It’s been a little while since I got in the Lone Coconut PlunderFrog Tinker Makoh, but the dreary spring we have been having in New England made talking about a cute, frog, creature feel out of place. It certainly wasn’t my enthusiasm for the action figure that has kept me away from talking about it because this little guy is charming as hell. If you’re new to Lone Coconut, they launched their Plunderlings line a few years ago via Kickstarter and it’s lead to even more characters in a similar style. The latest is the PlunderFrog which finds a way to leverage a lot of the tools from the prior figures to create something all new. The characters are so cute and charming that it’s hard not to just buy them all, but I was able to narrow it down to the Tinker Makoh and now I’ll tell you what I think of it.
The PlunderFrogs comes in a package similar to the Plunderlings only without any extra bits to tab in. It’s an attractive box designed to look like a crate with the window in a giant smile reflecting the look of the character in the box. They also add a clear top so light can filter in so if you like keeping things in box this will work pretty well. Out of the box, the figure feels and looks so unique that it’s almost easy to overlook that it’s a lot of reused parts. The body is that of a Plunderling so he’s a little fella. The webbed feet come from the drench variant while the hands are just standard Plunderling hands. The unique aspect of this design is the new head as well as the very obvious four-armed setup. The upper arms are taken from the Plunderlong while the lower arms are from the Plunderling. The only difference between the two is the upper arm features a bicep swivel while the lower arms do not. The head is brand new and has a frog/tadpole look to it. It’s much rounder when compared with other characters in the line, but retains the shiny, black, eyes. The rear of the head extends into a tail making this almost look like a tadpole that somehow sprouted a body. This particular character is done in a soft purple with a leopard frog-like pattern to the limbs where they end in green with a touch of yellow in the transition. There are patches of black to break things up and the shorts and belt are also painted. It’s a simple paint application, but the cleanliness at which it’s executed works really well and it’s on par with past efforts from Lone Coconut.
For accessories, Makoh comes with a mix of old and new. I’ve only dabbled in the Plunder Planet world so I’m not sure if the accessories are all reused or not, but most of them are new to me. For heads, we get three: smile, open mouth, and an angry face. Even when he’s frowning, this little guy is still cute. Swapping heads can be a little tough out of the box, but some hot water should cure that just fine. For hands, there are gripping, open, and fists and what I really like is that you get four of each so if you want four punchy hands you can do that, or if you want each arm to hold something you can do that as well. And he has plenty to hold. For weapons, Makoh comes with a pair of hand crossbows which are weapons we’ve seen before. He also has a trio of viles that all are of a unique shape with a unique stopper that is removable. They also have a translucent, colored, filling that are all molded to look like they’re sloshing around in the bottle. For stoppers, there’s a skull, mushroom, and what looks like a piece of coral. They’re pretty tiny so do your best not to lose them, but I love how toyetic these accessories are. There’s also an included hood which can fit any head and this steampunk looking mask. It can fit on any portrait, but it appears to be molded to fit the angry head and it does fit better on that one. It has this nice, bronze, finish and the goggles on it are painted teal with a little reflective lens effect that works really well. There are two little hooks included for weapon storage and one unique application. One slots onto his scarf, which is removable, and it’s intended to holster a crossbow though it could carry a potion bottle, if you wanted. The other though has a much more interesting purpose. For the open mouth head, there’s a swappable tongue. There’s just a plug piece to give him a tongue and add to the smile, but there’s another one where the tongue is extended and it’s this one that can use the other hook. It plugs into the tip and basically gives Makoh a way to hold items with his tongue which is really cool. And since the peg hole is on the back of the tongue, if you don’t want him to hold anything it won’t be an eyesore. The only real challenge is trying to decide between the masked look or the tongue out look.
If you’ve handled a Plunderling then you know what to expect of Makoh where articulation is concerned. He has joints at the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, diaphragm, hips, thighs, knees, and ankles. The knees are double jointed and bend past 90 while the elbows are single-hinged and can only hit a 90 degree bend. As mentioned before, the upper arms do have a bicep swivel while the lower arms swivel at the elbow. The gripping hands have vertical hinges and the feet do have hinges and rockers. The diaphragm is a little tough to get much out of with the extra arms in the way. It mostly swivels, but there’s a little pivot too. The thigh swivels are just straight cuts and one thing Lone Coconut does that I wish they had rethought is they put the cut through the shorts. If they could have hidden it under them that would have been better, but it’s not bad. Some of the joints are a bit tight, but nothing is loose. I did have to heat the knees and some of the elbows, though some of that was out of an abundance of caution. This is a durable feeling figure and it’s fun to pose. It’s a little cumbersome with the mask and something in each hand, but that’s a good problem to have.
I don’t know if I expected Lone Coconut to come back with a four-armed frog Plunderling, but I am certainly happy they did. This is a nice addition to the building Plunder Planet toy line and this little frog might be my favorite so far. I am a sucker for any figure with extra limbs, but I love the mask and the vials he comes with as they just exude so much personality in an otherwise tiny package. Those accessories are what motivated me to select Makoh, but I was sorely tempted by Koqui for his red and blue color pattern. I could always go back for more, and maybe I will. I got mine direct from Lone Coconut, but if you would like to get a PlunderFrog of your own they’re currently being carried by Big Bad Toy Store and will set you back $35 a piece. I think the price is fair for the amount of stuff in the box and the quality. This company also takes care of its customers and you never know what could be coming next (they gave everyone a free, unannounced, figure who backed the Plunderstrong and Plunderlong Kickstarter), but there’s some hints if you check out their YouTube channel which is home to some awesome stop-motion animation. I am definitely looking forward to what’s on the horizon with Lone Coconut and their Plunder Planet line of toys.
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