Review – Glyos System Figures – Callgrim

WARNING: The following is less a review and more an excuse for me to post photos and ramble about a cool toy. The fastest and easiest way to get through this is to look at the pictures and then immediately buy some toys. You have been warned.

Last month I reviewed a few of the Glyos System figures. Onell Design has done an excellent job of creating a fun, durable, and yet still “designer” toy that’s more action figure than it is collectible and I’ve fallen in love with the toys, constantly carrying one in my pocket no matter where I go. Recently, Onell released a couple of exclusive figures through www.callgrim.com and I managed to grab a copy of each before one of them (the Sentry Sarvos) sold out.

Let’s take a look at the two figures that I bought.

Red Guardian Pheyden

An exact duplicate — in terms of sculpting — of the green Rothan Pheyden that I already reviewed last month, the Red Guardian Pheyden looks pretty damned cool in red and black, with gray paint highlighting the sculpted details. And the red goes all the way down to his eyes, which look quite evil in red. Overall, the Red Guardian Pheyden is just as cool as the Rothan Pheyden and he’s hopped into pocket rotation with Rothan. There’s just something about the head and pouches on the belt that makes me love this design more than any other of the Glyos designs.

Red Guardian looks even cooler when you give him a weapon (most Star Wars action figure guns fit perfectly in his “fist” hand). Red Guardian still has the “I really need some new hands” problem that all of the Glyos System toys have, but a little Sculpey and time will fix that. (Or, if you please, you can always grab a different figure design from the Glyos System and swap the hands.)

One change between the standard Onell figures and the Callgrim figures is the addition of an art card — illustrated by Jesse Moore — in the Callgrim figure packs. Jesse has done an excellent job of translating the Glyos figures to 2d paintings and the cards are a nice extra. The card weight is pretty light but the print job is perfectly acceptable. I hope that future Onell figures include art cards.

Sentry Sarvos

Similar in design to the Standard Sarvos that I reviewed last month — the only change between the two is the torso section — Sentry Sarvos is another bright red figure that looks great on the shelf and even better when he climbs out of my pocket. Again, the figure is durable, fun to play with, and highly recommended. Unfortunately, Sentry Sarvos is the sold out figure so if you missed him then . . . well, you missed him.

And again, the art card in the pack is great. Jesse Moore really does a great job of translating the figures to paintings and I hope to see more of his work soon.

For even more of Jesse’s artwork click here to view the “conceptual art” tag at the Onell Design blog. It’s worth the time.

This shot is especially nice.

Closing Thoughts

There’s really not much I can say about the Glyos System figures. They’re fun to play with and very reasonably priced (for designer toys from an independent company). The best place to start collecting is still the Onell Design Junk Shop, but if you’re interested in specific designs — and not just a collection of random parts — then you’ll want to check the Callgrim webstore and the Onell Design webstore. These are easily my favorite designer toys (at the moment) and the number of different designs can be overwhelming . . . but fun!

Philip Reed is slowly working on customizing a Glyos System figure with Sculpey. It’s going slow, but it is fun.