Today was a rather special day for me.
Earlier today, I took delivery of one of the largest collectible boxes I’m likely to receive in my life, containing what is likely to become one of my favourite merch items ever. It’s First 4 Figures’ latest release and of my favourite character in the series ever: Dr. Ivo ‘Eggman’ Robotnik. So without further ado, here’s some absurd-resolution images of what $400 worth of maniacal painted polystone will get you.
The moment old Postman Pat turned up with it, the initial thoughts crossed my mind:
To give an idea as to how massive this box actually is, you could probably hide and mail a small child to a different country inside it if you really wanted to (though I don’t recommend trying this).
The inside art box gives us our first look at a very nicely presented package. Seriously, it’s a shame the art boxes are too nice to throw away. They’re starting to take over my home. If you’re like me, you’ll want to keep hold of the plain cardboard shipper box too to keep this arty box looking swish. As well as the normal character description on the reverse, there are plenty of nice art renders on the side as well to gawp at.
Let’s pull the tab and get inside…
Another thing that F4F love doing is embossing the Styrofoam interior with embossed writing and pictures. As far as First 4 Figures pieces go, it’s business as usual. We also get a peek at Eggman’s authenticity card. Also… I spy discrepancies. ‘Eggman’ on the box, and now ‘Robotnik’ on the Styrofoam? This warrants further investigation. Let’s get the lid off.
Eggman’s package contains a whole lot of different parts: 10 pieces in total. All made up of a base, two Chaos Emeralds, four hands, the left and right halves of Eggman’s moustache and finally the good doctor’s body itself. I must admit that seeing him with no moustache is rather unsettling.
Assembling Ivo is rather simple. Align the large peg in his leg into the hole on the Wing Fortress base, put his moustache into place and then simply choose whatever hands you wish to display him with. The hands themselves are actually magnetic, meaning that fiddling around with metal pegs and awkward positioning is essentially a non-issue.
Just like that, we have a near two-foot tall menace to terrorise Sonic and his friends. Let’s take a look at some of the smaller details you may have missed.
Firstly, here’s the underside of the base. ‘Eggman’ again. Hmm. It gives the usual licensing details and what number you’ve got. Number 25 of 1000 for me!
Despite not appearing the bulkiest of things, this base has a surprising amount of heft to it. I’d say a good bulk of the statue’s weight comes from this alone. Good stability. This is a good thing. The top of the base goes with a really sweet looking hexagonal checker-plate style pattern with an oily looking glaze to it. I’m not one for rivet counting, but the detailing around the base adds a lovely little touch of authenticity to the metalwork appearance.
Moving on up to Eggman himself. For such a simple character, there’s really a surprising amount of detail crammed into this bowling ball with arms. The buttons on his waist for instance are nice and shiny, as are the ones on his cuffs. As a matter of fact, these even have little ‘threads’ moulded into them.
My favourite part of Eggman has to be his head. The moustache has plenty of hand-painted lines to aid in adding detail. His mouth has a real amount of depth to it, and the tongue and teeth really pop. My absolute favourite part though has to be those glasses. They’re shiny. Really, really, REALLY shiny.
One of the noted features on Eggman has to be his set of swappable hands. Even the empty hands carry a nice amount of detail, with visible seams along his gloves. Being magnetic allows these empty hands to be switched out for a set of emerald-holding hands, which add an additional splash of colour to the statue’s palette. The emeralds themselves are big, clear, shiny and refract light just as you would expect them to. The swappable nature of them allows for quite a few different display options:
What about scale? As already mentioned, Eggman is nearly 2 feet in height, meaning he’s meant to be directly in scale with other characters in the series. Putting him alongside his blue nemesis shows the scaling is pretty spot-on. He looks really cool put next to Metal Sonic as well.
One other thing… I’d like to show you a comparison to that really scarce Japanese statue from years back. The pose is the same, but I’d wager that F4F Eggman is at least four to five times the size.
With that, let’s put him in his new home. Thankfully, other statues seem to fit rather tidily under each of his arms!
Have any of you been lucky enough to get your hands on an Eggman of your own? Let us know!
