GAH! Fourth place!! Literally .2 away from placing! *bangs head on wall*

Seriously though, it was a great contest, and the winners totally deserved it! And I'm thrilled I came so close, so thanks to everyone who put me there!

So anyway, here's the next in my MOTU Hybrid line! I already posted She-ra, so I naturally had to post her arch-enemy. Presenting the despot of Despondos, the emperor of Etheria, second in command of the Evil Horde, the appropriately named . . . Hordak!

MOTU Hybrid is my attempt to unify the best of all three MOTU eras. The ideas (i.e. color schemes and concepts) of the original cartoon, the sculpts of the 2002 toys, and the articulation of modern figures, at a far more reasonable cost. However, sometimes practicality and common sense beats out aesthetics. What do I mean? Quite simply, Filmation's color scheme for Hordak was black, red . . . and blue. Yes, Hordak had blue skin. Now, I'm not some kind of jerk who's racist against Smurfs or something (actually, come to think of it, I kinda DO hate the Smurfs, but who doesn't, really . . . 'specially after that horrid movie! *ahem* Moving on), but I already have three blue villains - Trap-Jaw, Evil-Lyn (sorta), and Skeletor himself - and I really didn't need a fourth. And since the Hordak mini-statue comes in gray, and since this is his "canon" color for the original, 2002, AND MOTUC figures, and since I was using a Batman figure as parts and HE'S already gray as well . . . well, it just made sense to stick with that. So, sorry Filmation, this round goes to Mattel.

You might think that Hordak, starting life as a statue, would be hard to articulate. You'd be wrong. He was a CAKEWALK compared to the previous statues I've worked with (Sorceress and Evil-Lyn). Yes, he had absolutely NO articulation whatsoever, but he came apart so easy, and reassembled with no fuss, and required almost no sculpting . . . I wish ALL my projects were so simple! As usual, I cut up a separate figure (specifically a DCUC Batman) and spliced in his joints at the appropriate locations. He now has 22 POA:

Shoulder rotate x2
Shoulder hinge x2
Bicep rotate x2
Elbow hinge x2
Wrist rotate x2
Pelvis rotate x2
Hip hinge x2
Thigh rotate x2
Knee hinge x2
Ankle hinge x2
Waist rotate x1
Neck ball x1

Range of motion is admittedly slightly limited due to the complexity of his costume (stiff skirt and all that), but overall, the figure can assume plenty of action poses, and is of course INFINITELY more versatile than the source toy. Again, this was a STATUE. Also, for fans of the original toy, please note that almost NO original sculpt or paint detail was lost from the original display piece. He looks almost exactly as he did prior to my changes. I'm ECSTATIC about the great results I got this time out!

Hordak comes with three accessories: his crossbow, his staff, and his cape, now a removable piece, so he can now be displayed as either soldier or sorcerer.

Well, the villain side of the shelf is filling out quite nicely! One more to post, and it's time to move on to the heroes again!

For the honor of Grayskull!