I received this Earthworm Jim from Aliexpess over a week ago, and finally decided to do an unboxing video to see what the figure is like. Later, I'll do a comparison with the final product.
A few notations from this video. Premium DNA was bought back from Megaopolis after investors sold it back to the owners. EE is who screwed over customers. These are factory defects. Jim is missing his backpack flap on many of these shipping. Many are coming with paint smudges and issues. PDNA stayed quiet at the licensees request. They only were able to make a statement once I went to them with the rumors that were going around. I hope this helps others!
I remember getting almost stifled by them way back when everything was hitting the fan. I felt for the people that poured hundreds on their orders, mine was a single McFarlane figure but Jesus Christ was it a chore to get the refund. They did the same thing back then, a lot of radio silence or playing hot potato, then the whole EE debacle came out and they saved a bit of face too little too late. When PremiumDNA came out everyone had Megalopolis fresh in their minds still so there was a lot of hesitation on buying figures on the fear they wouldn't fulfill and go dark AGAIN. Glad they kinda owned up to it this time but it's still a lot to ask of customers after the history to make them wait while saying nothing, that's just bad business practice.
I got mine over the weekend as well. I don’t know what to think of these, my copy has its issues. I feel like that “defect” or whatever premium dna was just some kind of damage control. The leg near the holster fights me and it feels like it doesn’t want to kick out fully. I’m going to hit it with some heat after work and see what that does for it. I get an occasional paint flake, the same head as yours has a bit of a goofy eyebrow or black line as well. My Snott definitely ports into the back a bit more smoothly and doesn’t have that grey crust, but on one of the Snotts his eye is a bit wonky like the paint didn’t sit. I feel like this is normal stuff we get with figures time to time. Be it Hasbro, Neca, Jada, McFarlane, or the imports. My Psy-Crow gives me more black flakes and I’ve been handling these gingerly as hell. I’m just happy they’re available in some capacity and not falling apart.
For what it's worth premium dna did say they had a bunch of qc problems so sent back why the long delay, so could explain the wrist , factory selling off rejects
Anyone who sees this and wants to take the plunge on an Ali Earthworm Jim, here's MY testimonial... Saw this vid and ordered it and it arrived yesterday. ALL the paint defects shown here were NOT present on the figure I received. Especially the elongated Snot. The "glob" of white was NOT present on mine. Eyes were fine. Accessories were fine. I also bought the additional head and worm-body pack! The additional pack also seemed as they should. Not paint defects. All was fine! EXCEPT!!! With the bonus head pack there was one issue with a head. There is a head with his mouth open! This head's bottom jaw fell off! But some small superglue has fixed it. Overall satisfied!
It’s worth taking a shot the full price figure will still have qc that’s unavoidable with any release and aliexpress has free returns for 90 days if you get a really bad one.
I wasn't able to cancel my preorder from premium DNA or I woulda just gone with this ali express figure due to the much cheaper price, but I did grab the heads pack off ali for like $8 for when my figure does eventually come in. oh, and the paint flaking is from the wrist joints, this happens any time you try to paint wrist joints, I've had it happen with a few NECAs, as long as the plastic isn't a different color then it won't matter.
@buzzsawgr81 Right. I've had most Toon TMNT NECA figures and there were definitely issues with paint flaking years ago, especially on their larger figures, but I don't recall seeing it on any of their toon figures in the last year. It's my belief it was a problem that was corrected. The issue I saw here with the first paint flake was that I moved an elbow, with a white joint, and suddenly a blue flake falls off the wrist with no contact. Even after the video I found even more paint flakes from just handling the figure. If I was in QC from Premium DNA, I'd definitely have failed this figure. I'm really curious how the new batch will be as they are supposed to ship this month. Fingers crossed that they actually arrive in hand, and I can compare the two to confirm any differences. The one had a head with scuffed up eyes, the other head had paint slop, but the head I wanted to use was fine. I hope your head pack doesn't have issues. I didn't order it myself as the head I wanted came with the figure.
I took the risk on one. I really wanted the figure but not at the full $50 bbts price. For what I paid to Ali I'm happy. No noticeable paint issues on mine. Minor flaking. The torso articulation seems like the biggest weakness on mine. I won't swap heads too many times as that ball feels like a failure spot
So youre telling me, you can get these from some website, before all the pre-orders arrived. For significantly cheaper. Wow. If these are the bad batch then like...fine. but dang dude.
How ironic I just bought this from Ali! Got Jim and his spare head set for just under $50! If there are some blemishes...I'll be okay with it. It's for display purposes anyway. If I have to break out my acrylic paints for minor touch ups...so be it.
I want this. But, I've been waiting until places like BBTS actually has it in stock. I'm thinking I can trust BBTS if stock doesn't show up not to charge customers. It's getting harder to resist.
Aside from the stretched snot piece everything seems pretty normal to me. As someone else pointed out there have been worse issues with legitimately released figures. Sometimes a slight paint issue happens. My order is on the way, got both Jim and the extra heads set for like $40. Looking forward to inspecting it.
@@raleldor It's REALLY good! I would say it's perfect. There was some very VERY slight paint chipping when I tested the articulation but only from the visible joint at the arm pits. And that's hardly noticeable at all. I would not classify that as factory defect. I'm not familiar with Premium DNA so for all I know that's just how their product is. Overall I'm extremely pleased as I only paid $41 for two sets (also got the alternate heads) that would have cost me about $90 through BigBadToyStore.
It's definitely not bad. But it has no "Wow" factor for me as someone who actually played the game. I can forgive all the QC issues If it only came with the worm whip.
I took a risk and picked up this guy plus the head set off aliexpress, and maybe i got lucky but it litterally seems perfect. Paint seems good. Joints seem good. I guess when they reject stuff they dont check every single one, so some will be better than others. But i really cant complain with what i got for what i paid. There are a lot of worse painted retail figures out there. Im honestly surprised they're being sold at all though. Usually stuff like this is detroyed. Otherwise it runs the risk of taking sales away from the "final" release...and also can make premium DNA look bad since people might assume this is what all of their figures are like QC wise.
They are bad batches, I ordered 1 and it arrived today with a lot of defects, the hand peg hole on the right arm was not made right so the hand kept falling out and I bent the foot to move it down and it snapped off, I collect a lot of figures and I always heat up the figures first and the foot still snapped off, also the blue straps do not allow the figures torso to move properly and when I warmed up the figure one of the straps melted.
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 no, the factory sent them a shipment that had a bunch of defects (like what was seen in the video) so DNA sent them back and had them redo the shipment. these figures are from that rejected shipment. like the guy said, it's basically the factory selling them instead of destroying them.
man ive seen worse and more inconsistent paint jobs on official figures and funko pops. Ive seen an insane megaman figure and spongebob figure and they could pass for official.
