ThreeA AK Ghastly Zombkin

Released for 1 hour at 12hrs later than the usual drop time during Halloween of 2011, this figure should have been quite easy to get, but alas, not for forgetful individuals like myself -.-" I think I was totally absorbed playing either Assassin's Creed: Revelations or Arkham City that I totally forgot about the drop. 1 year later, A. Wood announced that a repaint will be released early October of 2012. Alas, it is going to be a "limited" sale that is premade so that folks can receive it for Haloween. Again, I totally forgot about the drop, so it was kinda deja vu for me. What was different was the fact that I kinda wanted Zombkin, but don't give a shit about Charkin.

I get why repaints are inevitable. Toy manufacturers will usually try to milk the most out of their investments in their designs. But a "Shadow" version (ie. black) just feels very effortless. Further, it is a limited sale, so the hype tactic was employed, yet again. I wasn't there for the skirmish, so I don't really know how hard it is to get the Charkin. After being in the 3A game for awhile, I think it is quite a recurring pattern that the original figure is always the best, and all subsequent repaints are just mediocre, or somewhat inadequate... Personally, I thought this is true for the Zombkin.

Zombkin came as a 2-pack: 1/6 and 1/12 scale. It is the first of such releases, and I liked the concept. It kinda works like a father-son kinda relationship, and in this case this duo really makes things quite fun. I didn't really like big white patches for T-shirt designs, so I flipped the T-shirt on the 1/6th. Between the 2, I felt that the 1/6th version is better... 1/12 kinda reduces the effectiveness of the articulation. The hands pop off quite easily from the wrist ball joints, and there aren't any ankle articulation except for a swivel.

The paint work on the pumpkin head is great. Purple coloured weathering, hmmm... I never expected that the colour will be used, but surprisingly, it worked rather well on the orange skin. The joints are fine and I have no real complaints about the straw packaging used for this pair, except that they were really quite messy to release from the box.

If you missed out on this figure from the 2011 drop, Ihope you managed to snag a Charkin, though the Charkin comes solo in 1/6 scale, I am pretty sure we will see another 1/12 scale pumpkin-head figure soon. If you missed both, my best advise is to be patient... It is very likely that the price of the Charkin figure on the secondary market will plummet. These days, there are too many people who are in it to flip it, so I really won't be surprised if these get dumped at prices even lower than the original price during the drop...

I really like the Zombkin set. The concept is quite simple, and the duo is really fun to pose and fool around with. So with the recent AK releases such as Sunday JC, 10 Finger, Cherry, Rehel, on top of the Jungle Vet, Police Ankou that I previously owned, my AK gang suddenly grew exponentially. I have 2 Cherry 2s coming, and most likely gonna get a pair of retail AK Exs. Hmmm...

Posted in: Toy Review