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DirtyBits Toy Review - Egan from Fantasy Grove
🕑 Added 2023-04-19 12:00:06 +0000 UTCThis week I am looking at my Medium Egan in Soft Firmness (00-30 Shore) from Fantasy Grove. Egan is their dragon inspired model, and he is very greedy.
Right off the top, this toy was a gift from one of my listeners; I did not buy him. This review is not sponsored. A massive thank you to You Know Who You Are; he is a jewel in my collection for reasons that I will now get into.
Visually: I have to talk about the paint job. And I mean that in the most literal of senses; this toy is a really beautiful example of silicone hand painting.
Some quick context on silicone painting, from my understanding of things: Painting with silicone is a skill in itself. It is different from working with paint; Silicone is gloopy and can be hard to control. If the painting is done wrong, it can lead to unsafe toys. Working with silicone is time sensitive which adds to the complexity of the painting process.
Toys featuring hand painted elements are growing in popularity in the space as more shops learn the skill and get better at it. This process can be used to paint features on the model, such as detailed eyes and teeth, as well as general design motifs such as tiger stripes, and cow print. Some shops specialize in creating one of a kind hand painted custom toys. It’s a really cool design trend to see.
This past October (2022), Fantasy Grove created a really beautiful Halloween themed toy, with a haunted house against the moon, surrounded by a graveyard, skeletal trees, and bats. The painting goes all the way around the toy. The windows of the house are lit up and glow in the dark, as does the moon. The toy is UV reactive, giving it a spooky vibe under black light.
Just, a really cool concept in general. I really liked it. It was very popular in the dong space and the shop was upfront that it would be priced according to the work the toy took, which is to say, higher than a standard Medium Egan. Without going into specifics, I was able to get him. It still feels a bit like a dream, if I am honest.
He is really impressive. The painting is clean and clear, even over the uneven base. The shading details in the moon are so whimsical and the bats are amazingly detailed. The shaft itself and the “background” of the image is a pretty desaturated Halloween-ish purple with a blue micro glitter that takes a bit of focus to find.
I think my most favorite part of the painting is the moon.
Then it comes to the sculpt design. I will be honest in saying, I overlooked this design for quite a white. I’m not really sure why, besides, perhaps he looked a bit plain to me. He is a thicker model with a tapered head, and three gentle, bubbly ridges down the shaft to a softly wider base. The toy has an overall taper to it from the left to right. When looking straight down the shaft, the toy has a bit of a ‘D’ silhouette, with a flat underside to the shaft while the upper side bulges up. It’s basically a short pillar.
Overall, the design is kind of bubbly and melty and cartoony in that distinct Fantasy Grove style. The paint work really makes this a highlight piece in my collection and I think Egan wears the look well, even if I overlooked the design for so long.
Usability: The tapered arrow shaped head works really well for me, making it easy to get the toy inserted. Then, it's basically all about melting down the shaft; The ridges down the shaft are delicious and are a really nice, gentle texture to make things a bit more interesting. The finish on the toy is very smooth, so it glides in the wetness.
A single issue I have with the model is that the base of the toy is quite wide, which makes it hard for me to grip when I am trying to thrust with it in missionary. On the other hand, this base is really good for riding and grinding and bouncing on.
A personal issue I encounter with a lot of toys is: in the riding position, my body wants to grip the toy and take it with me, rather than getting the in and out action that I'm trying to produce. Something about the width and weight of the base of Egan, coupled with the slight taper of the toy shaft makes this toy very stable when I ride it. I really like that element of the design.
Overall: The design of this toy is fairly straight forward; it's a bubbly, cartoony take on the classic bubbly shaft toy. It can be a bit easy to overlook because the design isn't terribly dramatic. The base is a bit of a struggle to work with.
None of that stops it from being a very effective toy.
The unique paint job is an extra amazing contribution to this model. It is hard to find something with quite the same look as this one, but this model looks great in the more commonly produced pours that Fantasy Grove produces, and they produce some really lovely pours.
I said this toy is a jewel in my collection; I hope you can see why.
