Here’s an obscure blast from the past. During the late ’90s and early ’00s I dabled a bit in the 1/6 toys collector market. At the time 21st Century, Dragon, and Blue Box International (BBI) were starting to do some amazing sculpts and engineering in the 1/6 market. They were some of the first toy companies to introduce the super-poseable bodies and fantastic head sculpts. This would eventually lead to the rise of companies like Hot Toys, ThreeA Toys, Phicen, DAM Toys, and many others. I trashed or got rid of many of the figures that I had because interest, cost, and space became factors in getting rid of the figures. But I kept a few. BBI’s Barret and Carlos were two (three) of the figures that I kept. I don’t know why I kept these, but I did.
By no means are these top-of-the-line figures compared to what is being offered today. At the time these were fantastic figures and they were pushing the envelope. The sculpts weren’t great, the body is pretty generic and isn’t made to be seen without the shirt. They are made to fit clothes and they succeed there. The head sculpt is a good example of what could be done at the time. Barret has a rubber head over an articulated mouth, the chin moved up and down for… yelling? It’s a nice attempt at something different, but not all that great. Lastly, the hands — the right one is sculpted in shooting-ready position, which is great for holding guns, and the other is sculpted in the gripped postion. Not great if you are left handed or need to hold two guns or, yeah, something. I like how newer figures come with multiple hands, or even articulated hands. You get more play value from them.
The articulation is plenty, although there are some more joints that I’d like to have. Rocker ankles are key. The feet are small so they can slip into the boot, and since the boot is thick rubber, the foot and ankle need to be sturdy. This didn’t leave a lot of room for a rocker ankle, but having that movement and a boot that could support it would really knock this figure out of the park. The other point of articulation that is missing is the swivel on the ball wrist in the hand, the joint that allows the hand to move back to forwards or back. For military figures holding rifles, this becomes an important joint when posing. Without it you are not able to put the shoulder stock into the shoulder and have the gun pointed forward. Some shoulder rockers would be ideal as well, but not as critical. The articulation breakdown is:
- hinged ankles
swivel ankles
double knees
swivel thighs
ball hips
swivel waist
ball chest
ball shoulders
swivel bicep
double elbows
swivel writst
hinged wrist
ball neck
hinged jaw
The clothes are standard BDUs; they’re black and well done. I don’t know much about the shoes, but they look like Adidas military boots; they have nubbies on the soles. There are knee pads, goggles, a bulletproof vest, a hooded mask, a walkie talkie, a knife, a die-cast flashlight, die-cast pouches, a die-cast handgun (Glock?) and a die-cast shotgun. Good swag for a a figure and lots of fun to play with. Everything fits OK, and occasionally the webbing needs to be tightened. All in all, good figures.
There isn’t much paint to talk about. These figures don’t have ThreeA Toys-level paint, and they don’t really need it, but it would be a nice touch to get some weathering in there. I did some quick searching and I was not able to find these on Amazon.com or BigBadToyStore. You’ll have to search further for better results.
You can discuss this figure further on the Fwoosh forums.
