Wolfboto Noboto Wave 76 - New for 2018! Glyos System Series Item No.: No. n/a Manufacturer: Onell Design Includes: Quallerran Head, Noboto Head, Belt with Pouches, Belt, Backpack, Scarf Action Feature: Pops apart Retail: $12.00 Availability: October 25, 2018 Other: Two heads, better than one
PREVIOUS	RSS	NEXT

There was a great monster Onell Design drop in 2018 where I got Wolfboto Noboto and several other truly wonderful figures, many of which sadly sat in bags next to my desk for years because of the constant influx of new stuff. I could do months of just Onell Design toys, there are so many good ones and so many other things constantly flying across my desk that for some reason or another, just get kicked back when I should probably just make it a point to change "Figure of the Day" to "First Impressions with Adam" and we just look at everything that passes through here. That's not a terrible idea, come to think of it.

Matt Doughty is a clever fellow who has really made a meal out of each new mold. Some figures get dozens of recolors, a few are beyond 100. The Noboto has proven to be an incredible inspiration, because this riff on a Wolf Man is just one of dozens of cool creatures. You can also get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wolverine, Yoda, Gremlins, a riff on Orbitron/the Metaluna Mutant, and others. If you only collected Glyos figures, I doubt you would get bored - the problems come in when you collect multiple lines and it can sometimes be harder to appreciate novelty and creativity when you go "but I got 50 Crayboth figures here already." They're all good, but it can be easy to forget why when they multiply from one or two amazing figures to something that occupies a bookcase, or a room.

You can't get this figure on eBay or from Onell Design anymore which is a shame, because you'd like it. I hope he gives some thought to doing it again in a different color - maybe a black and white variant?

Click here to check availability at eBay.

What makes this particular figure so interesting is that a little robot guy has turned into an amazing canvas for creativity. Sure we've got pearl white ones, clear colorless ones, green and yellow ones, yellow and green ones, but there's so much more potential here. The 2 3/4-inch base figure originally had two bulb-shaped heads, but this revised head with the ear-like protrusions really expanded the possibilities of what you could do. The MVR Standard Noboto [FOTD #743] came with the Noboto head and a Protoclone head - both were bulbs, and while both are good, the alternate shape allowed the figure to be more. This bulkier, scruffier head added some evil eye paint and fangs. The head doesn't have sculpted fangs on it, but the flat surface allowed someone to add them. Looking at it six years later, I wonder what it would be like if a figure like this, with painted fur on the head and also the not-furry body, could fly in a toy marketplace that's generally increasingly detailed to a preposterous extent. I'd like to think it could. I don't know if Target would ever be able to stock something like this, but you have to admit it's an extremely appealing and weird little fellow.

You can reconfigure the toy in a lot of neat ways - there's a collar of sorts, a belt, a torso you can flip around to change his build, a backpack, and of course, an alternate head. And it's great. I really hate myself for not clocking it sooner - I looked at the figure in the bag for years but never really examined the bulb head. It's adorable. It's still bulb-shaped, but the paint does all the heavy lifting. The black outline around the cute white and orange eyes would be fine on their own, but the added tiny black nose and a slightly smile with a stalagmite of a fang, surrounded by a patch of light fur, might remind you of an Ewok or a Wookiee. There's not a lot of painted definition on the sides of the head, but that makes sense given how much we got on the chest and arms. Paint isn't free, and at $12 this figure was probably butting up against the deco budget and the family Doughty grocery bills. It's worth noting his knees, thighs, fingers, soles, and calf muscles are also painted. Nobody skimped here.

Articulation is typical Glyos figure of is day, but the mold showed a lot of growth. The early figures had decent articulation, but he started sneaking in bicep swivels and other little things on figures like this one that could give the arms some swivel-out movement.

I haven't heard from the creator Matt Doughty in a while, and I hope he's doing well. The sense of playfulness in the figure's face is so good that I wish more people could experience it, and I'd love to see what he could do if given the keys to some designer figure line that could be put in front of the masses... granted, it's hard to appeal to a large audience. Figures are too big, or not big enough, or too expensive, or not expensive enough, and a little $12 guy like this with swappable body parts might be $15 or $20 if slapped on a cardback and given margins to make a big box store its token points. It's a real charmer, and if you could find one for under $25 or so I'd pounce on it. Or more, I don't know what your budget is. I hope to see more figures like this - as of my writing this, it has been a few months since we got a new Onell Design drop and I hope he has some more monsters in store for us soon.

Additional Images

Click here to see more Onell Design figures in Figure of the Day.

Click here to see more Glyos Compatible figures in Figure of the Day.

Featured Toy Video