REVIEW: Bowen Designs Guardians Of The Galaxy & Major Victory MB Statue by sash501

sash501 · August 12th, 2012, 02:50:10 PM

As promised, I'm continuing to do a review of all my Bowens as a way to recharge my excitement in the hobby and as a way to give back to Bowen for designing these amazing pieces and give back to statue marvels for giving this hobby a true home.

Reviews created so far, in chronological order, and their links are as follows:

http://www.statuemarvels.com/f473/re...501-19674.html
http://www.statuemarvels.com/f473/re...501-19781.html
http://www.statuemarvels.com/f473/re...501-19810.html
http://www.statuemarvels.com/f473/re...501-19929.html
http://www.statuemarvels.com/f473/re...501-19977.html
http://www.statuemarvels.com/f473/re...tml#post471728

If you can't wait for a certain statue to be reviewed and want to bump it to the top of the list, click my statue display link below, find a statue you want reviewed (new ones are posted further along in the thread) and send me a PM.

Box art will be included on newly shipped statues from this date forward, but older statue boxes are in my attic. They will be updated when I have time.

I will always try to point out something I would like improved or something that wasn't well done about a piece, in efforts to stay truly objective. This can be from a tiny flaw that you would never notice to an all over bad sculpt (haven't had any of the later thus far).

Lastly, a soda can will be used in each review for scale. I'm not going to post next to other statues, as they aren't part of the review, and other collectors might not have the statue I would scale the subject statue next too, thus giving them no real idea of the scale anyhow.

Without further adieu, I give you:

Guardians of the Galaxy Mini Bust Set & Major Victory (Winner of the Vote on Sash's Next Review Thread)

Produced by Bowen Designs and Sculpted by the Kucharek Brothers, the Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG) MB set was released during Bowen Designs Phase IV in 2010. This is an AP set of 350. The Major Victory MB was a Bowen Designs Collector Club Exclusive from Phase IV 2010. It is a variant of the Kucharek Brothers sculpt of Major Astrovik (Astro). This is an AP of 200.

First and foremost, I will quickly use this platform as a means to request another GOTG MB set of the modern team. I doubt there would be any argument that these two sets would look amazing next to each other.

There will be little less than 120 photos. As such, please don't comment until everything has been posted, as this review will require multiple postings, due to the photo limitation per post. Also, some of the pictures are great, but I'll admit some were rushed as I went on (120 photo's is a lot). You did luck out however with the Captain Charlie-27 pics, as he was reflecting too much light and required patience and additional camera settings (all but one of his rotation photos came out great IMO). Finally I apologize if the review seems a little rushed towards the end, the computer froze on Friday night literally as I was transferring the last photo; I lost 2/3 of the review and had to start over.

As a two line history lesson for those who don't know, the GOTG debuted in 1969 as an alternate marvel universe set in the 31st century. Major Vance Astrovik is a character who helps keep us interested in the distant future, as he is from the 20th century. Now back to the review.

The GOTG set is stunning and clearly desireable not only because of it's low edition number, but because these are well made pieces with beautiful paint application. Each individual piece is unique in it's own right. As such, I'll review each piece individually. But first generalities of the whole set. The weights are good, I think all of them including Captain Charlie are solid all the way through. The paints are solid on every piece with no bleeding and the bases are all identical with the exception of Captain Charlie, whose is bigger with a wider stem.

Major Vance Astrovik (Astro) & Major Victory: Vance Astro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These are being reviewed together for obvious reasons.

For those who want to know the quick differences between the two statues, obviously Major Victory is holding caps shield and Major Vance Astrovik is not. Other than that, the sculpt is the same, but the paints are slightly different.

Major Victory's gloves only go up to the elbow and Major Vance Astovik's go halfway up the bicep. Also, the top blue part of the costume on Major Vicotry goes futher down, covering most of his chest and also goes down the shoulder where Major Vance Astrovik's does not. Finally, Major Victory does not sport the GOTG crest.

Both statues look amazing as I believe they are the same overall sculpt. Both faces have the blank look that I guess is all his copper alloy suit will allow. That isn't to say it isn't well done. The eyes are perfectly whited out and although the look is "blank," it does portray a look of determination at the same time.

As stated earlier, the paints are clean. It is much appreciated that where the costume changes from blue to white, there is an indented sculpted line, making the change apparent, as it should be. The paint is also a mettalic shine, which makes sense since the character wears a copper alloy suit.

What is most noticeable, is the well defined muscles. Because one arm is raised and the other isn't, we get to see both arms with differently sculpted muscles. When looking at the photo, you'll notice that this isn't just in the shoulder, but properly also shown in the lats.

The rib cages are also well defined. No pic of Victory here, but they are the same.

Finally, what does separate them both, is obviously Captain America's shield. For those of you wondering how he got it in the comics, you should read them. But if your lazy, you can wiki it here, Vance Astro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. What I love about the cap shield is first and foremost, it is one of the best that has been sculpted IMHO. The lines, paints, size, diameter of the rings are all perfect. The second thing is the detail behind the shield. Major Victory isn't simply holding the shield, but pulling on the strap. (As a side note, this would indicate that the shield is flying up. As such, it may have made more sense for the hand to be above the strap). As I've stated before, I love when a sculptor gives attention to something behind the sculpt that when viewing from the front, as we do 99% of the time, we don't see.

sash501 · August 12th, 2012, 02:50:31 PM

Yondu Udonta: Yondu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of the set, he is my favorite. This is simply because he has the most going on. Multiple colors, a metallic paint for the little armor he has, his huge sail, the bow and the arrows. He's epic, and as such deserves and epic pic!

The face of the sculpt is well done. As a quick side note, apparently all of the Guardians are very depressed because they all frown. Frowning aside, the eyes and eyebrows give the sculpt an amazing look of determination. It really does seem as if the eyes are fixed on whatever object he is getting ready to shoot.

In addition to the determined look, this sculpt has a deceptively large sail. When looking straight on, it is clear the sail is tall, but one cannot truly appreciate it until seeing it from the size; it is very large. As if the multiple colors and the bow and arrow weren't enough, the sail really takes this character over the top. Additionally, the sail doesn't simply shoot straight back, it curves with the torso.

The mixture of paints is very well done. The overall paint of the body and sail are done with flat paints while the little bit of armor that is worn, is done with a metallic. The gold bars on the armor are also done with a metallic and are painted with clean lines; there is no bleeding anywhere.

The big stand out feature of this piece is the bow and the arrows. The bow looks to be made of two parts, rather than simply being sculpted directly from the hand. This creates pros and cons. The pro is that the bow looks more genuine, as it does appear to be held in the hand of the sculpt. The con is that the inside of the hand comes off as a clean circular cut, which is unrealistic.

The string of the bow is not a simple string, such as the string on the Bowen Action Hawkeye bow. The Bowen Action Hawkeye is sculpted in such a way that slack of the bow string isn't a concern. The bow here is horizontal. As such a tougher wire is used for the bow so there is no worry of the line sagging over time.

The arrows and the quiver are well done. You won't see them often when simply looking at the statue, but on inspection, the arrows are separately sculpted with extra detail given to the feathers.

The only complaint with this piece would be the lack of detail on the hand reaching for an arrow. There is some detail (finger nail lines were added) but the over all hand seems to be lacking a little. Normally this wouldn't matter that much, however this sculpt is depicting the character about to make a shot, the hand reaching for the arrow that will make that shot could have been done a little better.

Overall, this is one of my favorite pieces in the set due to the complexity of the sculpt and the paints. There is more action in this piece than the others, the multiple paints are well executed, and I'm a huge fan of how the sail was sculpted.

sash501 · August 12th, 2012, 02:51:11 PM

Martinex T'Naga: Martinex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There isn't too much to say about this piece since it is a clear resin. Although it is hard to see, there are decent clean lines in the face, despite that it is see through. For those of you who like to have fancy displays, there is a lot you can do with the sculpt due to the clear resin; it will hold and display light very well.

The K Bros did a good job with making the sculpt block like. The character is made of crystal. As such, there shouldn't be rounded features as are seen on the other characters in the set. Taking into account what this character is supposed to be made of, many of the muscles are properly cubed.

Similarly, the chest lies flat rather than rounded. The mixture of the flat surface chest and clear resin, makes the GOTG crest pop more on this sculpt than the others. The crest is clean, and doesn't bleed into the resin whatsoever.

Because the front has lines and shadows, the light tends to be trapped there more so than the back. The back follows suit of the overall sculpt in that it is well sculpted and the features are cubed rather than rounded. However, because it doesn't have as many features as the front, the light passes through easier, allowing the opportunity to place back lighting in your display.

One thing that sets this piece apart from the others, is that the abdomen actually touches the base a little; the other pieces in the set have space between the sculpt and the base. I went online to see if this was unique to mine, and it is not. What I did find however is that some of the promotional pictures showed the base of this sculpt also being a clear resin. I'm not sure if any were released with the clear resin base or not.

Overall, this is my least favorite of the pieces. Not because it is bland, which the artists couldn't really do anything about, but because the pose of the sculpt is unimaginative in my opinion. Many sculpts have this exact same arm positioning. Granted there are only so many positions you can do with the arms, but this is exactly the same as the Warlock Magus Variant (a review of that piece can be found above) and very similar to other pieces such as the Goliath and Antman pieces. Considering that the character is going to be slightly bland due to the fact he is supposed to be made of crystal, I would have liked to have seen a more original pose.

Captain Charlie-27: Charlie-27 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This sculpt is huge. Not only is it huge, but it is heavy too; heavy enough to be the only sculpt in the set with a larger base and larger stem (the others are all exactly the same). Some of you may know that many people were disappointed with the weight of the FB Thanos. This bust is about the same weight, if not a little heavier, than the FB Thanos, without the base, and is about 1/4 the size. The detailed sculpt of the face seems to be more than the rest of the set. This could be because he is so big, making it easier to work with. The detail under the bottom lip and the lines of the cheek are done in such away to make the frown look more aggressive. Of all the sculpts in the set, this one does pull off the mean look, which I believe was the goal for the whole set, rather than simply looking depressed.

You'll notice from the photo above, that this is the only character who sports the GOTG crest on his mask; for obvious reasons. Most of the sculpt is simply skin tones. As stated in my Shanna review, well executed skin tones, to me, are very impressive. Costume colors with mistakes are more easily forgivable than skin tones; we've all lightly passed off sculpt and paint issues to battle damage. Costumes are supposed to be made of material while skin is real. The paints on this piece are perfect. Despite the photo, the leather straps with gold studs are a darker brown with a lighter reflective surface than this photo lets on.

Bigger sculpts often allow for more detail, and this one doesn't disappoint. Starting with the hands, they are both sculpted into fists and slightly curled inward at the wrist. The crease lines are well done to give off this effect. Additionally, the bright metallic gold of the gloves really helps the character pop out when displayed as the rest of the paints are mostly flat.

These hands are huge, probably being about 1/4 the size of mine (I'm six feet tall if that helps you understand the size)

The sculpt is so big, that the back is riddled with muscles that I didn't know existed. The only other sculpts that I've seen with this many muscles are Hulk pieces (Surtur doesn't arrive until Tuesday).

The one complaint with this sculpt would be that the straps across the back and chest are not consistent in the thickness. They are symmetrical throughout the sculpt, but the actual thickness of the strap does vary. Naturally, a strap would be the same dimensions throughout, and would result in some random spaces between the body and the strap, because different parts of the body are bigger than others. With the exception of a huge fat ass, anyone who has slung a bag or luggage diagonally across your chest, knows the strap doesn't touch every part of you. Here, it probably would have been too hard to sculpt, but it's still something to point out. The straps touch the sculpt throughout, so some parts are thicker than others.

Overall, a sculpt that could easily be a nonfavorite given the costume (similar to the Clint Barton Goliath sculpt) is actually quite powerful due to the talent of the artists. The sculpted face gives a presence that demands respect and the man mitts that the character sports are large and in charge. So large in fact, that I had to give up on getting the camera to properly focus on the eighth picture down, because all it wanted to focus on was his giant meat paw.

sash501 · August 12th, 2012, 02:51:39 PM

Starhawk: Starhawk (comics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Starhawk is the only sculpt in the set that is looking up. He is frowning like the rest, but looking up. All of the promotional shots show him above the other characters, solidifying the look of him ready to take off. That being said, he is actually the same height as the other characters. If you somehow acquire this set, you'll likely want to buy a riser so that he can be displayed higher than the others. There is a certain ebay store that sells these risers (PM me if you want to know which store). It is obvious to me that the set was intended for him to be above the others, which is weird to me that they didn't give him a slightly longer stem (that may have created more issues with the large wings however).

The paints of this piece are very well done. No metallic paint, but the blue, even though flat, does brighten the character. The GOTG crest isn't as noticeable as half the crest is the same color as the rest of the costume.
The face is very well done with an exceptional application of disco mascara.

Because of the monstrous wings on this piece, you will have to make a point to notice the mini mirrored wings on the mask. The mask also is properly painted with a chin strap. From the side, the wings, chin strap, and disco mascara are easier to appreciate. However, apparently superheroes don't need to hear the cries for help or the sounds of danger because it is more important to have the mask look good with the ears tucked in (this is something Captain America got right). Alas, it is how the character is supposed to be portrayed and it allowed the K Bros to get off easy on sculpting an ear.

This is the only sculpt in the set that has anything below the abdomen. That being said, the other characters don't have anything fancy below the abdomen. It's not really all that fancy, but I do like that the entire front of the belt was included in the sculpt, completing the star rather than simply cutting it off to make the bottom symmetrically round.

For those of you who have read my reviews, you'll know that I make a big deal about gloves and boots that give the illusion of being a separate part of the sculpt, rather than a straight edge that attaches to the arm or leg. In the reviews above, Thor is a no no, and Warlock Magus is a well done. Starhawk follows Magus's lead. The gloves are perfect. The inside of each glove is sculpted far enough from the arm that it is hard to see where they even meet; beautifully done by master artisans. The shots don't give them justice. Alas, these pieces can only truly be appreciated when seen in person.

With respect to the gloves, we are also give the extra detail of proper wrist and fist sculpting with delicate crease lines placed perfectly throughout the sculpt.

The wings are massive and connect to the back of the character and oddly or not to the bottom of the base. This is likely to allow the wings to have the span that they do; allowing the piece to stand up right and not fall over. They are separate pieces and easily snap in to place. I have never had a reason to take them apart, but I would imagine they aren't too difficult to remove for purposes of storage.

Oddly, this is the one character with the least muscle definition. Not to say there is none, just less than the others. That being said, this isn't meant to be the focal point as it is on Captain Charlie, here the wings are the eye appeal. So to make a positive out of a potential negative, we'll just say he isn't as ripped because he needs to be more aerodynamic.

As a final note on the wings, they are massive. You'll note that this is the only sculpt in the set where I shoot the rotation pics horizontally, that's because he just wouldn't fit in a vertical closeup shot.

AKRA-MAN · August 12th, 2012, 06:39:54 PM

great review, fantastic pack congratulation

I want a review of all the statues that have

Firefly · August 12th, 2012, 07:58:42 PM

very well done!

sash501 · August 13th, 2012, 11:31:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AKRA-MAN

great review, fantastic pack congratulation

I want a review of all the statues that have

That's the plan.

kilowog75 · August 13th, 2012, 01:19:05 PM

Excellent review! You pointed out things I overlooked about these busts (Charlie's straps, Starhawk's build), and your pictures came out great. Thanks for the review!

**dusty abell** · August 14th, 2012, 04:35:33 AM

Great 5 in 1 review! This really is a spectacular bronze era set and it gets my vote for bust set I would most like to see given legs to create a FS set as well, all of which I would be inclined to get.. and Nikki too! I'm enjoying these reviews, thanks for taking the time..

**TrueFaith** · August 14th, 2012, 06:45:56 AM

Nice review and I actually learned something. In all the time I've owned them I'd never noticed the differences in the gloves and uniform of Major Victory and the Major Vance Astrovik that came with the set. I always thought the only differences were the shield and chest badge.

sash501 · August 31st, 2012, 11:22:10 AM

FYI, These bad boys are currently in the Labor Day Vault Auction. GOTG starting at $200 and Maj Vic AP starting at $100. It cost me $800 for my AP set and these are very limited. May never be a better chance to pick them up. Happy Bidding.