REVIEW: Crashlings Insects Crater Pillar

#MinifigureMonday

Monday rolls around again! And what better way to enjoy the day than with some minifigure goodness, courtesy of our #MinifigureMonday Review, where today we're looking at the Crashlings Crater Pillar.

Crater Pillar

Crater Pillar - as the name and design may suggest - comes from the Insect sub-line. I have to admit that when I bought him (as a blind-bag/sphere figure) I wasn't familiar with the Meteor case color-coding and so it wasn't actually my intention to pick up an Insect figure!

Anyway, minor confusion aside, let's take a look at Crater Pillar.

Like all Crashlings, Crater Pillar comes in his own Meteor case, featuring solid plastic on one side and a rubber second half. The two pieces fit well together and keep the figure within protected from harm rather well - not that they need it, though, as the Crashlings are solid, durable little figures.

Oddly my Crater Pillar didn't come with the usual collector guide, which is the first time I've experienced this. Luckily there are plenty available online so I was able to ascertain quickly that this version of Crater Pillar - in metallic blue - is a Rare figure.

As you can see, he has a kind of Pushmi-pullyu thing going on, with two heads at either end of his body. It's a pretty nice little detail and adds an extra bit of fun for the designers to play with and, as a result of this, we get two very different head sculpts. 

The right head (or left side as we face it) is a happy, sticky-out-tongue kind of playful thing, whereas the left (our right) is a vicious, sharp-toothed and angry face. I could imagine the two heads having some pretty interesting conversations!

The sculpting is nice, with some cool details and a real sense of expression/character to each. I also like the body folds, which sell the idea nicely of Crater Pillar being a wormy bug. Although aren't caterpillars generally furry?

I seem to have great luck with finding Rare figures, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's great to have these cool-looking metallic paint effects on the figures but part of me would love to find a few more Common figures, as the individual/detail paint apps are really great and I'd love to have a few more of them, simply as I think they do a better job picking out the detailing on each figure's sculpt.

With that said, I'm sure if I were to only ever find Commons I'd be complaining about the lack of Rares...!

Final Thoughts

If the above Review is a little brief it's because, if I'm being honest, there's really not a great deal to say about Crater Pillar. There's nothing wrong with the figure: the sculpt is fun and there's a good bit of detail and character there and the chrome blue paint app is really eye-catching. It's just I'm really not ''into'' bugs and creepy-crawly toys (as I mentioned above, I picked this figure out not knowing it was from the Insect line) and so the figure just doesn't ''speak'' to me.

If you're a fan of bug-based minifigures or Pokemon-ish, funny creatures then this will be, I'm sure, a figure you'll love. There's certainly a lot of fun in the figure's design and it's all nicely executed. It's just not a figure for me.

Great - if you like bug figures. Personally I'll be sticking with the Alien and Monster lines, though.

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