So I opened it Monday night and here's the deal;
I want to applaud Kaustic/Infinity and the team for doing this license. The fact that they made this happen in 2023 is hard for me to be too harsh on them.
There is a lot of love put into this and the fact that it has talent behind it like Dario, Inigo and Sean Dabbs who are people I admire not only as artists but humans I can really appreciate this,
And I want to like it and though no fault of the people above but I do sadly think its a flop.
I want to start with the good - the box and presentation is nice the files, the mug - all cool touches that I adore. The dead Laura as creepy as it is is brilliant. The paint on this is fantastic and the realism of the body bag is incredible you can see it's fully painted underneath and I almost wish the bag was removable to see the artistry even though I realize that would be even MORE creepy.
The base is a tough one its massive which could be cool if it looked more realistic. It just can't cut it compared to some of the hobby shop nature scenes I have seen. For example the recent Asmus Gollum rock thingy has translucent water and far more realistic rock... The magnet works well and if I ever live in a place that's bigger than a 1 BR apartment I could se myself displaying it regardless of its sort of lackluster look.
Having art directed 4 Dale Coopers now - the older The Return one being the only one I'm happy with - and working on one at the moment that I really want to get right because it feels like it's the last chance, I can say that I think Inigo has a fantastic base sculpt here likeness wise. And I'm dying to see what the render looks like.
Because sadly it got totally ruined in production. Totally ruined. It's not only that the paint is flat (you can see they followed Dario's very nice template but it lacks the depth and nuance) but the sculpt is almost devout of detail. I stripped it and am almost done repainting it so I can confirm that there is barely any detail or texture there, and it's really challenging my skill level as a painter as I'm having to carefully paint in their detail that is absent. hairlines, eyebrows skin crevices etc... Whenever that happens you can only get it looking so realistic because it's going to look flat and doll like no matter what. The last time I felt with this kind of barely their soft sculpt was indeed a very old Sideshow figure - X-Files to be exact as previously mentioned here. Also the head is a bit small.
(I'll post the result on my instagram soon - here if I remember too but if you care at all best bet is to follow me there - handle in sig.)
What makes me saddest is that I know the Kaustic team has the chops - their KO Rocky has a great result in final product. Paint that is not caked on Ala Sideshow circa 2008, but nuanced transparent layers over a base PVC flesh tone and nice skin texturing etc. All that is absent here. It makes me wonder having known nothing about the production process here if Infinity is the one to blame on why the final product looks so dated.
As far as suit tailoring goes yeah it's not up to snuff with even the KO companies. It's hardto do a suit though in mass production. These days I have a hard time knocking anyone on that, again I am thrilled this even exists.
I'd be happy with the acessories and there's a few in here I really needed like the gun - but my friends DoggieDoc and StarPuffs put out an awesome set that looks much better you can't expect a mass item to match a custom though. I give them a pass on accessories TBH though the crane pin could have been a lot better/metal etc.
And I do like the base.
I will sadly give this a thumbs in the middle, if that's a thing. With most of the points going towards the dead Laura. I'm sure the team of incredible talents tried the best with what they had production wise, but I'll never hold back a critique. And this could have been much better.
I'd kill for this sculpt printed a bit more sized up direct from Inigo's render though if I'm being honest. I am however convinced that Dale Cooper will be one of those characters that never seems to be 100% right because he never looks the same. Very complicated face. At times I feel he goes very "Chandler Bing" and I think the Inigo sculpt captures him at his most Chandler Bingyness.