Lone Coconut Plunderlings Review

In general, toy collectors are not known for being very patience individuals. I mean, a big part of our hobby is running around both locally and the digital marketplace trying to get our hands on the latest releases as soon as possible. So a marketplace like Kickstarter where you are expected to pay now for products which won't even exist for months to years from now, and that's if all goes well. So when an unknown company called Lone Coconut went live with a Kickstarter campaign for a line of small, goblin or imp-like creatures crossed with a pirate theme and called them Plunderlings, it didn't seem like the type of toy line that would interest me much. And yet, by the end of the campaign I was all in for the entire line plus all the extras and it was my wallet that was plundered of nearly $500. So I've been watching VERY eagerly as the campaign closed and updates trickled out over the last year and a half. And on the day after Christmas of last year, that patience was rewarded when a large box filled with small plastic creatures landed on my door step. While real life obligations have forced me to leave the little buggers in their cardboard confinement for a few weeks longer, I've finally been able to let them loose. Now I am left wondering if I've made a huge mistake?

Packaging - Plunderlings 4/10, Others 0/10

So the Plunderlings concept came from a company called Lone Coconut. From what I know (very little), they are a visual effects and animation studio based in the Dominican Republic. (Thank you Google.) So it makes some sense that given the chance to design their own line of toys, they wouldn't want to follow the generally accepted norms or rules about what an action figure package is suppose to look like. And I love that attitude. The boxes that they designed are nearly overflowing with creativity and personality, just like the Plunderlings themselves. They even went to the trouble of including slots on the sides of each box and a pair of cardboard ears inside so that once you remove the toy, you can transform the box into a giant Plunderling head. When I realized that they had included that in each box, I couldn't help but smile. But as much as I love the spirit and effort that went into these, the truth is that they also serve as a great example of why most packaging follows the same general design. The first thing that is unusual about the Plunderlings packaging is how clean it is graphically. Other than the legally required small print, the front, sides and bottom have almost no text on them. And the top just has the Plunderlings logo. The only place where you learn anything about what is actually inside of the box is the back panel which has a single photo of the toy on display and the character name. But with 14 characters' names and rankings to learn, I could really have used that name on the front of the box as well, or at least the top near the logo. And some back story wouldn't have hurt either. And the design doesn't work well on a practical level either. Each Plunderling is packaged with the figure visible through the window in the front and the extra heads and hands displayed through the window on the top. But having multiple levels of plastic trays and positioning the items so close to the windows means that not enough light gets in to really make things visible. And the thing that really varies the most from character to character, the accessories, end up buried where no one can see them. I really like this line and I hope it does well. And if that does happen, finding a first series Plunderling that was kept in the box is likely to be very difficult.

While the main focus of the Plunderlings Kickstarter campaign was the Plunderling figures themselves, the success of the campaign did mean that they were able to produce three additional extras: walloping hands (fists), hatchling bodies and two different accessory packs. And these items didn't even get a complete package. The fists were just shipped in plastic bags. And the hatchling bodies and accessory sets were packaged in plastic trays, but with no packaging around those trays! This is just silly. How hard would it be to attach them to a cardboard card back? These figures are being produced by a design studio. So skipping something that should be right up their wheelhouse seems like a really strange choice.

Sculpting - Drenchs 8/10, others 7/10 (decreasing slightly for each additional figure purchased)

The Plunderlings all share a basic body design. It's a fairly basic humanoid design but they've played with the usual proportions. The body is smaller than expected while the head, forearms and hands and lower legs and feet are all exaggerated in size. They do mix things up a bit by offering three options for pants: jeans, ripped shorts or au naturel. From there each character may also be given one of four clothing options: a single bandolier, double bandolier, a vest or a long coat. These clothing items are technically removable, but doing so requires the removal of one or both arms. This basic body design is great. It's cute, expressive and everything I had hoped for based on the 3d renders used in the Kickstarter campaign. But the repetative nature of the line becomes glaringly obvious when you open the entire line at once. There are the Drench figures which add a bit more variety with their webbed feet and fin-like ears. But that's only a small additional option and is limited to the Kickstarter only figures. It seems like a slightly strange thing to have to complain about given how ubiquitous the reuse of molds are in almost every action figure line. But after opening the first half dozen Plunderlings, my interest in the figures themselves waned greatly in favor of getting to the accessories instead. And that isn't a great feeling.

Paint - Cursed Idol 9/10, Others 8/10

The paint work on the Plunderlings isn't all that elaborate. But as I checked them out in more detail, it becomes obvious that they did not try to cut any corners with the paint work either. I had assumed that the body color for each Plunderling came from the plastic color. But upon closer inspection, it looks like each figure is fully painted. Unfortunately that does mean that there is some paint wear at the joints. And there are the occasional small paint mark, so I can't call them perfect. But they do look good. In particular I love the gold paint used on the Cursed Idol. This was probably the figure I was looking forward to the most. So I'm glad that it turned out as well or better than I expected.

Articulation - 8/10

The Plunderlings have thirty points of articulation by my count:

double ball joints in the neck (ball joint going into the head and into the neck with a small plastic connector in between)
rotating and hinged shoulders
rotating and hinged elbow
rotating and hinged wrist
double joint at the mid-torso
hinged and rotating hips
rotating thigh
double hinged knees
hinged and rocking ankles

That is a lot of articulation to pack onto a figure under four inches tall. The lack of double jointed elbows or a waist joint is a bit limiting. But what we did get works quite well. I should mention that there were multiple warnings about loosening up the joints on the Drench figures, especially before swapping heads. But I didn't run into any issue with that, possibly because my figures were able to sit inside and warm up for days before they were actually opened.

Accessories - Walloping Hands 2/10, Drench Plunderlings & Feral Zombone 5/10, Raider Gank & Berserker Gobbler 6/10, Hatchlings, Captain Ash and Cursed Fury & Idol, and Accessory Packs 9/10, Others 7/10

Before I dive in with the all of the different Plunderlings and their different accessories, there are four offerings from the Kickstarter campaign which are additional accessories: the Hatchling bodies, walloping hands, and two different accessory packs. The walloping hands are really just closed fists. Personally, I find these to be the least useful type of alternate hand as the gripping hand can serve basically the same function, but also work with accessories. I would love to have seen these included with the figures. But at $3 a pair and given that the different skin tones means that they aren't really interchangeable make them an easy pass. The accessory packs include one of two assortments of eight accessories including two hats and six weapons or other extras for $12. That's not a bad price for so many accessories. And each set includes some accessories which were planned to be included with the final teir of Plunderling figures that didn't get funded via the Kickstarter, the Tinkers. So they do include some unique items. Ultimately though, the figures generally include so many accessories that this packs don't really feel necessary. Of course, that's coming from the guy that already bought all the figures. If you were only able to get one or two of them, these would be a great way of filling in for figures like the two Raider and Berserker figures without actually buying all of the figures. But if you are getting the two Raider Plunderlings and the two Berserker Plunderlings, the accessory packs quickly become redundant. The final additional offering are the Hatchling bodies. These are smaller bodies which lack a head or hands. The idea was to give you something to do with at least some of the additional body parts that are included with each of the regular Plunderling figures. They sold for just $5 each and are available in each of the twelve different skin tones. These are awesome. While they are small and have very limited articulation, they add variety where the line needs it the most, especially if you buy multiple Plunderlings.

Now we come to the Plunderlings themselves. Each of the fourteen different figures came with a standard assortment of alternate heads and hands as well as an assortment of unique weapons, accessories and clothing items. Each figure comes with three heads in total: closed mouth with just two canine teeth showing, closed mouth smile and a slightly open mouth/smile. The Plunderlings are packaged with open hands on the figures and come with an additional pair of hands for holding accessories. Initially I really loved the variety of parts that each figure included. But as I went through the process of opening all of the figures, the bloom quickly faded from that rose as I came across the same items over and over and over again, just in a different color. I understand the issue. Almost every Plunderling has a different skin color so the spare body parts can't really be shared. So why spend the money to sculpt and produce more variations when the end result would still be that each character still only be able to use the accessories that they come with.

The biggest issue comes with the weapons and accessories that each figure includes. Some, such as the Drench figures seem to have gotten seriously short changed. They only have a single accessory, a trident. It's cool looking, and I sort of understand it since those figures had unique head sculpts and feet. But compared to a figure like Captain Ash that has a top hat, vest, large sword, and telescope and the difference is jarring. There are also just some accessories that I think turned out better than others. The crown, chalice and scepter that come with Cursed Idol seem to have so much more personality to them than the simple bandanna of the Raider Gank. And while the idea of crossing old style fire arms with slingshots sounds cute, the final product doesn't appeal to me in the least. I also don't care for the storage hooks included with some of the figures. The Plunderlings with coats, vests or bandoliers also include small hooks that can be plugged into the clothing to serve as storage for some of their accessories. I appreciate the effort. But the hooks end up being far too large to comfortably hang off of figures of this size. Fortunately they went all out with the hats and embedded a magnet into each head and each hat. So the hats can be swapped between any figure you want, including a Hatchling. The magnets could stand to be a bit stronger, particularly for the mohawk. But the gimmick does work reasonably well and is a lot of fun.

Value - Kickstarter price 7/10, retail 5/10 decreasing as you buy additional figures

Backers of the Kickstarter were able to get the Plunderling figures starting at $30 per figure. There were also bundles for buying larger numbers of figures for which you did get a slight discount. So I ended up paying about $27.50 each. Plus $12 each for the accessory kits, $5 each for the Hatchling bodies and $2 for the whalloping hands (fists) If I could do it over, I would probably drop the accessory kits and extra hands as the Plunderlings themselves already come with so much. But I'm thrilled with the Hatchlings. For a mere $5 it feels like you basically double what you are getting. And while I still feel like buying all fourteen figures was probably overkill, I appreciate that at least I did get some dicount per figure for doing so. For those that didn't support the Kickstarter, they did produce extra figures which are being sold via Big Bad Toy Store. But the price is now $40 each and the Hatchling bodies, Drench Plunderlings, whalloping hands and accessory kits are not available. At that price, I would definately be more selective.

Happy Hunting:

The Kickstarter campaign ended a year ago. So if you missed out on the Plunderlings then, you only option now is Big Bad Toy Store. They have sold out of their initial stock. But word from Lone Coconut (the company that made them) is that more inventory will be sent to BBTS once all of the Kickstarter backers have gotten their rewards. Lone Coconut have already announced that they will be doing another Kickstarter and have shown off 3D renders of what they have planned, so I would also keep an eye out for their next campaign as well.

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