The X-Plus 1984 has arrived!
As a fan of the 1984 suit, I'm excited to be able to acquire another collectible based on it. Unfortunately, '84 Godzilla collectibles are either limited in availability or are older and rare, so it was nice to be able to jump on this right from the start and not only secure it but at a fair retail price, especially as pricey as these X-Plus Godzillas get and as quick as they get there.
Kudos to X-Plus for delivering a final product that matches their painted sample. What I received is what I was to exepct from those photos.
SCULPT
The quality of the sculpt work is pretty good, some nice texturing on his skin, they captured the distinct spikes well and didn't just throw on generic looking ones. While it's not my favorite '84 Godzilla collectible, it is one of the better representations that I'm aware of being made.
https://www.ne.jp/asahi/paopao/wonderland/db/godz1984.html
I would say this is a better represenation of the '84 Godzilla than most of the ones found at the link above. I really like that X-Plus also uses individually sculpted teath instead of a denture-like method like Bandai. It really helps the piece look better, it's a feature that ruins many a Bandai figure. I also am happy with the scale of the teeth. Some of the photos had me thinking they might look too big but they look proportion to the rest of his head to me.
While some will just see this as an '84 Godzilla and may or may not feel it's a good one because of the pose and all, I see a very specific representation in it. I look at this and I feel everything about it is based off the scene where Godzilla picks up the train and goes walking around with it. The more upright pose of the legs, the longer neck, and even the pose of the arms really speaks to that part of the film, and Godzilla really looked unique in that scene compared to others in the film. Some may not pick up on it, but I've been so fond of the '84 I've looked at a crapload of photos and watched the movie countless times checking all this stuff out.
Now, it's not without room for improvement. This look being so scene specific, to me, makes it not the best choice for a pose. Since I have several '84 Godzillas, I accept this and kind of like that it brings something different to the collection that's unlike any of the others I have, I am judging this piece from thoe notion of if it were all you could get for an '84 Godzilla piece. For me, if you're going to capture the essence of the '84 Godzilla, the pose should be a bit more crouched looking, suggestive of his mass, and I'd also have the mouth even more open. The opening on the X-Plus is suggestive of him popping out a tiny little roar, but I think it should be a full on, furious looking roar. As I've said before, for me, you really can't beat the depiction of the '84 that Yuji Sakai went with for the Kaiyodo 1/400th model kit. Sakai is not only a talented sculptor, but he really understands how to sum up each Godzilla. Because Godzilla's a man in a suit, there's variations to his look even in the same film, and somehow Sakai knows just want features to go with to creat a sculpt that sums it all up perfectly. For a non-Sakai piece though, this X-Plus is nice.
PAINT
While In theory, Godzilla is a simple creature to paint, I think there's room to do some beautiful paint work with Godzillas. X-Plus, however, falls short.
Now, it's a nice, clean paint job, much better than Bandai work, but for the price of these, I don't think it's crazy to want to see a more elaborate paint job, especially where all there really is to do in production is the paint job, there's no tailoring to work on.
One of the main things I would step up with the paint job is the skin. While I'm guessing this is cast in the skin tone, even if it's painted this color, it's monotone. A nice mix of lights and darks would really pop the texture on him and make it feel more like a miniaturized Godzilla suit and not a vinyl collectible.
Another aspect of the paint that I think could be better handled would be the spikes. The blend of the white parts and the dark came out pretty good, but a better blending would make them look more like you might imagine real spikes growing out of a lizard would look than spikes on a toy that have been painted pretty well.
It's good paint work, but like I said, at $100 or so for one of these, I think it's reasonable to want things a bit better. And I think they've even done it with other Godzillas, their production '64 looks to have some variations to the skin and a better look. Maybe they feel like the '84 is monotone and didn't need it, but I've seen better '84 skintones that have mixed tones so seeing a monotone one is a bit dissappointing. I'd have gone more grey with the skin too, it's a bit close to black for my taste.
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