Photo Shoot – NECA Iron Maiden Piece of Mind Eddie

Iron Maiden has one of the most recognizable mascots in all of music. Eddie, aka Eddie the Head, has adorned their album covers, shirts, posters, and memorabilia since the band released their first album. Eddie has taken on various styles and persona’s related to the album title or single over the years. The iconic character artwork was originally done by the amazing artist Derek Riggs, though many other artists have contributed to Eddie work since the 90’s. His deranged, undead like visage was and is a huge part of what makes Iron Maiden a staple of 80’s and 90’s metal.

NECA has been releasing Iron Maiden collectibles for almost as long as I have been covering them. It’s been a staple of their music licenses and when they launched their retro 8″ Mego homage line, Eddie was a natural fit. Their third figure in the line harkens back to the great Piece of Mind album by Iron Maiden. NECA was kind enough to send one along for us to check out. Read on to check out the images and my thoughts on the figure, which is available now.

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NECA – Iron Maiden “Piece of Mind” Eddie 8″ Retro Figure

Pros

• Wonderfully sculpted head
• Great attention to detail
• Nice articulation
• Good use of cloth outfit

Cons

• Can’t really move arms

Overall
A little background on my Iron Maiden love. My into to Iron Maiden came in the mid-80’s when I first remember seeing Eddie on posters in a music shop my Dad would always go to. As a kid, I would always try to mimic the Eddie character art. It wasn’t until 90’s that I began to listen to Iron Maiden and other metal bands. But Maiden has been a staple in my playlist since then, with Killers, Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, and Somewhwere in Time being a few of my personal favorite albums. With the Piece of Mind Eddie figure being my first foray into NECA’s Eddie figures.

Eddie was always a great choice for the retro line. The numerous design changes from album to album just seemed to be a right fit. Piece of Mind Eddie an especially good take (though I think The Trooper version is hard to top). The figure features a gorgeous head sculpt. The paint applied does a nice job of calling back to the colors on the album cover, with a little yellow on the right hand side and blue on the left. Eddie is strapped tightly into a straight jacket which features fine details on the straps and locks.  There are some nice tears, frays and even stains to give in a nice worn look. The paints have some long rips and tears in them, allowing the specially sculpted feet to be seen. Eddie wears a collar with chains and a lock, which are all separate pieces.

Eddie features the same articulation that defines their retro line. The only slight bummer is there’s no way, that I saw, to unhook the straight jacket to move the arms around, as they are fully articulated inside the sleeves. I didn’t want to risk ripping seams, so I left it as is. However, this is in keeping with the album cover look, so I get it. The joints in the hips, knees, feet, torso and neck were all nice and tight. I didn’t experience any paint sticking in the joints, so I never had to break out the hair dryer. Basically, ran into no quality control issues.

Overall, this is a very solid version of Eddie. Fans of NECA’s Iron Maiden figures would be grabbing an iconic, great looking figure if they picked this up. On the pics you will notice I accidentally left a twist tie on one of the arms. I liked the bound look it gave, so I kept it on for a few shots before removing it.

*NECA provided this figure for review purposes

Check out a few select photos below and the full gallery after that.