Loyal Subjects Jumbo Leonardo Figures
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Vinyl Ninja Turtle figures have proven to be very popular over the last two years with versions being produced by Kidrobot, Funko and The Loyal
Subjects. But while Kidrobot has dropped the TMNT line entirely and Funko only seems interested in the four Turtles, Bebop and Rocksteady, The
Loyal Subjects is powering ahead with more characters and new variations of the figures. One of those variations that they have tried is making
the figures bigger. Much like Kubricks produces 400% versions of some of their more popular figures, The Loyal Subjects has decided to produce
large eight inch tall versions of the Turtles' leader, Leonardo. This Jumbo Leonardo was first supposed to be available at San Diego Comic Con this
year along with a metallic version. They didn't actually ship in July. But eventually we did get our Jumbo versions of Leonardo as well as a grey-
scale, battle damage version as well.
Packaging - Battle Damage 8/10 regular & Metallic 6/10Each of the Jumbo versions of Leonardo come in a generously sized box with a large window on the front and top. That's great so MIB collectors can still see exactly what they are buying. But the box is really too big for the figure. They made it larger so that they would have about half of the space to show off the accessories. But those few accessories sitting in a big empty half of the box in front of a plain white background just looks like a lot of wasted space. The Battle Damage version solves this by adding B&W comic book images as a backdrop. That one change fills in all of that void and makes the toy look like it fills the packaging much better. The back of the boxes has artwork showing the back of the figure which is an interesting choice. That artwork is then surrounded by information about The Loyal Subjects social media, the SDCC logo and other text. Again, with the Battle Damage version they did a slight tweak, making the image of Leonardo larger and more imposing on the back of the box while moving the text and logos to one side. There is one other minor change made with the Battle Damage version that also has a big impact. All three designs use Mirage comic artwork as the background. But on the regular version and Metallic version, the artwork in the background is very muted and printed over a dark color. So the artwork is barely visible. On the Battle Damage packaging, the artwork is much clearer and more visible. It works well as a backdrop. And makeing it stand out better gives the entire package a cleaner, neater look. Whereas the regular and metallic versions look muddled instead.
Sculpting - 7/10The Jumbo Leonardos do appear to be a fairly direct upscaling of the existing three inch figure to create a figure that stands just over eight inches tall. I like the design of the Loyal Subjects figures. But the jumbo versions come with a couple of notable issues. There are large gaps at the wrist and shoulder joints. Those gaps do allow for a much larger range of motion on those joints. But they are still pretty ugly looking. There is also an issue with the hole in the back shell where Leonardo's sheath attach. They are not deep enough for the pegs on the sheaths and the material is soft and quite thin. The result is that the material immediately stretched and tore inside the hole on two of my figures and now those two's sheaths can fall off easily. They can always be glued in place if necessary. But that shouldn't be necessary.
Paint - Battle Damage 9/10, others 8/10The paint work on all three versions of Jumbo Leonardo is very well executed. The lines are clean and neat. The figures are a bit plain looking due to their large size. The extra "battle damage" marks on Battle Damaged Leonardo helps a little, but no one is going to call any of these figures highly detailed. Battle Damaged Leonardo also has a slight advantage since the black used to outline his eyes stands out much better against his red mask than the blue masks of the other two.
Articulation - 7/10The Jumbo Leonardo figures have ball joints at the neck, shoulders, wrists and hips and rotating ankles. The shoulders, wrists and hips actually have a intermediate piece that plugs into either side. So those joints actually have a slightly greater range of motion. But it does mean that there are larger than necessary gaps at those joints as well. Conversly, the neck joints are a single ball joint, but their range of motion is barely greater than a simple rotating joint. All of the joints are at least tight. So holding a pose is no problem. A few did need a little pressure initially to work them free. But once that was done, they work well.
Accessories - 8/10The jumbo Leonardos come with the same accessories as the regular sized versions except for the card that came with the blind box version. So each has two swords, a double sheath and two throwing stars. And each set of accessories is painted to match the figure. The accessories are nice. But they do have a few minor issues. I already mentioned that the sheaths don't fit the hole in the back of the shell well. The swords are also a bit loose in the sheaths. They look like they should plug into the sheaths and be held snuggly in place by the thicker portion around the guard. But those areas are actually too thick to fit in the sheaths at all. It is also quite difficult to get the handles of the swords into the hands. Fortunately the points of the throwing stars are just the right size to fit in the hands well. Though there isn't a gap between the two fingers on either hand to hold the throwing stars that way. It's nice that they included all of the accessories. But they could have used a little tweaking to work better in this scale.
Value - 5/10The Jumbo Leonardo vinyl figures carry a hefty price tag to match their size, $55 each. That isn't unreasonable for a large scale vinyl figure like these. But there's no doubt in my mind that a good chunk of that price is due more to the limited numbers produced and needing to cover the cost of creating the larger mold for them than anything else. The Loyal Subjects did recently have a Black Friday sale where everything on their site was 40% off. Though I have no idea if they are likely to repeat that in the future. But at $33 each, I would have been much happier with these.
Happy Hunting:Jumbo Leonardo and the Metallic repaint were both supposed to be SDCC exclusives for 2015. But since they didn't make it on time, they are now available online through The Loyal Subjects web site as well as from a number of other online retailers. The Battle Damage version was released later. But he too is available either directly from The Loyal Subjects or from a few online retailers. But getting them directly from TLS certainly seems like the easiest option. And the price doesn't seem to differ from site to site either.
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