Thanks Hobo Wan Kenobi for your review. Your review made me finally buy a Medicom Gizmo - and here is my review.
As a huge Gremlins fan I had been looking for a good 1:1 Gizmo prop replica for some years. Yes, I tried to make one myself before and no, I don't want to show the results. :lol
However, I love the looks of Rick Baker's evolved Gizmo design from Gremlins part 2.
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There was only one Gizmo replica that I really liked, it is a private commision made by howard s studios.
Except the somehow arrogantly looking expression in Gizmos eyes I think it looks really awesome and it is the most screen accurate one I have ever seen. Plus it is posable. But it is not one of the affordable pieces.
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The Ronculus Gizmo statues are technically very well made, but to me none of them looks screen accurate. They look more like an artistic impression of Gizmo. The eyes are tiny, the fur hair is too long, the body is way too slim and the heads are too big, the tiny ears look off.
The bodies of the Ronculus mogwais are made from resin and fiberglass what makes them not posable at all.
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And then there is the Medicom lifesize Gizmo prop replica.
The official product pictures of this doll are awful and they were the reason why I was always reluctant to buy one.
On these images the replica's face looks off with all this long and fuzzy hair around the head and the obscured eyelids.
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In most of Medicom's official images Gizmo looks more like a cheap $20 dollar plush toy than a high end collector's prop replica.
When I saw the images, I always thought the replica didn't even have the right proportions. The belly looks too flat. The head seems to be way too big and seems to merge seamlessly into the body.
Medicom also never shows that the head is ball jointed and has a very wide range of movement.
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But after reading Hobo Wan Kenobis review and this post
here it seemed to me as if the Medicom Gizmo could be better than I thought it was.
So I gave it a try and finally ordered one.
I have to admit that I was very surprised by what I received - in a positive way. I would call this one of the most underrated Gremlins prop replicas out there.
First of all, Gizmo is smaller than I thought it was. This makes all the details on him (like the eyelashes) look very subtle.
The body sculpt closely resembles the Rick Baker Gizmo design from Gremlins part 2. The bubble shaped belly and the tiny butt are the cutest things I've ever seen. Everything on this replica is well made and very detailed - look at those tiny fingernails. What really surprised me was that the brown fur looks way lighter in person compared to the images I had seen.
There are a few tweaks that had to be done though. First of all I used a comb and reshaped the fur, especially the facial hair. There is this long and fuzzy hair around the lower face area that needs to be straightened and flattened. I had to free the eyelids from the fur by combing the hair away from the eyes.
I also cut the very long hair around the ears (cut it down approx. 1/2 inch, took away more in the lower ear area, took away less in the upper ear area), darkened the nose and reshaped the ears a little bit. I used a hairdryer to heat the ears up a little and bent and held the tips of the ears down until the material cooled down. You have to overdo the bending a little bit as the ears tend to go back to the initial shape to a certain amount. This works really well and gives the ears a more accurate curved look.
This is how Gizmo looks like after these minor modifications. I like this prop replica a lot and I think it is a must-have for Gremlins and Gizmo fans. Even if you don't want to mod anything else: restyling the fur will give you a very screen accurate prop replica that is well worth the money.
Would love to hear what you think.
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