Detailed FoC Grimlock

Sorry for not posting in the last few days... I had some organizing going on in my computer room and actually haven't really been online much. Anyway, last weekend I decided to touch up my FoC Grimlock transformer (or is it considered Generations Grimlock? I don't know...) I ended up painting a lot more on it than I expected to, but I'm really happy with the results. I think that it really added some depth to the figure (if you get what that means) and it really makes him stick out on the shelf. Check out the pictures and video below to see for yourself:

 

Digi-Warrior Rapidmon / Gold Rapidmon Review

I got this Gold Rapidmon Digi-Warrior figure in the mail the other day, and I must say that it looks GREAT. I bought it because it was very reasonably priced, and I don't own one. As someone who either owns or has owned almost every Digimon figure released in the US, I couldn't pass up the chance to get him, being an extrememly limited edition release figure.

I decided to go ahead and do a review of both Gold Rapidmon and the regular version of Rapidmon, as they both, just like all the other Digi-Warriors, are stunningly great figures in my own opinion. For being released around 2000, the quality of their paint, articulation, stability, and just overall design quality are extremely impressive to me. I honestly don't have a bad thing to say about them.

You can get the figure in almost any pose you want, as there are several points of articulation in each limb. At first it was a bit difficult to get a pse where the face of Rapidmon was showing, but with soe manipulation of the hip joints and torso joints, it worked out rather well in my opinion.

I'm hopeful to do some more Digimon reviews in the near future, as Digimon is a franchise very dear to my heart, and I'd love to get some more reviews out there of the figures. More awareness for the series is always great too, as I feel that this line is one of the overlooked gems in the recent history of toys.

Now that I've gushed over my love for these figures and the franchise, you can get a more comprehensive review of the two in my full video review below:

Transformers Tuesday - Classics Rodimus Review

As you may have noticed in my haul post from Saturday, I got this Rodimus figure this weekend. I'd been looking for a Rodimus for quite some time, and was able to purchase this one because it is missing it's weapons that come with it. That's fine with me though, as I really just wanted a Rodimus to go in my collection.

 

The figure has a pretty good look in general, and looks nice on display, even when just standing there in a not-really-posed kind of way. The detail on the figure is quite good in my opinion, and the transformation is a lot of fun. In all honesty, the alt mode is a blast to play around with.

 

 

Unforunatly though I do have a decent amount of "cons" to talk about with this figure. My first few nitpicks are that he's a bit too bulky in spots. The lower legs are pretty huge comparted to everything else, and the red plates on the sides of his upper legs are pretty immobile, so they often look like the entire leg is one solid piece. Another area where the figure is pretty bulky is in the chest itself. My issue here is that it is at its thickest along the figures upper chest, so whenever you look at the figure from any kind of a downward angle, all you see is the block of red and you miss all the detail of the chest piece/hood because it is at an inward angle towards the torso.

 

My last issue with the figure is the lack of articulation in the arms. In the picture above you see the elbow at a 90 degree angle... and that is literally all the arm can do. There is no rotation at the elbow, no movement past 90 degrees, and no movement side to side at the elbow either. In other words, it's just pretty limited there.

Now I know that it seems as if I've listed more cons than pros to this figure, but in all honesty it isn't all that bad - I think I'm just nitpicking because it isn't the perfect Rodimus figure for me. I'll be on the lookout for a better one, (and hopefully a new generations one soon, but this will do for now.

Check out my full video review below:



Transformer Tuesday! - Generations Air Raid Review

When I first bought Air Raid I didn't actually have any plans to keep him - got him at a good price and was going to resell - but then I got my hands on the figure and it was one of the best Transformers I've played around with in a long time. Now that's not to say he's perfect, just for some reason I absolutly adore this figure.

To begin, he's surprisingly good figure in robot mode. There are some really great example of articulation here, especially in the arms and legs. Very sturdy and stable as well. The paint application is very impressive to me - the silver looks really nice, and so does the red and gold. There's still a lot of detail remaining on this figure that would look great being done up with some paint - a huge plus for anyone looking to customize this figure.

 

His transformation is rather complex - in the perfect way. Instead of it being like a typical Bumblebee figure or something, and trying to cram all of him into a tiny space, the transformation itself was very fluid, and the complexity/ingenuity of it continued to surprise you along the way (if you know what I mean). All around it was probably the best time I've had transforming a figure since I messed around with Generations Blaster about a year ago.

Alt mode itself is great too (sorry I don't have a picture). I've actually had him displayed in alt mode more often than in robot mode, and that's really saying something for me. The weapons he comes with a very impressive too, especially the sword. The sword in itself is a fun little toy, and it would have been more than enough alone, but the weapon in the picture above is included as well. What is it exactly? Well, I'm not too sure. I have it posed as a gun/laser bayonet kind of thing... and I guess I still kind of like it! It's really that great clear red effect part and gold barrel that make it all so nice despite the fact I have no clue what it's supposed to be or how he's technically supposed to hold it.

 

Finally, there are a few criticisms to the figure. Mostly they have to do with the articulation. While I don't mind this too much, it could be bothersome to some people. The feet have a very small range of articulation due in part to his design, and the head has very little articulation too (more so because of the transformation than design here though). Another negative is that the legs are mostly hollow - this is really my only nitpick of the whole figure, as I wish they were just a little bulkier. As you can see in the second picture here or Air Raid straight on, they just look a little tiny; like toothpicks on him. But all in all, these complaints really hold no real meaning to me as the overall aesthetic and superb transformation of this kit make him one of my favorites in quite some time.

 

 

My overall rating of Generations Air Raid? 4.5/5

 

For my full review of him, check out the video below:

 





HMM Shadow Fox Review

I posted a review of the HMM Shadow Fox yesterday on my youtube channel, so I figured I'd highlight a few things about the kit and post the video here as well. This is an unpainted kit that I snapped together, a first time experience for me and the HMM line, and I must say that I think it turned out spectacularly.

The kit has no detailing, panel lining, or any other kind of work done whatsoever, and it still looks fantsatic on my shelf. In particular, the gold on this kit is very impressive. The gold has no marbling to the plastic like the HMM Dark Horn Harry Special did, and looks nearly flawless. The other molded colors are nice as well, but the gold really is the winner in this category.

Articulation is very impressive as well, as each different segment of the kit has a wide range of movement and posability. In all honesty, I really can't come up with any criticisms to give this kit - its truly one of the best representations of what the HMM Zoids line is. I highly reccomend anyone interested in the line to pick one up.

For my full video review of the model, check out the video below:

Digi-Fusion Shoutmon Project

I recently purchased the entire first wave of the new Digimon action figure line, called Digi-Fusions. They're a pretty fun line to play around with, as all of their parts can be swapped around with the other figures to make new creations, or digivolutions from the show, such as Shoutmon X4 and MetalGreymon. The most fun aspect of the line though is that Digimon figures are back in stores! As a big fan of Digimon, and even bigger fan of the toys, I've been waiting to see this ever since their last release in 2004. Here's hoping the line does well!

Anyways, as fun as the toys were, I still had a few issues with the production of some parts of them. For instance, many of the pieces are nearly hollow, and make for a very light weight and cheap looking figure. Some of these hollow parts are neccesary for the "fusion" ability, but most are not. Therefore, I decided to "customize" some of the figures and try to make them just a bit better.

I am starting off with Shoutmon, just to try things out and see if I even have the skills to do this. I've repainted action figures like Transformers before, but I've yet to venture out into full-blown modifications, even as simple as these may be.

I used a combination of three types of putty/clay, being the Milliput Epoxy Putty, and Mr. Hobby Dissolving Putty. I began though with some simple Air-Dry Clay bought from Wal-Mart. I used this to fill the most of the holes on the figure itself. After this dried, I went over the top of it with a bit of dissolving putty just to seal it in there, and finally placed the epoxy putty over that.

The epoxy putty dries very hard and can be sanded down to be smooth. Any little knicks or imperfections in the sanded epoxy putty can then be fixed with just a bit more of the dissolving putty.

Although it kind of looks like a mess in the picture, the arm piece here is actually extremely smooth, just as the pre-molded plastic is. Putting a bit of primer and paint on this will (hopefully) make it look like it was originally produced this way.

I have about half of the pieces to the figure completed now, and I've been working at it for about a week. Most of the time is spent applying putty, waiting for it to dry, sanding, and repeating the process until you have a nice clean piece. I've also only been working on it sparingly in my spare time so it's going a bit slower than it could because of that as well.

And incase anyone's wondering, I'm using 400 grit sandpaper to start out the sanding, and moving to 600 grit to finish it up and smooth everything out nicely. I hope to get more work on this guy done soon, but honestly I have no clue when I'll get him completed (especially the painting part). Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later though.

 

Transformers Tuesday! - Generations Waspinator Review

Welcome to my first installment of Transformers Tuesday! Each Tuesday I will be reviewing a Transformers figure - some old and some new. In this case, it's the brand new (at least to me) Generations Waspinator!

As someone who grew up watching Beast Wars, finding this figure was a top priority for me. Unfortunatly I live in a small town in the midwest - not exactly a hot spot for new transformers releases. So nearly a month after most people got ahold of theirs, I finally found one at a Toys'R'Us last Sunday. I was ecstatic to finally find him, and I must say he didn't disappoint.

First a foremost, I want to highlight just how great the all around sculpt for this figure is. From the head all the way to the legs and feet, he looks absolutly perfect. Even the paint work that Hasbro put into this figure was very nice, the only place that was missing is a few details on his face. What really stands out though is the paint used on the Wasp's eyes, the perfect shade of metallic blue really makes them shine in his Wasp mode.

Another cool feature to him is that his wings flap up and down. There is a little tab on his back that when pushed makes them flap. It is a simple feature, but one that is surprisingly effective in my opinion.

He also comes with his weapon, as seen in the first photo here, that doubles as his stinger in Wasp mode. While it is a nice weapon, I do feel as if some paint would have greatly helped it out. As you can (barely) see in my photo, it is competely transluscent and just blends in to wherever you have him displayed. While this is just a minor issue, it is the one that I actually plan on fixing with just a bit of paint.

Lastly, the only real issue on this kit is his lower legs and feet. While they look great (that paint and scuplt is beautiful) the articulation is sorely lacking. The bend that you see in the picture above is literally all that he is capable of, and it doesn't help that his feet don't move side to side at all. This can make posing him a pretty big pain, especially when you want to get  him into a pose other than just standing straight up. While the leg movement is a significant disappointment in my opinion, it still doesn't make him not worth buying. For anyone that loves Beast Wars, or anyone that just wants a really nicely scuplted and painted Transformers figure, this guy is worth a buy.

My very nostalgia influenced rating? 4/5. Check out my full video review below.

HMM Berserk Fuhrer (Fury) Inner Frame

Here's the painted inner frame of my HMM Berserk Fury. It's  really solid inner frame, and can get in lots of poses as you can see from the pictures below. I really applaud Koto for making a full inner frame on this guy, as I think it's a feature that really puts it in the upper tier of the entire HMM line. Personally I wish that all, or at least a lot more, of the HMMs had full inner frames that could be displayed on their own.

I still havent completed the armor on it (had a bit of a mishap that means whenever I do complete it, it will be a "battle damaged custom) but I'm happy displaying it like this, just as I would have been happy displaying my Liger Zero as just the inner frame. Check out the full gallery of pictures below!