Day Five of Scarabus Week is here! Today instead of focusing on a particular aspect and ending on the figures, I’m going to start off with some thoughts on Haures & Azazel and then move into some final thoughts on all the figures, some images of things I didn’t get to show on other days and wrap this week up!

While there’s a long list of great things about Fantastic Exclusive, the one thing I haven’t enjoyed so much is the focus on animal-inspired characters. That’s a topic for another day, but I mention it here because it meant that, for me, Haures & Azazel had a little higher hill to climb than the other sculpts. I’m just not as interested in them as the Dark Deities (I note the irony) or the unique designs of Melchom & Nergall.

That said, the duo really works for me because the colors help to elicit a really demonic, evil feel. StoreHorsemen lists these two as “brutal enforcers” and I think that’s spot-on for how I feel about them. They’re darker than the others in conception and in colors. Azazel does have a bit of yellow to him, but Haures – Haures is the darkest figure in the 10pk. His armor is a mix of flat & gloss blacks, including the orbs on his armor which were brightly colored on all the other figures. His only bright color comes from the red of his cape and there’s not much friendly about that.

Azazel, on the other hand, projects his evil with red fur and a love for purple. Speaking of, I didn’t really get a chance to talk about paint this week. I almost felt like I didn’t need too. There’s been a little bit of slop here or there – some errant gold on Anubis for example, but nothing that I’d want to call these toys out for. You’ve seen the paint all week. It’s complicated and it’s done right on nearly every rivet, buckle, and clasp. If anything puts mass market figures to shame, it might just be the quality control on the paint.

The embedded part of all the ball-joints was done in black for all the figures, so that did occasionally clash with the figure’s colors and any paint that ended up on those joints will come off as you play with the figures. I thought that would bother me more than it did, but I haven’t really minded. It looks most out of place on Thothos and Melchom’s brighter gloves, but, out of ten figures, that’s hardly much at all.

I’m getting farther and farther from that picture of the accessories, so I should get to it. Haures gear is just about all black. His alternate Scarabus head features glossy horns and a flat black face, his staff is black with silver accents, and even his Timekeeper Armor is, yep, black! He does include some purple flames to get some color into his sculpt, but I almost wish he’d gotten some smoky flames (that makes sense in my head).

Azazel’s accessories are a little more colorful, matching the colors found on the figure, and he includes a metallic purple Timekeeper armor. One of the cool things about both figures is that, in addition to their Scarabus heads and alt heads, they also both include a furry neck piece that fits under the head and snugly rests in the shoulder armor. It really helps sell the animal heads for both figures.

Despite my initial reservations about the Four Horsemen mixing some animal heads into the Scarabus variants, I have to say that they turned out pretty well! Scarabus has a mixture of demonic and Egyptian influences in his origin, so it only stands to reason that some of his minions would be more demonic in nature. No, I’m not saying be wary of goats (well, depending on where you live…), but a red goat and a black ram carry some demonic undertones and they fit in with the others pretty seamlessly despite having a completely different look. Continue to Page 2…