This just in (of course, just a day after I finish my write-up [sigh]). Dragon explains their new figure better than I could--there's also some pictures of its internal structure! Very useful information if you plan on picking up a Winona. CLICK HERE FOR DRAGON'S NEW PAGE ON WINONA'S CONSTRUCTION AND ARTICULATION.
Last week I reviewed the 21st "Super-Soldier" and this week, it's DML's first "Eve" female figure body, Winona.
The basics. The body, like Adam, is mostly hollow hard plastic shells, making this a very light figure compared to a Hasbro GI Jane whose limbs, like Joe's and Sam's, are made of solid rubber/latex material. Winona stands a similar height as Jane/Joe, just about 11", or 5' 6"' in 1:6 scale--a good height for a female. On the other hand, if I were to guesstimate her weight, I'd put it at an alarming 100 lbs or so. Winona is very thin. About as thin as Jane. The hands and feet are small and plastic, like Adam's. I like Winona's head; unlike an Adam and like a Jane/Joe, it seems molded in flesh color and painted appropriately, resulting in a simple and attractive paint job. It is neckless and simply mounted onto a non-articulated neckpost.
Joints. Much of the negative criticism of this figure has to do with the strength (or lack thereof) of its elbow (and to a lesser extent, leg/hip) joints. First, the elbows: The box proclaims the figure has double-jointed legs and arms, though it's only the knee that has the familiar "kneecap" joint we've become familiar with through Adam, Max Steel, and now the Super-Soldier. Winona's elbows are in fact double-jointed, but they use a combination axle (for twist) and hinge (for flexion) to achieve what the axle (for twist) and kneecap (for flexion) do for the knees. I've outlined the shape of these parts in the picture below in blue. As you can tell from the photo, the part of most concern is the bridge between the forearm and upper arm: the pin that connects the hinge end to the axle end is a cylinder that ends up being halved at the point it meets the hinge. You stress the joint when you twist the lower arm. This may be a problem when you first take Winona out of her box since, like the recent male Dragon figures, Dragon really tightened the joints on their figures to compensate for people complaining about Dragon joints loosening very easily. Well, if you've taken a Volker out of its box recently, you know you have to flex its joints a bit just to get it to the point where you can pose it by moving it at its wrists or feet--that is, by manipulating its extremities with the minimum required pressure. This is also the case for Winona, particularly around her elbows which do not twist easily at all out of the box. The axle joint is ultra-tight and required about 5 (very careful) rotations before it got to a point where I was comfortable twisting the lower arm without pinching the hinge end first. But once done, voila! No worries. As for the leg/hip joints, these are actually the same design as the male figures so I expect they'll suffer a similar fate my male figures that I pose frequently do, i.e., loosening. But, like the super-tight elbow joint, the leg/hip joint was actually too tight out-of-the-box and needed to be exercised cautiously by pinching the thigh close to the joint before I considered it safe to handle casually. Other joints worth noting are its wrists and ankles (hinge/axle joints mechanically similar to Jane) and of course, its neck/head. The neck post, basically a stem sprouting from the torso with what looks like another ball joint at its tip, leaves something to be desired. The neckless head is simply mounted on top of the post, allowing limited side to side tilting and a slight nod and tilt.
Articulation. As promised, the articulation is as good as--and in some points, better than--a male Dragon's. From the closeup above, you can see that Dragon did something similar to the recently released SS: it hollowed out the joints a bit to improve the extent of flexion, but with Winona, the hollowing is on the limbs (the shoulder and elbow, upper thigh) rather than the torso like the SS. As a result, the figure can perform the poses featured on Dragon's site: arms across torso, legs in a very high kick. Also like the SS, Winona has both a waist/torso and hip/pelvis ball joint, allowing it to curve its back further than the male Dragons who only have hip twist. Both ball joints in conjunction allow a limited "C" curve of the torso that is very natural. On the downside, the neck articulation is extremely limited. It seems Dragon tried to replace the torso/neck joint (of the male Dragons, which people still complain about since it lacks a true jaw nod necessary for sighting) with the ball joint at the neck/head (which does nod, but is offset by the unnatural length of the neckpost). In actuality, Winona's neck articulation is accurate--the human neck is too short to really show a bend at the torso/neck as it does on the male Dragons; any flexion of the neck is really only visible at the neck/head point. However, the exaggeratedly long and thin neckpost gives the unnatural (and somewhat disturbing) appearance of a "head on a stick," and unfortunately doesn't allow as much articulation as the earlier torso/neck joint, limited and unnatural as it was. Thus, there's still some territory to conquer by way of neck design. Either increase the range of the ball joint (but how to do this without unseemly hollowing, as with the elbow?), or perhaps a double-jointed neck (torso/neck and neck/head)? As I said, there's still some undiscovered land in the distant horizon for the action figure manufacturers to claim.
Appearance. Well, this is really where Winona comes up short, and I'm not talking about her height. It actually has a good height, not too tall, not too short (ahem) for an American female. However, this girl is thinner than the colloquial rail. Take a look at the full-body scan above. Folks, I am 5'1", and at my lightest when I was a chain-smoking, hard-skating fool, I was 95 lbs. If Dragon's earliest efforts to produce their Eve figure were stymied because translating Adam's design to feminine proportions proved too difficult to achieve, I suspect it was because they were using the current Winona body proportions as their template. A 5'6" female figure should realistically weigh at least 125 lbs IMO, and such proportions can give an engineer much more leeway to produce the sturdier Adam joints on a female figure, if that's what is desired. Even if it's not (and I personally don't think the sturdiness of its joints is much of an issue), I really think a heavier figure would look better. Her neck is another point that spoils her appearance. While the design is an improvement over the male figures, the execution could be better: either shorten her neckpost (just a little!) or thicken it along with the rest of her (preferred). Also, a cleaner transition from the head to the neck would be nice, if difficult to engineer given the design.
Concluding thoughts. Winona, Dragon's first "Eve" figure, is just about what we've come to expect from DML: a very well-engineered figure with some really interesting and revolutionary design features--though because they're revolutionary, sometimes those features come up a bit short. That said, like any other attempt at revolution, it might take a few attempts and some tweaking before the changes really take hold and show results. From DML's past performance, I'm pretty confident that the first Eve is exactly that: the first in what will hopefully be a long line of Eves, each successive one, like its male counterparts, better than the preceding one. For now, it's enough to me that, as promised, this really is the best-articulated affordable female figure we've gotten so far. Like Adam and the other male figures in Dragon's lines, this is not a toy to be given to a 5-year old to "play Joes" or "Barbies" with: Winona is strictly for posing and diorama duty. That's fine by me; I'm too old to be playing dolls. But if you're looking for an alternative to Barbie for your little one, look elsewhere. It does take some adjustment to get used to the "feel" of this figure, but if you carefully loosen the joints just a bit, I really don't think weak joints should be much of an issue. Early reports of this figure's fragile joints seems explicable to me by the initial over-tightening of the joints at the factory, a result I think of previous complaints about the excessive looseness of the male figures' joints. Similarly, the new neck design seems to me a possible result of previous (and continued) complaints about the neck design of the male figures. As was shown by previous incidents (big boots, anyone?), Dragon listens to customer suggestions and yes, they seem to be quite sensitive to complaints. Sometimes, they seem to confuse the former with the latter--maybe the result of a culture clash. Whatever the reason, it would benefit all of us who have an interest in durable, articulated, attractive and inexpensive action figures to learn how to communicate with each other, which includes knowing that criticism can be useful, but complaints about another person's work are worse than useless: they can hurt. My bottom line: Winona is a well-engineered (+), interestingly designed (+/-), affordable (+), though unattractive (-) female figure. DML has earned my confidence by this point (many times over, in fact) that they will address the figure's weak points in due time. For now, it really is a good base for the ideal 1:6 posable female figure. My score: 78/100 (B-).