Continuing the girls with guns theme, this is a saucily-dressed character named Felicia Andress. She’s a figure sculpted by a Japanese artist and manufactured by a Japanese company, but the box says Yamato USA and as part of their Fantasy Figure Gallery collection, she is clearly targeted at a western audience. Personally, though, I think that regardless of where you come from, what color your skin might be, what religion you believe in or even what gender you belong to, everybody can appreciate and respect an ass like Felicia’s.
Yamato’s Fantasy Figure Gallery comprises a series of figures based on the illustrations of several well-known artists, including Boris Vallejo, Dorian Cleavenger, and Luis Royo, who is one of my favorite illustrators. This figure, however, comes from an older sculpture created by Shungo Yazawa, making it the only figure in the line to be based off of a Japanese source. Another difference is that while the other fantasy figures feature female warriors in chainmail bikinis or scantily-clad demon girls or sorceresses, Felicia appears to be some sort of spy or secret agent, in the vein of a Bond girl. Or perhaps she’s a well-armed hooker; I am not really certain.
Felicia is made of polystone, and while I’ve seen many statue collectors extol the superiority of polystone over PVC, I am not convinced that that is the case. In my experience, polystone is far less resilient and the paint job never seems to be as good on my polystone figures as it is on my PVC figures. At any rate, Felicia is about nine centimeters tall and around 26 centimeters long, making her about 1/6 scale. The only accessory she comes with is an oval-shaped base that is not required for display. She does come with instructions and a certificate of authenticity – my figure is apparently #003 out of 400.
Let’s start with the bad points. The less problematic bad point is her hair. She’s got doll-like hair but as it’s securely implanted in her scalp, there’s no fear of it tearing out … though if it does, I don’t see any way it can be repaired or replaced. It’s noticeably straighter than the images of the prototype and seems to be resting on top of her head like a bad toupee rather than growing out of her scalp as it should look. The instructions provided with the figure – written in English, for a change – suggest using hair spray to style her hair. I do actually have some hair spray somewhere stored away, but I have no idea how to style doll hair and I don’t think it would be worth the effort anyway.
The larger problem is her face. The face of the prototype figure wasn’t superb but I thought it was passable enough. The production figure’s face is pretty bad. To start with, she’s got compressed facial features and an unusual cheek and jaw structure that looks more masculine that it ought to. Her eyebrows are curiously straight, giving her a robotic look. Her eyes have a bizarre two-tone color scheme, her irises colored blue and brown, which isn’t attractive at all. The overall effect is to give her the countenance of a Barbie doll – or a blow-up doll.
The best angle to view her is from her side, and fortunately that is also obviously the intended viewing angle, considering her crawling pose. Her close-set eyes and unpleasant iris coloring aren’t nearly as noticeable this way, and it’s easier to observe her highlights, which include her long legs and her costume. Unfortunately, a quick glance at the latter reveals its flaws, as her outfit is basically sculpted as part of her body and upon close inspection, looks more like body paint rather than actual clothing. Fortunately, her boots and gloves look much better. They feature a wrinkled appearance and glossy finish that give them a leather or latex-like look, which is quite cool.
In contrast to her highly erotic pose, Felicia’s gun is utterly boring; it’s a little snub-nosed revolver. One would expect Felicia to pack something a bit more impressive, given her outlandish clothing, but perhaps the little gun makes sense; as she is not carrying a holster, a smaller gun would be easier for her to store.
Felicia has a great ass which is not the least hidden by her thong or the little black strap that is molded into her rear. It’s definitely one of the more pleasing aspects of this figure.
But despite how nice her pose is or how cool her costume is – in principle if not execution – it’s difficult not to come back around to her face. When I was culling the pictures, I noticed I did not take any close up shots of her face, and I think that subconscious decision says an enormous amount as to how poorly it turned out. And after considering her face, it’s hard not to look at her price tag, which is exorbitant, to say the least. However, even at a bargain bin price – and I’m guessing she’ll find her way there – I wouldn’t recommend this figure. It’s a figure with a particularly praiseworthy posterior but a face full of fail, and despite my affection for the female ass, the face always comes first. This isn’t the worst figure I own – a couple of Griffon figures have that dubious honor locked down – but it’s easily the worst value in my collection.
Will have to agree with you there. The posture is fine, but the face is a complete let down. The eyes and the lips; the former being they’re far too big while trying to depict a real set (if that makes sense…), and the lips, they’re bit too ‘puffy’ I’d say. Yeah… My 2 cents worth.
Saying that I think I might watch how this series turns out; the above sound like easy-enough fixes for future releases (not that that stopped issues for future figures with other companies…)
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed pulling her out of the box. It’s been a bad figure week for me; I ordered a different figure to replace one in my collection that I had damaged, and I found the new figure was also broken and the damaged piece wasn’t even in the box.
I was kinda tempted by a couple of other figures in the series; I liked how the Luis Royo-based Medusa figure looked, but I’ve got this thing against excessive body piercing, so I didn’t get it. I really like Royo’s art so I’m hoping to pick up at least one figure based off his work, though.
Without knowing the scale, just looking at her, she looks like a RealDoll. That’s pretty creepy. The face is very unsettling, and I can’t say I dig this at all. Some sexy figures are fine, but something about this is just creepyweird and offputting. Uncannyvalley type deal, perhaps.
She does have that vacant blow-up doll stare. It’s pretty bothersome to say the least. Maybe the most disturbing face of any figure I own. I think it was Cantan who suggested some months back that I create some lists of figures, and I’ve been kicking that idea around in my head. I’m thinking “creepiest face” might be one of the categories and this is a good candidate to win, though Nymph might make it a contest.
I’d have to cover her face with a paper bag and just admire her ass 😉
A good plan. I’m keeping her turned permanently sideways; I think she looks pretty good from that angle. That at least is one saving grace (to an extent); if she had no decent viewing angles, I probably would put her back in the box and stash it under my bed.
Can’t say I’m a fan of this series from Yamato. Just so eeeeewww…
LOL
I can certainly understand that. Felicia didn’t turn out too great but I like how some of their other figures turned out. I’m thinking Yamato is taking the title for most inconsistent figure maker away from Daiki Kougyou.
lol, $$$ “well spent”, I feel sorry for your regretful feeling there (made me wonder did you ever bother to look for any close-shot review out there before ordering?), I think the best way to display her now is with “the President” behind her, I guess that’s the best pose one could have hope for, lol…
Yeah, I looked at the promo pictures before ordering. That is one of the things that disturbs me most, is that there is such a huge deviation between the prototype and the production figure. Oh well, least her pose is good for some fun times with the president.
I just mine today (#001/400) and I have to agree with what has been said about this statue. The images of the prototype looked much better than the final product, and I feel rather duped by Yamato. I’m rather disappointed with the color of the skin: Perhaps it’s the original color of the resin, but my statue has a subtle greenish tone. The prototype images suggested the skin tone to be a slightly pinkish-tan, which is more appealing. The earrings can be easily dislodged (and therefore lost) : I discovered this while examining the hair. The earrings simply fell off, but fortunately I was able to recover them. I’m mostly disappointed with the hair. I was hoping Yamato would have styled the hair as it appeared with the prototype while producing the piece. In reality it looks like rat tits. I would have preferred a different approach for the “rooting” of the hair. The way Yamato fashioned the hair, it appears to be fixed on a weave and “secured” by thread. If I part the hair in a particuar manner, the thread shows through. Perhaps I should find a S&M mask to put on the head. I dunno. At this point, I hope Yamato sticks with a production run of no more than 400.
Yay, #1! That’s pretty cool. But yeah, I’m pretty disappointed. I don’t think mine has the skin tone problem you describe but yeah, there’s a lot of things that bother me about it, and the hair is one of the most annoying. If I could cover one eye with her hair, it’d make them stand out a bit less, which would be a big advantage with this figure. It just springs back into place whenever I try to style it though, and I’m not about to buy a can of hair spray to try to work on it.
The S&M mask is a good idea. Which reminds me that I should write a post about the one I bought for one of my vmf50 dolls.
re: Felicia’s hair – If only Yamato did the same thing with Felicia’s hair as they done with the statues based on Luis Royo and Dorian Cleavenger illustrations, the piece would be a whole lot better.
I sure hope someone at, or associated with, Yamato has come across dialogs such as this, comprehend collector-buyer complaints, and understand that with some corrections (fixes), the Felicia statue could be a much sought-after piece after all.
Yeah, I think fixed hair would have been better; I don’t think that even under the best of circumstances would the rooted hair add anything to the piece.
I’m getting leery of ordering some of these polystone statues from Western makers or from Japanese companies targeting the Western audience. Felicia isn’t great, and I saw some pictures of Sideshow’s Rogue premium format statue and man, her face is pretty bad. That’s very disconcerting since I’ve ordered their Psylocke PF statue and I have a lot of misgivings about that right now.
the ass looks great, but that thong looks funny..
Tier said: “I’m getting leery of ordering some of these polystone statues from Western makers or from Japanese companies targeting the Western audience. Felicia isn’t great, and I saw some pictures of Sideshow’s Rogue premium format statue and man, her face is pretty bad. That’s very disconcerting since I’ve ordered their Psylocke PF statue and I have a lot of misgivings about that right now.”
I saw Sideshow’s prototype of Rogue and it was superior to the finished product. Most collectors were rather disappointed with how things turned out with that piece. Glad I didn’t invest in that. Similar situation with the Premium Format Psylocke – I think the face of the prototype was much nicer, and it’s too bad Sideshow modified it. I’m more than happy with how Sideshow’s Psylocke & Vampirella Comiquettes turned out, though…
Yeah, the eyes were particularly bad; I saw some closeups where each eye was pointed off in a different direction. I’m waiting to see what the final version of the Psylocke PF looks like; I’m hoping it doesn’t look too bad, but I’m no longer expecting that it’s going to look as good as the sample they had on the preorder page.