toys. Equipped with their always impressive seamless female bodies, they’ve been turning out some amazing boxed figure sets based on some indie comic properties, as well as totally original designs. So far I’ve reviewed three of their four figures from Zenescope Comics, as well as Dynamite Comics’ Vampirella. I’m getting really behind on all my Sixth-Scale reviews, so today I’m checking out the Deluxe Edition of Red Sonja, yet another femme fatale from Dynamite Comics.

This is Phicen’s second release of Red Sonja, dubbed “Scars of the She-Devil.” The first sold out very quickly. This time around, they fixed some complaints about the head sculpt and hair color, gave her a battle damaged look by adding some scarring, decked her out with new accessories and changed up her armor. In short, this isn’t a re-release to add more figures into circulation, but rather an entirely new version. And because this is the Deluxe Edition, they bundled her with a diorama style display base. The figure comes in this massive mailer box with the figure’s regular box inside and a giant brick of styrofoam to hold the base.

Sonja’s box looks great and it’s much wider than most standard Sixth-Scale figure boxes. It’s fully enclosed with a tri-fold front flap securing to both sides by magnets. The front and side panels have photos of the actual figure and the back panel has more photos as well as a little blurb about Red Sonja herself. Lift off the top to reveal a foam tray with the figure and her accessories, and as usual the head comes separate and wrapped in plastic to protect the hair and paint. I have to say that the quality and presentation here is really premium and it blows away the flimsy sleeved window boxes that we’ve been getting from Hot Toys lately.

As mentioned, Sonja comes out of the box in need of having her head attached. You also have to gird on her her sword belt, but apart from that she’s all set to go. Not that there would be a lot to put on her otherwise. Her outfit is appropriately nearly non-existant, with just a scale mail bikini top held up by some rather ornate shoulders, and a couple of patches of scale mail to protect her coming and going down there in her nether regions. The scale armor bits are sculpted plastic and they look great with bright and lustrous metallic silver paint. These pieces are secured with brown leather straps, and they stay put quite well while posing her. She also has a pair of bronze guards on her thighs and some great looking brown boots and gauntlets. Both feature some nice sculpted rumpling to make them look like leather, and the gauntlets have some etched scrollwork as decorations. While the boots look great, they do not allow for much range of motion in the ankles, so her feet won’t always be flush with the ground in those wide stances, but I found that she balances really well. As for the gloves, swapping out her hands means swapping out the whole glove, and oh boy is that a pain in the ass. I’ve since settled with giving her a weapon gripping hand on the right and a relaxed hand on the left, but there are more to choose from if you’re feeling particularly patient. I’ll also note that Sonja also comes with a bronze band for her left upper arm. You can have a look at it on the package shot, but I’ve opted to forgo that piece in favor of a more minimalist presentation.

The sword belt hangs loose around Sonja’s hips and holds a sculpted plastic scabbard for her sword, which is most comfortable when slung just behind her right hip and sweeping across the back of her legs. I think the body they chose is a pretty good one. It’s appropriately tanned, rather fit, and not as ridiculously endowed in the chest as some of their more prolific body types. As always, that seamless skin covers a stainless steel skeleton, which is capable of some very cool articulation. They still don’t have the look of bent elbows quite right, but everything is really uncanny, especially the knees and abs. As the name suggests, this “Scars of the She-Devil” version of Sonja features various battle wounds, which was something I wasn’t so sure I was going to like, but turned out looking pretty damn good. Not only do they look realistic, but I think the design team applied just the right amount of them without going overboard. I also dig how they’re all positioned on her front, because Red Sonja always faces danger head on!

Speaking of heads, Sonja’s got a right pretty one. I think the original release had a decent portrait, but I like this one a lot too. As to which is better? It probably just comes down to a matter of taste. Either way, the paintwork on the eyes and lips is quite good, as are the eyebrows and eyelashes. Phicen isn’t near Hot Toys quality on their faces, but then again these aren’t real likenesses, so they probably aren’t trying to be. As a result, there’s a little more doll than action figure in these heads, but I’m OK with that. The hair color has actually been toned down a bit, some may argue it’s still too bright, but it’s definitely not as electric as the first release. Again, I dig it just fine. It comes with some product in it to keep it from going all crazy, and I found that it isn’t too hard to keep under control. One nitpick I will grant is that her rather serene expression doesn’t lend well to action poses, but I don’t think we’ll see a point where they start including alternate heads, because quite frankly these boxes are stuffed with enough goodies as it is. Besides, I tend to display my Sixth-Scale figures more in the museum-style, so this expression will do nicely. Let’s move on to the accessories!

First up is, Sonja’s sword, which fits fairly snugly into the scabbard on her belt. The sword features a sculpted handle that looks pretty close to what I remember seeing her carry in the comics. The grip is painted brown, while the pommel and crossguard have a bronze finish. It also features a diecast metal blade, which was a damn nice surprise. In the past Phicen accessories haven’t always felt terribly high end, so it’s nice to see they’re working on improving. The blade has some blood spray caked onto the blade, and despite having a nice heft to it, her grip can support its weight securely.

Next, she comes with a sculpted plastic shield, which features a brown surface that’s all nicked and scarred up. There’s a silver band running around the edge, silver ovals studding the middle circlet, and at the center it has a silver disc with a single spike protruding from it. On the flipside, there’s an elastic strap to go over the inside of her elbow and a grab bar, which works really well even with the relaxed hand.

The last piece in her arsenal is her massive battle axe. This thing has a wicked looking blade with silver edges to make them look sharpened. There’s some gore smeared on the blade as well, which looks a little over-the-top, but damn I love it. The grip is sculpted to look like it’s wrapped with brown leather strips and there’s some red cord tied around the bottom of the shaft. Unlike the sword, the axe is all plastic, and that’s probably a good thing, because it would be extremely heavy if the blade were metal. As great as they are, a couple of weapons and a shield isn’t exactly a crazy amount of accessories for a so-called Deluxe figure, but then I’ve yet to bring out the centerpiece of the set… Behold, the base!

Yes, the Deluxe version of Red Sonja comes with this stepped rock base with a dragon’s head and right claw rising up out of it. This thing is outrageous. I literally could not believe it when I took it out of the styrofoam. It’s crazy heavy and the sculpting and paintwork are absolutely superb. It requires a little bit of assembly, the dragon neck plugs into one slot and the claw into another. I can’t get over all the detail in the dragon’s mouth and the intricate scales.

The rocks have a number of foot pegs offering several options for posing Sonja on it. Yup, foot pegs. Phicen includes peg holes on most of the costumed figures’ feet just like a 3 3/4-inch or 6-inch action figure. The pegs hold fairly well and I’ve yet to have Sonja take a shelf dive, so whether you want to just stand her on it, or actually have her battling the dragon, there are some pretty cool display options here. I think the base only added like $25 to the Deluxe Edition’s price, which seems like a steal to me. It elevates what was already a really great figure to an epic showpiece.

Thinking back, I remember how broken-hearted I was when Red Sonja’s first release sold out before I could put in my order. Phicen’s figures are like that. Some sell out in pre-orders, other linger around for a while, but either way once they sell out, the prices on the secondary market skyrocket. Now, I realize that things sometimes happen for a reason, and I’m glad I missed out on that release, because I love everything about this version more. The armor is cooler, the axe and shield are better, and I even turned out liking the battle damage. But it was the addition of the dragon base that really goes above and beyond. The retail on this Deluxe Edition was $180, which puts her about middle of the road for high end Sixth Scale figures, but when taking in the complete package, I feel a great sense of value with this release, and that’s not something I can say about a lot of my Sixth Scale purchases these days.