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Leonardo Da Vinci

September 14, 2012 | By Errex More

One thing I like most about conventions is the chance to find items that I had no idea they existed at all. One such item is this Leonardo Da Vinci action figure from Unimax.

This is a 1:18 scale depiction of a young-ish Leonardo as he appears in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood videogame, where his role is similar to that of ”Q” in the James Bond films.

Leonardo is fundamentally a XV century italian and his garments reflect the fashion of that period. The sculpted detail on his clothes is very nice, replicating the baroque ornamentation of Renaissance Italy (or Ubisoft’s version of it, anyway). Even though the more familiar depiction of Leonardo comes from a self-portrait he made during his later years, the face sculpt on this figure doesn’t really resemble him at all. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that the whole head sculpture is rather bland and nondescript.

Leonardo has pretty extensive articulation, consisting of:

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Pegged hinge elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Floating torso.

• Ball jointed hips.

• Hinged knees.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

In paper, this looks very similar to what one would find in, say, a G.I. Joe figure, but given the character design and the implementation, not all of these joints are entirely functional. The neck post, for example, goes way too far into the head to serve as other than a simple swivel joint, and the T-bar hip design doesn’t really work that well in conjunction with the rubber skirt piece that simulates the lower edge of his tunic.

Likewise, the range at which knees and elbows can bend is nowhere near a 90° angle, but as a whole, it is no worse that in the current Avengers line by Hasbro.

The paint applications on Leonardo’s clothes are neat and precise. There is a lot of fine gold detailing and trimming where each line is very precisely applied. The face is decently painted, but the coat of flesh colored paint applied onto it seems to be thick enough to hide any fine detail sculpted underneath (assuming, of course, that such fine detailing is actually there in the first place).

Another issue I have is that the hue selected for the skin does not offer enough contrast between shaded and exposed areas, which makes it difficult to focus on specific facial features.

Since Leonardo is not presented as a fighting character in the game, he does not include a weapon in the package. Instead he comes with a scale model of his ornithopter, a vehicle that actually appears in the game. In a pinch, I guess it could pass as an early version of a batarang.

Overall, Leonardo makes for a pretty decent action figure that is more versatile than I would have imagined at first. In addition to his roles as a XVth century gadget provider, he could also pass for a Ren-Fair attendee to be rescued by a superhero, a Shakespearian actor performing for Cobra Commander or simply as a Faculty member at Hogwarts.