
| Universe |
Literature |
| Contents |
48 figures |
| Poses |
12 |
| Height |
24 mm |
| |
|
Who doesn't love a good wizard? You only need to look at the success of the Harry Potter books to see how popular wizards are, and stories about Merlin and Gandalf will always find an audience. Wizards often seem confused and somewhat accident-prone, such as those at Unseen University, but they are almost always a force for good, although some like Saruman are definitely not. Nevertheless, a popular character in so many fantasy stories.
Although wizards can come in many shapes and sizes, this set concentrates on the archetypal image of a wizard - an old man with long beard, long hair, pointy hat and a long robe, holding a staff that is in some way a part of his power. All these figures have little variations in terms of clothing or other items, but none stray far from this image, as also seen on the box artwork. The only figure of particular note here is the last in our final row, who has long hair but is largely bald on top. He wears some sort of apron with large rings attached, so perhaps comes from some literary or film character which is unknown to us. However, all of these figures look very solidly wizardy, so no problems there.
Many carry their important staff, which have several different designs on the top. Some are very dramatically holding these aloft as if using them to perform some magic, and indeed many of the poses are quite dramatic, with arms outstretched or hands held high. The costumes are quite elaborate, and the facial hair considerable, but unfortunately the sculpting is not particularly fine, so these are often somewhat confused. Indeed a couple of the faces looking to the side have little definition at all, being swamped by the beard. There is also quite a lot of flash, so while these are nicely elaborate in design, the quality of manufacture does not do justice to the good intentions of the designer.