So when it comes to one sixth figures, sometimes third party figures can be well assembled and other times you have to wonder why they missed something very obvious. Sometimes, like with the SW Toys Miss Wong, that something is forgetting that because your clothing is so short, that every time the figure bends over she's basically flashing the camera, which normally isn't a problem except to cut costs they never provided her with any underwear whatsoever.
As such, I ended up sitting on this figure for six weeks before I received wardrobe upgrades so I could at least in good conscience take photographs without having to worry about that sort of thing. Why six weeks? Because Chinese New Years happened.
Anyway, here we go.
So Miss Wong is a version of Ada Wong from the Resident Evil franchise. I'm not an actual RE fan, so naturally I skipped the DamToys version of the character. I did notice a surge of third party offerings, and so I picked one that seemed to offer the best equipment, because if you're not familiar with the market trust me, shitty accessories are REAL shitty.
The figure itself is "from" SW Toys, and I say that because quite honestly other than the head I have no idea if they actually made any of the other parts. I mean, all of a sudden eBay is flooded with Ada Wong sweaters and at least three different companies are offering an Ada Wong clone, so I'm not exactly convinced.
Interestingly enough, SW Toys is also the company that put together that Lara Croft with the tiny head and Hakeem Olajuwon proportions, which at least wasn't an issue with the prototype photos.
The back of the box did it better, but the contents of the box are as follows:
1 x Main Figure
2 x Heads/Faces (Neutral, Smiling)
6 x Posing/Gripping Hands
1 x Uzi
1 x Pistol
1 x Walkie Talkie
1 x Grappling Hook Gun
1 x Golden Egg
1 x Chest Holster Set
1 x Belt/Thigh Holster Set
1 x "Bonus Outfit"
So the Grappling Hook Gun actually comes with parts that let you recreate an entire Hook with attached cable. With regards to the Bonus Outfit, it looks kind of dumb but normally that wouldn't stop me from using it for a photography or two, but sheer laziness and general annoyance involved with undressing and redressing the body stopped me from doing so.
Here she is, out of box and fully assembled. You probably can't see the underwear, but you may notice that the leggings are darker. The OEM ones were much lighter and had really big squares in the mesh pattern (unintentionally) so away they went.
The straps are indeed not some low quality Pleather, but rather is made of the tougher plastic/rubber that you see on NECA level figures, so from a durability perspective they're not bad. HOWEVER... however... due to the rough QC and use of plastic for everything, getting everything to fit together can be somewhat of a chore, though at least I can say the pieces do their job.
The Thigh Holster deserves a bit of extra mention. While it does connect to the belt via a tiny, tiny peg, the actual holster itself actually is secured to the thigh via elastic straps and I'm not sure how much more stretching them bands can take on top of what's already being done. The actual holster can come off, as it is held in place via a plate.
The boots are pretty generic aftermarket pieces. The sweater is surprisingly nicely made, and those stripes are actual woven into the fabric and not just some half assed decal deco. The issue is that it is, of course, too short, and while I can pull it down to improve her modesty the moment the figure is posed with leg movement it all goes away.
Another issue is that there are only so many Phicen bodies (at least this is an actual Phicen body, unlike the stuff from Very Cool Toys). most of which are way too tall and lanky, and that of course results in the figure being, well, too tall and lanky for accuracy.
The two faces aren't dramatically different, so you'd be forgiven if you don't see the difference immediately. Both heads feature articulated eyeballs with the face removable for access to relevant areas. There are two major areas of criticism for these. One is that the faces are not very realistic or accurate, and I can definitely understand that. At least this wasn't a bait and switch; the prototype pretty much promised that this sort of animated look is what we'd be getting. The second comment is about the size, nd ultimately it's about the width of the neck in comparison to the body. There's gotta be at least 1 mm of clearance in all direction, which for something relatively small can make the difference between looking sexy and looking like she got the mumps. This of course then throws off the rest of the head, resulting into a much larger than necessary piece. Having said that, I have seen this head used with larger (i.e. thiccer) bodies and it seems to work out significantly better. The hair on both head looks pretty good for sculpted hair and is the same on both heads, and I have no idea why two full heads were provided, but oh well.
Accessory wise (as in the hand held ones) they're again, competent. They don't have any real moving parts like the Hot Toys ones, but aeshetically at least they're a step above what you get with a Hasbro figure. Having said that, the hands don't really hold the grips particularly well, and I found that that the guns that came with Deadpool are much better fitting, so I just kind of stuck with those. The funny thing is that the grips o those would generally require a male figure hand so... you know what they say about someone with big hands.
The other accessories (Walkie Talkie, Vial) fit nicely in the designated hand. and the egg just fits in the open palm.
From an Articulation perspective, the figure is built on a TBLeague body, so that's really all I need to say about that, though it's unfortunate that despite the seamless body the knees still don't get anywhere close to what a proper double joint can get. The hair isn't long so there's minimal issues from that perspective. The outfit basically as all the necessary give to facilitate full access to articulation, with the exception of the boots which I feel kind of screw with ankle movement. It also doesn't help that the boots are on tiny heels, so balancing the figure is incredibly challenging. Interestingly enough though, the knees don't give me any trouble despite the height of the boots though I don't know if that's the case if them legs were any chunkier.
There's very little paint on this set, though understandably so as most of the body is covered with fabric outfits. Good colour matching for the flesh tone and pale body colours. Most of the paint is on the accessories, with some like the Vial getting more paint that most, though the coverage on the Grappling Hook Gun is pretty good. Otherwise, it's little specks of colour here and there such as the buttons on the Walkie Talkie and the Silver of the buckles. Guess I shouldn't forget the make up, and the work on the eyes is pretty good.
The AMOUNT of paint on the hands is pretty silly though. I don't think she wears full gloves in the game but come on guys, who has gloves that barely cover the knuckles and don't even go all way down the palm?
Build Quality issues are really just the aforementioned hands, and in a solid second place, the annoyance that is actually assembling the belts and straps. Otherwise there's really not much else that can go wrong, other than the head, hands and feet/boots not actually fitting on the sockets. TBLeague bodies continue to the the most consistent in quality without joint problems that seem to randomly plague other brands I purchase.
That is, in a nut shell, this figure. It's nowhere even close to perfect, but you can consider it to be acceptable. I got it for fun, but most people are probably gonna take the parts this comes with and further kitbash until their desires are met. I know for a fact that if I tried, and I mean REALLY tried, I'd probably end up going broke, so while there are a few things I'm going to try for shits and giggles, I'm not enough of an Ada fan to actually build the ultimate figure.
I already have an unhealthy Black Widow addition.
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