SCS is for Scary Creature Selection . . . II

And no, we haven't had 'I' yet, but this is only a box ticker, due to they not being in the tag-list yet, and Shaun having done a better job already, but it IS Halloween, and these were on UK Amazon the other day so I grabbed them and here they are; 'Monster Scary Good'

And the first thing to understand is that while they may look a bit expensive in on-line sales listings, what you are getting is a huge box, with the equivalent of four or five Airfix 54mm boxes'worth of stuff, and they are ten-times cheaper than some of that stuff coming out of the East right now!

However, SCS Direct are a bit naughty in short-packing the sets as per the advertised contents, no doubt something they would counter with the 'Contents May Vary' term, except . . . hold on a dang-minute . . . there is no such term - I think they are counting the headless rider and his horse as 'two figures'; the cheating monkeys! Heay-ho, still cheap-as-chips for what you get!

Clockwise from top left, the 'wolves' are err . . . just wolves! I suppose you could use them as werewolves, I've called them dire-wolfs to big them up a bit (I don't want them getting insecurity issues!), but they are just wolves, nicely sculpted servants of Dracula, Satan or the Lords of Morrrdorrr, but just wolves!

The wingless dragon is among my favourites in the whole set if not THE favourite, it conforms to none of the specific traits of it's kind having no wings and a bipedal posture, however it's crest/spine ornamentation reminds me of chess pieces (rooks/castles I guess) and you can imagine him/her heading-off the Red Queen on a flag-stone chess board in an Alice III?

The female barbarian is nice, but hardly a F. Frazetta or C. Achillos' Amazon; she'll do! The frog-warrior though; lovely, and a cheat that we only get two, one of the smaller sculpts as well, if they gave us four they wouldn't be taking the piss on the content count? And for painters out there, he's crying out to spar Little John on a log over the brook - my money's on Phinius Froggie!

Same pack drill; The male barbarian is similarly so-so, they are lovely sculpts, but more cave-men than 'fantasy' monsters. While the headless horseman is more 'horror' than fantasy, which is odd, as SCS Direct do Horror sets too?

The winged creature is closer to a wyvern than anything else (Cockatrice/Gryphon in the above listing) but with birds wings not dragon/bat wings and a big bird at that! Not my choice and suffering the worst distortion in the packaging due to it's size and softness.

Cerberus is lovely, the Cyclops is equally everything you'd want from such a chap and will go well with the 1:72nd scale one from Atlantic (seen here before I think but I'll try to arrange a comparison shot soonish?).

The 'winged female pan/siren' is also a nice figure . . .

Dance of the evil witch-bitches!

. . . who would benefit from paint, but again shows the influence of the G. Gygax and Nottingham Mafia world's on these things and how far they have moved away from the traditional heraldic, 'classical' or even Tolkien'esque picture of them?

The distortion (which plagues these - as delivered - like a Corona-virus) is obvious in the two unicorns who should be identical poses! I'm actually going to try and keep them like this, but both bases will need re-setting with hot water. I also shot them with the set of ex-The Works Paint Your Own's (now Unique) we looked at back in August's RTM.

I think while half the problem is the soft material, the other half is their own weight in the box, which in warm Amazon warehousing or going out in trucks on hot days, leaves them settling onto or into each other in the box, all the thin parts and the sheet material (wings, bases) suffered some bending or distortion.

Finally the 'mermaid'; another really nice but un-traditional sculpt, if the winged one is more pan that siren, then this one is a siren or sea-harpy, whist also being clearly a  mermaid (fish's tail, she's no hog!), but with the sword & shield she is also a bit of a sea-amazon. The shield is the weak-point, but paint would hide that.

As you can see they all come in equal quantities of Mediterranean- and Atlantic-grey, in a substitute PVC and that's them!