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Name: Cube Dude Spider-Man/Hellboy/Santa/Darth Vader
Brand: LOZ
Model: 4001-8/4002-7/4003-4/4004-8
We've finally(FINALLY!) come to the end of our unexpectedly long look through the building brick answers to the collectable "vinyl" figure craze of the last few years! What was originally only supposed to take three weeks blossomed into nearly two months, with me having to sidetrack a few times to wait for brick lines to arrive I had only just discovered(as well as a short break for the two year anniversary of this blog.)
But, during this trip, we got to see many different flavors and varieties of various buildable brick collectable figures! We've had Kubros, one of the most impressive examples I've ever seen, and a concept that works perfectly for action figures as well as collectable statuettes.
We've had the more popular Lego BrickHeadz, which I HATE, since they're even less detailed than a POP! figure, and are barely above a stick of bricks(or a brick stick, whichever you prefer.)
We've had LOZ's take on the BrickHeadz line, which was a VAST improvement over Lego's soulless attempt, incorporating imaginative accessories, facial features, and baseplates that matched the characters they were bundled with.
And we've had Decool's blatant knockoff of BrickHeadz, known as Cute Dolls, which were ALSO a huge improvement over the original, featuring facial features, articulated arms, and a design that made them look like, well, dolls.
And today, we're going to wrap things up with the final example of building brick collectable figures that are obviously trying to cash in on the collectable figure craze, and the final unofficial line of buildable figures(that I could find) with LOZ's CubeDude! ...Now the question is what exactly IS it ripping off? The answer... Is a little more complicated than I was expecting...
I was originally going to write off this line as an obvious ripoff of Mega Bloks/Construx Kubros, which would have meant that we would have come full circle, as we started with Kubros, and ended with a knockoff of Kubros! And that's still the case! ...Kinda... Sorta... ...Maybe? Hey, they're two building brick lines where the characters have squareish heads. I'd forgive you for coming to the same conclusion.
However, it turns out that the concept of a "CubeDude" predates both Kubros and Lego BrickHeadz by YEARS! This article from Comics Alliance back in 2009 features a gallery from the guy who originated the CubeDude line: Angus MacLane.
Yes, THE Angus MacLane. Veteran Pixar animator, writer, director, storyboard artist, and voice actor, mostly known for his major work in Pixar's short film department, and co-directing Finding Dory(which I personally thought was a superior film to the original).
Though you may know him best as the voice of BURN-E from the WALL-E short film. Clearly the height of his career and something he forever deserves to solely be remembered for!
In his off-time, he's also a rabid Lego enthusiast(or "Lego Maniac", as we old-schoolers in the trade know them as.) Since 2008, he's posted HUNDREDS of different original creations to his Flickr page, including several sets in themes such as CubeDudes and his "Couch" series.
He's also the guy who brought us the WALL-E Lego set, one of the first approved designs on Lego Ideas! This is a guy Lego Maniacs build a shrine in their closets to and worship in effigy!
When it comes to CubeDudes, he's built over a hundred different characters in this style, ranging from Marvel and DC Superheroes(Storm, Batman, etc.), to characters from iconic movies(Alien, Predator, Pulp Fiction, etc.), to animated cartoon characters(Optimus Prime, TMNT's Raphael, etc.), to pop culture icons(Mr. T, etc.)
Of course, all of them pale in comparison to his ultimate CubeDude creation: Cap'n Bok Bok B'Gok! ...It was so epic, he knew he could never top it and hasn't released a new one since 2014...
Though he did show Cap'n Bok Bok B'Gok the respect s/he deserved and gave it an upgrade a year later! ...Of course, finding a way for such a masterwork as the original TO be upgraded is a titanic feat in itself!
Even though the CubeDudes were mostly just a hobby and haven't left his workplace, he DID design a few that actually got an official release. Including a 2010 set featuring characters from Star Wars, that was given the Lego branding and sold in a VERY limited quantity at the San Diego Comic Con.
Another Star Wars-themed set, featuring various bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back, that was also an extremely limited release for Star Wars Celebration V
And a Buzz Lightyear set, which is the most rare of all, having only 150 sets given to VIPs invited by Lego to the 2010 New York International Toy Fair.
And yet, it's the BrickHeadz that Lego decided to make a commercial thing...
More information about his hobby can be found in this 2009 interview from Bricks a Billion, where he discusses how he started, what steps he took to build each one, and how much of an influence GI Joe was in starting this line. Since I'm trying to focus on the actual CubeDudes in this review, I'd recommend checking it out for more detail on this extremely creative and multitalented person!
However, while Angus MacLane was the person who originated this design, he's sure not the only person to create CubeDudes! To this day, various brick enthusiasts have created their own CubeDude versions of various characters. Street Fighter, Babar, Dilbert, Simpsons, Star Wars, Appleseed, all have gotten CubeDude treatments by different master builders! It's a theme that seems to be more of an underground craze in the brick community, and that's sadly been overshadowed by more popular, Lego-endorsed crazes, like custom BrickHeadz. So while it's a more obscure brick craze than most other Lego fads--I mean, I haven't even heard of it until this last week--it's a line that has a facinating origin, a unique design, and something that deserves a lot more attention than it's getting now.
So with all that, what exactly is this version of CubeDudes a knockoff of? The easy answer would be that they're directly copying Angus MacLane's style and/or designs for their characters, so, like Nanoblocks(especially the Peeing Brown Bear) and minifigures like Inside Out and Pokemon, they're bootlegs of fan creations. ...But was that LOZ's intent?
These are built with the LOZ Mini Block, which only became a thing around 2015/2016, YEARS after the CubeDude design was introduced. So why did LOZ take so long to steal and market their own figures? ...Unless it was to cash in on the current collectable figure craze, maybe?
If that's the case, and LOZ only recently released their own CubeDude sets in response to both the collectable figure craze and the various brick figure sets that are also trying to cash in on the craze, then, in a way, we have an unofficial line that's simultaneously knocking off a fan design, Mega Bloks/Construx Kubros, and Lego BrickHeadz! So, however you choose to see it, this is either an unofficial line that's solely ripping off an obscure design choice, or it's another unofficial cash-in of an official cash-in. ...I'd play the Scanners gif of a guy's head exploding, but too many people complained and it doesn't fit the tone of this blog, so I don't use it anymore.
Still, whatever the reason they decided to use these designs, it's obvious it's yet another collectable "vinyl" figure line, made by a third-party manufacturer solely to cash in on a craze as quickly and cheaply as possible. And since that matches the theme we've been following for the last few months, let's wrap things up and take a look at these knockoffs! ...These fan/BrickHeadz/Kubros/"original" knockoffs. Take your pick.
One of the most obvious traits these CubeDude boxes have? Design inconsistency. I bought each figure from a different line, and the layout of each one varies. Basic elements are still consistent, but if these didn't all have the LOZ branding on them, I'd swear each one came from a different company. ...Which I'm glad they didn't. I don't want to spend ANOTHER three weeks talking about each different build of CubeDude...
Some boxes have a flap on the top for stores to hang on a rack. ...And some don't.
Some boxes have all the product information slapped on the back of the box in Chinese(which is your standard "Manufactured in China, made of plastic, retain the packaging for future reference, don't eat because it's delicious" information), while others have a picture of the rest of the figures in the immediate line(a la BrickHeadz.)
Some belong to a line of similar characters(like superheroes), and some, they just grouped with whatever characters they had on hand at the time.
Some, they didn't even bother to slap the CubeDude name on, instead calling it one of the many, MANY Star Wars bootleg names. ...And I'm sorry, but "Super Wars" will never be superior to "Star Wart".
And, most disappointingly of all, some don't advertise a trading card... Of course, not all of them that advertise a card even come with one, but we'll get to that in a second.
What DOES remain consistent is the basic design of the front of the box, with the name of the product in a banner at the top, and the characters posed in front of stolen artwork, leaping out at whoever bought these things. That's gratitude for you...
Speaking of stolen artwork, that's very apparent with the tops of the boxes as well, with the superhero boxes using group shots taken from somewhere else, the Christmas one using what looks like something from a Japanese cartoon, and the "Super Wars" using the iconic Kylo Ren profile from The Force Awakens(before he sadly destroyed his mask...), as well as a couple of chibi-like Star Wars characters. Because you can't spell "China bootleg" without "stolen artwork"! ...Well, you could, but all that does is prove you know how to spell...
I love how they didn't even bother to try to keep the art consistent on the superhero boxes, as they clearly have two different designs of Captain America and Thor on there! ...Maybe this is foreshadowing to the big Marvel parallel worlds event Secret Wars IV: This Time, We're REALLY Out of Ideas?
Also, gotta love how not only do they depict a lot of heroes that didn't get a CubeDude on the back, but that they only depict Marvel superheroes in their "Superheroes" line.
Because Hellboy was always MY favorite Marvel character!
The art on the back of the Christmas box also depicts a chibi-like Santa that I'm sure was stolen from something, but an image search doesn't bring anything up. ...That reindeer looks ready to toss Santa off a cliff, though. ...Which, I don't blame him, seeing as how Santa has given the job of pulling his sleigh of presents to ONE reindeer! Non-union work can be brutal...
Also, special mention to one of the sets available in this range being Woody from Toy Story with a GUN!
Which he's clearly firing wildly on his box cover! ...I wish I knew about this set before I bought what I did...
The back of the Star Wars box also contains a very cartoony image, this time art that I can actually identify as stolen from Derek Laufman's animated The Force Awakens poster. ...So, if you like this image, head over to his site and buy it from him! So he can make more art! So bootleggers can steal it and use on their other products! So I can buy them! So I can recommend you go check out more of his art! So you can buy THAT! And thus does the vicious cycle continue!
The only other consistency across all the boxes is the information in the bottom-left corner on the front, which gives us the model number, the number of pieces, and the age recommendation. We're once again not given the character names, but we ARE assured that instructions ARE included! Thank god! I thought I'd have to expend some brain cells and put it together by guesswork alone!
Before we put these together, don't forget that these aren't for "0-3"
But they ARE for "6+"
Anyone between those ages gets a terrifying visit from the Big Giant Spider-Head! ...And probably giant head versions of the other three sets I own, but this is the only giant head I have. ...Interpret that however you want...
Alright, this is another Mini Block nightmare, so hopefully, this doesn't take as long to put together as the last bunch of Mini Blocks I featured. ...Of course, I'm saying that to reassure myself, as for you, it will all simply be a blink of an eye... Or the length of the construction video, if you're somebody who actually watches those.
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And they're done! ...And I REALLY hope this is the last time I have to put together LOZ Mini Blocks for a while... I know I praised their creativity and how compact they are, but they're a PAIN to put together for these videos, let me tell you...
Before we look at the figures, special mention goes to the fake trading cards that came with 3 of them. We've seen similar cards packaged with a couple of bootleg Minecraft figures, which are clearly trying to emulate card games like Ninjago's Spinjitsu, only they forgot to include any directions on how to play or any indicators of what the bars and numbers mean. And, despite the slight cosmetic change that makes them less like Spinjitsu, that's the case with these as well. I guess you could make up your own rules for these cards, but that would also require you to buy each card individually with a different figure, so to get the standard deck of 40-60 cards most games use would require you to remortgage your house...
Still, props for design consistency with the backs of the cards and keeping them in line with their respective sub-lines. ...Makes playing a game with them even harder, though, since a different card backing severely narrows down what you have in your hand...
As for the figures themselves, we once again have a distinctive design that separates them from all the other figures we've seen. I know I compared these to Kubros, but, like LOZ's BrickHeadz compared to Lego's BrickHeadz, there's just enough to make these the company's own creation! ...Or Angus MacLane's own creation that the company stole, but I hope you get what I mean anyway...
These are certainly the most compact of all the figures we've seen so far, standing even smaller than LOZ's BrickHeadz, which were also made with Mini Blocks! ...Which, as I pointed out with those sets, just makes them even more collectable! The smaller they are, the more you can fit on your shelf, and the more you want! ...If you're into these things. I think the four I bought are enough for me.
They're also the least "piece intensive", and some of the smallest sets I own, period! Spider-Man only requires 61 pieces
While the most any of these sets I own use is Santa's 107. With a piece count like that, it's no wonder that I found each of these for only $2.50. WITH BOX!
And yet to have THIS amount of detail with ~100 pieces is stunning! Even with the low piece count, they've still included recognizable features of each character, such as Darth Vader's chestplate
Or Hellboy's belt, gun, cigar, and Right Hand of Doom. Heck, if I can be perfectly honest, I like these figure designs better than most of what we've seen so far!
As I've repeatedly pointed out during this look, I don't like the look of BrickHeadz figures, as they look like pillars of bricks with some details thrown on here and there to keep them from just being pillars of bricks. And while LOZ and Decool's variants are VAST improvements on the originals, they're still ripping off the general BrickHeadz shape, and that's what keeps me from enjoying these figures at the level I want to. ...Though that also keeps me from buying the whole line and going broke, so that's a plus!
CubeDudes, in keeping with how I keep mistaking them for Kubros knockoffs(which they still are?), have a much more action figure-like build, with arms, legs, and articulated heads. They're not just cubes of bricks with a few distinguishing features thrown on. They actually LOOK like figures! ...As much as figures built out of standard Lego pieces can look, but the point is that they're designed in a way where I can make out who they're supposed to be, where their arms/legs/heads begin and end, and they're given a good amount of poseability and articulation! They're all the best features of Kubros, but in a smaller package!
Also, if we're going by these figures having some relation to Kubros: The name CubeDude > Kubros. Maybe this is the name Kubros were originally going to be under, but then they realized it was already owned by Lego and Angus MacLane and they slapped the name we got on it at the last second? ...Good a guess as any, I s'pose.
Speaking of their relation to Kubros, let's talk about their most distinguishing feature. ...I have NEVER seen a figure with the face built into the CORNER of the head! Not only does this give these figures a unique sense of identity, but it helps give the face a sense of depth, without having to resort to large amounts of layering bricks, like a UCS or a professional Lego sculpture! Even though the head is cube-like, the angle we're looking at it from gives it a "round" perspective, like an optical illusion our brains are trying to process into something we can consider "normal." It's such a unique trademark that would never be mistaken for anything else, and a HUGE departure from the typical "flat face" these figures built with standard bricks usually have. It's so simplistic, yet so ingenious, you wonder how nobody else came up with this design in the nearly 70 years since we were first introduced to interlocking bricks!
See? From this angle, you have a stack of bricks with some plates on the top.
But, turn it 45°, and you have... A green bunny wearing a red beanie! I'll be selling these for $11.99 apiece($15.99 if you want a signed copy), so place your preorders now!
Of course, the downside to this design is that it's difficult to place any convincing details on these figures besides eyes and a mouth. Angus MacLane admitted himself that trying to build a version of Princess Leia in her bounty hunter disguise from Return of the Jedi, but the protruding muzzle didn't fit at this angle, so he abandoned it. Which is why I'm impressed that they managed to give Santa here a fairly convincing beard using white claw pieces.
Though he does have a point about building masks. Darth Vader here looks like a cross between a spider head and a cast-iron bell. ...Why haven't we seen Darth I'Rohn Sp'Ii'Dar in the Star Wars universe yet?
With that, let's do our look at each individual character and point out anything that we haven't already. I'll also include Angus' original design next to the figure for comparison if applicable. Please don't sue.
Starting with Spider-Man. Since he's made with the least amount of pieces, he's the least detailed compared to the other figures I have. It's a standard classic Spider-Man costume, with giant white eyepieces and the colors where they need to be. No web pattern, but that would probably be asking too much for a figure on this scale...
Not much else to say that we haven't seen on other Spider-Man figures. However, I do like his spider logo on the front of his costume, which looks like it's been hand-painted on instead of being a mini decal with how much it's elevated above the surface of the brick. It's not the best paint job I've seen, but considering the size, it's pretty accurate.
I've seen MUCH worse hand-painted logos on knockoff toys... As well as worse hand-painted toys...
No logo on the back, though. Maybe Spider-Man lost his costume and has to wear a cheap knockoff suit until he can get the real one back from J Jonah Jameson. ...Again...
And, most pleasing of all, we get a mini spider web for Spider-Man to wield. It's the standard web piece that Lego uses for most of their spider webs, attached to a white stick that attached to a white claw that fits in Spider-Man's hand. A unique way to get him to hold it, to say the least.
Though sadly not enough to protect him from Spider-Hero's oversized web shot. Gotta do whatever a spider can, you know.
Next up is Hellboy. This is probably the most detailed of all the figures, considering how much personality Hellboy has. It's criminal that he doesn't get as much attention as Marvel/DC superheroes...
Since I have a Hellboy Kubros, we can do a quick comparison of the figures. ...Well, design-wise, Kubros Hellboy obviously wins, but that's not what this comparison's about. Both have yellow, glowing eyes, but
No shoes, though. I guess he needs to pledge his life to the cause of good before his feet may be shod.
Probably the best place to start is to give up smoking. Jeffrey Tambor should never have taught him how to light a cigar...
As for the rest of his clothing, he's wearing pants(with a WHITE belt buckle, so I don't have to wonder if I need to censor anything in that area) and what I assume is an ammo/cigar pouch. Sadly, this is yet another Hellboy who forgot his trenchcoat. ...I say "sadly", but comic book fangirls are probably going bezerk over this image. ...Maybe I also need to paint myself red and go shirtless...?
Then, of course, there's his gun. A gun made with only four pieces, yet it's still more convincing than whatever BrickHeadz Jurassic World Owen had for an accessory. This, is can still believe will blow the head off of anyone who gives Hellboy crap.
...Though, considering the heads are about as firmly attached as the Decool Cute Doll heads, that's not too hard to accomplish. He doesn't even have to fire the gun...
But he doesn't need a gun, when he has his super-beefed Right Hand of Doom! ...A very pudgy RHoD that looks like a tumor that needs to be drained, but it's probably still strong enough to knock my head off...
He even has a cute little tail! ...That he'll probably impale me with, if he ever hears that I called it "cute."
Also, demon nipples. ...'Nuff said.
Next up is the jolly fat guy himself:
*Or should that be "licensed" unlicensed?
...This guy's creepy. ...Yeah, might as well cut to the chase and throw that out there, because WOW! I don't know what's more terrifying. The sunken black eyes, the blood-red mouth, the scraggly beard, the fact Santa's apparently gone on a crash diet recommended to him by Slender Man. Nothing about him screams "wholesome" or "cheerful" or conveys any of the Christmas spirit! ...Unless you count the spirits he likely binge drinks in his off-time. ...And I'm not talking alcohol...
Santa's also bundled with a bindle, which is presumably his sack o' toys that he gives to all the good girls and boys! ...Though in this Santa's case, I think he actually fills it full of children. Good AND bad! ...Well, when the elves finally go on strike to protest their unfair working conditions, he has to fill that labor shortage somehow...
I'll just assume it's his horn he uses to summon his helldeer to trample anyone who dares get in his way. Well, at least Drunky, the OTHER Red-Nosed Reindeer is getting work!
Overall, 10/10. Best Bill Goldberg from Santa's Slay figure ever! ...That was their intention, right?
And finally, we have the dark Sith lord himself:
Like I mentioned, this isn't the best design out of the lot. The corner view of CubeDude heads makes building a mask around them a little tricky, so what we have here looks like Hagrid from Harry Potter after his wand exploded in his face... It doesn't look as threatening, is what I'm saying.
The translucent yellow eyes also don't help his case. Darth Vader is menacing enough! He doesn't need Spirit Halloween glow-in-the-dark eyes to come across as terrifying! Anything else is just overcompensation!
And yet, it's apparently a bootleg tradition not to give Vader his traditional black bubble eyes...
The back of the mask looks perfectly serviceable, though. ...Though I guess you could argue the protrusions on either side of his head look like long, floppy ears. ...You're allowed to use some round pieces for the more circular features, LOZ...
Though they did give him a hinged cape. All flaws forgiven!
The feature I'm most impressed with is the chest plate, where, despite having only a 5x3 area to work with, they managed to convincingly recreate the buttons on Darth Vader's suit! ...And I know I brought this up in the Star Wars Revenge of the Sith Plug n Play game, but what function do they serve, and could you theoretically end Vader simply by knocking into the control panel? If so, Darth Vader apparently has one of those giant "hit me here" sections video game bosses have, yet NOBODY has ever tried to take advantage of that! Please, someone, show me a comic or book or fan film or SOMETHING that explains what this area does and why nobody's tried to play it like an Atari Jaguar controller!
And, of course, we have Vader's lightsaber. It mostly looks like a regular Lego lightsaber, just on a hilt with a hook to fit in the CubeDude hook hands. ...And, as you can imagine with this design, Vader's stuck pointing his lightsaber straight forward, like an old man telling some kids to get off his lawn. ...And now all I'm picturing is Vader in a summer home on Endor, swinging his lightsaber at Ewoks on his lawn and telling them to leave him alone, he's upset that his kids never write to him! ...Though when you cut off one's hand and torture the other, I don't think any amount of family counseling will fix this certain conundrum...
Actually, wait. The misshapen helmet, the short stature, the lightsaber pointed straight forward...
This is Dark Helmet from Spaceballs! Finally, we've gotten some of that "moichandising" Yogurt was promising us, and now, we can all get our own Dark Helmet figures! ...Though if LOZ is producing them, is it worth it?
And that was the CubeDudes and the FINAL stop on our tour of buildable collectable "vinyl" brick figures. ...And thank god I don't have to use that awkward description ever again... This was a pretty solid line to end on. The figures, though still in a "cute deformed" style that other mini collectables today are usually in, still have a unique design, and one that actually makes them look like figures and not a cube of blocks stacked on top of another cube of blocks. There's a beauty in their simplicity and size, and I'm curious how a full-sized CubeDude looks and if it would take up that much more space. They share many similarities with Kubros, and, considering Kubros were the best of this look, these easy snatch the Silver medal in the design competition against all the other figure lines we've seen. Not bad for a line I didn't know existed until a month ago...
Since this is the final stop and the last look at these collectable figures EVER(hopefully), let's gather up all the figures I've collected and shown off on this blog and take one last look at this strange cash-in craze!
...You know, for a guy who says he's not into this craze, I probably went out of my way to own more of these types of figures than a casual fan... And I wonder sometimes why I can't pay off my credit card...
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Quality: The bricks are fine, cosmetically. Everything looks like a regular Lego brick, just miniaturized, with no huge shape defects and the LOZ stamp on each stud like the Lego logo. They also feel relatively solid and hold a shape, unlike some other lines we've seen on this blog. However, being third-parry cheap building bricks, they're prone to a lack of consistency, and most of them formed VERY loose connections, requiring me to continually put them back together when I moved them. We don't even get some of the pieces being too tight like we did with Decool, so all of them feel either like they just fit, or they don't fit at all... It's not the worst quality we've seen, but even for LOZ, this is a step down...
Design: Like I mentioned, this is one of the most unique designs I've ever seen for a brick set/figure. How the faces are built into the CORNERS gives the heads of the figures a much more three-dimensional look, and makes it appear a little more realistic than the typical "flat/round face" of most other buildable figures. Sadly, it also limits how much detail can be put into the face, as it's harder to build around the corners of a stack of bricks than on the face. Still, for simplistic faces and minor details like horns and beards, it works just fine. It's when you try building masks that it comes out wonky... For the rest of the figure, there's a beauty in how simplistic it is, and how they captured such detail using only ~100 bricks. With barely above the amount Lego uses for its micro sets, they've still succeeded in making figures with discernible arms, legs, heads, and notable details, like Spider-Man's mask, Hellboy's horns/tail/cigar, Santa's beard, and Darth Vader's chest buttons. Everything needed to tell one figure from another is here, and done in stunning detail for sets this small! ...Though the way the eyes, ears, and mouths are laid out pushes anyone made to look human too far into the uncanny valley, as we saw with Santa Satan Claus... Still, despite the limitations, this is a VERY creative design for buildable figures, and huge kudos go out to Angus MacLane for introducing us to this method of building! ...No kudos to LOZ though. I don't praise stolen designs...
Creativity: They're stolen designs, so no huge props to coming up with anything original. I guess it's creative that LOZ didn't make a brick-for-brick reproduction of Angus MacLane's original designs and instead created their own versions(with the most notable change giving the characters claw hands instead of the round hands Angus uses), though the differences are so slight, you'd need to see them side-by-side to really notice anything. Besides that, they don't come with any notable accessories(save for Santa's whatchamacallit) and articulation is limited to the arms and heads being on pegs(which I wouldn't recommend you mess with too much, given how easily these bricks disconnect.) There's creativity in the design, but in things I usually look for in the Creativity category(gimmicks, Engrish, variations, etc.), there's nothing to write home about. Needs more Genie lamps.
Readability: The instructions are in standard top-to-bottom LOZ format, so it's a little hard to follow along, especially with how many pieces they want you to keep track of for each step. Still, previous bricks are grayed out, so you don't get one step confused with another, and I didn't find any steps out of place or that contradicted themselves, so they're legible and helpful enough. Not missing Lego's instructions, though.
Packaging: It's standard bootleg packaging that you usually see with knockoff figures. There's a picture of the figure on the front, in front of a matching background stolen off of Google, and the rest of the line on the back, with more stolen artwork and instances of the company logo sprinkled throughout the rest of the box. Plus most of the boxes have tabs so they can hang on the walls of sketchy indoor swap meets and import stores that aren't picky about what they sell. We've seen it with the bootleg Inside-Out and Pokemon figures, and there's sadly less to these boxes than the previous looks. They needed more redrawn poses or Engrished-up descriptions to really stand out(Super Wars is too weak to mention.) As boxes, they do their job, and they don't fall apart at the merest touch, but to sell the product, they're only doing the bare minimum. If that.
Compatibility: Once again, LOZ Mini Blocks. Can't use them with Lego, and can't use them with Nanoblocks. Hope you have a huge tub of other Mini Blocks, or there's precious little else you can do with these.
Overall:
These are some of the best figures I've come across during this look, and very nearly the most creatively designed. The design is ingenious and unique, and the size of the figures ensures that they don't take up that much space, letting you buy and display a good amount of them if you're into this line. The creativity is slightly lacking, the packaging isn't that interesting, and the quality leaves a bit to be desired, but your attention's probably going to be more on bizarrely-shaped figures unlike anything you've probably ever seen! My advice: Ignore Lego BrickHeadz, consider LOZ's BrickHeadz or Decool's Cute Doll, but GRAB CubeDudes and Kubros! These are some of the most creative, most fun collectable figures you can find, and I'm glad I found them before I ended this look. Go out and see what you think. Also, check out Angus MacLane's portfolio, and support all the other work he's done. ...Though if you watch Pixar, you probably have.
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