Finally ... L'isola di Gorm completed!

 At last, I have a 100 percent complete and fully functional L'isola di Gorm!! And in perfect condition. Got the last three bits yesterday - Lucas (in his boy shape), the totem pole and the last catapult.

Not much more to say ... I'll let the pictures speak (and well ... a few captions). And remember to read my long blog about L'isola di Gorm if you didn't catch it. You'll find it right here.

My grail! My grail! Complete down to the last little bit, with every mechanical feature - lights, sounds movement - functional.  

Finally got a hold of Lucas, he had been evading me for some time. All four friends assembled now!

The Totem Pole. You can press a little button on the back and the face changes. It has four different expressions. I was really happy to find the totem but can't help feel that the look of it is a little childish - it sort of stands out in the landscape in a wrong way.

And a catapult for the people of the sea ... last little bit I needed. 

The mysteries of the Final Evolution series, part 2: To pose ... or NOT to pose?

Finally, here is my follow up to the first part of 'The mysteries of the final evolution series'. And as promised posted in this very same millennium (it's better not to promise too much). 

Let's talk about ... posing. Or maybe rather ... no posing? 

Let me explain: In the Final Evolution brochure, the magic egg characters are all depicted in some quite dramatic poses, but the end result, the sculpts that ended up on the commercial market, have no posing at all, just plain dull "arms-down-the-sides-I'm-sick-of-my-life" boredom.  

But why? What exactly happened? The characters depicted in the brochure are definetely pictures of real sculpted figures, not just drawings, so logic would dictate that at least prototypes were made and photographed. But it seems that somewhere in the process Giochi decided to dull it down a bit. To save money? Maybe. Who knows! But let's have a look at the seven magic egg characters, how they were originally envisioned AND how they ended up. A sad story, actually, a tale of woe 😭

Here we have Storming Sand from the People of the Diamond! He wants to blast your face with a deadly sand storm ... or maybe not? In his final sculpt on the right it looks more like he needs to go to the potty. To shit diamond shards, perhaps?

Prepare to meet your fiery doom at the hands of THE MIGHTY OAKBEAST!! No, wait ... he changed his mind, he won't bother you ... as long as you leave him alone. He's having a private comtemplative moment.

Crushark, a really cool character, with or without the posing, I'll say. But still, on the left he looks like he's about to unleash some lethal tidal wave, crush you with bursts of water, but no ... he's apparently just waiting for the bus or something.

The "mystic" Mystic Moth. The difference is not that big here, but, still, on the left he looks like he's about to take off and on the right he looks more like he's resting. Here you could get the suspicion that Giochi were trying to make the characters smaller? A lot of the Magic egg characters are quite small, but since the magic egg itself is GIGANTIC I can't really imagine why. 

Forgius! This one is interesting. If you were THAT heavily armed, with a blaster on one arm and a spinning sawblade on the other, WHY on earth would you stand like that? Comatose, just waiting for some one to come and tip your sorry metallic bulk over.

Only a minor difference with Comet. His right arm is sligthly raised in the brochure and for some reason both arms are fused with the legs in the final sculpt.

Pretty much the same as with Comet. Arms a bit more down the sides in the final version. Like with all the others, a more dull, less dynamic, non-threatening look, basically. 

So there you have it. All seven of them dulled down. For some years I was keeping an eye out for the posing versions but now I seriously doubt they exist outside of the Final Evolution brochure. But well, who knows ... Just imagine the shock and excitement if one of them should turn up some day - as they were originally envisioned - posing, threatening ... bad-ass!

The mysteries of the Final Evolution series, part 1: The People of the Earth

There are a few irregularities, oddities, curiosities - call them what you will! - sorrounding the Final Evolution series. One of them is the mystery that is 'The People of the Earth'. 

It was clear from the get go that there was some kind of trouble with these quite awesome looking black/grey/fluorescent green versions of the Energhia sculpts - for one, they werent pictured in the Final Evolution brochure (neither the newsstand brochure nor the one for normal retail). Only grey silhuets of the characters were shown along with an odd message.

From the Final Evolution brochure. Only greyish silhouets for the People of the Earth??

Close up of that odd little text box. Translates to: "The new heroes will be coming soon!" But ... ehh? Why not like NOW? Considering the series HAD already been released.

Definetely something fishy with these People of the Earth. Maybe they werent ready for release who knows? In my home country, Denmark, the People of the Earth were never released. The Final Evolution series consisted of only 11 different tribes instead of 13 tribes in the Italian release (see blind bag comparion below)

In Denmark, and I'm guessing a lot of other countries outside of Italy, we got only 11 tribes. People of the Earth and People of the Lava were forbidden fruit.

But back to those ghostly grey silhuettes ... Were the People of the Earth ever sold? Did they even EXIST??? Yes, definetely, just relax. If you look at where they pop up on ebay from time to time, they were sold in Italy, Spain, probably Greece and definetely the US. But, oddly (and now it gets even more confusing), it's mostly the characters Gheos, Talps, Gravitus and Trematerra that surface. The remaining three (Schienacciaio, Lo Scovanascondigli and Furiacieca) seem a lot scarcer.

Just calm down... they are right here, all seven of them. They DO exist.

 

These 'rare three' mostly pop up in the US, where they (and the three others, except Gheos) were sold in packages of two (with one Final Evolution character and one Energheia), but not with the correct cards, instead they had the normal Energheia Cards, showing the character in its boring ole yellow war paint.   

A Picture of the American two pack. If you look close you can see the 'incorrect' Energheia card behind Gravitus.

Picture borrowed from an American ebay seller. Energheia Cards were apparently included for ALL the Final Evolution Gormitis on the US market. Why ...? Who knows. All part of the mystery.

I aquired all seven characters a couple of years ago, but only the cards for Gheos, Talps, Gravitus and Trematerra. If the 'rare three' are ... eh, rare ... the cards even more so. For a long time I didn't beleive they existed but then one day, bam! Found 'em on ebay, from an Italian seller.

Let me proudly present the magnificent seven ... 

So, both the characters and the cards exist, but they are not that easy to come by. 

Stay tuned for "The mysteries of the Final Evolution series ... part 2!" Sometime in this millenium.