Gangs & Rivalries

DRT Callgrim Review

This is a special occasion, and dare I call it a two-parter! I don't have pictures taken for the second part yet, but a man can dream.

This, of course, is Deluxe Real Type Callgrim. It's the whole shebang: premium paint apps, weathering, soft (or not) goods and packaging with a few fun little bonuses along the way. It was released on November 21st, 2011 for $50. For those of you who are new to Glyos (like me!), it's important to understand some context. By this point, the “standard” figure from Onell Design was a plastic color swap (like the old Pheyden and Reverse Pheyden) with maybe a few highlight paint apps, panel lines, and a tampograph if you’re lucky. There also wasn’t a ton of vinyl, either. Besides the Rig and Armodoc, all of the other vinyl releases were sofubi crossovers and as far as I can tell the Rig Runner didn’t actually exist until 2012. The entire concept of DRT was special, and paint like this was by no means the standard. Even today, I can’t remember the last time we saw factory weathering or soft goods that were more than a piece of die-cut microfiber.

As far as exact contents go:
-27 PVC parts (a standard Callgrim + warp gear)
-3 vinyl parts (the Grim Reaper Warp Bike)
-1 cloth piece (Callgrim's muffler)
-1 fully printed box
-1 collector's art card
-1 blueprint for the bike

There's a lot more to cover here than in a normal Callgrim release, and there better be! This cost $50 back in the day of $8 Travelers, and was a more limited release. It released along Riac, who I do own and would love to give his own spotlight someday, as he’s a personal favorite of mine.

Now, to start off with Callgrim:




He's cast in black PVC with a very Grim Squad white color for the skull (it's entirely painted over, but if you look inside the socket). Almost every surface is drybrushed silver, with a few minor exceptions like the neck and I think the entire figure has a grey wash, but it’s difficult to tell if those are masked paint applications or just a wash. There's no real detail lining, interestingly, except for a bit of silver wash on the scattered gunmetal grey armor paint applications and of course the grey on the skull face. Some of the leathery belt components and gloves are picked out in a very dark and muted brown, with its own dark highlight color. I've disassembled the figure somewhat and laid it out here to make spotting every paint app easier.



The final paint applications can be found on the eyes and spare head; scattered bright red highlights and white tampographs. These add a lot, and bring a great deal of life to the figure. I'm not too sure why there's silver drybrushing on the Caliber Dome visor, though. The Order head is where the accents really shine, though. It mirrors the Riac head pattern, surrounding the black visor with a gunmetal helmet and white fangs, overseen by red eyes. It's an appropriate biker helmet, and I really wish more than three limited Callgrim releases used this tampograph pattern. Callgrim’s main head, of course, is just painted over in white and has a pair of killer pupil tampographs.





We can't keep going without discussing the muffler, however. It's a strange piece, clearly made of fabric but the texture looks more like leather and the entire piece feels like it's been dipped in some sort of clear paint to keep it stiff. It does have give, though, and will move a bit to accommodate posing and other heads. Even the Order head rocks it!







Onto the Grim Reaper, Callgrim's signature Warp Bike. It's a shame we haven't gotten more of these, and that those we did were often in really strange color choices like Bobaran. Of course, the chassis is just a Rig Runner from Onell design without the Rig gun arm forming a hood, but the front skull face is completely original to Rawshark. It's a wild piece, and represents a lot of why I feel Callgrim best matches the aesthetic Glyos was born with. All of the detailing matches the Rig Runner, and it doesn't seem out of place at all. Like I mentioned earlier, the Rig Runner hadn’t been released by Onell when this came out, so I’m not sure which came first in terms of design.







The entire vehicle is cast in black rotocast vinyl, and treated with grey detail lining (a shame the main figure wasn't), jet black paint, lighter (ghost?) grey paint, and some sparse bright red highlights. It's clearly intended to match Callgrim, down to having the same silver drybrushing.



Unfortunately, it doesn't fit him very well. I won't be showing too many pictures of him riding it because it seems to force the legs apart somewhat which stretches the socket, and I believe that's why the hip joints on mine are so loose. Regardless, it's a very interesting addition to the set and makes this feel more like a unique package as opposed to another one-off release.



The packaging, unsurprisingly, adds to this. Boxes in Glyos are rare, only normally showing up with the Founders and some Crayboth. However, this DRT Callgrim is packaged in a white cardboard box covered in prints and product information. It opens from the front like a chest, and I can't tell if there was originally padding on the inside. My copy was bought secondhand, so I'm not sure exactly how it came originally.













Besides the figure and bike, inside there are also some paper materials. The first of which is an art card, with full color printing on either side and a glossy finish. The art is undeniably Jesse Moore, and god do I love that.





The same goes for the other paper in the set, a blueprint of the bike with a reverse side of a monochrome Callgrim art print. I appreciate the addition to the “story” within the set, and I think this will be interesting to anyone who likes pointless machine names in fiction.





That's about all she wrote for this set, and again I'd like to look at Riac soon enough too. Hopefully this was informative, and I'd like to go into similar detail for some of my other more obscure Glyos releases. Thanks for reading!

Elite Builds

The Elite Domes have always been a favorite of mine, even if I don't have the coveted Metran release. I'd like it for use with my Renegades, but for the time being bright-ass red and clear pink will suffice! I've got a Locros Rebellion Callgrim on the way, too, so hopefully I'll be able to rebuild that guy without sacrificing my Elite Sentry!

It's a little hard to see because of how wide open the aperture is, but the Renegade heads on the taller guys add a lot to them for me. I've always liked the idea that, sometime after the Old War, all Gendrones were considered viable to be converted to Renegades; even the contradictory Buildman with its Villser-based tech.

On another note, Kent really did us well with that pink Callgrim. I'm not a big fan of how the solid Ulmorrium pink has to play into the final result, but what can ya do? Mordireus is such a fantastic color, and I really hope we see a Zetonian in it eventually. That's the sole reason I made that white Renegade head!

What's y'all's favorite unofficial color combinations?

mmmm PVC

Hey y'all! I've been a Glyos fan for a few years now, and I've always wanted to run a blog like this, especially with inspiration like Fans of Pheyden. I do a lot of photography, and hope to document some older and more obscure figures especially. I'd like to make this a resource other fans use, as well as of course post about my own finds and thoughts on whatever may be relevant or irrelevant at the time!

Note: The repeating Pheyden background image is from the Onell Design blog. I did not create that graphic.