[windebieste]

Here's a bunch of Alien figures. 5 of them. They're all in various states of incompleteness. Obviously, each are missing their carapaces and some are missing the dorsal crest between the shoulders. The one on the far right has his arm detached and is lugging it around lashed to his left leg. The one on the far left is missing his upper set of dentures.

The new recruits; and ideal candidates for complete restoration.

These figures are in average condition and can be frequently found in such states. The missing domes and dorsal spikes are common. Missing teeth and split tongue are also common. The same can be said for the broken condition of arms as well. The rubber anchors that hold them in place allowing them their 'spring loaded' quality is all too commonly fatiqued making them hang loosely at the figures side or possibly be broken. Mind you, taking all these issues into account all of these figures are fine candidates for full restorations.

Below, we see 4 very reasonable looking Aliens in good state of well-being. Each one of these items has had similar issues as described above and each one of these has had significant work done on of them to bring them up to a level of being 'feature complete'. They display well and all of their parts are present. This does, however, come with some caveats.

Fully feature complete restorations.

As each one of the Aliens in this photo was originally in an average condition similar to those in the first image of this post, they all required varying degrees of work. This entailed a number of necessary procedures including dismantling the figure, cleaning it, re-attaching the dorsal spine along with a number of other repairs to bring them up to a decent standard. Of important note here is the use of facsimile - or 'repro' - parts to complete this group of figures. Without the use of such 3rd party reproduction parts, these figures would never be whole once again. In these particular cases displayed above, the head carapace was absent from each of them and all of them needed to be replaced with reproduction parts as genuine domes are rare and costly. It would take me forever to find 9 original carapaces to complete this lot.

I'm not against the use of repro parts being used when it means an otherwise incomplete figure can be made whole. I believe it's a perfectly viable option. Especially when a figure is otherwise never going to live up to its full potential. Once again, there is a caveat here. Any practice of using repro parts should always be disclosed. To someone not familiar with these figures pictured here they may appear to be 100% complete with original parts. But this is not true. If you do choose to purchase one of these online then ALWAYS attempt to determine if they possess original or reproduction parts before you buy it. It is known that some vendors have sold old Kenner Alien figures claiming they are 100% orginal only for the purchaser to discover this is not the case upon delivery.

There's a couple of other features these 4 Aliens possess that are noteworthy. You may notice that each one of them can hold exactly the same pose. This is significant because these action figures are now 36 years old. These ones have had additional work done to them and the arms can now hold any pose. Also of particular note is the tail. None of these tails are loose and none of them are resting on the table top surface. Loose tails are common and further additional work has been performed on these figures to make their tails sit correctly without swinging loosely from side to side.

The same figures immediately above, holding different poses with their arms.

Cleaned, with all parts present, albeit some facsimiles used to fill in some gaps; and being able to hold a pose with arms in any position and a tail that sits well makes these figures very attractive when displayed. To think that each of these 4 figures originally came into my possession looking like the others at the top of this post, these 36 year old figures were in average condition and can't be made to look better than this.

-Windebieste.