Tag Archives: weta

Oct 18 2011

Doctor Who: Sontaran Officer Linx Helmet (LE 500) by Weta

It’s been a little while since WETA released their line of helmets from Doctor Who. The line ran the gamut from the amazing Earthshock Cyberman, which I featured here on FigureFan, to the bewildering welders mask from the NuWho episode “42” that begged the question, “Who the hell would want that?” Anyway, there were some pretty cool and iconic helmets inbetween, including the one we’re looking at today: Behold the helmet of The Sontaran General Linx from the Jon Pertwee episode “The Time Warrior.”

The package is the same style as the one used for the Earthshock Cyberman. It’s a Classic Who collectible, but it uses the artwork and logo from the 2005-2009 Series. Nothing fancy here. You get a simple box packed with styrofoam inserts to hold the stand and helmet safe and secure. You also get a pamphlet showing other Doctor Who items by WETA. The package shows off photos of the collectible in question and you get some good summaries about Doctor Who as a series and the episode in particular. “The Time Warrior” was a good choice for the subject, since it was the story that first introduced us to the Sontarans as an enemy of the good Doctor.
The Cyberman helmet was permanently attached to the display stand, whereas the Sontaran helmet is actually removable and merely rests on top of it. The stand uses a generic mannequin style human head sculpt, which, granted, is a little out of place for a Sontaran helmet, but it supports the helmet just fine, so I won’t harp about it too much. As with the Cybermen helmet, this one is limited to only 500 pieces and hand numbered on the bottom of the display stand along with the other production information.
The helmet itself is all one piece and fashioned entirely from metal so it has a mighty fine heft to it. By design, the Sontaran helmets aren’t nearly as detailed as the Cybermen or many of the other helmets in this line, but make no mistake, this is a faithful scaled recreation of the prop from the episode, “The Time Warrior,” including the sinister eye slits, the ventilation holes, the mohawk-style crest, and of course, the probic vent in the back of the helmet’s collar. It’s certainly a cool and iconic looking piece of Doctor Who history.
These WETA helmets originally retailed for about fifty bucks. I picked up the Sontaran helmet from an online e-tailer on clearance for half off. Considering what you get and the limitation of production, it’s certainly a good deal. While I’m certainly not intending to assemble a complete collection of this line, I’m happy enough with the two that I have that I’d like to hunt down a few more.
Sep 11 2010

Doctor Who: Earthshock Cyberman Leader Helmet (LE 500) by Weta

I never thought a Weta product would ever land in my blog. It’s not that I don’t appreciate their products, quite the contrary, I love drooling over their new product images each time they come out. I especially love their line of trippy retro-style ray guns, but not to the point that I could justify their $500+ price tags. It’s just not in my budget, and the smaller scaled ones don’t interest me. Weta has been securing the rights to doing other licensed products. Recently, they’ve acquired the license to make products based off the District 9 movie, and they’ve had licensing agreements with the Beeb to do Doctor Who related items for a little while now.

One of Weta’s newest lines of Doctor Who based products is a series of limited edition scaled helmets. These have included a Sontaran helmet, an Ice Warrior, a Time Lord headpiece and cowl, and the Cyberman Leader head that we’re going to look at today.

The helmet comes in a very nice illustrated box with a decor similar to what Character Options has been using for their Classic style figures. There’s a blue swirly background with the Doctor Who logo from the 2005-2009 series. Every panel of the box shows a photo of the helmet from a different angle, so you definitely can see what you’re getting despite it not being a window-type package. The back panel has a couple of paragraphs about Doctor Who in general and the side panel has a blurb about the episode, Earthshock and the Cyber Leader.

The first thing I noticed about this box is how freaking heavy it is. Before I could even get it all the way out of the shipping box, I began feeling a sense of satisfaction with my purchase. Inside the box, the helmet rests safely encased in two styrofoam trays with a QC sticker seal attached.

The helmet itself is cast in metal with a silver painted finish and encases the black, matte polystone stand from which it cannot be removed. The only seam that’s present is on the sides of the neck, which I believe is a detail copied from the actual prop and not part of the manufacture process. Either way there are no other visible seams in the sculpt, which is something I am particularly happy about. The mesh screen in the eyeholes is nicely reproduced, as is the segmentation on his “ears” and handlebars. The chin plate is transparent plastic revealing the black stand underneith. The appropriate rubber hosing protrudes from each side of the helmet and runs back to a socket on the stand, since the lower portion of the Cyberman where these would plug in is not recreated here.

The stand itself has a hexagonal base and the matte black finish really contrasts nicely against the silver finish of the helmet. The base stands on four protective rubber grommets and the bottom contains the production information, including the signature of sculptor, David Tremont and the production number, in this case 487 of 500.

The Cyber Leader helmet set me back sixty bucks. It is admittedly quite an extravagance for me since I’m not usually into statues or busts, and this piece definitely falls into both of those categories. Nonetheless, the Earthshock Cyberman has always been my favorite of all the Cyberman designs and considering the limitation of this piece to only 500, the price seemed like a good deal. Still, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what to expect, but now that I have it, I can’t say as I have any buyer’s remorse. It’s a beautiful, well-crafted piece which will get a prominant place in my display case.