Rorschach has become the ever shifting “face” of Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic book series, whether he wants to be or not, due to his anti-hero persona and his general neuroses. In other words, the dude’s nuts, and people love to read about crazy heroes.
I’m new to Play Arts Kai, but upon seeing initial images of Rorschach, I jumped on a preorder for him. While Mattel’s Rorschach figure scratched a tiny itch, this looked more in line with the type of figure I wanted: hyper-detailed and hyper-articulated. How does he rate in hand? Well, there are issues.
I’m going to get the bad out of the way first, mainly because the bad is based around a handful of ingenious features which should, in theory, be good, but the sum total of those features ends up being bad. Confused? I know, I’ll explain.
Rorschach features two different coat bottoms that are swappable, allowing you to pose him standing stoically, or in more dramatic “action” poses with. That’s a clever way to handle the specific impediments that long coats can have on action figures.
But…
In order to achieve this effect, Rorschach’s body comes in two different parts, with a female hole in the torso that slides down on a male peg jutting upwards from his crotch region. In theory that’s fine; however, there’s no peg or “pop” or secure way to join them. Which means if you pick him up by the torso, his bottom half has a tendency to fall right off. And if you pick him up by the bottom half and tip him ever so much, his top half falls off. Some type of ball or peg or something to hold them together would have gone a long way in fixing this.
Another ingenious feature that ends up being a small negative is the articulated belt knot. It has a peg allowing you to move it from side to side for windswept or action-type shots. Well, that’s fine, but the second time I dropped the damned torso, that peg broke, leaving my figure without his dangling belt bits. I’m currently writing this mid photo-session while I wait for the glue to dry so I can reattach his belt in hopes it doesn’t break off again.
This leaves me a bit frustrated, especially given that I’m paying premium prices for something that should have no issues at all. Both of these could have been avoided, both with some type of peg that secured the upper and lower parts of his body, and a thicker peg for his articulated belt. I appreciate both functions and think that, in theory, they’re both excellent ideas that should lend a great deal of posing options, but in practice they’ve turned happy time to sad time.
But onward to the figure itself…
Sculpt!
Rorschach is 9.5 inches tall, so he towers. He’s in a funky sweet spot between Hot Toys and regular action figures, which means he’s not going to fit in with anything other than other Play Arts or anything you have that’s around 9.5 inches tall. If you’re a scale stickler that needs conformity, then Rorschach won’t do it for you.
Rorschach has a very realistic sculpt. His coat has a ton of wrinkled and weathered detail with buttons and stitching that give him a rough, lived-in feeling. His gloves are fully detailed, and his pants have etched lines. There’s a point where too many wrinkles and folds becomes distracting, but this hits just the right level of rough realism and it evokes motion even when he’s standing there, like a cold wind is whipping at him, or he’s either about to move or has just finished moving. That fine balance between kinetic action and stoic resolve is hard to achieve, but when you hit the sweet spot you get a great-looking, photogenic figure.
Paint!
All of that detailed sculpt is brought out by washes and drybrushing that highlight all the texture and details, with dark browns in the folds and lighter browns on the edges of his coat, and some dirty effects applied to his pants. His shoes have a handful of nice leathery tones, as does his hat. The entire figure is painted in muted tones that evoke dark knights and solitude, just like you’d expect from Rorschach, but that doesn’t mean the figure is dull. The browns have a nice life to them, and the purple, while not bright and poppy, doesn’t get lost in muddiness. It’s a very hard line to straddle between having him too bright and too dark, but I think it achieves that middle of the road look very well. He looks like he’s had these clothes for a while.
Articulation!
Rorschach is loaded with articulation. He has a ball jointed head, a unique upper torso pivot that allows him to hunch his shoulders a bit, full shoulder articulation with bicep swivels, ball-jointed elbows, ball-jointed wrists, a ball-jointed waist just underneath where he comes apart, double-jointed knees, and ball-jointed ankles. In theory, this gives him a high amount of articulation, but the fact that he has a tendency to come apart easily while you’re trying to play with him puts a damper on the amount of articulation. Some might not like how visible his elbow articulation is, given how realistic the figure seems, but I’m not bothered by it. He’s got some tight ratcheting in his legs that holds poses well.
Accessories!
Rorschach comes with two alternate heads featuring two unique inkblot patterns, and several additional hands. His fists come standard, and in addition he has optional hands for holding various items, and most interesting, a hand with an aerosol can. This, along with the additional flame effects, allows you to recreate the time when Rorschach made a blowtorch out of a spray can and a random fire. Because that’s how much of a badass he is.
He also comes with a rose, his journal, and a grappling-hook gun. Short of a separate unmasked face, he comes with everything he needs, and even an unmasked face is more than he’d need, because as he would tell you, that is his face.
As I said earlier, his largest accessory is an alternate coat bottom that allows a wider range of motion in his legs. This alternate coat also has a pair of pegholes that, with hands removed, his wrist pegs can connect to, allowing him to perfectly simulate having his hands in his pockets. I love that feature, and the effect is very convincing, I just wish the figure didn’t suffer slightly to achieve the swappable coat bottoms.
Overall, Rorschach is a good-looking figure, but I have to take points off for “playworthiness” due to his tendency to come apart unless you’re willing to fix the issues. I like him too much to let them fully screw with my enjoyment when a little tweaking can make him perfect, so I may be doing something to him, which makes me cringe a little. I’m thinking a couple of strong magnet will allow his sections to hold enough to keep him together while still allowing swappability if so desired.
I bought mine from BBTS for $89.99, but he appears to have gone up in price a bit.