Vinylmation Review - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was recently released in anticipation of the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which opened last Friday. This 8 figure set includes: Gamora, Drax, Star Lord, Mantis, Baby Groot, Rocket Raccoon, and Yondu, with Nebula as the chaser. I think movie sets are pretty popular, and Marvel is for sure, so I think this is an appropriate set with a timely release. Thomas Scott designed the majority of these figures, with Jason Peltz designing Rocket and Star Lord.

Things to love about this series:

• The characters - I haven't seen Guardians Vol. 2 yet, but I would imagine that every character from this movie you could want in Vinylmation form is in this set. We have seen almost all these characters in various trailers for the film
• The wonderful designs - its always hard to design a human character on the Mickey platform and Disney artists have tried with varying levels of success for years. Although they look a little chubby, which is very difficult to avoid, I think Thomas Scott has really nailed Gamora, Nebula and Drax, who look like actors Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, and Dave Bautista respectively. Baby Groot, Rocket and Star Lord look spot on in design also
• The variants - if you're big into variants, this series has two: Gamora and Baby Groot
• The accessories - Gamora, Star Lord and Rocket all have fantastic weapon accessories, and Yondu would not be complete without his amazing mohawk accessory
• The level of detail - it looks like there's metallic paint on Star Lord's mask, which is awesome! The level of detail on Drax is also very impressive, he might be my favorite in the set

Things that aren't so great:

• As I previously mentioned, some of the human figures are kinda chubby. I think this is incredibly difficult to prevent, but if you are looking for direct likeness to the actor, Mantis and Yondu are definitely weaker than the other figures
• The ears - they weren't left completely blank, each figure has the Guardians logo in their right ear, but it is a pretty plain design. While I don't hate it, that can be disappointing compared to other higher levels of detail in other figures
• Personal preference here, but I think Mantis should have accessory antennae