I saw designs for the Mechawhales figure which is, uh, named Mechawhales a few years ago on the October Toys forums while looking at various OMFG designs, if memory serves. I thought it was really cool and I wanted to get one, although I was expecting something smaller and cheaper. The figure is about 3 1/2-inches tall and 5 1/2-inches long, so it's significantly larger than Battle Beasts figures but won't tower over your average Marvel super hero. It ain't bad.
If you collect Glyos, it's in between a Rig and an Armodoc in terms of height, but it feels a little more massive. It's chunky, with articulation at the shoulders, wrists, and shockingly, the tail. I honestly thought the figure would only move at the arms. The sculpting and deco are excellent, with a scarred eye, an expression ready for battle, and a mouth that actually has a lot of paint in there. Normally this is where toymakers skimp, but you can see fully-painted teeth plus a pink interior to his mouth. The bluish grey skin has some deco in it that's quite subtle, making it look as realistic as a walking cybernetic sperm whale could ever hope to appear.
Sculpting armor is probably the easy part, but a lot of care was put into making a suit which can actually carry a full whale body. Unlike other beast lines, there aren't any anthropomorphic shortcuts - this is clearly a chassis meant to carry around a full-grown whale, somehow. The clawed hands rotate, there are rockets everywhere, and it reminds me a lot of the power loader from ALIENS. The quality of weathering on the figure is what you might expect out of a high-end statue or a custom-made model kit, which takes a little sting out of the nearly $50 price tag for this one. As it doesn't do much other than stand around and look cool, your love of the concept is what will ultimately drive you to buy it. It's a good-looking figure and while clearly not meant to be a toy, it feels a lot sturdier than the recent releases from numerous major players in the action figure world.
As far as I know there are no plans for other figures in the line, although I can't imagine why there hasn't been a Moby Dick-inspired white whale repaint just yet. That seems like a great next move. I like this figure enough that, despite the price, I would probably pick up whatever it is that they do next, as long as the concept was this much fun.
16bit.com is best not viewed in Apple's Safari browser, we don't know why. All material on this site copyright their respective copyright holders. All materials appear hear for informative and entertainment purposes. 16bit.com is not to be held responsible for anything, ever. Photos taken by the 16bit.com staff. Site design, graphics, writing, and whatnot credited on the credits page. Be cool-- don't steal. We know where you live and we'll break your friggin' legs.
RSS 
