Knock Off/Imitation of Lego Castle Theme

I have 4 sets of knock off figures to review in this single post. 2 sets by Sheng Yuan and another 2 sets by Lele. I keep the first wave of Sheng Yuan (set number SY175) and first wave of LELE (set number 70400) for months before i decided to open them yesterday. It is just because I don't have any interest on castle theme set/minifigures at all. In addition, I don't have original castle minifigures to compare with.

1st wave of Sheng Yuan Castle Minifigures Set - SY175

the catalog is outdated now 

Now i present to you, the minifigures with accessories:

Do you recognised them? Yeah, they are from the Collectible Minifigures Series (CMF)! (except for the archer (top, 2nd from left) and King minifigure (bottom, 2nd from left). Those are from normal lego set). No wonder they look really good.

Top, from left: Gladiator (series 5), Archer, Viking (series 4), Heroic Knight (series 10)

Bottom, from left: Evil Knight (series 7), King, Evil Dwarf (series 5), Roman Commander (series 10)

My favourite part: comparison with the original figure. Original Lego on right, SY on left. You may find differences in their accessories and colour on the lego parts. 

Look at side printing on Lego's arm and leg.

Lego's original beard look nicer - belt bucker on the torso can be seen at the center

I wonder if SY purposely don't imitate Spartan Warrior from Series 2. This fella cost about USD14 (not inclusive shipping) and i believe it is the most expensive warrior minifigure because it's a great representation of warrior in the movie 300.

source: bricklink

source: google

2nd wave of Sheng Yuan Castle Minifigures Set - SY165

Don't come with any catalog or game/trading card

Each guy comes with extra weapon but i choose the best for this photo:

Do they look the same with these guys?

source: google

1st wave of LELE Castle Minifigures Set - 70400

The princess come with one side sad face and flowers/butterfly as accessories?

Fair distribution. 4 guys (inclusive a princess) from the blue team and 4 guys from the red team (i assume the bad side are those with dragon logo on their shield and body armor).

Luckily i'm into magicians/wizard (after my first wizard from series 12) so i determine to collect variety of wizard from Lego. Here's the comparison with one of the wizard that i have. Right, original Lego.

2nd wave of LELE Castle Minifigures Set - 78038

The horse is ready-made assembled like this: just need to attach armour to the body.

come with nice stand

Unlike horse in SY set, you need to assemble the horse yourself.

Some minifigures come with awesome printed bricks. You can display the armor like this:

This is how they look like with fully equipped accessories:

Excluding the first SY set (that contain mostly CMF figures), the 2nd wave SY and 1st & 2nd LELE castle sets will give you these:

The blue team comes from the same side (lion clan), but the red team is from 2 sides; one with dragon logo and the other one with hawk/eagle logo. 11 guys from lion clan, 4 from dragon clan and another 6 from hawk/eagle clan.

Green Goblin by Decool (set number 0183)

Lego has this huge Green Goblin figure in Lego set 76016 Spider-Helicopter Rescue.

source: Bricklink

The character can be seen in the animated Ultimate Spider-Man and video games Lego Marvel Super Heroes.

source: http://www.lightheadedbeds.com (Green Goblin is not in the pic lol)

source:http://en.wikipedia.org

Enough with the reference. Let's have a look at the product.

Close up pics:

Let's compare it with the original Lego figure (on the right):

They look similar but the clone figure actually has shinier surface and the printing is not as sharp as Lego.

Have you seen another variant of Green Goblin that has same size with standard Lego figure? Smaller figure Green Goblin (original Lego) on the right is from year 2003 Lego set. (there are 2 variants for this figure - one with gold-painted eyepiece on the headgear ($25) and another with plain/blank eyepiece ($15)).

which one is your favourite?

Venom is not alone now (Link). Big size Lego minifigures by Decool so far:

Lego Spiderman - Original Vs Imitation, Now and Then

A few months back, my friend told me that SY reissue their earlier figure that have different leg structure than lego (earlier SY figure have wierd hole structure at the back side of the leg and the bottom front of the leg is kinda curvy - please see image below, i don't know how to explain it ahaha). He bought wave 1 Sheng Yuan Ironman and found out that the leg assembly is now exactly the same with Lego. I wanna have a look myself so i bought Sheng Yuan Spiderman set... and yeah, it's confirmed. SY fix the leg structure for reissue lego figure.

If i recall correctly, Sheng Yuan use the same leg structure with Lego starting with Green Lantern set SY186 (Link) somewhere in January 2014. So affected set before that were Superheroes Set SY180, Ironman SY185, Superman SY187 and Spiderman SY188. If you getting these figure in 2014, then you should receive figures with fixed leg structure (same with Lego).

Please see these 2 photos: comparison of Spider-Man 2099 figure that i bought somewhere in November 2013 and recently, November 2014. The newer figure has brighter and bolder design, but i prefer headpiece of the old figure.

fixed leg structure for reissue figure

From 2002 till 2014 (that's 13 years!!), Lego only has 8 Spider-Man variant:

(another one not in the picture looks like the one in the middle but with red hip)

*both my SDCC figure is not real =(. one photoshopped, another one is from clone brand

p/s: There are 2 Spider-Man in black, one is Venom (2nd from right) and the most right is Black-suit Spider-Man. They are different person, right? ..well, because the one on the right don't have evil grin on his face. Please correct me if i'm wrong. I just google this stuff. =p

.. and guess how many more variant you can get from clone brand: 

Am i right to label those spiderman variant above as:

Top from left: Ultimate Spider-Man, *unknown*, Spider-Man 2099, Venom, Spider Carnage

Bottom from left: Future Foundation Spider-Man, Negative Zone Spider-Man, Ben Reilly, Classic Spider-Man, *unknown*

I did some googling, and compile these images:

I only have selected Spider-man figure (and other characters) from Nov 2013 because at that time, im not really fond of these bootleg/clone figure.. in fact i hate them. but look at what i bought today. =p

Let me start with SY's:

What's in the box: Trading/game cards, and parts in sealed plastic

Assembled figure without accessories: 

Close up pictures of individual figure:

...and now let's have a look at Lele's version:

What's in the box: Trading/game cards, and parts in sealed plastic

Assembled figure without accessories: 

Close up pictures of individual figure:

There are in total of 16 Spider-man figure from both SY and Lele including repetitive figure.

Comparison of repetitive figure from SY and Lele

In the first row, i prefer SY's SDCC Spidey because Lele's color is too absurd.  I'm not sure what variant is spidey in 2nd row, but SY's version has gold color printed on the eyepiece. For Venom in 3rd row, Lele's version looks exactly like lego - the design/printing on both the face and front/back torso, but SY's has accurate look to the one in comic (the spidey logo). As for spidey in future foundation suit in 4th row, i forgot to compare with one from Decool *sigh* but SY's back printing look better. Last but not least, Negative Zone Spider-Man. SY's better because the leg assembly come in grey color. So its match the torso color.

For this classic Spider-Man variant, Decool's from set 0101 - 0109 has better design than Lele. Printed side on the back of the head and red spidey logo at the back of the torso looks exactly like original Lego.

For SDCC Spider-Man figure, Decool's headpiece is printed on both front and back, but Sheng Yuan has better printing on the torso. Have a look at original SDCC figure in 3rd and 4th picture below:

source: google

source: google

So, for perfect clone SDCC figure, i will use headpiece of Decool but torso of Sheng Yuan. =)