As promised, I am working on a post about a snowy road trip I took this weekend, but first have this toy photo story, which I created as I am waiting to be snowed in by the blizzard that’s rolling in from the East.
You may remember that I bought the Figura Obscura Mouse King action figure from Four Horsemen Studios and that I reviewed him for File 770.
The Mouse King figure also came with the head of his mortal enemy, the Nutcracker, as a special surprise gift.
“Ding, dong, the Nutcracker is dead.”
Mousie, actually Roderic Ludovicus Ernst Theodor Amadeus Alexander Peter the First, King of Mousolia, is clearly pleased to have finally vanquished and beheaded his mortal enemy, the Nutcracker.
However, I felt it was a pity to have this great Nutcracker head without a body to go with it. Luckily, the parts of Mythic Legions/Cosmic Legions/Figura Obscura figures are largely interchangeable, so I needed to find a figure with a suitable body.
So I asked around among fellow toy collectors for recommendations for suitable bodies to go with my Nutcracker head. I got several recommendations and finally settled on a figure called Lijae of the Elite Elven Guard, because he has beautiful golden armour and was the cheapest and most widely available of the recommended figures. Besides, Lijae’s regular headsculpt didn’t appeal to me, so I wouldn’t be tempted to keep him as is. So I ordered Lijae and kitbashed a Nutcracker, literally while waiting to be snowed in by the blizzard that’s rolling in.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of Lijae before I took him apart, but you can see what he looks like on the official Mythic Legions website. Basically, Lijae is an elf warrior in golden armour. He also comes with an orc head and a whole lot of replacement parts.
One problem was that even though Lijae has full golden armour, he came out of the box with black arms and upper legs, as can be seen in the photos on the Mythic Legions site. The golden armoured arms and upper legs were loose parts. So I literally had to take Lijae apart first and replace the black arms and upper legs with the golden armour.
Customising figures, called “popping and swapping” is a huge part of Mythic Legions fandom and while it sounds fun in theory, in practice I find it quite tedious, since the pegs are often hard to push in. Particularly the shoulder pauldrons and capes, which they never attach in the package, can be a pain.
But since I wanted my Nutcracker to have full golden armour and not black upper arms and legs (which make no sense, neither for the elf Lijae nor the Nutcracker), I got to work. I used my trusty hair dryer to soften the plastic and loosening joints and pegs, popped the figure apart, swapped the black parts out for gold armour, and put him back together. I even got the bloody shoulder pauldrons to go in without too much of a problem.
However, there were still some issues. For Lijae has a flesh-coloured neck and hands. The Nutcracker, however, is not human, so a flesh-coloured neck and hands don’t make any sense. Luckily, Mythic Legions figures always come with more parts than you need, particularly with spare hands. So I looked through my stash of spare parts and found a pair of golden hands, which belong to a knight called Sir Gideon Heavensbrand. Even better, Sir Gideon came with a golden replacement neck peg, too. So I attached the golden hands and neck peg to Lijae/the Nutcracker. The gold doesn’t quite match – Lijae’s armour is brighter than Sir Gideon’s – but it’s much better than the anachronistic flesh coloured hands.
And here is the result:
The Nutcracker is reporting for duty.
The sword and the black, gold and red shield all came with Lijae and I gave them to the Nutcracker, because I think the vaguely Art Noveau look is fitting. Besides, I don’t actually have another suitable sword I could give him. Lijae also comes with a bow and quiver, which I didn’t give to the Nutcracker, because he’s not an archer.
I have to admit, I’m quite proud of my work and the Nutcracker looks great in his golden armour. So of course, I pitted him against his mortal enemy, the Mouse King, and took some more photos. And since the Christmas tree is still up – I always leave it up until Epiphany Day, i.e. January 6, and since I was busy the past two days, I didn’t get around to taking it down yet – I of course took some photos with the tree in the background, because in the original Nutcracker story, the Nutcracker and the Mouse King square off on Christmas Eve under the Christmas Tree in the house of the Stahlbaum family.
“Have no fear, Clara, my beloved. Your faithful Nutcracker stands ready to guard your Christmas tree with his life.”
“Get out of my way, Nutcracker. I claim this tree and these presents in the name of the Kingdom of Mousolia.”
“Halt, villain! To get to the tree, you must first go through me!”
“With pleasure, Nutcracker. Prepare to die.”
CLASH! CLANG!
“Clara, my beloved, should I fall, always remember that I love you.”
“Sentimental twaddle. I’ll crawl into your sweetheart’s warm, cozy bed before your body is cold.”
“Oh no, you don’t!”
TWACK!
“Owww…”
“Clara, my beloved, you saved my life. Your faithful Nutcracker salutes you.”
“That’s not fair. You called in air support. That’s cheating. Owwww, can someone get this damned slipper off me?”
***
In both E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” as well as Alexandra Dumas’ version of the story and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet adaptation, Clara Stahlbaum vanquishes the Mouse King by hurling a slipper at him and thus saves the Nutcracker (who is really an enchanted prince).
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