TB League new figures already available for Pre Order

I'm glad none of these are grabbing my attention. This year is going to hit my wallet hard and explode with other non scale collectibles. LOL

Valkyrie 1/12th

agentghost wrote:Pass on Queen of the Dead.  1) Lack of accessories; 2) HS is old and ugly.

I do find the HS of this Queen quite unique...could be useful for other figures creation...

I don’t personally mind an ‘old’ looking headsculpt ... it gets boring for all the sculpts to be of eternally youthful, generic ‘beauties’. (Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.) Unless by ‘old’ you meant that the sculpt looks outdated or something ... to me it looks fine, but then I tend to measure ‘ugly’ headsculpts by, say, older Sideshow fare or the worst of Star Ace’s output.

The great thing about this hobby is that we can cater to our own tastes .... and as many have noted, we can easily pass on offerings that don’t appeal. And what appeals to each of us always going to be very different. Since I’m personally less interested in the typical ‘sexy warrior lady’ tbleague figures, I was more focused on commenting on the ones that did catch my eye (however ‘ugly’ they may to some).

I quite like the two Court of the Dead figures that have been teased; now if Sideshow would just get off their butts and approve the design that was teased last year, TBL could move forward with production.

I think Anubis is popular because there is a "furry" genre in popular culture and he fits right into it. When I looked for images on Google I found that most were nothing to do with the ancient depiction of the god and so this is another modern interpretation.

The body does look too muscular although there is a rather solid looking version of him here:

https://www.worldbook.com/behind-the-headlines/Mythic-Monday-Anubis-of-the-Afterlife

In this one his head looks a bit small for his body:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anubis

In some ancient art he is depicted as a complete canine and in others as a canine-headed man. Sometimes his skin is brown and sometimes black. The statues of Anubis as pure canine sometimes have rather long necks.

Therefore, I think there is a good degree of latitude in how he is portrayed and if one could show this to an ancient Egyptian they would say: "that's Anubis!"

JohnByng wrote:I think Anubis is popular because there is a "furry" genre in popular culture and he fits right into it.

I think that’s where my fascination for him started. My favorite monster as a kid (and I still find them cool) was The Wolfman. I have (somewhere) a story from one of those black and white horror comic magazines (Creepy or Eerie, I can’t remember which) that had a really great story (called The Curse of Anubis) where the archaeologists discover a tomb and anger the god, who then proceeds, as a jackal-headed man, to kill off the small group of humans. The head was drawn in a style similar to a lot of the more contemporary werewolf movies (like The Howling and Dog Soldiers) and I believe was done by Berni Wrightson. Great story, and gruesome for the time.
After that I delved pretty heavily into Egyptian Mythology, and found Anubis to be a pretty interesting figure. If this TBL figure had looked more like the Anubis in that comic story (which, by the way, had a much more accurate costume and design to what we’ve seen in the hieroglyphics — well, maybe not the head — but at least it looked like a “real” dog, and not a man with a dog-statue head), I would have been a happy camper. I think that’s one of the things that bothers me about this (aside from the tiny head and giraffe neck) — they’re representing his head as that of a statue, or a drawing, when it should be that of an “actual” jackal — so that the head would look more realistic, like the body.

Yeah, the head is what makes the Queen Of The Dead figure unique and a nice change from TBL's usual range of "Interchangeable Twentysomething Warrior Babes (TM)". It's kind of like a Triad headsculpt, but rendered more attractively, if you get my meaning.

I can see how anyone could object to the (I'm assuming) non-removable headdress making it extremely specific, but I applaud the effort to make her face look a little different (I'm not familiar with the source, so I don't know how successful a likeness it is). One of my own favourite TBL sculpts is their Sparta Goddess, entirely because she has a more unique, more mature look (I hesitate to use the usual popular internet term in polite company    ).


EDIT: That's an interesting expression on the 1/12th Valkyrie's face. Not warrior-like at all.

The Queen of the Dead is from Sideshow’s “Court of the Dead” series of statues.

JohnByng wrote:I think Anubis is popular because there is a "furry" genre in popular culture and he fits right into it. When I looked for images on Google I found that most were nothing to do with the ancient depiction of the god and so this is another modern interpretation.  

The body does look too muscular although there is a rather solid looking version of him here:

https://www.worldbook.com/behind-the-headlines/Mythic-Monday-Anubis-of-the-Afterlife

In this one his head looks a bit small for his body:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anubis

In some ancient art he is depicted as a complete canine and in others as a canine-headed man. Sometimes his skin is brown and sometimes black. The statues of Anubis as pure canine sometimes have rather long necks.

Therefore, I think there is a good degree of latitude in how he is portrayed and if one could show this to an ancient Egyptian they would say: "that's Anubis!"

Stryker2011 wrote:I think that’s where my fascination for him started. My favorite monster as a kid (and I still find them cool) was The Wolfman. I have (somewhere) a story from one of those black and white horror comic magazines (Creepy or Eerie, I can’t remember which) that had a really great story (called The Curse of Anubis) where the archaeologists discover a tomb and anger the god, who then proceeds, as a jackal-headed man, to kill off the small group of humans. The head was drawn in a style similar to a lot of the more contemporary werewolf movies (like The Howling and Dog Soldiers) and I believe was done by Berni Wrightson. Great story, and gruesome for the time.
After that I delved pretty heavily into Egyptian Mythology, and found Anubis to be a pretty interesting figure. If this TBL figure had looked more like the Anubis in that comic story (which, by the way, had a much more accurate costume and design to what we’ve seen in the hieroglyphics — well, maybe not the head — but at least it looked like a “real” dog, and not a man with a dog-statue head), I would have been a happy camper. I think that’s one of the things that bothers me about this (aside from the tiny head and giraffe neck) — they’re representing his head as that of a statue, or a drawing, when it should be that of an “actual” jackal — so that the head would look more realistic, like the body.

I agree there is enough here to identify the look with Anubis, and again I cannot really fault a company for choosing to go with a particular style or look simply because it is not my favorite (what I can do is not buy it). There is solid (like some of the statuary) and then there is body-builder pumped (like the Anubis action figure). As for the size of the head, yes, the Egyptian portrayals of animal-headed gods can result in some pretty strange mismatch of scale, and some of Anubis' depictions look more sensible than others, although they are not usually too impossible (the canine head simply has different proportions than the human one). Typical extremes are the whole scarab used as the head of the god Khepri (the rising sun) -- where the whole animal is used just for the head, after being made much larger than the proper scale, or the ibis head typically used for the god Thot (who is also sometimes rendered as a baboon!), or the snake head for the goddess Wadjet, and of course the falcon heads for various gods like Ra or Horus or Montu. Speaking of which, there is an interpretation that the Egyptians did not really imagine their gods as having animal heads (for those that are depicted that way), but that the pictorial canon of depicting them that way was intended to convey something considered intrinsic or typical of the specific deity's character. So the statue or carving or drawing of a "jackal"-headed god immediately conveyed "Anubis" (or Wepwawet, with some other attributes), but there was no expectation that the "real Anubis" actually was an immortal man with the head of a "jackal."

I am reminded of a relatively recent D-movie about a bunch of archaeologists infiltrating a tomb (pyramid?) and inadvertently releasing Anubis, rendered in the most horrible CGI since silent film. No wonder I can't remember the title. Anyway, Stryker, you bring up an interesting point as to how Anubis would best be depicted -- for which see above. But if you want to stay truer to the canonical depiction, you are most likely stuck with two choices: a possibly resized real(istic) "jackal" head on a human body or a "jackal" head mask (in Egyptian stylized appearance) over a present or implied human head on a human body. I suppose the latter would be rather like your "man with a dog-statue head" but given the implausibility of the other option (then again this is mythology/fantasy, right?) it might be a viable alternative. Moreover, there were (or there are supposed to have been) instances of priests or actors dressing up as gods with the appropriate masks over their faces and acting out rites or scenes from myth. The Polish film Faraon had such a scene for the burial rites of an Egyptian king. Couldn't find the version with the English subtitles, but here are a couple of links to the available youtube videos (with Russian and Ukrainian dubbing) -- everything is a bit drab, dated, and unclear, but you can still get a sense of it if you want:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VERmMupRFQQ (starting at about 1:40)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txl3xkLrlCY (starting at about 21:40 -- fuller scene)

As for the queen figure, "old" and "ugly" (though neither is quite absolute and at any rate in the eye of the beholder) was surely the intended look.

Since the Anubis is a tie in with ARH, I don't mind that they added their fantasy elements. As I said, I just wish the head was more proportionate to an atypical "humans" -- basically, if they're going to stick with the statue-like version, the head needs to be almost twice as big, with a much shorter neck.

Something closer to this:




Or even like this version (head to body proportions only) from that movie Gods and Monsters (never saw it, heard it sucked):

Nice! A black M34/M35... no more stains to worry about!

@GubernatorFan. I think the D-movie you referred to is "The Pyramid" (2014).

skywalkersaga wrote:I don’t personally mind an ‘old’ looking headsculpt ... it gets boring for all the sculpts to be of eternally youthful, generic ‘beauties’. (Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.) Unless by ‘old’ you meant that the sculpt looks outdated or something ... to me it looks fine, but then I tend to measure ‘ugly’ headsculpts by,  say, older Sideshow fare or the worst of Star Ace’s output.

The great thing about this hobby is that we can cater to our own tastes .... and as many have noted, we can easily pass on offerings that don’t appeal. And what appeals to each of us always going to be very different. Since I’m personally less interested in the typical ‘sexy warrior lady’ tbleague figures, I was more focused on commenting on the ones that did catch my eye (however ‘ugly’ they may to some).

If I want an old hag to be on my wall, I wouldn't bother with TBLeague. I just buy Star Ace. Their HS is ugly, by default

I'm pretty pedantic when it comes to historical figures but I actually like their Alexander. It is the first historical figure that TBL has attempted a proper job. Looks like it is based on Stone's Alexander, which did a decent job reproducing historically accurate costumes and sets. It isn't perfect but, for TBL, it isn't bad at all. It is definitely something I could work with.

brassco wrote:


Valkyrie 1/12th

wow, 1/12 scale. The TBLeague Valkyrie was my favorite acquisition last year.

I am leaning toward "army build" these beauties. Having a squad of them versus Mythic Legion trolls and orges

RIP my wallet

Damn...I just realized Tariah is different from the Valkyrie that was released some time ago. The shield, fingerless gloved hands, colors, fuzzy armor/padding parts...and I *THINK* the headsculpt might be different as well. I decided I want this figure but I'm not sure if I should get Skarah now or wait for Tariah...

brazybear wrote:Damn...I just realized Tariah is different from the Valkyrie that was released some time ago.  The shield, fingerless gloved hands, colors, fuzzy armor/padding parts...and I *THINK* the headsculpt might be different as well.  I decided I want this figure but I'm not sure if I should get Skarah now or wait for Tariah...

The head is different, I much prefer it.

As for the 1/12th version... The more I see of them the more I'm liking the look of these 1/12th figures, but my wallet is being tortured enough by 1/6th purchases as it is.

I.. must... resist.... urge..... to buy....

^Ok cool, thanks. Guess I'll wait for the official pictures with clear shots of the headsculpt to see which I like better. I just hope the remaining Skarahs don't get bought out before that happens...