LARA CROFT - Tomb Raider "Survivor" Statue by Gaming Heads

I'm not much of a gamer. The first-person shooters make me motion sick, I've never been able to get the hang of fighting games, I don't appreciate racing games, and there are too many special moves for me to grasp in the sports games. That really leaves me with the third-person adventure games. Combine that with a family, work, and the responsibilities of life, and the result is that I've completed very few games. However, I can also honestly say that for me to finish a game, I really had to have enjoyed it. 2013's "Tomb Raider" is one such game. And, to celebrate finally completing it, I decided to splurge and order myself a Gaming Heads statue of one of my favorite characters in all of fiction: Lara Croft. This "Survivor" version is based on the recent re-boot, and does a reasonable job of replicating the game cover shot of Lara, injured and holding her left arm, bow in hand.

The statue is big and fairly heavy: she stands about 16 & 1/2 inches tall, with another 2 inches added for the thick and heavily detailed base. Base and statue weigh in together at just a shade over 9 pounds.

The sculpting is generally terrific in terms of proportions and overall efforts at detail. However (and I think I'm probably in the minority here, since everyone else seems to be really pleased with the sculpt details), I find some of them to be a bit "soft". For example, the part where Lara's right arm cuts across her chest feels like it should be more defined. The arm and torso kind of meld into one another. The bandages on her arm and left leg do the same for me: they come off feeling like raised parts of a single piece, rather than separate parts over an underlying piece. The wound on her left side (from the beginning of the game, where she falls down the shaft onto that spiky thing) has no definition. It's just a red blotch painted onto the shirt. I know it's picky and trivial, but this statue was expensive (for me) so I feel like I can be picky.

The detailing on Lara's pistol (not removable, but so good it looks like it could be), climbing axe and bow are excellent, and the bow has an actual string.

The paint is where I have a little more of an issue. The prototype images of the statue absolutely won me over. They made the statue look like a perfect representation of the in-game character. The actual production model is a bit less-so. The face is indeed slightly "off". For me, it's less about the red around the eyes and more about how the dirt and blood was applied. They look like paint that was applied to a statue, not like blood or dirt on a character. I don't hate it, but it's definitely not as crisp and excellent as the prototype pictures. That said, I watched plenty of review videos on youtube prior to making the purchase, so I knew exactly what I was getting, and the in-hand result IS better than what the camera seems able to capture.

Turnaround perspectives are good, though no one will really ever get to see her from the back. I've got her displayed at a slight angle, sort of mimicking the cover art pose as best I could.

The base is brilliantly detailed. It's so good, in fact, that the rope looks real to me. That's the kind of look I find missing in those gripes I mentioned earlier.

I noticed that her right leg does not meet the base. There's a metal post in the left foot, and a square guide to insert the statue, but nothing in the right. And when inserted fully, the right foot is still left floating slightly above the base. It's absolutely not noticeable unless one gets down and studies it, but I'm worried that having all of the statue's weight on the post in the left foot might cause problems over time. I'm probably going to put something under the right foot to fill the space and provide a little support.

On display, my inside lighting leaves Lara's skin looking yellower than she does in natural lighting, so I'll have to figure a way to get some better, whiter light on her, but overall I'm very pleased with this statue. It's a fitting representation and tribute to a character and game that I really enjoy. I feel like the sculpt and paint are closer than the Play Arts Kai version I have. On another note, the box this figure came in is absolutely gorgeous. It's a giant work of art that's done so well that I think I'm going to create a whole separate post just for the box - it's that good...

Great detail...

Cover pose

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider