Much as I love the Buffyverse, Spike will be my first piece in this line.
I mean don't get me wrong, the Buffy, Willow, and Faith pieces are all quite nice overall, but none of them quite wow me, pretty much for similar reasons too, and these days I need that wow factor to commit to buy a piece, as my collection is virtually at the point where every piece is replacing something else, so it truly has to be special and earn its spot. The Spike piece did that, the previous three, while not bad pieces, just didn't quite make the cut for me. Close, but not quite. And for me close just isn't quite close enough these days.
The Buffy is a likeness thing, personally I think it's good, but not great. Some angles look quite good, others less so. The throne is fantastic, but it's the characters themselves that are the key deciding factor for me, so...
Willow, I just don't buy the outfit and sexy pose, that just isn't the character for me. Still a nice piece, as was the Buffy, just not for me I guess.
And after seeing Faith at SDCC, while the pose is great and the likeness is there, she just looks a bit too...severe...for my liking, face wise. If she looks different/better in-hand then maybe I'll go chasing, but for now I'll just move along. Like I said, I'm just really picky. It's a curse.
But the Spike piece, that one I love, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the Angel one too wen it hits. And the great thing with the vamp pieces is they have that fallback vamped out head if you aren't 100% sold on the human one...though I was quite impressed with Spike overall I must say, and hope to be just as happy with Angel (but we'll see...).
As for what I'd personally most like to see. More vamps basically. Drusilla, Darla, maybe Vampire Willow, and some of the more notable creatures/demons would be nice too, including Lorne if they also have access to the Angel license. I would love a more 'action pose' Buffy at some point too. A Giles holding out a cross to repel evil in a 'van helsing' type pose might be quite nice too. But sad to say, at the prie point there hit, I don't think I'd ever buy characters like Oz or Xander, Gunn and Wesley. Mind you, if they were truly knock it out of the park great, well, never say never...
But honestly if I could just complete the Vampire crew of Spike, Angel, Dru and Darla I'd feel pretty satisfied, and anything beyond that would be pure gravy. I do hope that all fans get the main characters that they really want, and that the line continues to be a success long enough for that to happen.
Now, if they'd just make some Firefly companion pieces in a similar scale/style...
