Soft Mold Review

Hey there!
It’s been a while since I’ve written up one of these, hopefully I’ve still got it in me~.

Anyways, I recently received the new soft mold so i figured it would be a good time to write up a review on the pieces.

First off, here’s an overview of all the new pieces in all of the colors:
IMG_1977There are seven new items (Top to bottom: One sided Pauldron, Shawl, Cape, Waist Cape, Two sided Pauldron, Loin cloth, and hood) in four different colors (Left to right: Reddish Brown, Black, White, and Dark Red). Now before we discuss anything, let’s go ahead and get price out of the way. Each of these pieces ranges from $1.00 USD to $2.00 USD. Here’s a quick list of prices:

  • Loin Cloth                 : $1.00
  • One-Sided Pauldron : $1.50
  • Two-Sided Pauldron : $1.50
  • Shawl                        : $1.50
  • Hood                         : $1.50
  • Waist Cape               : $1.50
  • Cape                         : $2.00

As I said earlier, these are soft pieces. They are made of soft plastic as opposed to rubber so the finish is much shinier than the soft pieces that Lego produces.

IMG_1980Comparison of Lego’s soft pieces and arealight’s soft pieces

The pieces are also quite durable and flexible. The flexibility is great since it will allow you to use the pieces and not have to worry too much about them getting in the way or impeding movement.

 Stress test

So what about the colors? I personally feel the current palette of colors is a pretty good starting point. Hopefully there will be more variety in the future though. Over all they are pretty good matches.

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The Dark Red is a very close match. It’s just very very slightly darker, but it still works very well.IMG_1984

The reddish brown is basically exactly the same. Although it sometimes seems a bit darker when compared to some pieces. But I believe that’s just my eyes.IMG_1983

The white is very close as well, the only difference is that it seems a bit more vibrant than the Lego white.IMG_1981Black is an exact match to the regular ABS Lego pieces.

Over all, the material is fantastic. It is both flexible and durable, which means you won’t have to worry too much about it breaking. The color matches are almost perfect and beyond that, it is also soft so it cuts easily if you want to modify the pieces (even plain old scissors will cut through the pieces with ease). I, for one, am excited to see the future applications of the material. As for printing onto the pieces, I believe Arealight is currently sorting that out as I write this review.

So then, you’re probably thinking “cool plastic, what about the actual parts?”

Well~ I feel the actual parts are fantastic. We’ll start off with an old favorite: the cape.

IMG_1989For any long time Arealight fans, these capes are about the same design. They are, for all intents and purposes, the same. They are still the same beautifully designed piece with that flowing in the wind look that we all loved.

IMG_1973The cape itself is useable with a variety of hoods and head gears due to its flexibility and snugly fits on the top of the torso due to a small indentation on the underside of the cape.

Next up we have the shawl:

IMG_1987The shawl is another piece based off of cloth. It has the same fabric like design that the cape has and fits with a variety of headgears, just like the cape.

IMG_1974Just like the cape, it fits snugly over the torso.I personally think this piece has tons of potential applications and am really excited to see what the minifigure customization community uses it for. Something to note is that if you want to put a cloth piece underneath it, the cloth piece must be modified slightly.

Staying with our theme of “cloth”, next up we have the loin cloth.

IMG_1994Each loin cloth is double sided so that you can choice which side you want. Since the plastic is soft, if you really want, you can also cut off the side you don’t want. As for the design, Arealight did a fantastic job of showing the folds in the cloth on the more flowing side and the reverse side has a much more official look about it. This is another piece I’m quite fond of for the possible applications. The fact that you can easily overlay it onto cloth pieces easily opens so many options.

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If the loin cloth is a little bit too risque for you, Arealight is also releasing a waist cape with this mold:

IMG_1991The waist cape is a personal favorite of mine just because of the sheer number of possibilities and the fact it fits in so many themes. And just like the regular cape, Arealight also gave it that “flowing” look. One of the things I really really love about this piece though is the fact that it is very low profile and adds very little bulk around the waist.

IMG_1979Our next piece is another “cloth” piece.

IMG_1992This hood works quite well with Arealight’s shawl and cape. It is also a bit more tight fitting than most hoods and sits closer to the face, rather than cover it.

Anihood

The hood also has a small area that goes down below the minifigure’s neckline to give the illusion of it being attached closer to the bones rather than at the neck.

IMG_1995I’m not as big of a fan of the hood as other parts in this mold, but I still really love the cloth folds that Arealight gave it. It is also still a fantastic part.

Finally we have some pieces that aren’t usually considered “cloth”

IMG_1985 IMG_1990These two parts are two different versions of the Pauldron. One is two sided and the other is one sided. As for the parts themselves, I feel it is a pretty good representation of the reference material. It may be extremely simplified, but I personally like that about it.

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That wraps it up for the pieces. As for my final thoughts on this mold, I personally love it. The material it is molded in is phenomenal, the parts are beautifully designed and as a customizer, I like how easy the pieces are to modify (should you want to) and the fact that they can be used in such a broad range of themes even if you don’t want to modify them.

Happy customizing

-Apples

New Mold Review~

A bit late, but better late than never.

Finally got a chance to sit down, work with the pieces a bit and actually write something that’s actually relevant about these pieces.

IMG_1344As you can see, I’ve even spent a bit of time decorating the plain white helmets. They’re actually quite fun to paint up if you’re into that. The Merc helmet is by far the easiest to get a nice paint job on due to the high level of detail that is already included on the helmet.

IMG_1360The Merc helmet itself features quite a bit of detail. The antenna is actually molded onto the helmet, which could be seen as a downside; but I just see it as a nice way to make sure that it stays in the right place all the time. The breather part of the face is also detailed quite well and gives a very strong old sci-fi feel and works great for those Old Republic Mercenaries. I personally am quite excited to see how Arealight prints these helmets up. I could definitely see them looking much nicer in other colors than white as well.

IMG_1365And as you would have guessed, it wouldn’t really be too nice to have a Merc helmet without a matching jet pack. The design on this matches perfectly to the source material and will no doubt make a great addition to any figure. It meshes quite well with “older” sci-fi themes outside of just the Old Republic theme. I could even see it very loosely being used in steam punk themes with some modifications. Overall, it’s a great piece. High detail and quite simple to paint or decorate due to all of the details.

IMG_1363Following the Old Republic items, we have the long awaited Combat helmet. This is based off of the trooper helmet from the Old Republic Trailer. I was pretty excited when Arealight began processing this simply because of the fact that Lego released the figure without the helmet; which just seemed so out of place. Beyond just that, the helmet has a great design and really does just look fantastic. The holes on the side of the helmet are specifically designed to tightly grip Arealight’s Phase 1 Sun visors and Phase 1 Macrobinoculars. This means that you can easily raise the macrobinoculars without having to worry about them falling down. I can definitely say I am eager to see how Arealight ends up working the printing on this helmet.

IMG_1368Speaking of Troopers though; that makes a great segway into our next piece. The SpecOps Pack. I personally love the design of this back pack simply since it works so well with most sci-fi themed figures. The back pack allows for enough room to comfortably fit most helmets and is compatible with all Arealight helmets. There really isn’t much else to say about it besides the fact that it is quite an amazing piece. Definitely consider picking these up to go a long with your Commando helmets if you have them!

IMG_1356Up next we have the trooper helmet. This helmet has been long requested by fans due to Arealight’s commander helmet having that hole in the visor. Personally I think this helmet turned out great! I personally feel the shape is much better than Lego’s version and the breathers just give it a much more defined look. The fin is also sized quite well on this helmet compared to how it is sized on others; not too high and not too low. The helmet accepts Lego’s helmet accessories and holds them perfectly with no deformities on the pieces; however Arealight’s Phase 1 Sun Visors and Phase 1 Macrobinoculars are a bit loose. This means that without any adhesive or additive adjustments to the helmet, you won’t be able to mount the macrobinoculars so that they stand straight up on the helmet. I don’t see this as too big of an issue though since being compatible with lego’s accessories makes up for that. One of the things I definitely am excited to see are some special prints coming out for this helmet that make use of it’s closed visor.

IMG_1354The next item on the list is the pilot helmet. I really do like the design on this helmet, Arealight’s attention to detail on this helmet just makes it for me. The bulky design makes it blend in quite well with Lego’s Pilot helmet designs. The one issue I see with this helmet is that it has a bit looser grip than the others; but it still has a decent grip on the head so it isn’t too big of an issue unless you plan on throwing your pilot across the room.

IMG_1364So we had the Trooper helmet with this release, a closed visor version of the Commander Helmet; and Arealight didn’t want to leave the Mando helmet out of the party so he released a closed visor version of the Mando helmet: the Hunter helmet. This helmet is in essence a closed visor version of the Mando helmet with a few adjustments. These adjustments included adding more detail to the back and I believe making the area above where the visor is usually located more defined. The plain face of this helmet makes it great for decaling and I could definitely see some designs that utilize this closed visor being printed onto here in the future. The holes on the side are designed to fit Lego’s helmet accessories, but I believe they will also fit Phase 1 Arealight Accessories. Be warned though! It is very hard to get them attached to the helmet and near impossible to remove them once it’s on! I do not advised if you’re worried about the piece breaking and you don’t have an extra on hand.

IMG_1359Finally, we have the Comm Helmet. This helmet is based off of the Sonic Trooper that showed up ages ago in the Clone Wars Series and is definitely one of those helmet designs that deserves to be available for customizers. Arealight got the design of this helmet dead on and it really does look perfect when compared to the reference material. Again, the blank face plate makes it perfect for decaling, but I could definitely see the raised area on the forehead being a bit of an issue. As I’ve said before though, I definitely am excited to see this in other colors, but in white it still does look amazing

So to sum it up, these pieces are definitely worth checking out; especially if you’re into the decaling or painting scene of customizing. Even if you aren’t, the SpecOps pack and Merc Pack will go a long with almost any sci-fi figure with or without a paint job. Beyond that, the combat helmet also could work fine without any sort of decoration if you were to use the macrobinoculars; although it would be a bit plain… Don’t fret though, as these helmets will be printed onto in the future for those of you that don’t like picking up the paint brush or cutting out decals!

Wave 6/7 Product Review

Hey Everyone,

I know it’s a bit late, but I’ve been busy lately.

As Promised though: We’ll be starting off this review with the Mando helmets.

So every want to design your own little bounty hunter or Mandolorian warrior? Well here’s your chance!

I personally love the Mando helmets for that reason. There is just so much potential for your own personal figure with these designs.

IMG_1202

First we’ve got the Goran Helmet. This helmet sports a beautiful silver and pearl dark grey print (I believe other vendors refer to this color as Steel or Gunmetal) on top of a black mando helmet. The silver is very vibrant and stands out quite a bit on the black, which is personally why I love how it looks.  The printing is very clean and it completely wraps around the helmet. And here are some variants of the helmetGoran

As you can see the design looks quite nice on variant prints that you might receive with your slightly larger orders.

IMG_1204

Next up we have the Barin Helmet. The Barin helmet sports some what of a “brass” color printed onto dark bluish grey. Personally this is one of my least favorite prints since the color isn’t as bold. However it still looks nice. If you like the color scheme or the character it’s based on, it would be nice to pick up. As I said though, the color on this helmet isn’t as vibrant as others though.

IMG_1203And here is a photo of the variants. I personally prefer this design printed onto black than the original color. The black just makes the color stick out so much more. Unfortunately that is the freebie variant that you can’t pick out.

IMG_1210Here we have the Galen helmet. Personally I love this one. I’ve always liked the color blue and the silver with dark blue highlights printed onto the blue helmet just looks amazing. This is one I could definitely recommend picking up especially if you were wanting a blue mando helmet for your collection or if you’re a fan of the character. The printing is quite crisp and clean; not to mention it compliments the color of the helmet quite well.

IMG_1209Again, here are more variants of the Galen helmet. Personally I feel the best variants are the silver and white.

IMG_1206Next up we have the Fenri helmet. Personally this is another favorite of mine. The dark red on white is very nice. I also like the extra detail above the T-Visor. The printing is relatively clean, the actual version of my helmet is a bit less crisp than the variants, but it is something I don’t mind overlooking for this helmet since the design and color scheme is so nice.

IMG_1205And more variants for you guys~. The variants for this one are quite nice as well.

IMG_1212Finally we’ve got the Jaster helmet. This one is definitely a great one to pick up as well. The helmet has such vibrant colors that it really makes it worth it. The dark red T visor outline looks quite nice on the dark bluish grey helmet. The silver and black detailing on the sides and cheeks of the helmet also fit quite nicely with the color scheme. The printing on this one is very crisp and very clean as well. I could easily recommend this helmet to anyone looking for a Mando helmet, especially so if you like the color scheme.

Unfortunately I do not have a photo of variants of this helmet to show. So here are some of the other variants you can get of the Jango and Boba Helmets.

IMG_1214To finish off our little Mando splurge, we have a brand new torso print! The Dark Gray Torso Battle Suit; a bit of a mouthful, but a great piece none the less. It is printed on the front…

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…and the back!IMG_1234This is actually a first for Arealight to do. And it is definitely very welcome. It’s fantastic to see the curved torsos getting some more love and I could definitely recommend picking these up. The design consists of a redesigned Mandolorian battle armor based off a specific character. And it matches quite well. The printing is not only very crisp on this, but it’s also very detailed. Arealight included the folds and wrinkles in the fabric of the cloth that you’d expect from someone wearing this type of armor. Outside of that the detail on the belt is just plain amazing; the pockets are shaded where you’d expect them to be and he was really able to create a sense of depth with the design. Honestly the only real “flaw” I can think of is that this torso was specifically designed to be printed onto dark gray; this means that the variants won’t look as nice because part of the design is left blank because of that. However, that shouldn’t deter you from buying the actual torso; as it really does look amazing.

Anyways I hope this review helps anyone who actually hasn’t had a chance to get the new prints yet. Next review will cover wave 7 helmets.

Until next time~

-Apples

Wave 6 Product Review

It’s been a while hasn’t it?
Well, here we go again with another small review of Arealight’s new printed items.  It’s been about a month or so since their release, but since the store was closed a few weeks following, there wasn’t too large of a frame for purchasing them.IMG_1151

Here’s a picture of everything Arealight sent me for this Wave~. The baggie on the left contains lots of the prints on random coloured helmets, the one in the center contains new prints and finally the one on the right contains the helmet mold in new plastic! (We’ll talk about this later~).

So this is for those people who are still debating whether or not to get them or not, I know I definitely get that way sometimes when new product comes out.

For this release we’ve got lots to show! Five new Mando prints, three new commander helmet prints, two new jet packs and reprints of Jesse and Hardcase. Jesse’s design has also been updated to be more accurate.

New product

So from Left to right we have the Force Helmet, Security Helmet, reprinted hardcase, Thorn helmet Jesse Helmet, Dred Jet pack, and Barin Jet pack in the back row. In the front row, from Left to right, we have the Galen helmet, Barin Helmet, Fenri Helmet, Goran helmet, and Jaster Helmet.

Since so many products have been released in this run (a total of 10), I’ll be doing a two part review. For this half, I’ll be reviewing the new commander helmets and the two jet packs and then we’ll take a look at the mando helmets in the next review.

Let’s start with the Force helmet~

IMG_1198The force helmet is based off of an action figure from the extend universe. It’s essentially a regular clone trooper helmet with the Jaig Eyes in black. It’s a very simplistic design, but still is quite nice, I think it would have been a nice touch to have the jaig eyes a different color though (it wouldn’t match the reference however). The helmet itself is completely printed front, back and sides. I could personally see a lot of people using this helmet to modify into a regular clone trooper helmet as well due to it’s simple design. Should you want to do that, it’d just be a bit of brasso each helmet on the front and it’d probably go by pretty quickly. So I would say this would be a pretty nice helmet to add to your collection, and if you want to do some “army building”, it’d be a good way to get regular phase 2 helmets.

IMG_1199And here is a close up of the actual product. The printing is pretty crisp as usual. There was a small blur on my copy on the mouth piece, but I believe I was just a bit unlucky here. The blur itself isn’t really noticeable, and doesn’t show up on any other of the variants of the helmet.

Moving on, we have the Security Trooper helmet.

IMG_1197The security trooper figure, similarly to the force trooper, is based off of an action figure. The design itself is pretty simple, but I still love how this helmet looks despite it’s simplicity. The helmet sports two hatch marks on the side and printing all the way around. Definitely a nice helmet to add to your collection if you like simplicity!

IMG_1196And here is a close up of the helmet. As you can see the print job is pretty crisp and clean as usual.

Next up, we have the Thorn helmet!

IMG_1192The Thorn helmet is based off of Commander Thorn from the Television series. Thorn is pretty popular despite the lack of information on him. The helmet itself sports red printing with a pair of wings on the helmet and printing on the back of the helmet. I would definitely recommend picking this up if you get the chance since it’s just a fantastic design.

IMG_1194And here is a close up of the helmet itself. Unfortunately some of the helmets have a small blur between the wings. However, I personally feel it still looks pretty nice despite this. On the other hand some of them don’t have the blur.  Such as in these off color prints.

IMG_1193All in all, if you get any helmet from this print run, pick up this one. It’s definitely one of the nicest designs.

That does it for all of the new commander helmet releases, so we’ll move onto the jet pack releases~

For the jet pack releases, we have two new jet pack releases. First we’ve got the Dred jet pack:

IMG_1217The Dred jet pack is based off of a Mandalorian bounty hunter’s pack. The jet pack sports red printing on a black jet pack and will come with a silver rocket. The printing is simple, but still looks fantastic. Definitely a nice fit for any figures you want to have a jet pack, even if it’s not a Mandalorian. It’s also great in other colours if you happen to get an off color one.

IMG_1218As usual, here’s a close up of the jet pack. The printing is clean and crisp as usual. Definitely a great addition to your collection.

As for the last piece of this release, we have the Barin jet pack.

IMG_1219The Barin jet pack is also based off of a Mandalorian bounty hunter’s jet pack. It sports black printing on a dark bluish grey jet pack and includes a dark bluish grey rocket. The black printing is a bit unique and different from most printing for jet packs. It has breaks in the designs on the pieces attached to the boosters. It’s a very simple design that fits well with many figures outside of Barin. And as usual, looks great on other colors.

IMG_1220As you can see the printing is very crisp and clean as usual. I would definitely suggest picking up at least this pack or one of the other jet packs before they run out.

 

As a little added bonus,  we have the updated Jesse helmet.

IMG_1215The Jesse helmet now sports a metallic republic symbol instead of the blue one from the original helmet.

IMG_1216I feel like it definitely looks a lot better than the original.

If you get a chance, definitely pick up some of these commander helmets and jet packs.

Anyways, join me next time for the Mandalorian helmets.

 

Print Wave 5


Ah, mail is always a good way to start off a morning. Especially when it chock full of new goodies. (⌒▽⌒)☆

It’s an envelope inside of an envelope because Arealight had decided to ship it EMS, I received it in about 3 business days.

So then let’s see what we have here!

A bag of freebies and new product! A closer look you say? Alright let’s just get straight to it then. I personally like to put all of my orders into a little bin after dumping them out of the baggie~ It makes it so much easier to keep track of that way while I’m going through new things before I stow them away for future use!

Well… here is the new line up! I left some of the test prints and old product in the bin~. (Please note capes and such are resin cast and will not be re-released for some time unfortunately. (シ_ _)シ Arealight was just nice enough to send me a few old things.)

So here we go! I’m sure all of you are quite curious about the new product that we have. As you can see, we have quite a few new things coming out! Think of this as your little sneak preview. We’re adding quite a few things to the 501st (Blue trooper) line as well as adding a few new things to the shadow trooper line! And the poor lonely Thire will now have a commander Fox to go with him! So how about we put these helmets to “good” use~!

Ah there we go. Much better! I hope you don’t mind the random torsos on some of them! I was just a bit lacking when it came to black clone trooper torsos. ( ≧Д≦) I also had some trouble putting together all of the 501st figures as well. There are so many now after all!

Alright now how about we get this review started! All of these helmets are based off of the clone wars or extended universe. I’ll start us off with something relatively familiar. The good old blue 501st designs. As you can see, we have a 501st ARF trooper(who is based off of Boomer from the Clone Wars Games), Kix (From Season 4 Clone wars Umbara Arc) and a 501st AT-RT trooper (ARC Heavy Gunner).

So I suppose I’ll start from the left front row. The 501st ARF print is actually pretty nice. It’s a Lego blue color, so you’ll have no problem matching it; as with any of Arealight’s other blue clone trooper helmets. The helmet sports a crisp blue printing on the sun visor a long with a line down the center. There is also a bit of blue and black detail print for the face details. All in all, this is definitely a pretty nice helmet. A great helmet to pick up if you want a blue ARF trooper. Or just one of the ARF helmets in general.

Next up is the Kix helmet. I personally have always liked Kix’s design. The Kix helmet sports blue printing around the visor and on the back details of the helmet. It’s printed onto a commander helmet, but since it’s open visor; you end up with a white gap between the head and the blue print. I personally never found this too big of an issue; but if you do there’s always the option to paint the white area black or whatever color the head underneath is. Of course, if you liked the Umbara arc; you’d probably want to pick Kix up to add to your collection.

And then we have the 501st AT RT helmet. Out of all of the helmets Arealight’s printed, I believe this one was the one that’s given him the most trouble. It took several attempts, but Arealight was finally able to produce one he felt he could release. There are a few print issues, like the eyes not being fully covered and the top visor having a bit of white. However, it’s still a pretty decent match to the reference material. In all honesty i think it looks pretty good for the odd shape of the helmet.

More pictures you say? Well. Here are the side and hind shots. As you can see, the back doesn’t wrap all the way around on the ARF helmet unfortunately.

And just for fun… Here is a shot of all of the helmets with blue printing that Arealight has produced!
As you can see, there are quite a few…\(>o<)ノ I was actually a bit surprised at how many there where..

Anyways, moving on to the three in the back!
Here’s a Shadow Clone Trooper, Commander Fox (Clone wars season 4), and a Shadow Airborne Trooper (Unfortunately I don’t have a picture for this, but it’s essentially a black version of the Utapu Airborn trooper).

So Let’s start off with the shadow clone trooper. The helmet sports a Silver and Gunmetal print. The small details on the side are a gunmetal color while the face details and the markings around the fin are a silver color. While I know I say this about a lot of the helmets, this has to be one of my favorites. It just… works. It’s simple yet effective I guess you could say. I’m just a bit disappointed I wasn’t able to show it off with a matching torso.

Next up is the Fox helmet. I think arealight did a really good job with matching the reference material. He actually decided to hold off on the release of this until he was able to get Dark bluish grey sunvisors made to match the show. (You can see this above.) The main issue again is that Arealight still hasn’t been able to perfect the art of printing white on dark colors. So your helmets may have some “off white” on the white areas. Otherwise the helmet looks great. Something nice for any clone wars fan.

Now for the last of this weeks release. The Shadow Airborne trooper. This helmet sports a silver and gunmetal print. While I don’t like it as much as the Commander helmet version, I still think the silver and gunmetal just works. Those two colors go great on black and honestly this helmet is no exception to that. This printing on this helmet is actually perfectly aligned with the grooves as well. This is definitely something nice for those people who want to build up their own little group of shadow clone troopers.

And now for a few more side and back shots!

 

And just for a bit of fun. Here is a group shot of the 3 Shadow troopers together~

As for an added bonus here’s a little shot of the new version of the Neyo helmet. Honestly Arealight did a fantastic job of revamping it, my only issue is the skewed 91st emblem.

Anyways, Over all this was a fantastic release. I can easily recommend picking up any of the helmets. They’re all really just lovely parts. And honestly, I feel this is probably one of the better releases this year.

Anyways, until next time. I hope you enjoyed this review, I decided to update my review “style” a bit to try and make it a bit more fun.

Happy customizing! (,, ・∀・)ノ゛