The Workshop: Paul Benson’s Nabler to Bothead conversion!

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Knives

Think of it as a belated Christmas gift.. or whatever flavor of gift you prefer. Unless you don’t like gifts, in which case you’re a sour puss and have no joy in your soul.

Regardless, my main man Paul Benson is back with another great workshop for kids and grownups alike.

– Knives

Custom Nabler head to Bothead

ThreeA have released a number of severed Botheads, including a Mortis Intruder Bothead in 2010 which I really like, although don’t have one in my collection. I saw the opportunity to convert a similarly shaped Nabler head into a severed Bothead.Can I say again, my workshops are not about following the script, but they stand as set of techniques and tips that may be useful to someone out there customizing.

So, here is the Nabler head I started with.

CONVERSION:

I set about the conversion by removing all the pipework in recessed bottom of the head using a little circular saw tool on a Dremel. Tidying up was done with a scalpel. The plastic from which the head is made is surprisingly soft and fairly easily cut with a scalpel blade. The eyeball was carefully cut up into pieces using the Dremel, the pieces being taken out through the front of the orbit using fine nosed pliers.An oval shaped piece of plastic was removed for the head to give the impression of damage and a possible internal explosion. Several burning matches were run along the edges of the hole to soften the plastic so that it could be bent slightly upwards and outwards. By accident the plastic caught fire and took on a charred appearance which hinted at the damage sustained after a fire.The next step would be to find bits that would look like internal workings of the head and severed electrical wires and hydraulic pipe work. I have a plastic box into which I throw all manner of bits and pieces that might be useful for converting things. I wanted something that looked like it would connect mechanically downwards to the rest of the robot. I settled on a plastic linkage part for plumbing. I cut this in half with a saw and dry fitted it into the bottom of the head. There is narrowing inside of the head with a continuous wall which narrows the diameter. The plumbing fitting would glue onto to this perfectly. I felt it would be good to see some sort of internal computer/electrics. I needed something that might contribute both little circuit boards and possible mechanical workings. Time to sacrifice one of those mini RC helicopters, the ones that fly indoors, that no longer worked. I careful pulled it apart and ended up with some framework, with a small circuit board from the fuselage of the helicopter and the drive shaft to the rear rotor. After several tries and tweaks the circuit board was wedged up against the hole at the top of the Nabler head, in a position so that it looked like it had just be thrust into the opening by an internal explosion. The drive shaft was threaded through the plumbing part as it was glued into position and then wedged within internal bore of the same with a piece of styrene tubing and electric cable.

I used 3 core electric cable to further wedge the plumbing part in place within the head. All parts, at this stage, were then secured in place with Superglue. The cable was used as is, or with the three wires protruding and with the three wires removed. One of the drive shafts from the heli was glue into position as though it had been wedged into position when the damage occurred. A couple of bits of plastic that had been cut away with the pipework was removed were just stuck randomly in position.

The little charging cable with fitting was detached from the heli controller and wedged into position amongst the parts in the recessed head and then glued into place.

I guess the watch word for the internal fittings, was ‘just be creative’.

The next stage was painting. I tend to use Humbrol acrylic aerosol paints as base colors Starting with matte black the recessed bottom of the head, eye orbit and damaged area were spray painted first. These areas when them masked off using kitchen paper and masking tape. Although the Nabler head was originally red, I fancied that color for the finished Bothead too. I went with a shiny red as I remember from my aircraft modelling days, it is best to put waterslide decals on a prepared shiny surface as it reduces ‘silvering’ where silver like marks show up underneath the decal. I would matte spray after applying the decals.

The circular top part of the head was then masked off and sprayed matt white.

To make the decals, that would be placed on the back of Bothead, I bought some clear waterslide inkjet decal paper. The decals were designed on Photoshop and printed on to the shiny side of the paper. After letting the printed images dry properly they were then sprayed with 3 coats of clear acrylic spray, allowing 30 minutes for each coat to dry before spraying the next coat.

The decals were then cut out with scissors. The decals were then placed into a shallow container of clean water. The decals were then positioned on the head and carefully slid off the backing paper. Excess moisture was then removed with kitchen paper. To matte down the red paint and seal the decals, the head was sprayed with matte acrylic varnish. Unfortunately a little silvering was present, but I would cover this over with paint when applying the weathering.

PAINTING:

As the first part of the brush painting stage I started by using thin strips of masking tape to section off two quarter segments of the white circle on top of the head. I have found that masking off is just as useful when using a bush as when applying paint by spraying it. It works in exactly the same way and can give perfectly straight lines. The unmasked segments where painted a pale blue. I painted round the eye and the two semi circle on each side of the head with white.

All of the recessed bottom part of the head, cabling/pipe work and the hole higher up on the head were then drybrushed with a dark grey and then a light grey to bring out the detail.

I have begun to use Citadel ink washes, bought online or from a Game Workshop store, more and more and selected a sepia colour mixed with black to give the head a complete wash. The head was placed in the open top of a jam jar to keep it upright as the wash dried. More of a darkened wash was applied in certain areas and encourage to flow down to look a like oil leakage. Some of the scratches and depressions on the head were picked out in black.

To give the impression of wear and tear lots of little specks, in dark brown and black, were applied all over the head using bits of sponge. Through trial and error I discovered the best type of sponge to use is an artificial copy of a natural sponge, if you know I mean. Cut up in random shaped chunks probably no bigger than 5 cm by 5 cm. I tend to mixed paints on an old piece of glass, so having put some paint on the glass I dip a piece of sponge into the paint and dab of the excess onto kitchen paper. I just worked round the head dabbed the sponge against it and there in a random manner.

I then used MIG weathering powder, old and new rust, on and old paint brush. The powder was run over some of the white areas to give a rusting effect. It was run around some of the detail half way up the head, round the eye etc. and round the bottom of the head. The spray over with matt varnish later would fix the rust pigments.

Final detailing just included emphasizing the dints and scratches by painting them black. More oil trails were half applied with a brush and half allowed to run down the side of the head from the structures on the side of the head and the hole at the back. Watered black paint was used.

Next to paint with silver to give the impression of paint being worn off back to bare metal due to wear, this was done after the head had been sprayed with matt varnish to matt down all the paint and fix the weathering pigments. Matt varnish over silver does not work and ends up looking grey! The silver was drybrushed onto the head around the lower edges at the bottom of the head and inside the recess on one or two parts, that well be metal.

Finishing touches.

The eye had been left open and would be covered. As a clear cover, I went for one of those ‘googly eyes’ I took from a mixed set of sizes bought at a local craft shop.

The 20 mm was the perfect size although no so straight forward to fit as I thought! The back part was careful cut away with a sharp scalpel and the little black pupil discarded. Fine forceps were used to hold the clear cover whilst a little Superglue was applied to a small section of one side opposite to the forceps. It was then gingerly placed into the eye hole and held in place until the glue took. More Superglue was then applied around the edge of the eye hole. A piece of Bluetac was gently applied to the front of the cover so that it just held the cover. The tweezers were put down and the eye eased into placed. The Bluetac was take off when the glue had taken. Now it would have been handy to have and extra hand to do this and I did need several tries to get it right! I don’t think this is strongest fix and the cover would probably fall through into the eye orbit with a heavy tap, but is has held in place despite taking the eye on outside trips for photography.

I wanted to put into the recess some extra pipe work dangling out. Thought it would be good idea to have some clear tubing, looking as thought it had just drain from it. I found some clear heat shrink tubing used for insulation. The idea being that when it is heated it contracts in diameter onto wire. Placed in hot water it contracts down to narrow clear tubing that works fine. Having cut suitable lengths I made up some yellowy brown thin paint and sucked it up into the tubes. It was then allowed to dry in the tubes, which it did in various random patterns which looked quite realistic. The tubing was then just glued into place were there was slight gaps.

The Nabler to red Bothead conversion was my second go. Included below is my first one, which I painted grey and applied more rust as a filter. The eye was done in a slightly different way. A circle of clear plastic styrene was cut and then small triangular section cut away to represent shattering. The lines to show cracking were etched on with a sharp scalpel blade.

A big thanks to Paul, who in my opinion is a master of the toy mod community and a big thanks to all you who keep coming back for more here @ RtR!

Happy New Year!

Review 3A’s Ma.K. Kröte PROTOTYPE

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Knives

*please note that this version of Kröte is a prototype and final details may change before ship date.

INTRO

Just in time for Rad Toy Review’s 1st year anniversary, ThreeA shipped us their brand new Ma.K. Kröte prototype to play with. The bambaland.com drop fort the same item was just a few days ago, and has since come and gone. Never fear late bloomer, the retail version (the same version I’ll be reviewing today) will be available via 3rd party retailers very soon if you missed him the first time around!

I’ve been aware of Kow Yokoyama’s designs from years of building my eclectic collection of robot and game design references. His designs are instantly recognizable and in my opinion, nudge away from the status quo of what the future of robotics will look like. There’s something very physical about the way he creates his robots in that while still “from some distant future” they look very conceivable given even the limitations of today’s technology.

Kröte probably wouldn’t have necessarily been my alpha choice for ThreeA to push out the door. That would have been a version of the S.A.F.S with an accompanying pilot. (Because, how awesome would that be?) That being said, what ThreeA has done by releasing Kröte first, whether intentionally or not, is show how amazingly well they can handle the minutia of unique details packed into Kow’s complex designs.

PACKAGING

As I received Kröte well before it’s estimated ship date, there wasn’t any packaging, posters or kittens included. Just Kröte loose in a well padded shipping box.

Consider this area a place holder for it’s future package art..

WHAT’S INCLUDED

Not too surprisingly, Kröte is basically self contained without any accessories to speak of. The thin long antennae and small radar grid are the only loose bits. The antennae slides into a little hole on the side and stays in pretty well. The radar on the other hand, doesn’t so much as lock into place as allow gravity to sorta hold it there. After much wiggling about, I’ve determined that a small glob of paint must have snuck it’s way into the slot, preventing the radar from nesting properly. I’ll have to mess with it more later, perhaps simply glue it in place, but for now I have to remember not to bump into it for risk of losing it.

THE BREAKDOWN

Dang.

Kröte is one busy bot. Loops, chords, wires, bolts, switches, ladders, wheels, rivets. My eyes bounce all over the place on him and at first it’s challenging to find a spot to rest them. It’s probably a bit like beating a dead horse at this point, but by golly, ThreeA are the masters of their craft. There are so many incredibly small, yet detailed pieces literally head to tail on Kröte that I have a hard time believing it’s a mass produced product. It looks as good as what you’d expect a custom model maker to create.

If you’ve been collecting designer action figures for awhile, you may be a little jaded at just how well 3A bots are conceived and realized. Go to Target or Toys R Us and walk down the boys action figure isle. That should hopefully remind you.

Other than the various unique details littered all over Kröte, there’s a few new techniques I’ve not seen before on a ThreeA toy. The one that stands out the most is a pretty heavy use of “wielded steel”. Sections don’t just clip onto each other with a clean seam, they have wielded details to add to the believability that what you’re looking at is hard steel and not a PVC/plastic frankenstein.

One of the things I was surprised about is that 3A’s Kröte doesn’t feel especially fragile. Despite all the tiny details and things sticking out here and there, he feels solid. There’s places for your hands to naturally go so he’s pretty easy to grab and pose on a whim. In fact, the areas that you need to grab to move a joint seem to have details (like wires) that feature a little give so they don’t snap off should you need to apply a little pressure to pose.

The main thing to play with on Kröte is it’s legs. Honestly, I struggle a little bit with the look of backwards legs. It’s iconic and it’s a great design, but my stubborn “toes forward” brain rejects it. It took me some time to get used to it because as I mentioned before, Kow’s unique designs seem to ignore some of the standard norms of what robots should look like. For me, it’s at the same time, off-putting and refreshing.

The first thing I did once I had Kröte on the table in front of me was figure out what wiggles and what doesn’t. The head swivels back and forth like a tank turret to a full 360 if desired. Each leg has several points of articulation. The first is a ball joint at the hip that allows for the widest range of motion on the leg.

Following down the leg to the foot you run into 3 swivel joints, each with a different allowance for movement.

The joint next to the spring has very little range. Also, if you’re curious, the springs don’t actually do anything but add to the aesthetics. The “knee” joint will go from a 90 degree bend to almost completely straight. On the knees themselves are small adjustable shields. The ankle joint is also pretty limited in how much you can bend it, but they move enough to help keep Kröte balanced along side the heel flap that you can adjust up and down.

With legs fully extended as far as his balance would allow, Kröte stood just over 12 inches. Pushing one leg back and the other forward and bending the joints to their extremes I was able to get him as low as 9 inches. (Antennae not included)

“Kröte, a toy for every any display case.”.. TM.

I do feel like there are perhaps a few missed opportunities where moving parts are concerned. For example, there’s a wheel in the engine detail that looks as though it should turn, but doesn’t. More starkly, the radar up top looks practically made to rotate, yet it’s stuck fast. There’s a few other small examples, none of which ruin the toy of course. It would have just been cool to have a few more things to figit with.

Overall, I’d say you get the appropriate amount of articulation for a bot like this. He won’t be pulling off any Jackie Chan moves, but I wouldn’t expect him to.

One thing about this review is that it should have come out days ago. But since what I received was the figure and nothing BUT the figure.. I had a difficult time figuring out what batteries were used for the lights and gun as their are no labels or symbols to guide me. I’m sure this won’t be an issue for the version you end up with as it’ll most likely include some well illustrated docs that clearly light the path. Me on the other hand.. I ran back and forth to town to grab sets of similarly sized camera batteries over the course of three days attempting to power this bugger up!

I finally caved and dropped Kim of 3A a note, something I probably should have done right away. He promptly sent back some photos showing that Kröte uses not two single batteries, but 6 stacked coin batteries.

Doh.

Palm to forehead.. moving on.

Pic Kim sent me to show battery placement

To install the batteries you must first open a hatch on the side of the head. This is also where the two switches for the electronic bits are. It’s a little strange that 3A decided to hide them in a spot that’s not easy to reach. Most people will just want to be able to tap an easy to access button to make the gun work. Instead, you have to remove the side hatch, then flick a switch on/off. It’s not as intuitive as it probably could be.

You can watch our short and sweet video of the switches and lights in action below.

As you can see, the gun rotates and the barrels flash as they “fire”. The barrel rotated a little slower than I expected but the barrel tip lights are pretty cool. I like how the yellow lamp light is set back and gives a sort of yellow eyeball effect.

I think it’s a really cool feature done fairly well, I just wish the buttons to turn them on and off were in a place easier to get to.

The paint application 3A dolled out onto this version of Kröte is in the general ballpark of what you’d expect from them. Overall, it’s solid with some really nice weathering (particularly on the legs) and a few sharp decals. I really dig the white patina that’s added to some areas, really adds to the realism.

I think where it slightly misses is in the faint camouflaged areas. I used to work with a company that designs camo prints so I might be a little biased here. The patterns are so softly applied that they look more like random color smears than actual faded, rusted over camouflage. I tried to find some official Kow examples to see if this is how he designed the color scheme or if it’s purely a 3A design but couldn’t find anything conclusive. This criticism could also just be my preference in wanting a little cleaner of a bot for once. But making clean-ish robots isn’t really 3A’s thing.. making dirty, rusty, big robots is.

So if you came for that show, I think you’ll be very happy.

THE FINAL WORD

With Kröte, ThreeA continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in collectible toys. I say this knowing full well that I’ve claimed the same thing in the past three or four consecutive RtR 3A toy reviews. Full discloser I’m going to keep saying it until it isn’t true. Kim and his crew at ThreeA’s Hatchery definitely know their stuff. But more than that, they show no signs of slowing down new development. Like Ambush and REX before, Kröte isn’t made up of a bunch of premade pieces. Most, if not all, of him is built brand new from the ground up.

As usual, through the fog of compliments and positive impressions, I did find a few things to complain about. Not everything perfectly hits all the notes with me, but it comes pretty darn close.

If you’re a fan of Kow’s Kröte design, then I really believe you’ll love how ThreeA respected it with another incredibly impressive (and obtainable) toy. It’s certainly has me looking forward to seeing how ThreeA handles the rest of the Maschinen Krieger Universe!

PROS:

Holy grandma, is this guy detailed. The level is such that a custom hand made model would struggle to match it
Kow Yokoyama’s design is almost perfectly realized
Light and gun rotating effect, while a little sluggish, looks really cool
Solid feel, despite delicate appereance
The most unique looking toy I have on display

CONS:

The switches for the lights and gun should be easier to access and not hidden away in the battery case
The radar piece didn’t fit securely on top of the turret
I wish the painted camo details were a little more crisp and defined
A few small details look as though they should easily move, but don’t

A big thanks to Kim and 3A for sending us an early taste of Kröte to play with. Much respect!

Review 3A Red Devil Lady Sham

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Knives

INTRO

Ashley Wood’s comic Popbot, sits as an incomplete work of wonderfully illustrated comic confusion. Over the course of his convoluted canon, Ash pops various characters in and out like disposable income, spending them as though they exist simply to get us to the next page and show off another, seemingly endless supply of beautimus sketches and paintings. However, there are a few concrete, dyed in the wool key characters that carry the large majority of his story.

One of those characters is the singing, boozing, womanizing cat, Kitty. We’ve all seen him in various toy forms, packed in with both 1/12 and 1/6 Popbots. The other character who I’d consider the protagonist of the books, is Lady Sham.

As toy collectors and fans of A.Wood’s artwork, you’d better believe the much discussed release of such a key character would be sort of a big deal to us. Sham had been oft mentioned by Wood himself as “coming soon”, only to have those words disappear into the ether as weeks turned to months, months to years. Along with various other long promised figures, Sham has been in the works for a very extensive time now. One can only assume she was being refined and perfected for an epic release befitting such an iconic Popbot character.

Finally, they did it. 3A announced that Lady Sham was indeed coming out this year. She’d be sporting her traditional black stretchy attire and hair. From the early teaser pictures, she looked all around awesome!

pic by ThreeA

“Yaaaay!!” cheered the 3A fans.

Except that she was to be an exclusive to an art show in Hong Kong that only a handful of people would ever be able to attend.

“What the.. ?? Nooooo!!” cried the 3A fans.

I get why exclusives exists but I can’t explain to you the “why” in “why” Ash and 3A would decide to do their fans this way. I can only assume due to the outcry (and the on going claim from Ash and 3A that “nothing is planned”) they decided to throw us commoners that have continually stamped their meal ticket by buying up everything they put their spit shine on, a bone.

They promised to release other versions of Sham in the near future!

A short time after RVHK, 3A came through with that promise and teased a picture of Pure Sham as well as a sale date. She was basically the negative of the exclusive Lady Sham, sporting all white with dark hair and light blue lipstick. To add to the fire, there was talk of a “Casual” Sham that Ashley said would drop as either a 3AA exclusive or surprise. While Lady Sham is often depicted in a white jump suit like Pure, I just wasn’t feeling her as much as the original all black version. I decided instead to hold out for Casual, who’d been in several A. Wood pieces.

pic by ThreeA
Pure Sham

Then it came down from top brass that Casual wasn’t going to happen. No reason really given, but one can assume that something as lean as a girl character in a tank top and jeans didn’t “wow” Ashley. I’m guessing she probably looked more like a stylized barbie.. not something most of us would be interested in enough to pay for.

During the course of the Pure sale, a quick sketch of Red Devil Lady Sham in all red and a tuft of white hair popped up on the ThreeA Production Blog. I refreshed bamba, and there she was. I have an affinity for red so added her to my cart. At the time I still had a 003 Caesar on the way and I must have giggled audibly as I imagined how cool the two would look together on top of my shelves.

Unfortunately, 003 didn’t do anything for me. The dull red colors and cheap looking plastic killed my enthusiasm for a dynamic, bright red collective on my shelf. Without her planned companion, I admit my enthusiasm was damaged for Red Devil a bit. On the other hand, Queeny was truly awesome and in my opinion, one of the most fun and original characters from 3A this year. Plus, Sham’s been in the works forEVER now. She had to be perfect, right?

I put a little faith in the devil and tore open the box.

PACKAGING

The box art wasn’t a huge surprise. We got the same sketch that teased Red Devil when she first popped up on bambaland. It’s a cool sketch for sure, but after seeing the excellent painting that came on Pure Sham’s, I was particularly jealous that Red Sham didn’t get the same treatment.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

Red Devil Lady Sham came packaged with a couple extra bits that further set her apart from the other Shams. She gets an extra gun and gun holding hand as well as the curious little plastic puppet dude, Mr Bridger. The inner packaging is obviously from previous Shams, so there’s no plastic shell for any of these additions. Mine were loose and floating around in the bottom of the box. Mr Bridger had somehow freed himself from the little plastic bag he was supposed to be in but arrived unscathed.

From what I understand, Mr Bridger is either THE devil, or represents the devil. Either way, he supposedly a puppet that talks to Lady Sham. In toy form, he’s a piece of solid molded plastic.

THE BREAKDOWN

Right out of the box, I thought for sure I’d love Lady Sham. Stylistically, she looks fantastic. Her face is frozen in an unamused, heavy eyelided gaze that says she’d just as like shoot you in the face as look you in the eyes. Her red lips and white hair are cleanly painted with no paint bleed onto other surfaces and contrast nicely with her red body suit.

The fitted red suit is crafted in such a way that it leaves little to the imagination. It fits her tight, literally foot to chin. It has a sheen but it’s not shiny like the faux vinyl that previous Tomorrow Queens came in. The material is also fairly stretchy, not quite spandex, but along those lines. This is a good thing seeing that you must pull and stretch the sleeves out in order to pop the gun hands in and out. A large black zipper runs from the back of her head to her waist. I assume this exists so you can take the suit off if you need. As form fitted as this suit is, I can’t imagine anyone attempting it for any reason.

Sham comes default with both neutral hands installed. I can’t tell if they’re meant to appear relaxed or “itchy finger-y” but they’re all new sculpts just for her. The way the suit is sewn to encompass the hands looks phenomenal and goes back to how well fitted the suit looks. I do wish the fingernails on the hands were painted. It seems a little lazy to skip out on this detail, especially on such an important figure in Ashley’s world.

I love how large and dynamic her feet are. My wife has maintained that she “hates” how Ashley Wood paints women’s feet, where areas, it’s one of the things I find most charming and unique in his work. Sham’s feet embody that aspect very well. I was also very surprised at how easily she balances. Traditionally, the female figures from 3A are as challenging to stand as a new born doe finds it to walk. The only thing I can contribute that to is her larger feet. To repeat the sentiment I had concerning unpainted fingernails and with all the attention Ash gives to his lady feet, it seemed a given her toe nails would have been painted. A shame they’re not.

Red Devil comes with twin holsters for her twin cannons (not those, get your head out of the gutter). The guns themselves are basically repurposed 1/12 Popbot guns painted black with bright red handles. They look cool enough and are slightly different, but I can’t help but wish Ash had designed something completely new for such a pinnacle character.

Popping Sham out of the box and putting her on the table I thought, “Wow, she looks really great.”

Then I tried to pose her.

Underneath all that stretchy red suit is a highly articulated female body. A highly articulated female body that you will never be able to take advantage of.

Unintended double entendre aside, the suit is both the best thing and the worse thing about Lady Sham. It has give, so you can move her around some, but because it’s wrapped so tightly around her and the material has resistance to hold it’s form, you won’t be pushing her into anything overly dynamic looking.

For example, you can left her arm to point her gun and bend her elbows to adjust the angle some. However, depending on how stiff your figure’s joints are, you may or may not be able to rotate the elbow around as the suit just pulls it right back to however it’s been sewn in. The same can be said for her wrists and ankles. The other issue with the suit lies in the material itself. As I mentioned before, it’s like spandex, but not really. It honestly feels a little like something you’d find a durable balloon to be made of. Thin fibrous rubber. I noticed this more as I posed her arms and moved her waist around. The material stretches, but after a few bends, doesn’t quite go back to it’s normal state. It bubbles at the bends ever so slightly and the fabric starts to show signs of wear.

Seeing that happen this early on and with as little posing as I’ve done with her, it seems highly unlikely that the suit will hold up very well or very long.

Continuing with my suit complaints. The fact we have to stretch out the material to swap out the hands and then via some archaic game of chance, attempt to pop the tiny wrist peg blindly back into the wrist hole without snapping the fragile plastic is pretty ridiculous. I have no other way of saying it other than to say it’s a bad design choice. They should have had one gun hand installed as default and a neutral hand for the other. It would have made the most sense for 99% of the people out there and not require anyone who want’s Sham to hold the only accessory she came with to chance ripping or over stretching her suit.

While I dig the twin holsters, the straps that go across her waist to hold them in place, are incredibly unfinished. They look like spare strips of fabric that someone quickly ran some scissors over to toss around her waist. (Update: Looking closer at her other strap, it seems the top one is heavily frayed and the other is not. So I don’t believe the fraying, scissor cut look is the norm and hopefully nothing you need worry about. The bad news is that I need to contact CS for a replacement. The good news is, 3A CS has always been awesome for me and you most likely won’t have the same issue with your Lady Sham)

Another small thing that’s unique to Red Devil and probably unavoidable is that “X” the holster straps create around her waist, make her look thicker in the middle than she is. Picky? Yeah, but I’m allowed to be.

THE FINAL WORD

I haven’t been this torn over a figure in a long while. I feel like I have a good deal more to say in the “what’s lame” category than I do in the “what’s awesome” one, but I still think she’s a really cool figure and I like having her in my collection. She’s just not as cool as I think she could have easily been.

I love Red Devil Lady Sham’s design with her slinky eyes, bright white hair and fitted suit. I love how much her red suit stands out on the shelf next to my other TKs and TQs. She truly does look unique despite sharing some of the qualities of previous 3A figures.

The suit is an aggravating itch and the focal point of Sham’s problems.

I hate how limiting it is and truly fear for the longevity of it. The material has give, but doesn’t seem to be very strong. Just posing her the little bit that I have, is already showing signs of wear. Not good.

If you’re into having at least one of each figure from the Popbot line, then you could do worse than Red Devil. Overall, I like how she looks just as much as I did the original black version and far more than the “Pure” version. Since I haven’t had a chance to mess around with the other variants I don’t know what, if any, differences there may be in the fit or feel of their suit fabric.

The ideas behind Lady Sham make her an interesting and cool looking figure. The sleeves slipped over her hand and sewn into her shoes give her a really sleek, streamlined appearance that holds true to much of the iconic artwork she was pulled from. On the other hand, those elements complicate other things that 3A forced on us, like swapping out her hands for “useful” ones. The suit is a perfect example of 3A once again going for style over substance.. or style over functionality.

I suppose in a lot of ways, it makes sense for them to do so since their properties are almost wholly driven by an artist well known for shifting his interest and doing things the way he wants them done regardless of other’s input.

I can’t fault them for that, but for a figure that’s supposedly been in the making since day one of 3A and that’s so important to Ashley Wood personally, she feels strangely rushed. Like a couple steps were skipped during production causing what could have become a true classic 3A toy to simply being another 3A toy.

PROS:

Red Devil Lady Sham looks almost exactly like I’d want her to. Her design is top notch
The suit looks fantastic and is neatly sewn for a near perfect fit
Her face is perfectly painted and sculpted to capture her no-nonsense personality
I love her big pointy toed feet
She’s a breeze to balance

CONS:

The suit only looks fantastic. It functions pretty poorly and seems as though it will deteriorate rapidly with use
Some QC on her belt looking frayed (updated: most likely an isolated situation)
Why isn’t at least ONE hand set to be a gun holding hand by default. It makes zero sense.
Unpainted finger and toe nails are sad finger and toe nails
Mr Bridger is supposed to be a puppet, but isn’t.

Review 3A Real Steel Ambush

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Knives

INTRO

When I was a kid, you could probably list my significant interests on a single line of paper. Super heroes, ninjas, robots, monsters, comic books and movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford or Michael J. Fox in them. Like a lot of kids my age, ridiculous or not, I loved action-packed entertainment.

If it had a robot or some promise of karate, I wanted to know all about it. I was obsessed with the stuff. Lucky for me, the 80’s pretty much banked on those concepts. It wasn’t about the quality, it was about the quantity of how many in-your-face explosions and muscle bound heroes they could shove in front of you. Watching those same movies now, mature me can certainly see how my tastes failed me in my youth. Most of these “films” are tragically terrible. I think this realization is what has had me avoiding the vast majority of “action-packed” movies as an adult. Nowadays, I find that I can’t comfortably roll with the cheesy cinema.

A good example of cheesy cinema was last year’s robot fighting movie, Real Steel. It was big and flashy, with some cool, realistically rendered robots (thanks to Dreamwork’s CGI chops) punching each other over and over again in the face. End scene. The storyline seemed as though it was essentially ripped from Stallone’s 80’s flick, “Over the Top”. Some movie exec took that thin prose and married it with Rock’m, Sock’m Robots. My skepticism was pretty high so it was passed over while in the theater only to be picked up months later when it became available on DVD. I didn’t expect it to be very good and big surprise, it wasn’t.

But what I also didn’t expect was that I actually liked it. For the first time in years, I embraced the cheese and enjoyed it. Something about the film tapped into that 80’s nostalgia that used to push my buttons when I was a kid. Maybe it had something to do with how disappointing all the Transformer films have been. Here were these giant, cool looking robots beating the crap out of each other. As a youth, that would have been all I needed to dive head first into bugging my parents to buy me as many of the related action figures as the family’s “spoiled only child” budget would allowed. The story and acting was completely secondary.. nay, THIRD-ary. It wasn’t Shakespeare, it wasn’t art, it was just cool to see big robots beating the heck out of each other.

image copyright Dreamworks Studio

So, what am I getting at?

3A, one of the top high-end action figure toy manufacturers in the world, signed a fat deal with Dreamworks to make high-end figures based off the Real Steel franchise. When I first heard about it, I thought it’d be quite the conundrum for collectors. On one hand, it’s robots and 3A is ah-maze-ing at making robots. Probably the best out there. On the other hand, it’s a robot from a movie that wasn’t very good to begin with and isn’t really that popular with anyone who is old enough to afford 3A robots.

With all of 3A’s other toy lines tying up my play money, it was pretty easy for me to pass when the first figure, Ambush, was up for pre-order. While I thought the film was fun and the pictures 3A used to show him off looked intriguing with all of his intricate-looking, gear-supported articulation, it wasn’t quite enough to rally my interest and loosen my purse strings.

A few weeks back I got a surprising email from 3A that they wanted to send me Ambush to review. This was a definite first and something I was very excited about. Still, I was a little hesitant because I didn’t feel that jazzed about a Real Steel robot. I tried to keep an open mind and wait for him to show up. I had no doubt that the figure would be at the very least… neat. The thing I wanted to see most was if Ambush was cool enough for me to be able to ignore the franchise and simply be interested in a cool robot for the sake of a cool robot, much like the ten year old me would have done back in the day.

Well sir, the delivery man has arrived and it’s time to answer that question.

PACKAGING

The outside of the box is pretty minimalistic. A logo here and there with some of Ambush’s stats on the inside flap. My favorite stat being, “Cost – Won him in a bet”. Said flap has a magnet that keeps the lid secure. Upon opening it, I found that Ambush received one of the best packaging jobs from 3A yet. There’s several layers of molded dense foam between you and your robot, each piece carefully placed to protect all the delicate bits. If you have a Blind Cowboy/Ghost Horse set, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

For starters, there’s that hard to ignore, giant blue robot, Ambush..

If you ordered yours from Bambaland, you’ll also receive the exclusive little robo-remote. Don’t lose too much sleep if your order doesn’t include one because, while it’s a nice looking accessory, without anyone to hold it, I’ll most likely keep it in the box instead of having it on display.

Bummer alert, batteries for Ambush’s eye lights are not included. However, a small slip of paper on the inside flap describes how to install them once you rustle some up.

THE BREAKDOWN

My first impression, Ambush is one nice looking robot. There are so many gears and tubes running all over this guy, it’s a bit of a marvel that 3A pulled this off so elegantly. He looks, needless to say, very accurate to the film. If he’s not made up of 100% all new parts, he’s at least scoring in the high 90’s. Scanning him over, I can’t seem to find anything that 3A reused from their previous robots. I’m not seeing a Bertie, Bramble or Dropcloth anywhere amongst the detailed assets.

The overall build of Ambush is a mix of solid plastic and some slightly flexible shell-like pieces. On his back especially, there are strips of decorative parts that seem a little delicate, though they do have some give to them that keeps them from feeling overly brittle. Thankfully, they’re not really in areas where you’re likely to put much pressure when posing him.

There’s definitely a lot going on with various layers of highly detailed robo-parts overlapping other highly detailed robo-parts. Everything blends together cohesively and believably. One thing that really impressed me was that there are no visible ball-joints like those found on 3A’s own robot designs. Everything is structured to and succeeds in looking like a believable 1:whatever scale of the actual robot, if he were an actual robot.

Ambush is covered in the Triple Ds, dings, dents and damage. There’s the kind of stuff you’d expect from 3A in terms of scratches and overall molded-in weathering which are, of course, apparent. But what’s impressive is all the dented areas that look legitimately torn up. Beyond his signature dented “snarled” lip, there are various edges of the sculpt that are crinkled and sport believable battle damage appropriate for the not-so-successful fighting robot that Ambush is supposed to be. The asymmetry of the damage also adds significantly to his realism. Take all that and combine it with the paint work and it’s pretty difficult to tell if what you’re looking at is plastic or an actual metal robot.

Speaking of paint work…

The paint application on Ambush is next to none. It’s hands down one of, if not the, best paint work I’ve seen on a 3A robot. I’m not exaggerating. You can tell a lot of time and care went into the detailing. Rust looks good and crusty while stripped away bits of paint show shiny steel underneath. The only parts that do not share the same impressive application are the tiny pistons that support Ambush’s articulation. This was probably a good call to ensure that as stuff moved around, it didn’t become funked up over time. I do wish that 3A went with actual metal rods here instead of the clean plastic ones as I think it’d look better overall, but what’s here works well.

So he’s a marvel to look at but how does he dance?

Well, from a technical standpoint, he’s amazing. For example, when you twist his wrists, 4 little pistons rotate, expanding and contracting with the motion. Similar gears are at work at almost every articulation point and it just looks fantastic. The thing about Ambush is that it isn’t just how he moves, it’s how his various parts work together and how they look when he moves. He’s a plastic machine of independently moving parts working together. It’s a joy to see.

The Good: Ambush has a really solid range of motion in his shoulders, elbows and wrists. I didn’t figure it out until near the end of our shoot that his wrists not only turn, but bend up and down. You can get most of the rock’m sock’m poses you’d want to out of him. He can get a fairly wide stance to help balance his upper body heft. His legs, particularly his knees, ankles and the balls of his feet, work really well to keep him from toppling over, as well as give you a few nice pose options. Some smaller articulated garnishes include his mouth and wee thumbs.

The Bad: The neck joint doesn’t hold a turn. It simply springs back to facing forward when you let go of it. You can move his head up and down as well as cock his head side to side where it stays as it should, but an unmanned left to right position isn’t possible. Despite the fancy neck pistons, I can’t figure out why 3A designed it that way since it appears so similar to the wrist joint in function.

The waist articulation feels a little more limited than I expected it to be. There’s a few sliding parts that overlap each other that gives a nice visual effect when he bends and twists, but I think they might hinder his movement some as well. It’s probably a trade-off. I just wish the extremes of his possible articulation were a little more.. extreme.

Lastly, the hip joints for Ambush are the tightest I’ve experienced from 3A. I held my breath every time I set him up for a shot. I’m not sure if the inherent tightness of the joint was purposeful or not, but thankfully, it looks like 3A used a heavier duty post to support the extra strain. No snapping sounds yet.

The Ugly: I have one last small issue with Ambush. In a way, it’s actually more of a compliment and a testament to how good this guy looks.

Thanks to how well 3A crafted all the excellent, intricate gears and details on Ambush’s body, it can be a little difficult to tell exactly what SHOULD and SHOULD NOT move. His knees, for example, look like they should be double jointed. Trust me, they are not. Due to the stiff joints 3A toys sometimes experience when you first get them, you tend to have to apply a good deal of pressure to knock them free. There are definitely areas on Ambush you might be tempted to apply some pressure to, going off appearances alone, when you most certainly shouldn’t. This, of course, could lead to needlessly breaking parts off your shiny new (and pricey) toy.

My suggestion would be for 3A to include in future releases of their more intricate figures, a small printed sheet that illustrates the various articulation points on the toy. This isn’t out of the question as I’ve seen several other toy manufacturers do that exact thing, so hopefully 3A will consider it.

For Ambush’s photo shoot we wanted to do something special. So my ever supportive wife suggested that we hike up to the “pill boxes” (two lookout posts leftover from WWII) that overlook the beautiful Hawaiian beach of Lanikai and the two offshore islands, the Mokes. I was a little nervous stuffing the big guy into my tiny backpack, but he made the journey just fine. It’s always fun doing location photo shoots and that morning was no exception. With so many details on him, photographing Ambush was a real treat. I do wish I had figured out before we set out for the shoot that there were no batteries pre-installed. There were a few points during the day where I know some menacing looking eye-lights would have been super cool.

THE FINAL WORD

Ambush isn’t going to change your mind about the movie Real Steel, but 3A may change your mind about Ambush.

They knocked it out of the park. He’s definitely one of those toys that you can see where the money went. From paint, to construction, to articulation, he’s really top notch. It’s a true achievement in terms of articulated robotic action figures. So much so, it’s what you’ll want to see in every 3A bot. Admittedly, I’ll probably find myself at least marginally disappointed by future 3A bot releases if they don’t have the same obvious attention to detail Ambush does. I understand corners have to be cut occasionally.. but now that I’ve seen what’s possible, it’s going to be very hard to go backwards.

So the big question is, should you buy 3A’s Real Steel Ambush? Well, to answer that, we have to clear up a few things first.

Do you like toy robots?
Do you like the movie Real Steel?
Regardless of how you feel about the movie Real Steel, do you think the robots themselves look really cool?

If you answered all 3 of the questions with “yes”.. then you probably already have Ambush on the way or you’re in the process of clicking the “buy button” somewhere.

If you answered question 1 as “no”.. then I’m really not sure why you’re reading this article and you are dismissed!

If you answered questions 1 and 2 as “yes”.. then don’t hesitate another second to shell out for Ambush.

If you answered 2 as “no” then see question 3.

If you answered 1 and 3 “yes”, then once again, I’d urge you to confidently hunt one down. I’m telling you, you’ll be very happy with your decision.

My gushing over the quality and attention to detail withstanding, you’ve probably already decide whether or not Ambush deserves a place on your shelf. I’m not here to try and change your mind about that. What I do hope I’ve managed to do is to shed some light on just how well 3A put this guy together. I want to put to rest any fears you may have had about whether or not they can deliver on the goods. Personally, thanks to this experience, I’m really looking forward to Atom being released. He’s easily my favorite from the film, and the prototype 3A teased at HK Venture already looks sick.

If you hated the film, and hated the robot designs, then there’s probably nothing for you here other than some amazingly shot photos (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). On the other hand, despite your feelings about the franchise itself, if you think Ambush is a really cool looking robot, then I know you’ll find a lot to enjoy by having him in your collection.

He’s positively one of the finest pieces 3A has put out to date…

that is, until Metal Gear Rex finally ships. 🙂

PROS:

An incredibly executed, impressively detailed giant robot
Just an astonishing amount of attention went into the sculpt, paint and the design of the joint articulation
Very accurate to the source material
One of the best looking/conceived products 3A has put out yet.

CONS:

The neck articulation doesn’t allow for left to right positions
Due to the high level of details that abound throughout the character, it’s a little tricky figuring out what moves and what doesn’t
The hip joints were/are incredibly tight and difficult to move, but this could be an isolated case
It’s a little thing, but it’d been nice if 3A included the wee batteries already installed so we could immediately experience the eye lights