11
points of articulation.Turns : neck, hips, ankles, wrists.
Bends : elbows.
Ball-joints : shoulders.
SAM THE EAGLE
11
points of articulation.
Turns : neck, hips, ankles, wrists.
Bends : elbows.
Ball-joints : shoulders.
Being preceded by a nautical Sam and his undead variant, wave eight of Jim Henson's Muppets brings us Sam the Eagle as we know him best, in all of his glorious nudity. The principal difference between this and previous Sams is that we now see his entire, sculpted body. Other small differences lie in his overall coloration and the fact that this Sam is sculpted with a closed mouth, unlike the previous ones. Not only that, but there's a variant out there with eyes that are painted to look suspiciously askance and contain a few variant accessories.
While the form of the body is done well, with puffed-out chest and small lower-body, the texturing over his surface is very rough and choppy. It's not sculpted as much as it appears to have been jabbed and prodded with the blunt end of a paintbrush or gnawed on by some lesser mammal. Dustin Diamond aside, it's meant to imply feathers, but the texture is just too unfinished to look at all finalized, especially with the contrast of sculpted feathers around the neck, arms and ankles. If you can tell what it was sculpted from, that's a serious visual limitation. Thanks, 5 years of art school. My thinning hair and steel filings in my lungs was worth THAT jewel of knowledge! The feathers, where sculpted, are very nice, highlighted with white dry-brushing over their surfaces.
The only repeated elements from previous figures are the hands, headfeathers and tail, though all of these parts have lost a significant amount of detail, as if the molds have simply stopped working properly. What happened to the feathery, realistic tail of the sailor Sams? I have to say that there appear to be mold problems throughout the figure, as he's almost completely missing a toenail and his seams are more visible than they should be. As a positive point, Sam's wrist joints are well concealed beneath overlapping feathers. The head is a resculpt, appearing much rounder than the previous ones, but maintaining all of the personality that made the others great.
Another interesting point is that the paint scheme on this Sam is pretty similar to the Ghost of Sam figure, which was much paler than the other sky blue Sam figure. Not only is it a lighter blue, but the whole figure is brushed with shades of grey. I'd like to think that solid colors seem to capture the simplicity of the Muppets better than this over-detailing. But dammit, it's a Sam, and where would we be without him?
Sam comes with a wonderfully made, woodgrained lectern, a paper copy of the constitution, a sculpted-open book of Standards and Practices containing his famous speech on nudity, and small magnetic disc that can be placed on the front of the lectern as a kind of seal, complete with a choice of four stickers to stick on there. I'm not sure why this disc is a separate piece, as there's only one of them and it's not as if the stickers are interchangeable. You stick a sticker on the disc and magnetize it on, and... what? Should there be something else to necessitate a magnet? As with the Muppet Newscaster, the lectern completes a whole scene with Sam, so even though the figure has an odd collection of errors, he can still grip the lectern and deliver a fiery diatribe against the latest releases from McFarlane or reality TV or the nutritional value of your breakfast.
Or this.
