It’s Halloween, which makes it the perfect day to review one of my favorite new toys: Hermees by Gary Ham! If you couldn’t tell by the giant smiling pumpkin on Hermees’ chest, the Trickster Edition is the figure’s Halloween colorway and features a brown, orange and teal color scheme. The Blot was lucky enough to win this Hermees directly from Gary via a Twitter contest a few months ago, but I was purposely waiting for today to drop my review.
Honestly, if you saw Hermees in person you would not even know it was a self produced vinyl toy. The packaging on this figure is topnotch, and includes a full color window box (perfect for display purposes) and a form fitting plastic shell to keep the figure in place and undamaged. Gary definitely went all out with this guy and it shows. The paint job is tight, and it does a good job accentuating the figure’s blocky look. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was made of wood just like the original 14” handmade wood Hermees this vinyl figure is based on.
The one thing pictures of Hermees don’t do a good job showcasing is its size. The figure stands 8" tall and has a wing span of 12"!!! I think it’s hard to understand just how big this figure is without a frame of reference, which is why I included a few different figures in a picture with Hermees to show off its size. Throw in 8 points of articulation (my personal favorite is its snout articulation) and you see just some of the reasons why Hermees won the 2011 Designer Toy Award for “Best Self Produced Toy.”
What’s even crazier is you get all that for just $45 and a limited edition run size of 300 pieces. It’s really amazing when you compare the price and run sizes of comparable sized figures from some of the larger toy companies. It shows what can be done in our toy community so long as you have the drive and the passion to make it happen. Gary should definitely be an inspiration to others out there hoping to make their own self produced vinyl figure.
You can pick up a Trickerster Edition Hermees vinyl figure and a bunch of other great stuff directly from Gary Ham at his Superham! online store.
