DSC_1274
Well, here she is: the Original Effect Army Attractive Mulan figure.
To summarize the story so far, she was effectively a random Facebook purchase from Ottawa, a city about 4 hours from where I am., so I had to depend on the kindness of strangers to get the job done. She arrived, and I knew she was incomplete (missing one shoulder armour piece) and I learned there was some pleather deterioration.
But it is definitely an interesting piece to do a bit of research into.
The box, as far as I can tell, comes with the figure, complete with fabric outfit, various armour bits, and a necklace, an additional pair of hands for holding accessories, a sword, and a shield. There are holes on the bottom of the feet which indicate that you can get some sort of a stand for the figure, but there is nothing to suggest that she ever came with a stand.
Original Effect, as far as I know, no longer exists. Their webpage is dead and there hasn't exactly been any recent chatter about them... or any in general. They made at least 10 figures, and seemed to be active in the mid 2010s. A quick glance on eBay will very quickly show why you either really like Original Effect, or you rolled your eyes at them.
All their designs were clearly aiming for the sultry anime character look. Mulan here is actually one of the more conservatively dressed ones - she's no worse than what you'd find in a Warriors/Musou game, though it's funny because she's supposed to be the one that the entire Imperial army couldn't figure out was a chick.
The standard Original Effect 1/6 body... well isn't really 1/6 at all. Mulan is slightly taller than the rest in that her feet are wearing some crazy stilettoes, but she's about 12 inches from her ANKLE to the top of her head. She's about the size of those old DC 13 inch "one sixth" figures... that or she's really 6.75 ft. tall. While she's clearly mostly leg, comparing Mulan to my Widow collection shows even her upper torso is about a half an inch taller.
This does kind of put a damper on my plan to convert Mulan to a TBLeague body.
More interesting is the aesthetic the body was going for. In my mind, Original Effect was aiming for a fantasy body, albeit one that is relatively slender and when posed, can appear quite graceful. Put another way, the body is more akin to the slender TBLeague offerings as opposed to the curvier ones.
The overall design of the body resembles a Ball Joint Doll or Figma more. All joints are single and have restrictions on motion as you'd expect. There is no lateral shoulder movement. The overall design is like of one those semi-seamless bodies, where it's really the main torso that has no visible gaps.
The trade off, however, is because this is not a true stainless steel skeleton, the rubber (at least I think it's rubber) sits on top of some relatively bulky mechanical bits, which in turn negatively affects the range of motion in the torso, both waist and abdomen area.
The joints for the wrists and ankles are also embedded in the stumps, which also reduces range of motion. Range of motion for the arms and legs themselves aren't bad. The figure appears to be top heavy, which can overwhelm the knee joints causing the figure to flop over.
The neck is interesting. I don't think I have a broken one, but it appears that the actual neck itself has no functioning joint, with a short joint piece for where the head plugs on. This translates into you're not getting too much variety in your head poses.
Overall, I'd say the body itself isn't up to Hot Toys level, but the outfits the characters are in allow them to utilize their somewhat limited articulation better.
The outfit itself is relatively simple, consisting of a silk like outer robe, one single sock, fabric sash, and effectively a black top and underwear set. Having said that, after staring at Hot Toy outfits for the past decade, its a nice change of pace.
I dig the head sculpt. Mulan has the benefit of basically just having to look cool, and I feel the doll like appearance works quite well, complemented by the make up they applied to her eyes and lips. Expression is very cold , which admittedly can be a turn off. Having said that.. at least she looks awake, which is more than I can say for other 1/6 figures I've seen.
Detailing in the sculpted hair is also nicely done, rivaling some of the stuff I've seen on Japanese scale figures. The fabric strap on her head has a wire in it, so that can be posed
Detailing and paint work on the armour and weapons aren't bad. I've seen more polished work on my Figma and Figuarts releases (and of course, Hot Toys) but is still several steps above some of the third party stuff that I've seen. The hands are actually nicely sculpted, appearing slender as one would expect, something that I've yet to see on any 1/6 female figure outside of the modern seamless crowd.
Finish on the various plastic parts can look a bit rough, though on mine it appears most of the "oof" areas are covered by the sleeves.
The shoes are a bit much. I mean, stylistically I don't mind as it fits the overall design, but they make standing the figure up without a stand somewhat of a challenge.
The head is somewhat different. From what I can tell, she actually has a layer of rubber skin rather than flesh colours paint, which if I'm using my engineering hat, was done in order to keep the colours of the chest and face consistent, as there is a slight difference between the chest and the legs/arms. It's not as noticable on this figure due to the outfit, but I imagine this could be somewhat of an eyesore on the... shall we say... more modernly dressed figures.
In conclusion, I like the overall package the figure offers, even if it's not quite up to Hot Toys standards. Aesthetically, though, Mulan is like a character out of a comic book, with an emphasis on her long legs, which is something you're not going to get with the main players in the one sixth industry.
Clearly being one sixth, I'm not exactly going to rush out and hunt these figures down. I lucked out here on this purchase, as in general figures this size are not cheap. But, this does give me one more thing to keep an eye out for when I can travel again.
2021 is off to an interesting start toy wise... lets see what other exotic finds it brings.
DSC_1274
Well, here she is: the Original Effect Army Attractive Mulan figure.
To summarize the story so far, she was effectively a random Facebook purchase from Ottawa, a city about 4 hours from where I am., so I had to depend on the kindness of strangers to get the job done. She arrived, and I knew she was incomplete (missing one shoulder armour piece) and I learned there was some pleather deterioration.
But it is definitely an interesting piece to do a bit of research into.
The box, as far as I can tell, comes with the figure, complete with fabric outfit, various armour bits, and a necklace, an additional pair of hands for holding accessories, a sword, and a shield. There are holes on the bottom of the feet which indicate that you can get some sort of a stand for the figure, but there is nothing to suggest that she ever came with a stand.
Original Effect, as far as I know, no longer exists. Their webpage is dead and there hasn't exactly been any recent chatter about them... or any in general. They made at least 10 figures, and seemed to be active in the mid 2010s. A quick glance on eBay will very quickly show why you either really like Original Effect, or you rolled your eyes at them.
All their designs were clearly aiming for the sultry anime character look. Mulan here is actually one of the more conservatively dressed ones - she's no worse than what you'd find in a Warriors/Musou game, though it's funny because she's supposed to be the one that the entire Imperial army couldn't figure out was a chick.
The standard Original Effect 1/6 body... well isn't really 1/6 at all. Mulan is slightly taller than the rest in that her feet are wearing some crazy stilettoes, but she's about 12 inches from her ANKLE to the top of her head. She's about the size of those old DC 13 inch "one sixth" figures... that or she's really 6.75 ft. tall. While she's clearly mostly leg, comparing Mulan to my Widow collection shows even her upper torso is about a half an inch taller.
This does kind of put a damper on my plan to convert Mulan to a TBLeague body.
More interesting is the aesthetic the body was going for. In my mind, Original Effect was aiming for a fantasy body, albeit one that is relatively slender and when posed, can appear quite graceful. Put another way, the body is more akin to the slender TBLeague offerings as opposed to the curvier ones.
The overall design of the body resembles a Ball Joint Doll or Figma more. All joints are single and have restrictions on motion as you'd expect. There is no lateral shoulder movement. The overall design is like of one those semi-seamless bodies, where it's really the main torso that has no visible gaps.
The trade off, however, is because this is not a true stainless steel skeleton, the rubber (at least I think it's rubber) sits on top of some relatively bulky mechanical bits, which in turn negatively affects the range of motion in the torso, both waist and abdomen area.
The joints for the wrists and ankles are also embedded in the stumps, which also reduces range of motion. Range of motion for the arms and legs themselves aren't bad. The figure appears to be top heavy, which can overwhelm the knee joints causing the figure to flop over.
The neck is interesting. I don't think I have a broken one, but it appears that the actual neck itself has no functioning joint, with a short joint piece for where the head plugs on. This translates into you're not getting too much variety in your head poses.
Overall, I'd say the body itself isn't up to Hot Toys level, but the outfits the characters are in allow them to utilize their somewhat limited articulation better.
The outfit itself is relatively simple, consisting of a silk like outer robe, one single sock, fabric sash, and effectively a black top and underwear set. Having said that, after staring at Hot Toy outfits for the past decade, its a nice change of pace.
I dig the head sculpt. Mulan has the benefit of basically just having to look cool, and I feel the doll like appearance works quite well, complemented by the make up they applied to her eyes and lips. Expression is very cold , which admittedly can be a turn off. Having said that.. at least she looks awake, which is more than I can say for other 1/6 figures I've seen.
Detailing in the sculpted hair is also nicely done, rivaling some of the stuff I've seen on Japanese scale figures. The fabric strap on her head has a wire in it, so that can be posed
Detailing and paint work on the armour and weapons aren't bad. I've seen more polished work on my Figma and Figuarts releases (and of course, Hot Toys) but is still several steps above some of the third party stuff that I've seen. The hands are actually nicely sculpted, appearing slender as one would expect, something that I've yet to see on any 1/6 female figure outside of the modern seamless crowd.
Finish on the various plastic parts can look a bit rough, though on mine it appears most of the "oof" areas are covered by the sleeves.
The shoes are a bit much. I mean, stylistically I don't mind as it fits the overall design, but they make standing the figure up without a stand somewhat of a challenge.
The head is somewhat different. From what I can tell, she actually has a layer of rubber skin rather than flesh colours paint, which if I'm using my engineering hat, was done in order to keep the colours of the chest and face consistent, as there is a slight difference between the chest and the legs/arms. It's not as noticable on this figure due to the outfit, but I imagine this could be somewhat of an eyesore on the... shall we say... more modernly dressed figures.
In conclusion, I like the overall package the figure offers, even if it's not quite up to Hot Toys standards. Aesthetically, though, Mulan is like a character out of a comic book, with an emphasis on her long legs, which is something you're not going to get with the main players in the one sixth industry.
Clearly being one sixth, I'm not exactly going to rush out and hunt these figures down. I lucked out here on this purchase, as in general figures this size are not cheap. But, this does give me one more thing to keep an eye out for when I can travel again.
2021 is off to an interesting start toy wise... lets see what other exotic finds it brings.