Review – Baron Sogg Resin Toy

One of the very first books I bought that clued me in on the designer toy scene was Dot Dot Dash*, a hardcover collection of photos of designer toys. Little did I realize that five years after first reading that book that my interests would have reached beyond vinyl and into the resin toy scene, a niche of a niche where anyone can create a toy. If vinyl toys are art toys, does that make resin toys outsider art toys? (What is “outtsider” art, you ask? See Wikipedia.) With such a low cost of entry into the resin toy scene it’s easy for all of us to make our own toys.

And that’s a great thing.

Baron Sogg

Today we’re taking a look at Baron Sogg from Talyn (blog), a kitbash of the 1980s Cap’n Crunch Sogmaster toy (review here) that turned out great. Take a look at my old review and compare the photos of the original toy to the photos of this resin release and you can see where Talyn added to the original design to make his Baron Sogg resin toy.

Specifically, take a look at:

• Helmet – Which is extended vertically and has a roundish “eye” added to the front where the original toy had eyes.
  
• Left Shoulder – Which is now quite spiky.
  
• Back – The copyright notice is covered with a band of “studded metal” that blends in nicely with the original back design.

And that covers the additions that I can spot. And they’re clean, appropriate upgrades to the sculpt and without comparing the two designs side-by-side I’m not sure if I would have been able to spot where the original toy ended and the newly sculpted parts began.

A Fun Bootleg

I’m classifying this as a resin bootleg since it adapts and expands on a previous toy design, and it’s a great addition to any Cap’n Crunch collection that already includes the original Sogmaster toy. Talyn did a great job in creating this and you can get one of your own now from his online shop. The selections are randomly chosen and at $10 it’s not a bad price for such a fun little resin toy that’s connected directly to my childhood.

Thanks, Talyn!

In the interest of full disclosure I have to let all of you know that Talyn sent me these two resin toys as gifts and that likely affected my opinion of the toys. But probably not much, since I already had a Sogmaster of my own and this is an excellent update on that 26 year old toy. I strongly suspect that if he hadn’t sent me these toys I would have ordered one for myself; there aren’t enough Cap’n Crunch-inspired toys on the market.

Philip Reed is now heading out to get a little exercise. It’s cold out there, though, and he’s kinda wishing that he had a Baron Sogg suit to wear while walking; that suit’s probably got its own heater!