9 replies to this topic

[Ridureyu]

https://nerditis.com...w-mini-boglins/

 

 

 

 

Hello, everybody!  Remember Mini-Boglins?  The weird, cheap little emoti-goblins I reviewed a while ago?  Well, now there are more!  Tim Clarke, the original designer of the Boglins, has designed a few new Mini-Boglins, which went up for sale at a few art shows, an... okay, this review is sorta unfair, because unless they produce more, these guys will be WAY TOO EXPENSIVE.  There are like 100 of each.  In the world.  Total.  So, although I am about to show off my one new Mini-Boglin, this post actually has some relevance to it.  And hey, supposedly more will come soon.

 

This is Gore. Now, it's kind of an oddity how the new Mini-Boglins - the zombie tribe - are named Gore, Southpaw, Mummers and Mini-Blobkin.  Previous tribes were all alliterativ, with names like Drak, Dril, and Droup for Boglins in the same tribe.  Huh.  But anyway, Gore looks pretty good - he's clearly falling apart at the seams, sorta like Slobulus from the Mad Balls.

 

That's terrible dremeling on his underside, but this is apparently Tim CLarke's first time hand-casting figures.  You can also tell from the consistency of the rubber - it's oddly harder than usual Mini-Boglin rubber, but I figure he'll get the hang of it in time.  But let's discuss something else.  Dremel work aside, this figure has a ton of detail, but is also clearly hand-sculpted.  Some people have, loudly and on the internet, complained that the new figures look "rough" or sloppy.  But that's the thing.  Gore isn't really that sloppy, and the rough details are part of his charm.  But even then, like... even if you're gonna look t this figure and say, "It looks kind of amateurish," well, have you even seen Mini-Boglins?  Like, HAVE YOU?  Here, let's look at some classic Mini-Boglins.

 

 

This is Stroll. He has a visible fingerprint on his back, right where the scale pattern is smudged because the sculptor pinched the original clay model too hard.

 

This is Gurg. Gurg also has visible fingerprints, as well as spots where new clay was dabbed onto the sculpt to fix things.

 

This is Splang. The detailing just sorta stops partway down his body, leaving him a smooth, blank mess.

 

This is Stog. His scale patterns clearly came from a fingernail, and got doubled-up haphzardly.

 

This is Boik. Clearly, his warts were made by retracting the tip from a ballpoint pen, and poking at the clay for a while.

 

This is Trap. I don't know how many disasters happened to his side, but Trap clearly did not turn out as intended.

Also, don't forget Poig. He's actively commiting suicide right now.

 

 

Mace is well-sculpted - in fact, some Mini-Boglins were really cleanly-done, but you can't ignore the huge percentage with visible fingerprints, creases, cracks, missing details, patches on the mold, suicidal tendencies, and who knows what else. Anyway, let's have a look at Gore next to a couple of rather similar classic Mini-Boglins.

 

 

See? He's actually pretty cool. And honestly, I sorta hope that Tim Clarke finds a way to release more of his figures, so they can be easier to get hold of. I'd love a pile of new Mini-Boglins to coexist with my classic li'l emoti-goblins!

Edited by Ridureyu, 10 January 2017 - 02:19 PM.

[carcass]

Great review, as usual. I agree that some of the charm lies in the roughness of these little guys! I can't wait for more mini boglins!   I also got Gore btw, two of them in fact.

[imperfecz]

I never looked that closely at the old mini boglins I suppose..... now I want to go home, dump em out and inspect all of them! Awesome review, thanks for that!

[Draznar]

I never looked that closely at the old mini boglins I suppose..... now I want to go home, dump em out and inspect all of them! Awesome review, thanks for that!

 

I saw some of the weird marks on the ones I had a few years ago, and I just assumed someone had mucked up their childhood toys. (Not the finger prints, but some of the missing/flat details.)

[Ridureyu]

The basic way to tell is, the really clean and polished ones are Medieval, Prehistoric, Samurai, and the newly-added figures to the older tribes (like the messengers).  With stuff older than that, there's fun jankiness to be found!

[Jamesmate]

Those photos show exactly why people are saying the new ones are tardy, a stray fingerprint here or there, or method of creating detail is one thing, but the look of the new ones are an entirely different abomination, compare the hands/fingers in the photo right there, as well as the general texture.
"...and the rough details are part of his charm..." - It sounds like someone looking for any way to appreciate the new release, but as someone that has collected Boglins for years now, I can say that just because it has the boglins name doesn't mean it has the boglins quality, just look at the 2000-release of hand puppets, terrible appearance and even worse construction, it's ok to dislike a part of a series you love, like The Phantom Menace showed us.    (emoticon to show no offence implied) 

[Ridureyu]

It took me days of head-shaking to respond, because come on, dude.  "A stray fingerprint here or there?"  You see those sometimes in indy toys, but can you name one mass-produced, sold-in-normal-stores toy line that has even a single stray fingerprint?

 

No.

 

Because stray fingerprints are one of the worst signs of poor sculpting out there.  All the hings I pointed out are terrible, unprofessional faults on those mini-Boglins.  You just don't see slop like that in professionally-done, mass-produced toys, and yet it happens time and time again with Mini-Boglins.  Now, you could say, "Those are bad, but I think the new ones are worse."  You could say, "But the latter Min-Boglins cleaned up their act," but you can't say, "A stray fingerprint is nothing!  But this figure feels a little rough to me so it's worse!"  THat's ust silly.  It's like saying, "Well, a dead patient or two is nothing, but my doctor overcharged me by $5!"  

Seriously.

[Jamesmate]

I didn't say a stray fingerprint is nothing, did I? I checked, nope, so don't put it into quotation marks please, haha, but it is nothing - compared - to the new sculpts.

 

A stray fingerprint with the smooth quality finish of the early minis is easily better than no fingerprint with the absolute roughness of the new ones - not forgetting the stray fingerprint was on HOW many sculpts?

 

Compare that to every new one (so far) that is rough looking-and-feeling as all hell, doesn't even look like an official product, you brought up indy toys, this is the quality of those such toys.

If the 2000 release of boglins hadn't happened, I'd say this was the worst thing they've done under the boglins name, alas they were slightly more unforgivable. 

 

That doctor analogy you provided was way over the top, and I think you already know that.

 

Shake your head for a few more days then reply again if you like, no rush.

[Ridureyu]

I'm not sure if this one is even worth a reply.  You again treat "a stray fingerprint" like it's minor, while discounting what are, admittedly, detailed sculpts.  The new mini-boglins are on par with the early tribes in the original line.  They are not as good as the latter tribes.  That's an absolute fact. You can try to deny it, but you're just plain wrong.  There's a trend in nerd and collector culture to go, "NEW IS BAD!", often tinted by our rose-colored nostalgia lenses.  The fact is, plenty of the older figures have rough details even without the outright errors - look at Poig, for example, as his gun is really, really roughly-made when you take a second to look at the details.  Or Boik, he of the really sloppy warts.  Or Killa, with an extremely roughly-sculpted face and boxing gloves that aren't even round.  The specific examples just go on and on and on.  You're free to hold the wrong opinion, of course.

Edited by Ridureyu, 25 January 2017 - 09:29 PM.

[Jamesmate]

Once again, I'll clarify, the stray fingerprints are not nothing, there is no playing down in my words.

Fingerprints in 1991-1994 sculpts compared to an overall horrid appearance and feel of the 2017 release, is where my comparison lay, i.e. why come back 20 years later with an inferior quality product? The 2000 release of boglins showed why that was a bad idea. Is there an echo in here, I hate repeating myself.

 

You don't have to worry about the whole 'new is bad' thing with me as I'm not a fan of mini boglins in general so there is no nostalgia intercepting my eye line. I'm mainly a collector of the larger type, I can just see poor quality when it's in front of me, and especially when someone puts a few comparison photos up which really highlights how poor they really do look compared to ones that came out over 2 decades previous.

 

Poig and Mace as you mentioned are perfect examples of how smooth and 'finished' they were, compared to the stark roughness of the new set, almost as though they missed the final lathing process, again you're making me feel like I'm repeating myself

 

'You can try to deny it, but you're just plain wrong' - 'You're free to hold the wrong opinion'

 

You're sounding like someone that doesn't like people disagreeing with their opinion with lines like that, calm down and try to reply with less confrontation in future buddy, nobody likes a bully, this is a forum about toys after all.