Sideshow Shrine of Dagon Action Figure Environment

At a list price of $89.99, the Shrine of Dagon Action Figure Environment is not the kind of accessory that I’d normally buy – after all, it costs quite a bit more than the usual action figures that I’d choose to display with it. But after a visit to the Sideshow booth at San Diego Comic-Con, I found myself with a gift card (they hand them out cards with random amounts on them) worth $75.

I’d been looking for something like this ever since Sandman and MattK started raising the bar on their photo sets with intricate set pieces that make my plain background pictures look pretty dull. So for $15, this was a complete steal.

I’m not sure why I took pictures of the box – perhaps it’s habit. But suffice to say the most interesting part of the box is how big it is. Sideshow lists it at 11 3/4 x 11 x 8 inches.

The piece itself is heavy – it’s 6 pounds and feels completely solid. And it’s big, at 5 1/2 inches high, 8 3/4 inches wide, and 10 inches deep. As it was too big to really fit in my lightbox, these pictures weren’t lighted all that well – and as such they don’t really capture the subtleties in how the piece is colored. The sculpt has a ton of detail, and it’s very interesting to look at from any angle. It’s really gorgeous.

This piece is billed by Sideshow as a figure environment for 12-inch figures. While I think it’d work fine for figures in that scale, my primary interest was to have a set piece for the bulk of my figure purchases, which are in the 6 and 7-inch scales. And for them, it really works great, fitting multiple figures and enhancing the look and feel of what might otherwise be an ordinary shot.

The $89.99 price tag may put it out of range of many of us, but if you’ve got the scratch and are looking for something to spice up your display, this would be an excellent piece for that purpose. You can pick up the Shrine of Dagon at Sideshow Collectibles.