#zuru smashers

[fawnpuppyy]

My personal boyreg / middlereg board 🦎

[therobotmonster]

You might say there's no such thing as an "ideal" toy experience.

And I might begrudgingly admit you're right, but for smaller categories, one can at least put together some standards.

And we're going to start with my favorite format, the action figure.

Now, ideally, when one buys an action figure, in the box/on the card you'll find:

An action figure, obviously. That figure should, bare minimum, have at least two moving joints (with size and play-pattern determining the exact amount), should be able to stand unassisted, and should have good joint tolerances and connection tolerances for accessories, and not easily break.

Accessories: At least two. If it's just one it should have some action gimmick or at least glow in the dark. Even a character like the Flash should have some doo-dads to tinker with.

A mini-figure. This is what kicks an otherwise 'meh' release into a must-have, and that's me speaking at every stage of my toy-loving life. Action figures are all about interactivity and story, and having a little critter or sidekick means that you get that in one purchase. No articulation or paint needed.

Lore: A character bio on the box, a mini-comic pack-in, a trading card, something that gives a bit of context and fleshes out the world these little plastic hoojibs are inviting us into.

Now, not every figure is going to meet this ideal, but if everyone was doing it, then I wouldn't have to be here ranting.

I don't really have much of a point, aside that there should be more mini-figure PVCs thrown in with action figures, and fewer severed limbs of a giant guy I'll never assemble.

[spider-gummy]

i found a zuru smashers at the drug store today!! its like they made a toy based on my entire personality. i can't wait to display the hand in my room!

[fawnpuppyy]

☆ Thrift & antique store finds ☆

The little bag is full of Zuru Smashers!

[therobotmonster]

Allogorus (Al-o-gore-us)

A reptilian ghoul that haunts graveyards and battlefields to scavenge. Smarter than he looks (but not by much), he manages to remember that the other undead aren't food most of the time.

I painted Allogorus from a Zuru Smashers Zombosaur (he's like 6.50 on amazon grab one, he's awesome.)

[therobotmonster]

That's one savage sculpt!

I've been less than restrained with my love of Zuru's toy output, particularly the fun 90s-Playmates-esq sculpt-details. A friend of mine recommended some acrylic markers to me, and I've been using 'em to touch up various Zuru beasties.

Today I'm showing off two, the blue triceratops from the "Dino Island T-Rex Battles" (red t-rex head) and the "Ice Age Mini Surprise Egg" Sabertooth (yellow hand)

In both cases I suggest checking your local Ross or similar store before hitting Amazon, as they often have the larger sets greatly slashed in price. The Amazon prices bounce a lot but when they hit a really good deal they hit a great one (more at the end of the post about that).

Toothy The Smilodon:

He doesn't have a ton of extra detail compared to some of the others in the same set, but what he does have is charming. I got a bad angle on it, but he's also got stitches in his side. I brought out the claws and mouth details as well.

He's clearly had a bad time of things, with a bandage wrapped forelimb and a band-aid on his muzzle, and claw slashes in one flank.

There are a lot of fun trademarks of the Zuru smashers sculpt style. almost all of them have a line of snot/slime running out of a nostril and are covered in 'splats', which represent slime, snow, or gore, depending the specific smashers series or the customizer's mood.

Painting in the details like the froth at Toothy's mouth shows a bit of sculptural storytelling, with the froth/frost from the mouth flying back to splat on the shoulder.

The Blue Triceratops

I didn't save his instructions so I don't know his official name.

This guy is COVERED in sculpture gags, and I'm leading with the strongest. On his frill, unpainted, is a treasure map, made of a pair of crossed bandages, a fly, and a dotted line, a very fun nod at the pirate theme. We again see the snot/slime from the nostril, and he's got slime (or in this case, t-rex gore) on his horn. All sweet touches.

Coming around the side we've got the typical battle-damage slashes, a stitched wound in the hind limb, and coolest of all, an arrow embedded under the frill.

I left his back spikes unpainted since that's where his armor snaps on (his armor is a future project)

Speaking of, there's slime with maggots on the tail.

His left side is less messed up (he must favor it on account of the broken horn) but he's still got a tic-tac-toe slash in his thigh.

And we've got more splat-and-maggots on the frill, and a cool scar-across-the-eye and some jaw-damage. Almost all of which was unpainted, along with the claws and frill-spikes.

In the in-progress pile I've got touchups on tons, as well as a full repaint on a Horror House Zombosaur

Which, as I've mentioned before, is basically an undead Extreme Dinosaurs figure. He's currently $6.71 on Amazon (and his fellow case-mates Slasher (reaper) and Head Scar (zombie) are also cheap right now). Or you can get his foot-tall Zombie Rex variant for $8.49.

I don't get paid by Zuru to post this stuff, honest, I just think they make awesome stuff. If you want to say thanks, grab me something else off my list for me to customize/customize with.

[therobotmonster]

Destructor Rex

A long time ago I grabbed a Lightyear Zurg figure at a Ross for around $8.

Lightyear bombing has been a bonanza of cheap, cool starships and custom fodder at Ollie's and Ross stores. I have the O7 Test ship currently being piloted by Evil Lyn (It's just a skosh too small for Origins guy characters).

I loved Zurg's huge figure's design, but have zero connection to that version of Zurg, so he was always going to be a custom. A Zuru Smashers Dino-Skull was a recent Bday gift, and it gave me an opportunity:

Zuru's high-end stuff is cool and comes with a ton of stuff your action figure collectors would be into, and one of the things that makes them cool is that they don't really blind-bag anything over $10. There's always a bone or claw or dino-head sticking out of the package that's color coded that lets you know what you're in for. In this case, a really huge hollow rubber dinosaur head.

So I popped it out of the nostril, traced the nostril hole onto some paper, used that to trace that onto the decapitated Zurg, dremmeled out the shape, made sure it was hollow enough for the plug, and boil-and-popped the head in place.

When it comes to boil-and-popping, be careful, the head is hollow and will hide hot water. But it also squishes nicely once heated and then hardens very solid once cooled, so I'm confident this connection is permanent.

The base of the head is D-shaped, so articulation isn't really possible, and you have to pose him kinda hunched (but that looks cool anyhow) but you don't need articulation when you're a foot taller than any other figure around.

The small Buzz that came with the ship I mentioned is in-progress with his own head transplant (from a smaller egg) but he will require some glue and I'm presently out.

[spider-gummy]

creepy slime packs from one of my zuru smasher's