Clawful

Titfortat 4: Clawful vs. Extendar

Titfortat

The hell, why? What, Merman?


What no one knows: Merman has a secret plan! He started training his ocean people to fight on land. But this takes time. He needs warriors to fight with him right now.

Water is thicker than air, they say.

Clawful was one of the first villains who believed Merman could be the new leader of Eternia, able to fight Skeletor, Hordak and King Hiss. Clawful has a natural affinity to the ocean, and there is something magical to Merman. Why would the land creatures always become the leaders?

But what is it with Extendar? Why was Clawful so keen to fight him in the titfortat ring?

Extendar, or who he has been, before he became Extendar, was the spy who spotted Merman training a team of ocean people on land. He realized that something big is rising from the ocean. The saw him, and a fight started. Extendar lost the battle, and his memories. He hardly survived. Man-at-Arms fixed his body, but hardly anything is left from the former spy. No he’s a heavy knight, half human, half robot. Or entirely a robot? He doesn’t know himself.

Clawful can’t risk to let him get back his memories. It would not only be a risk for Merman’s plans, but also threat to Clawful’s life, if Skeletor finds out too early what is going on.

A nervous, lightning-fast 3 meter crab man (28 points) with a clear mission and 190kg of muscles and armor, is fighting the cyborg-knight! Extendar (31 points) is the fifth-heaviest MOTU character on hefarts, and reaches even 30 centimeter higher than Clawful when he’s fully extended. Two gigantic, well armored fighters are meeting here. The question is, can Extendar control the Claw? This battle is about distances, a ringer vs. sword fighter.

Go! Extendar starts in a perfect defense position, knowing Clawful is fast and furious. The red shield in one hand, and a sword in the other hand. His armor should be strong enough to protect him, but for how long? He is not extended, and thus more than 1 meter smaller than the crab. This doesn’t look like the fair fight the numbers promised.

Clawful rapidly moves from one corner of the ring to the other, his size is not slowing him down at all. Extendar’s eyes follow him, the rest of the body is not moving. It would cost him to much energy to follow the crab. Clawful is the first to attack: He comes in a zig zag move towards Extendar. Once near, the huge claw Immediately catches Extendar’s red shield, while the other claw grabs the sword. It is one single movement, happening so fast, that it’s clear, the following seems inevitable. Once clawed, Clawful won’t let go anything, ever. His strength is legendary.

Extendar has no chance to get back his weapons, so he decides to let go. What was he thinking?! What now?

A helpless try to punch Clawful in the face, but Extendar is too slow. How could he be so blind to not see this coming? Why did Man-at-Arms make him so slow? Extendable? He looks like a knight, but in fact they just made him a spy with armor, just enough so that they could send him on missions again.

Sword and shield are thrown out of the ring. It took seconds to disarm the knight. This fight is no fight, it is the second demolition of the former spy. It is a fighting monster vs. a poor experiment of Man-at-Arms.

Clawful attacks again, and this time he’s able to get hold of both of Extendar’s hands. This must be the end already.

His grab becomes tighter and tighter. Extendar panics, sees no other way but to use his extensions to grow larger and get out of the grip. He didn’t even think of keeping the neck short. While he still grows, centimeter by centimeter, we see the proof: the neck extensions can’t withstand THE claw. A grab and a few seconds later, the heads rolls on the floor, the battle is over, and Merman’s secret plan save. So far, no one has a clue why Clawful went in the ring with Extendar.

Toy review: Whiplash

Toy review

Writing about Whiplash got me thinking about the color schemes of MOTU toys.

Wiphlash is a fully green figure with a special feature: his huge green crocodile tail. Also is he one of the most famous villains. And green is a commonly used color amongst MOTU figures: Man at arms, Kobra Khan, Mossman, Leech, Triclops, King Hiss. Squeeze and Snake Face also have a lot of green.

Color schemes can be explained using the color wheel. This displays the colors of a rainbow. Starting from yellow, the colors are orange, red, purple, blue, green, and back to yellow. Green, blue, and purple are considered cool colors, whereas the others are warm. Looking at green and orange, we have one cool and one warm color, that means it is balanced out. This happens with most figures, think of Syclone, Roboto, or Faker! Snake Face does only show cool colors: green and purple, with grey and black. All green figures, except for Snake Face, got the orange color. This results in a low contrast, or signaling effect. Maybe that’s why I have my problems with Snake Face, who only has some purple, but no orange. Purple is not the exact opposite of green in the color wheel. Yellow would be, so the green- purple combo is a bit off. That feels unpleasant. Look at Panthor vs. Battlecat. While Panthor is mystical or scary, Battlecat has matching opposites: red and green. Some orange is right between those colors and makes it even more pleasant. I will focus more on the colors in the next reviews!

Whiplash got it on his spear and belt in orange. The quality is amazing. In opposite to Man at Arms, the squeezable head keeps his color for ever. Even the rubber tail is stable and flexible over decades. He stands perfectly solid, with the tail as 3rd stand. His chest is crocodile like, it is not the standard body. The arms are not as muscular as others. Believe it or not, just as I am writing this, I realize that Whiplash and Clawful have the exact same legs. The color is so different, that I never saw the same shape! Did you? Ok, yes Buzz Off has it too. Reusing body parts was a thing, I did not really notice that when I played with them.

The UV light I used for the photography highlighted the arms and legs, plus his pants. The tail is invisible in the picture.

Whiplash

Toy review: Clawful

Toy review

The first two reviews haven’t been too positive, sorry! Clawful is one example for a high quality character. Even after 30 years, the mechanism of the claw is working well, the shell is perfectly intact. The massive right claw is one highlight for me, able to open and close and so hold swords, wrists and other objects. The shell is indeed hard and round like a crab shell. That only appeared to me recently, I wonder if that was the intention?

His feet are duck like, with a matte, dark blue finish that wears off a little bit. They allow a very stable stand. His legs and arms have a fringe, that perfectly supports the impression of a crab. Not as worse as with King Randor, but visible, is some mold on the legs. Maybe it has to do with the shade, which is also brownish. The torso is this extreme muscular human, making him look like a human crab mutant.

The weak point of this figure is the head- by no means the quality, the material totally holds. It is more the design, and the choice of material that makes it look a bit funny. Too shallow for me, too soft, so that it invites you to squeeze it. It also has some slack when you bend it, though it does not easily come off. His face is a bit like a pitbull`s, making him look really mean, except for the double nose maybe. Much better though than many cartoon variation of him. Good for him they didn’t try to add antennas!

His weapon is kind of a club, which never sits tight on his tiny left claw.

The UV light didn’t really change his colors, but it looks great! Sorry for the low quality picture!

Crossover: Tubby Masters 1

Crossovers

The first crossover I made was Tubby Masters. That’s Teletubbies and MOTU! They have in common that characters have easily recognizable features like the color or the antenna. Maybe there is some hidden critic about the plain MOTU cartoon?! It’s fun to see the muscular warriors in that clumsy shape.

Until now I always draw with pencil first. For this piece I did not use a black felt pen to finalize the lines, but I just used the colors right from the start. The blending of both attributes went well, look at the eh what is it, head antennas? Though Spikor’s and Whiplashes’ faces didn’t turn out great, I think there is enough details to recognize them. They went so well, look how much fun they have!

Whiplash is the scary one, but his tiny tail can only brake hearts, not bones!

Clawful in his own world, he is a dancing shrimp! Also a bit grumpy, but that`s an evil warrior!

Buzz Off learning to fly, or just enjoying his wings. Smile!

Grumpy spikor! And he is so shy, hiding his trident.

Tubby masters 1