While I newly acquired older figures for this project which were included in the original post for chronological ordering, all of the figures in this post are new acquisitions-- more older toys I just got or figures which were released after I put the hobby aside due to other things demanding attention, and these figures not showing up anywhere near me in stores. These all are part of the official Hobby Revival!
[Please read part 1 and part 2 of this series if you haven't already.]
Special- Rolling Robot
I couldn't resist having both robots after all.
I just loved the brighter, more toylike colors of the Rolling Robot recolor...big surprise, huh.
This figure is essentially identical to the previous Special robot save for the coloration of the parts and prints, and the addition of the antenna accessory.
I decided to differentiate this figure a little bit more. I put a neon yellow gas mask on the face under the helmet to cover more of the silver and make his helmeted head more seamlessly yellow, and swapped the hook arms out for the armored ones I'd previously given to my custom alien astronaut--he got the original arms of the human astronaut back instead. I also decided to give him something else as an accessory-- I think his passion is jazz.
Super 4- Sykronior 6
This is a fun newer alien figure from the Super 4 theme, which was generally wacky and blended all genres with figures featuring a divergent aesthetic. I don't know anything about these Sykronian aliens, but a figure that largely recolors this one will be releasing in Fi?ures Series 24, and I wanted both, as well as generally preferring this one as sold.
The upcoming Series 24 alien. He'll be good--with a different torso and arms. |
Sykronior is reminiscent of classic retro sci-fi, and his tiny stature (using the shorter leg height debuted for fantasy dwarves) and cape and bubble helmet remind me quite strongly of the Martian Leader in Mars Attacks!
Ack ACK ack ack ack-ack! |
The helmet is a new two-part assembly consisting of the clear bubble, with a prominent but necessary gap at the bottom to make it easy to take off, and the shoulder armor that holds the bubble and has pins on the back for his cape to attach. The head locks the bubble armor onto the figure, and I'm not too interested in popping him, so I'll get a better picture later when the Fi?ures mimic appears-not that I think there's much to learn from popping. The shoulders are molded onto the arms, but the pink curl on front, the cape, and the cuffs are all separate parts.
Sykronior's head seems to be unique, featuring black molded-on hair and defined brows and spikes on his cheeks. His underlings have pointed heads with no hair and no face contouring. I'd really love to get one of them, too, but offerings on eBay aren't selling them alone and complete.
I'm not sure if Sykronior's design really meshes or not. Maybe the white is too much color-wise, but there is something really authentic and charming about his proportions and details. I just switched out his gun for a more retro blaster look, and I think that helped.
Fi?ures Series 15- Fiddling Grasshopper
This is just brilliantly creative to me-- he's a classic storybook anthropomorphized grasshopper fiddler (since their leg chirping is commonly compared to string instruments) and he's achieved by a genius reframing of the alien head sculpt as an insect--all it needed was a new no-hat antenna hairpiece that fit the head, and it works perfectly as a bug head.
The tuxedo jacket is also perfect, providing tails that mimic a grasshopper's wings. This guy is just absolutely charming and fun. I don't know if the tattered leg sculpt is the best (he could have gotten away with shoes) but I love him.
Fi?ures Series 15- Butterfly Fairy
This is another one of those figures I just thought was very pretty. Her blue and yellow colors are really lovely.
My fairy's left hand looks a little warped or melted, but it's still functional and I don't mind it too much.
This torso sculpt has a square hole in the back which the one-piece wings plug into. It's a limiting factor because the torso has a hole in it and the wings are static, but it aids authenticity by making the wings into more of a part of her body than the wings that clip onto collar pins are. This isn't my first fairy with this wing system (she's my second), but the other one isn't quite as notable for this discussion. There's also been a spikier equivalent and a dragonfly-wing equivalent to these wings that work with this torso in the same manner.
Duo Pack- Vampire and Frankenstein Monster
This set was bought entirely for the latter figure, who I admired for years. Playmobil had done a few Frankensteinish monsters after debuting the half-lidded scarred klicky face print, but this figure is their most cohesive and beautiful take on the archetype in my mind.
Here's the set.
The vampire isn't too different from the older Duo Pack vampire. He has a mustache and a fancier redder outfit, plus a nice scepter using the same bat piece as the Series 10 Vampire Woman. His face is printed unusually high-up on his head.
To differentiate this figure, I turned him into a king.
But the Monster is what matters to me. I love him.
He's the first figure I've gotten with the bald-on-top friar's tonsure hair sculpt, and it suits him. His face is super endearing, and his detailed outfit feels like just the right mix of tattered and elegant. He's green, sure, but on the whole, he feels much more like an interpretation of Shelley's erudite, soulful, desperate literary character rather than the Universal monster.
His longcoat is a new messy sculpt with tatters and uneven lapels, and I like the layers depicted in his outfit. He feels like a Victorian German citizen who's had a bad time, much like Shelley's Creature. His chain clips around his wrist, and I think the other loop goes around a figure's neck, but it doesn't on him because of his coat.
This is just a perfect figure to me. The color palette is gorgeous, the detail is wonderful, and the figure still feels very classic-Playmobil and charming. He's a new favorite and was well worth the buy.
I have this figure and I like him...but I much prefer Playmobil's creepy-ass take on it.
Fi?ures Series 17- Mother Nature
At least, I think that's what makes the most sense to call a mountain/tree woman with birds and flowers living on her! It's an unconventional concept, but I think the use of a lei, birds, the jungle-guardian rock body parts, and a leaf piece to plug into her hair gets the effect across very well.
I just don't think the ugly sorceress face works for her, particularly since it's not a double-sided head like it was in its debut for the Series 6 sorceress. I had to order a spare Poseidon figure to give her a classic green head-- the sorceress's head has the right classic face on one side, but it doesn't work because it's double-sided-- this hair doesn't cover the hair notch on the front of a two-faced head. I put the Neptune arms on her too to keep the hands the same color and gave her more foliage to hold and increase her tree-on-a-mountain look. I really love the result.
EverDreamerz Mystery Figures Series 1- Lady Nightmare
The EverDreamerz theme is something I know little about--I only know it was a fantasy narrative theme with cool themed mystery series, and the line got cancelled before Playmobil could release the promised and revealed fourth magic-themed series of mystery figures, which would have had some real winners. A couple of figure designs from that series managed to escape cancellation and got released or reworked in the Fi?ures theme or add-ons, but some are doomed to be unreleased forever. EverDreamerz had sets designed, if not released, but it also had series of twelve mystery figures, with I believe six male and six female characters each. Series 1 was themed on sweets and candy, Series 2 was themed on comic books, Series 3 was themed on music, and Series 4 would have been magic. Many unique characters appeared in the series, but a few recurring ones, who I assume were regular cast members in the story, were in each series with a new design each time. My instant favorite of Series 1 was the overlord villain of the EverDreamerz story--the awesomely-named Lady Nightmare, whose sweet motif seems to be a mix of dark chocolate and cherry cake. I needed to get her once I saw her, but I wasn't big on online buying then, so she remained a pipe dream. After logging into the toy aftermarket for real and deciding to stoke the embers of my Playmobil hobby again, Lady Nightmare was on the immediate shortlist of catch-up figures to buy.
Lady N looks like she could be anything from a witch to a vampire to just an extremely ominous old woman--she perfectly captures a Victorian austerity and evil-old-lady operatic villain theme. That new poofy old-grande-dame hair is such a perfect piece and it feels like something from Playmobil's inception, not a modern element. Her face is similar to the red-eyed fairy faces, but with thin harsh brows, no eyeshadow, white eye highlights, and a beauty mark. I like this face design a lot. The fur trim on her dress and her vampiric cape make me think she could be Romanian or Russian, though she could be an Englishwoman as well. The English dub of cartoon clips for EverDreamerz makes her sound not-elderly and American, but I'll choose to disregard it because it's not a great voice performance and I can imagine her however I want.
The print is messy but still appealing, and I was surprised to see the narrow cape, umbrella, and fur trim are all deep chocolate brown rather than black. The cape could be perfect for a Playmobil Count Chocula!
Though the Jada Toys figure is already the best Chocula toy I could ever hope for. |
Here's a back view, with the hair band removed. This is a small ring of rubber, which makes me worry about it decaying and breaking apart. I think this piece could and should have easily been plastic.
Here's her entire assortment-- she comes with a cake plate (the cake part snaps onto the plate part) and a separate slice of cake that clips onto her cake server, and like the rest of the Series 1 figures, she has a cupcake charm to thread onto a bracelet of your making. She cannot securely hold the cupcake by the loop on the bottom--it's purely for the owner, not her. The Series 2 charm accessories were pencils, which I think the figures could hold, and the Series 3 charms were double music notes, which I think they couldn't hold.
EverDreamerz figures are not meant to pop, but I popped Lady Nightmare after heating her in boiling water and gave her a Fi?ures frame, which allows her to pop without extreme methods now.
Of the three Lady Nightmares that were released, her debut is my favorite. Series 2 comic Lady N is pretty similar to the first--she's just wearing an all black-and-white suit/dress outfit with pants printed onto the skirt in a really awkward way.
I'm sorry these pictures are so bad; high-quality renders aren't available. |
Music-themed Series 3 Lady Nightmare has silver hair and a completely different classic face without evil spooky eyes, and frankly doesn't seem to deserve her name at all with this design.
What's ominous about her here? |
The unreleased Series 4 Lady Nightmare was awesome and I dearly wish I could have gotten her--she has Bride of Frankenstein or Lily Munster-esque black hair with white stripes, white skin, and a red-and-black fairy theme with red dragonfly wings!
As shown in my first photo of Lady Nightmare, I display her with her umbrella and her cake server with the slice, with the cake plate put into the parts collection. I think there's something amusing and terrifying about a Gothic old woman brandishing a cake server at you!
Scooby-Doo Mystery Figures Series 1- Ghost Clown
The Playmobil Scooby-Doo line didn't impress me too much and most of the faces felt off to me in their imitations of Hanna-Barbera's 2D line-drawn animation. However, the Ghost Clown from the first mystery figures series seemed pretty classic and Playmobil. Here's the animated character-- one of the earliest non-Joker examples I can think of in popular media where a clown was made out to be frightening.
And here's the Playmobil rendition.
I like that his face feels like a Playmobil design, not Hanna-Barbera slapped onto Playmobil, while still being very accurate! |
This is the first evil clown figure produced by Playmobil. Interestingly, neither LEGO nor Playmobil have yet produced a single straightforward evil clown character they designed themselves--all of their evil clowns are licensed characters, though LEGO has come extremely close with an evil jester in the medieval-futurist Nexo Knights theme and clown civilians possessed by evil ghosts in the Hidden Side theme, where the clowns have ghost parts that swap out with the civilian pieces to display the ghost transformation.
The Ghost Clown makes use of the mascot-suit body shells to bulk out his frame and emulate a baggy costume, and he's got a fat body underneath.
He also has clown-shoe clip-ons that embellish his feet. |
I think printing his costume on his underlying body would have been sufficient and granted him more articulation, but the effect of the clown suit pieces is visually pleasing, and the suit allows the black triangle on the front to come down lower and more accurately on the body.
The Ghost Clown has a double-sided head with a generic face on the back to reenact the classic monster-hoax unmaskings in the show, much like LEGO's minifigures in their preceding Scooby-Doo theme. The Ghost Clown is one of several Scooby-Doo characters made by Playmobil but not LEGO.
There's also a yellow dot at the tip of his asymmetrical hat. |
Many Playmobil Scooby monster figures have colored heads in fantasy tones with the "unmasked" face printed in flesh on top, but here, the pale monster makeup is painted on a flesh head.
The Ghost Clown's hair should have gotten a fully new element, and of the shapes that are available, the prince's curled bob would have been more accurate, but when I tested this, the hair and the clown suit didn't fit together properly due to the suit's pointy shoulders.
This is a good argument for the clown not having the suit and just having his costume printed on his underlying fat torso--he'd be able to wear more accurate hair. I still think he looks really good, though.
Lastly, his balloon has jack-o-lantern faces on both sides.
The monster figures also come with clear slates with a sticker to apply of the character as depicted in the show. These slates were able to slide into a projector inside a coffin in the haunted house playset, which let you magnify the images.
Fi?ures Series 18- Crash Test Dummy
This was a concept LEGO was way ahead on, having included a crash dummy in their first series of Minifigures.
Playmobil's dummy figures have skinny bodies and new neck pegs and separate heads to give them a ball-jointed neck that makes them look more springy and mechanical like a real crash test dummy.
The back of the peg has a small protrusion, but it isn't needed to pull it out easily. |
The head is similar to the skull heads of full Playmobil skeleton figures in shape and function (those figures also have ball-jointed necks) but this sculpt has a smooth simplicity and includes a ridge in the front and back that lets it wear klicky hats. I love the unnerving happy face that is klicky-standard at the base, but accented in a clearly unhuman way.
They've also made newer skull heads for this neck peg to make realistic skeleton figures with classic-klicky bodies, and the newer skull is sculpted to wear klicky hats better, too. The original skeletons could wear some headgear pieces very loosely and not in a fixed position.
Dummy figures like this have appeared in mainline Playmobil sets, but the differences are few--those have black "briefs" in their leg pieces, and those figures can't be pulled apart--which is absolutely why the Fi?ures version is ideal!
My dummy uses female skinny arms which are curved, and I don't know if he's meant to, since it seems like the torso isn't clicking together fully tight like it should, though I don't think it ought to make a difference.
The accessories this guy comes with are a clipboard with a page of trial data and a steering wheel, indicating a hilariously much darker crash-test outcome than the LEGO minifigure, who only has a detached license plate!
I also think this could very well be a monster mannequin figure because of the creepy face and head joint...
Both of these guys are kind of equally cheerfully-dangerous, though. |
Fi?ures Series 21- Gargoyle
This is a fairly familiar sight, as this Fi?ure seems to be another response to one of LEGO's, here covering the LEGO Minifigures Series 14 Gargoyle...but more is more and it's fun to see the differences.
The Gargoyle is made entirely of speckled light grey plastics, and is one of the first uses of the newer ear-headband with attachment points to depict his gargoyle horns. These would later be reused for a Faun who's coming up soon, but he has a different hair sculpt the band plugs into.
The Gargyole has just the one face, and while I'd have loved a more classic klicky face made monstrous, this isn't the most offensive. I also hadn't realized until getting the figure and putting him together that he has the muscular arm sculpt. Fun!
His boot legs also work oddly well, and the lantern is a great choice.
The two gargoyles look really nice together.
To make his face more agreeable to me, I scraped off some of the details and painted over the eyes and fangs in black to eliminate the outlined-cartoon look and make the face a bit more klicky-standard. It's an improvement, if not ideal.
Fi?ures Series 21- Dracula
Of all the vampires Playmobil has made, none of them made me feel willing to honor them with the name of Stoker's famous character, but this medievalish, almost JRPG-esque take on a vampire earns it in my mind. He deserves to be the Dracula.
I really like the shaping and the flexibility of the new longcoat, but I'm going to try not to get attached to it since I have no faith it'll age with dignity-- this kind of Playmobil rubber never holds up that great; the only piece they've made of rubber that seems to have any longevity is the spiky hair mold.
I think this is a really nice scary face that doesn't step too far from the klicky template. It's all printed and no other option is provided--or necessary, in my opinion.
Fi?ures Series 22- Zombie Butler
I was curious about this figure because I liked his colors and bald head, but was really hesitant about his overly detailed goofy face. I decided to get him and check him out, but...
Yeah, I just couldn't buy it. The head also didn't shape up well for repainting-- covering the eyes and mouth in solid black was easy enough, but trying to remove the wrinkles with acetone deformed the plastic and the facial proportions weren't correct to treat it as a classic klicky face. The head was kind of a bust despite the appealing hair, so I ordered two options to seek a classic head-- an extra Series 7 Poseidon since his head was the right color for sure, and a Series 11 zombie, since some in-hand photos of that figure made the head look distinctly lighter than the hands--and the head would land in the correct color for the Zombie Butler's arms.
It ultimately turned out that the Series 11 zombie head was the darker tone of the Frankenstein monster and Series 6 evil sorceress, so the Poseidon head was what I ended up using. Since I didn't have spare no-hat hair and the face was so basic, I decided the butler concept wouldn't work and shifted him into a zombie chef instead. And what's he serving?
Ribs, of course.
Fi?ures Series 22- Land-to-Sea Mermaid
This was another one I wanted for being pretty, but I also found her concept kind of novel--a beautiful mermaid lady in a fancy skirt that keeps her tail hidden away.
The pale pink stars on the skirt are plug-in pieces. |
No merperson would wear a skirt underwater, so it must be her land guise to integrate with humans--I think it might even represent a "human to mermaid" transformation--while she wears the skirt, you're meant to view her as having legs, and you take the skirt off for when she goes back under the sea. I love the blue, silver, and gold colors, and it was nice getting a figure with the intermediary mermaid tail design-- a static skinny-body leg piece that's now been mostly replaced with the articulated skinny mermaid tails which have bending waists and tail fins. Since the male Series 22 set includes a merman warrior with an articulated skinny tail, I suspected this figure only used the more obsolete static one so it would fit under the hoop of her skirt.
She has a fashion-face design and I think she wears it well, but mine isn't printed great and I knew I'd always prefer a more classic-klicky-standard face, so I got one for her. I also put a blue bow on her braid, and an aqua bracelet with her gold one to deck her out a little more.
Gorgeous.
Fi?ures Series 22- Atlantean King
This was something I ordered because I wanted to verify my hypothesis about the previous Fi?ure--that her tail was an obsolete rendition because the skirt needed something small. This guy in the same series was an easy way to get a tail that worked okay with her design and was a nice enough figure to keep on his own if it didn't. Spoilers: the fin is indeed too large for the skirt, so he gets to remain intact as a cool merman figure!
Like all Playmo-mermaids now, he uses a skinny body, but he also has muscular arms, which is interesting because I think they have to be a separate mold from the ones that classic klickies can use--the Gargoyle we've seen has them, so there must be two versions of the sculpt. The king has a golden helmet with a fun fin-like silhouette that looks great...
...and a nice muscled breastplate that makes his torso look beefier. It clips onto the front, leaving the back a bit awkwardly exposed, though. A two-part chest armor combo that fully enclosed his torso in the same vein as a clip-on skirt or dress would have been ideal. It still looks good, though. I like his coloration a lot, and I don't think I would change anything here.
The new mermaid tails have a waist hinge to seat the figures, but their tail fins also hinge. They can hinge forward to serve as a foot like the previous two mermaid tail sculpts, but they can also hinge flat or in other directions to look more swimmy and dynamic.
The translucency of the bottom of the fin is a nice touch, and I like the splash of green.
Fi?ures Series 22- Bumblebee Lady
This is actually Playmobil's second take on the concept, with both coming after LEGO's own Series 10 Minifigure. Still, sometimes Playmobil gets it best after their first iteration, like with the Series 8 Witch, and this is the case here, too.
This was the LEGO minifigure.
And this was the Series 14 Playmobil Fi?ure.
Photo from Coleka. |
But I like the Series 22 take best of all.
She uses the new headband system to give her antennae (this headband is earless), and the stripes and black colors are well emphasized to contribute to the bee theme. I like her more frilly cute look, including the wing collar which gives her a nice bumblebee ruff. But I got her for another reason. She has black hands and I had a black head with huge yellow eyes...
I've documented my work in taking Monster High's bumblebee monster and remaking her as something else, not just once, but twice. It was only right, then, to take something else and turn her into a bee monster to make up for it! I think she's still cute, and the robot face works great here--I definitely prefer her using it, and the Neon Robot himself was never a top favorite--I only worked with him because his parts weren't demanded by something else yet. I think the bee has a lot of personality this way!
Bee-ware. |
I am so glad this figure is made to look gloved because this alteration would have been a bust otherwise. I like the original form, but I'm so glad this idea worked out.
Playmo-Friends- Faun and Snake Lady
These were instant-buys once I saw them. I love mythology and these figures both had unique lower bodies in the skinny range. They're from the Playmo-Friends line, whose niche is hard to identify the full purpose of. They're not quite Special Plus caliber, so maybe they're meant to be like Fi?ures that just aren't blind-packed? I feel like any of the Playmo-Friends could conceivably be in a Fi?ures series and honestly don't know why they aren't, but hey, more is more.
The Playmo-Friends come in blister packs, and they're the type you need to slice into from the back since pulling the bubble off takes a good amount of card off too.
Here's the Faun (or Satyr, if you prefer the Greek).
He uses the same horns and headband as the Gargoyle, but the same hair as the Bumblebee Lady. The red hair color is fun. His quiver is attached to a peg on his waistcloth and contains two arrows, which have bars on the end to hold (or to plug into a bullseye target piece Playmobil has made). There have been arrow pieces that were basically a triangle you folded up and stuffed into the quiver to create the illusion of separate arrows, so I prefer the newer pieces. The Faun has a skinny male body and his new goat legs bend at the waist.
I didn't like the color of the Faun's waistcloth, and I kind of thought it was breaking with the classic silhouette of the creature, so I decided to pop the figure with hot water. I replaced the waistcloth with an orange collar with a peg that could hold the quiver, from the Series 11 elf woman. I swapped his black bracers for matching orange pieces that were from the same elf Fi?ure, and both worked well with the red hair. I also switched the head with a rosy-cheeked tan Fi?ures one because I didn't like the stubble on his face and thought the more youthful look suited the image of fauns as happy-go-lucky characters.
I'd have given him a red beard piece if the hair allowed it, but the hair sculpt is too tight for any face accessories and the horns and ears are more important by far than a beard.
Now the Snake Lady.
She has a long dark brown braid and an Asian "fashion face" print. I haven't seen her staff before, and I like the black viper and golden cobra. Her snaky lower body is a newer skinny sculpt and does not offer bending at the waist, though she stands up well.
I liked the figure alright as she was, but I thought black hair and a more classic klicky face would improve her--this fashion face was acceptable, but I knew she'd be more special to me with a classic face. I decided to pop her and swap her head with the one I had from my Fi?ures Snake Charmer--which was originally the same as the Indian Princess's, but with the eyebrows and bindi scraped off now. I thought the face had become ill-suited for the Snake Charmer as a result of the paint removal, but it would be an improvement on the Snake Lady, and the Snake Lady's face worked pretty well on the Snake Charmer.
For hair, I gave the Snake Lady a short black ponytail that could wear a hat, and so I put a golden scalloped crown on her, plus a golden feather, both from Magi figures. I gave her a golden cape, also from the Magi, and she got the Faun's black wrist bracers to bring more black in for balance.
She looks like a regal Serpent Queen figure now, and she looks like a classic Special set now with the traditional face design. She's a very cool figure. However, the Fi?ures head clicked into her snake-tail frame more loosely than I'd expected. It's functional, but you can tell there's something up with her head.
Add On- Genie and Thief
I think it's absolutely wrong for this not to have been a main-release set in retail. And of course I needed it the second I saw the Genie figure.
The set came with three arm bracers, and I decided the Genie deserved to have the complete pair. |
As mentioned earlier, the Genie is the rehabilitation of a cancelled EverDreamerz Series 4 figure design, and she's gorgeous.
She has pale blue skin loosely emulating Disney's famous depiction, and a fairy face with a uniquely purple mouth color, and a long black braid. Her tail reuses the snake sculpt, now cast in translucent turquoise (it looks way greener at certain angles, like Invisi Billy's legs), and the print of her outfit is good, although it's only on the front. I think this figure's torso should have been cast in the dark blue with the lighter blue neck skin printed onto it so she'd look more complete from all angles.
My Genie's tail came out of the mold a little askew--she leans forward more than the Snake Lady and she tilts to her left to a noticeable degree.
It's annoying this happened, but it doesn't ruin the figure for me at all.
The unreleased EverDreamerz version of the Genie we saw would have had different torso print and the same hair and crown as the Series 3 Indian Princess. I can try out the latter aspect:
It's a good look for her, but the braid and no crown work well with her too. I'm giving the Indian Princess her hair and crown back because I can't spare them, but these are the parts you'd need to make the unreleased figure even more of a reality.
Okay, that's the mostly-official stuff done for now! Next up, we'll look at figures I pieced together entirely on my own creative character impulses. Stay tuned.
I can see why you like that Frankenstein's monster, he has such a sweet face.
ReplyDeleteMy favs this round gave to be the cricket and the fairy! Though points to the mermaid and snake lady too, the drama of the ball gown is so neat! Lady nightmare really rocks them.
I like that there are two mermaid tails, there are such a variety of fish, so why not?
The dummy goes right on the line between charming and cheerful and very unnerving. He looks s happy compared to the resigned Lego version, but lighting makes a big difference on how friendly he seems!
Good call on the mother nature swap. That first face felt dangerous, speaking of threatening characters!
Oh, and that unreleased deer girl has my whole heart, she's so sweet!
ReplyDeleteThe deer was actually lucky enough to get her release--she was relocated to a spot in Fi?ures Series 22!
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