A short while back I came across a photo of some cool-looking capsule toys called Beastie Buddies that I had never seen before, and it of course made me want some. After researching a bit further, I discovered that Beastie Buddies came out last year and were designed by James Koenig, someone I had seen around before in toy groups.
There are five different Beasties in the set, including a "Little Shop of Horrors"-esque venus flytrap monster! As someone who always wished for a mini figure of Audrey II, seeing that convinced me that I needed to track some of these bad boys down!
It took a bit of searching, but I was able to order some in bulk online. I've never actually seen any in capsule machines, so once again the wonders of the internet come through.
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| Beastie Buddies display card - front and back |
Here are the Beastie Buddies basics:
- The 5 sculpts/characters include: Flora (the flytrap), Yuna (the unicorn), Oggy (the ogre), Sammy (the samurai), and Shelldon (the snail)
- All of the sculpts are available in 5 different colors: brown, pink, yellow, aqua, and tan
- All of the figures include painted details, but interestingly, there are 2 different versions of each character in each color: one with several features painted and one with only the eyes painted (or in the case of Flora, the teeth). In my big box of figures, there was an even mix of both types. I'm not sure why the decision was made to release the figures in both versions, but the ones with less paint tend to look better, since most of the other versions are sloppily painted. In fact, some of the paint jobs are almost laughably bad (pupils painted onto foreheads, etc)
- Each figure is about .75-inch tall
- They are made out of a soft, squishy rubber similar to Trash Pack and Squinkies
OGGY THE OGRE
Fantastic sculpt on grumpy little dude! My second favorite of the set.
SHELLDON THE SNAIL
So much fun. He looks like a cantankerous old snail who would yell at snail young'uns to get off his sand patch.
YUNA THE UNICORN
Gotta love a derpy unicorn.
FLORA THE FLYTRAP
My favorite. Pretty much a little rubber Audrey II toy, which automatically makes it amazing.
SAMMY THE SAMURAI
This guy's great as well, although the paint jobs tend to be especially bad on him. I picked out the best ones in my pile of them for this photo, but the majority were pretty crazy.
And there you go! A very cool modern-day set of vending mini figures, which we don't see often enough. James Koenig's designs pack a ton of personality into these tiny weirdos. The factory paint jobs are dicey and I would have preferred them to be made of a firmer rubber or plastic, but for what they are, I can't complain too much.
What do you think of the Beastie Buddies? Have you ever seen any out in the wild?