darkSpyro

I was in Walmart today, and they had a Whirlwind. The difference between this one is that her horn is the SAME color as her body. It's not a white color like it's suppose to be. I'll try to post a picture, but right now I don't have a camera with me. Is this considered rare or should I bring it back to the store? I'm not sure yet.

There seems to be a lot of variations in the figures which I guess would add to their uniqueness. Stuff like cards being turned around or missing, being in the wrong box, parts of their sculpt missing or mispainted, etc.

I'd like to see a pic though. It sounds cool!

I think since they got a new manufacturer in China, their quality control is down. I also think that there is a distinct difference from first run of figures and 2nd run. I don't know if this will affect value in the future, but you can clearly tell the differences. One example is Double Trouble's ball. On my original one, the ball had no part line on it, but the new one does. Also, on the magic figures, the new bases where it looks blackened and stained, the paint is much lighter on the new ones than the originals.

We found a misprint Wrecking Ball with an entirely gold base. Very strange. Lots of paint errors lately.

They've been cutting corners as much as they can.

The Undead bases don't glow in the dark anymore.

Quote: Tashiji

We found a misprint Wrecking Ball with an entirely gold base. Very strange. Lots of paint errors lately.

I wanna see that! Did you buy it? If you did can you post a pic?

To D-Rex:

Really, that sucks because that was such a unique and fun aspect to the Undead figures. I still need to find a Cynder so when I get her, I'll test her stand to see if it glows.

Quote: D-Rex

They've been cutting corners as much as they can.

The Undead bases don't glow in the dark anymore.

Crap, really? I'll have to check all 5 of mine when I get home to see if they do.

The bases on the death ones do still glow. I just bought a Cynder last week. I put him up to a light bulb for 30 seconds and turned the lights off. His base still glows.

But the actual parts are not as good of quality, and some paints have been substituted and you can tell if you have 2 sets the subtle differences

Quote: OpalOsprey

To D-Rex:

Really, that sucks because that was such a unique and fun aspect to the Undead figures. I still need to find a Cynder so when I get her, I'll test her stand to see if it glows.

Well they're trying to please the consumers on the Skylanders toy demand. The faster they do it, the less quality the toys will become.

I have two Whirlwinds, one is the limited Walmart exclusive and the other is from the three pack with Double Trouble and Drill Sargent. The Walmart one is in pretty good shape and the paint job is very nice but you can tell that they cut corners with other Whirlwind. Its paint is chipping ( I haven't even used it yet), the paint job overall is sloppy with white paint splotches on the blue body piece, there's glue globed around the head piece and the wings and tail are very flimsy.

They're probably going to still cut corners with Skylanders: Gaints. Hopefully the figures will be more readily available with that game but that's wishful thinking.

Quote: xerokills

The bases on the death ones do still glow. I just bought a Cynder last week. I put him up to a light bulb for 30 seconds and turned the lights off. His base still glows.

But the actual parts are not as good of quality, and some paints have been substituted and you can tell if you have 2 sets the subtle differences

Just so you know, Cynder's a girl.
Anyway, I got Chop Chop a couple of weeks ago and his base still glows.

Opened my Cynder today. My daughter grabbed it by the tail and the pointy part just broke right off. I am going to try using hot glue to fix it. Or I wonder if that modelling glue, the type that "melts" the plastic together will work on this sort of plastic.

Quote: Zing

Opened my Cynder today. My daughter grabbed it by the tail and the pointy part just broke right off. I am going to try using hot glue to fix it. Or I wonder if that modelling glue, the type that "melts" the plastic together will work on this sort of plastic.

http://universe.skylanders.com/help
The last question if you broke a skylander or portal you can call or contact online

That would be nice, except Cynder isn't even listed as a product when I go to file a warranty claim. It looks like none of the Wave 3 or 4 figures are. My Hex's arm is just barely hanging on, so I submitted a claim for her. It doesn't really explain what will happen, just that my "RMA will arrive in 7-10 days". I assume I will have to return my Hex and wait for a replacement. Forget that!

^ I do not know. I did the exact same thing with my spyro because it broke. And when the package arrived there was just a spyro, the web cade, and an apology letter.

Quote: slpfw0802

Quote: Tashiji

We found a misprint Wrecking Ball with an entirely gold base. Very strange. Lots of paint errors lately.

I wanna see that! Did you buy it? If you did can you post a pic?

Yes we did buy it. Here's a pic.

That's the thing - it's really a double-edged sword.

People complain there aren't enough Skylanders, so production is upped and sped up, which leads to mistakes.

Then people complain about paint errors.

I've always said that my earlier Skylanders were painted better, but thankfully for the most part, I've not done too bad with paint quality.

...Except for runny-nose Wrecking Ball. D:

My Trigger Happy is missing some paint on his ear... so the early ones weren't without fault... but it seems the faults are bigger and more common now.

I also think they're probably less stringent on the quality control than they used to be... so where they may have made some of these mistakes before they would never have left the factory, but now they have more of an "Oh well, it'll do." attitude.

My Hex has blobs of glue all over her and my neighbour's Zap has a messed up face... those are the worst we've got but nearly all of them have some noticable mistakes or damage... My Stealth Elf has never left her box (even though I have had her a while and use her regularly) but she has chips of paint missing from her leg... the worst part is I checked and rejected every other Stealth Elf in the shop when I bought her because they all had paint mistakes... I thought I'd found one that didn't but when I got home I found out I was wrong.

I think you guys are overestimating the quality controls at these Chinese factories. There is most certainly not someone checking these things and intentionally letting the ones with mistakes through. They just have a painting assembly line and if the person who was supposed to paint the ears, or the base, or whatever misses a figure, no one notices.

Also, with the demand of Skylanders going on, the factories are doing the toys rather fast and they're losing quality.

Quote: Tashiji

Yes we did buy it. Here's a pic.

That is really cool! Do you think it may have been purposeful since it looks very carefully painted? It may be that that is the new type of gold variant.

Anyhow, it looks really awesome! You should keep that in case it is actually a variant and becomes worth something. I hope they make some like that regularly; I would be really cool to have a golden based magic skylander!

^ No it wasn't intentional, the base color of the stand is gold then they paint the copper/brown color over it for contrast and detail work. So they just forgot the copper layer of paint. It does look pretty cool though.

^ Aw I wish it had been intentional

I wish it were intentional, as well, but even though it's not, our gold base Wrecking Ball is certainly staying a part of the collection, right alongside the black base Drill Sergeant that Walmart used to sell.

It would be nice if they made golden/silver/whatever bases a new variant, though, sort of a semi-rare alternative to the ultra-rare pure gold and silver figures. Like the way that some Magic/Pokemon/Yugioh cards are merely shiny, and the rarer variants are both shiny and sparky/transparent/whatever.

Exactly! That would be so awesome! And they did not just have to limit it to one color per type of base. Like the varients of the magic base could be purple, black, gold, and like a cloudy transparency look that shined.

That would be so cool! Im gonna start looking for skylanders with incorrectly colored bases.

Edit: Hey also could the creator of this topic post the pic of the weird whirlwind? (i am very curious)