Got my set today, too! Overall, very pleased!
(Had the same issue with the leg swap, but just dunk the socket ends of the bent legs into a cup of hot water (
not boiling) for ten of fifteen seconds and they should pop right on. I just used hot water from the tap and it worked just fine. Didn't even have to heat it up on the stove or microwave.)
I
am going to darken the hair, though. Still puzzled by why they went with white hair instead of gray.
Paint looks much better in hand than some of the early pics. Very solid set overall. Is it perfect? No, but I think they did a very nice job solving a lot of the engineering challenges that the character design presents.
I think both portraits are quite good. The eye articulation is problematic for both heads, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to dig out that internal piece that was mentioned above to allow for better movement. (I didn't have a ton of issues having the position of the eyes knocked out of whack by the neck posts, but I may have just been lucky with my initial poses.)
The paint work could maybe a use a bit more texturing and "dirt," but it's better in hand than pictures make it look.
The articulation was always going to be a huge challenge for this figure, but I think they've done a decent enough job of solving some of the issues with the swap-out legs. Would I love an uber-flexible Gollum with ball and socket joints everywhere that can get into all the extreme crouchy/crawly poses that character gets into ... while also NOT seeing joints everywhere? Of course I would. But those two things can't really coexist. In the end, I appreciate that they're trying to strike a balance here and I respect the effort. This would be a really hard character for any company to pull off.
As for accessories, he's pretty light. Each figure comes with the One Ring, a fish, a pair of bent legs, the eye-adjusting tool, two magnetic neck plugs (for upright or all-fours head angles), and a half dozen gesturing/gripping hands. I would have liked maybe a few bent feet, a few extra wrist pegs (since these seem unique to this figure and you only get the two that come pre-installed in the figure), and maybe a few additional hands with more gestures.
As for the rock dirama piece, it's great. They could have gone with a plain rock, but they've gone the extra mile and included a little patch of clear resin to make it look like water, and a swimming fish beneath the surface. Classy and clever. (My only gripe is that the fish/water part is on the side that will end up being the back of the rock in a most people's displays, so it will end up being hidden. Grr.)
Oh, and the baseball cap is maybe my favorite part of this set. Just because it's such a goofy, hilarious, completely nonsensical addition.
Thank you for that, Asmus!
Just my two cents ...
EDIT: Oh, and the packaging is pretty great. I really appreciate the ultra-slim boxes for each figure. And the mat/glossy designs on the fronts of their boxes are really classy.
