Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
1/6th Scale Maquette by Tweeterhead
Sculpted by Trevor Groves.
Painted by David Fisher.
Stands at approximately 14.5” high.
RRP: $279 USD
Intro.
"Hello darlings, its me again, Elvira: The hostest with the mostest"
Elvira was Tweerhead’s first release almost a year ago, but they’re quickly building a name for themselves. They have their hands on some fantastic properties to work with, such as Elvira, The Munsters and Batman ’66. On top of that, they have an amazing team with sculptor Trevor Groves and painter David Fisher who have both certainly shown their skills with this piece.
This Elvira Maquette comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, signed by Elvira herself! No mention of an edition size for this regular edition, so assume it may not be as limited as it seems and remains kind of ambiguous. Also note, that although the RRP is just about $280, you can probably find her closer to 200 if you shop around, which is definitely much more appealing. I received my for $210, but with shipping to Australia, she came in at about $240 USD all up which is something you might feel more comfortable with paying. Onto the review:
Sculpt. 9.0
Trevor Groves has done an amazing job with this piece. Where to even start? The face looks gorgeous. The costume looks gorgeous. The hair looks gorgeous.
The hair is also finely detailed and textured incredibly well, which is something hard to come by in statues. The base is amazingly done well: it even
feels like real stone.
As a 1/6th scale Maquette standing on a relatively big base, Elvira clocks in at 14.5” high. I was in shock at how big she was, but I guess with that base, the heels of her shoes and her huge hair, it makes sense. So she might look quite big next to some of your other figures, even if they are in the same scale (look out for some comparison photos on the next post).
Paint and Mixed Media. 9.0
The paintjob is wonderfully done as well. Lines are clean and the matte black of her costume holds up quite well despite being a solid colour. There are some tiny paint blotches on her right hand on the intersection between her costume and skin, but again, it’s very small and hardly noticeable. The edges on the rest of her costume, however, are nice and sharp. Her makeup is done extremely well too, which is really important for Elvira.
The inclusion of the Swarovski crystal elements, in her dagger and ring, is killer. It really shines in person and gives a nice vibrancy and elegance to the piece. It also just adds that smidge of colour that ends up popping quite nice.
Design. 8.0
Not much to go off here since we don’t have the original concept art to compare it to.
However, I will say whoever designed this did a great job capturing Elvira’s playfulness. From the pose to the subtle facial expressions to the way she’s holding her whip, everything comes together quite nicely.
I always assume a 10/10 here would be
THE definitive pose for the character, and although everything in this piece is great, it’s not quite there. But hey, it’s pretty damn close to it, and probably the best Elvira to date.
Production and Build Quality. 6.0
Here’s where the statue suffers. But first, the good: the box is sturdy and keeps Elvira safe which is necessary since chances are you’ll be buying this one off some online store.
But now, the bad. The base, or maybe the peg that secures the statue into the base (they’re two different pieces) have been produced slightly off measurements, or SOMETHING. I’m not quite sure since I haven’t managed to look into it properly. But the end result is that while she stands in the base, she moves around and is about a quarter of a centimetre OFF the base (so she’s technically floating). Should be visible in the following photo:
At first it didn’t bother me because you really can’t tell unless you’re exactly at eye level with her feet, but the more I think about it, the more it kind of annoys me. I’m pretty sure it’s just my specific piece that has this issue, because judging from other people’s photos theirs seems to fit quite nicely on the base - and others have said she is quite a tight fit in there, whereas mine can wobble. The base itself might also be the issue, since the design is quite bumpy. Regardless, this is the piece I am reviewing, and even if this issue is 1 in 1000, it remains my assessment of this one statue.
Overall. 8.0
It’s a shame when such a beautiful piece is slightly tarnished by a small defect. It’s even worse when that defect is hardly noticeable and it becomes more of a psychological thing. If you got a piece that fits well in her base, then this score would easily be a solid 9.
With that aside, this piece is very close to one of my favourite pieces in my collection. It’s a wonderful debut from Tweeterhead – and they seem to really think so too, as there are now 5 different variants and editions of this piece.
FIVE. There’s the initial deluxe version by Tweeterhead, which has 350 pieces produced and included is an exclusive nameplate. There’s this one, which has no specific numbered edition. There was a Knotts Scary Farm version last year with 50 produced, which included a nameplate signed by Elvira. Coming soon is a “Your Heart Belongs to Me” sparkly red dress variant where she is holding a heart in her hand (not numbered – yet), and a sparkly black dress heart version (a variant to a variant?) that was available at Elvira’s Knotts show this year with only 50 of those produced too. They also debuted a new prototype sculpt of a Christmas Elvira diorama at SDCC earlier this year, which looks like quite the piece. That’s a lot of Elviras, and a lot of her big pair of… uh, hair.
This is a great piece and I’d highly recommend it to those who have been waiting for a great Elvira statue, since this one is an instant classic and is a great example of the work Tweeterhead can do. I’m really looking forward to a painted reveal of the Christmas Elvira, and even more excited for the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman they’ve been teasing. I can’t wait to see what they do next!
So what do you guys think? Are you a fan of Elvira? Are you glad Tweeterhead is giving her statues that do her justice, or do you already have one of the previous Sideshow pieces and feel its enough? And what about the whole ambiguous, ‘limited’ edition – does that make you feel any different towards this piece? Would a small defect, like this one, sour your view of the piece?
Hope you guys have enjoyed this review and in the words of Elvira:
”Unpleasant dreams!”