T is for Two - Dozens of Droids! 'Droids Galore' even! A Plethora of Droids . . .

. . . more Droids than you can shake a big stick at! The Droid mother-load! Droidload? Droidsville, Droidsylvania . . . Droidtopia? This was as a result of a chance happenstance type of synergic coincidence'y thing!

I was looking for the SCS Direct Robots set, as it was one of two known SCS sets I didn't still have (the other is a set of 28mm Role Play figures I may have seen a while ago in a weird sort of head-shop in Basingrad priced-up for far more than they are worth!), in the cause of which search I found a bagged set of Wall∙E robots, so a 'T is for . . .' post was born!

Because - in the end - the 'find' arrived earlier, we'll look at the Wall∙E stuff first; but here are the two together, the Wall∙E in a header carded bag, the SCS in a huge but not really strong-enough plastic tube or 'Toob'. Contents also vary as widely with 15 pieces of harder plastic against 52 pieces of a modern PVC substitute.

Branded to Thinkway Toys as the parent and imported (into the UK at least?) by Vivid Imaginations who are a brand in themselves, we get 15 different robots in a J-hooked, header-carded bag (it's going to be a geeky post as I have 19 images of 42 pictures/scans to blurb-up!) with colourful artwork.

The Wall∙E sculpts are an odd thing, not totally unique, but there are few examples in the whole hobby, and while I know there are some others; I can't think of any specific ones off the top of my head (actually; some of those European margarine premium flats of the larger buildings are an example) - they are semi-flats, but sculpted with a level of view-point/vanishing-point perspective, giving them a distorted look from some angles, but enhancing the 3D effect of a relief-flat, if viewed head-on, from the front or back.

Wall∙E himself is the only character to get duplicates, with one each of three poses as seen here.

The other yellow plastic (a softish but tough material, which could be a polyethylene, or a polypropylene or one of the modern hybrids?) figurines include - from the left a Light-bot (Doh! They're Bots not Droids . . . I'll have to redo the whole opening!); Umbrella-bot (behind); Beautician-bot (in front) and Defebrillator-bot.

Weird tombstones! The rest of the set are in white plastic (same tough, soapy polymer) and clockwise from top left in the left-hand image are - Steward, Massage-bot, 'M-O' (medical officer/orderly?), Eve (Wall∙E's paramour), Vacuum-bot, Autopilot, Paint-bot and 'Gopher'. If the card (next shot) is anything to go-by, we are looking at the back of Vacuum-bot in that left image, but it's all a bit academic!

Because I did rather go for broke on the imagery with this post, here's a confirmatory scan of the naming pannel! Heay; anyone who's followed the Eraser-bot posts knows I like robots, and let's be honest, the more bots you've got . . . the less bots you still have to find!

And - just a quick one . . . if I buy something I rarely credit the seller as it's mine to do what I will with (I credit donations and contributions, but no one can remember or find the name of every seller at every show or auction site), however I happened to purchase this from Eric Critchley, one of the old guard, a regular contributor to PlasticWarrior magazine and someone I've probably always looked-up to (or envied?!!), and he happened to send a second set in the parcel, free and as a suprise, so I was able to open one for the images and keep one mint.

As I'd bid without really looking at the set, and sort of assumed it would be like other rack-toys (or the SCS set), in having duplicates and had already promised those duplicates to another friend of the Blog, I was able to send that friend the lose set, with some SCS's. So many, many thanks to Eric for the kind act, which was very-much passed-on.

So, now we get on to the 'Droids' proper, deep-space, far-away, super-dooper, fighty-bitey battle-bots! These are under the WD / Wicked Duals branding, and while I'm not sure which is which, I think these are the older iteration, with the boxed sets branded straight to SCS being the newer issues.

And - of the four (or five?) sets we've seen now - I've had two of these older tubes (or three? God! It's all on the Blog somewhere!), and the tubes DO NOT travel well. Not only do they shatter, shedding their load, but the outer box can be damaged as well (Amazon; my money putting that slave-driving, popinjay fucker in space and he can't even send me a parcel in one piece!), so when the contents have the quirks previously highlighted here at Small Scale World, you can never be 100% sure it didn't happen in the Amazon warehouse rather than at SCS Direct's packaging department.

As well as the shattered tube/holed box, there was a certain amount of damage and one missing piece in the whole lot . . . sigh! It's the modern, run-out of ideas, sliding into oblivion, world we live in now!

However, it was the first set which had a 'correct' count, both in the advertised number (52 items) and a 50/50 colour/pose split. There were only one of each colour for two in total of the pairs at the front of the parade though, so me and the guy I split them with got one each; I think I kept the grey's and sent the two rusty ones!

There is a real mix of genres within the set and we see here a nice Japanese-style manga-anime type (bottom right) two 1950's 'pulp' types (top right - including one whom looks a bit like Bender, but a more businesslike Bender!), while the main picture has a droid who would look more at home in 2000AD's Robohunter strip.

Another Futurama'esque droid here, I don't know if it's a helicopter or a press? But, as it's fiction - it can be what you want it to be! The arms are very Bender-bot and will also go very well with those rack-toy 'Bat-bots' of which we looked at a new one the other day courtesy of Chris Smith, who have the same kind of shower-hose/ducting arms!

Bottom left - every SCS Direct set seems to have a dragon! I'm lovin' the tortoise battle-droids (top) with pop-out weaponary, something Star Wars Genosian about him, while the wheeled 'Bird-bot' one (bottom-right) looks energetic to the point of demented!

Top left is another who could be from a 200AD strip or Japanese TV series, while the others are more steam-punk, with a pulpy one top right and a insectoidal-droidal across the bottom.

Pure 1950's pulp here, but also harking back further to HG Well's War of the Worlds with all those tentacles and the tripod perambulation? Or Jules Verne - I can imagine rows of these hanging limply in racks in the hold of the Nautilus?

Two big cheats with this set were A) really heavy bases, so heavy they all suffer from shrinkage warping after mould removal and B) eight rather pointless pieces of scenery! The tool box (right) is half-useful I suppose, but the wall (left) is a hollow-backed piss-take!

The 14th sculpt - which was probably my favourite - is another 2000AD'esque one, but more Judge Dredd or Ro-Busters and is tracked, like Wall∙E, hence the comparison here, although I suspect the SCS Direct one would eat Wall∙E for breakfast! He's telling Wall∙E what he saw off the shoulders of Orion!

A couple more comparisons. Between the two sets and ignoring the odd sculpting trope of the Wall∙E set, there is a Robot for every occasion/eventuality here, and being inanimate objects lend themselves to any type of painting from polished chrome-spray through glossy showroom, battered, to rusty, military or mauve!

We haven't seen 'Berserker' much this year, but then it's been an odd year (2020.2), anyway here he is giving a scale to one of each of the SCS Direct set's Droid-bots! It's the Mercedes showroom circa the year 2525 - if man will still be alive!

Mah'favourite!