Here we go again~.

So, it’s around that time again. As I did before, I’ll be giving a quick run through of the new product to hopefully help you decide what you want.

Where to start?

Alright so: Commander Helmets and Neyo Helmet.

With this new wave Arealight will be adding two new Commander Helmet Designs and one “new” Neyo Helmet design.

From left to right: 501st Clone Jet Trooper / ARC Fordo Helmet / Galle Helmet

With the front view, you can already see a few defects with the commander helmets; the Fordo helmet turned out perfectly though.

Alright, so:
501st Jet Trooper Helmet:

This helmet actually has a pretty nice design. It was actually one of the first ones I had received a long with the Galle helmet, so I suppose it may have grown on me. The helmet sports black and blue (Lego Blue) print for the design and black and dark bluish-grey detailing. All in all, the helmet itself is pretty accurate in regards to looking like the references photo.  What was  a bit of a problem for me was the printing that went out of the little grove on the side of the helmet. The black marks on the side really should be a bit lower and it probably would have worked out much better. On the other hand, the printing itself is very clear and crisp. I feel that it’s still a pretty good helmet over all. If you’re a fan of the blue 501st colors or the clone itself, then this would be a great item to pick up. Otherwise, I personally would go for one of the other helmets.

Fordo Helmet:

Fun story about the Fordo helmet was that it a long with the Galle helmet were suppose to be released earlier. It was originally scheduled to be released with the other Neyo helmets, but had to be held back for printing issues. Anyways, the helmet itself is actually one of the best helmets in my opinion. The print on it is a Lego Red with black and dark bluish-grey details. In regards to the ink itself, it is a very crisp coat and over all looks great. If you only plan on picking up a few helmets, I can definitely suggest this helmet.  Whether you’re a fan of the character or not, it is a great helmet with a great design.

Galle Helmet:

The Galle helmet is essentially a yellow version of the Deviss Helmet. It sports a yellow print going from the back to the front of the helmet and  dark bluish grey and black detail print. I can see a lot of people using this for regular 327th Star Corps clones. There isn’t really much else to say. the yellow print on the front is a bit off to the right.  Beyond that it looks pretty good. In comparison to the Lego version; I would say the Arealight version is far better. Much more detail and I personally like how Arealight’s helmets are more angular vs the roundness of the lego version. If you’re strapped for cash and like yellow or the character or maybe you want to make your own 327th star corps clones, then I would recommend getting it. Otherwise; I would go for one of the other new releases.

In regards to these helmets:
All in all they’re pretty nice. I personally like the jet trooper helmet despite it’s slightly messy printing; but I feel like out of these three the Fordo helmet turned out the best.

I hope that sort of helps, there wasn’t too much to say about these helmets.

I’ll be uploading more reviews within these few days.

-Apples

Mandalorian Printed Helmets Review

Good day everybody.
As the title states, it’s time for a review of the last of the Printed helmets that had come out with this release.

So here we go:
Left to right: Pre Vizla Helmet(Displayed with Alien Conquest legs and Torso / BrickArms Tactical Sword/ Si-Dan Toys belt / Arealight Jet pack)
Rav Helmet (Painted Arealight Jet pack, Painted Power Miners Legs, Painted BrickForge Vambraces, Printed Arealight Torso with Red battle suit)

Arealight did a great job with getting the detail in on both of these helmets.

Alright, so we’ll go ahead and start off with the Pre Vizla Helmet. First off, the Helmet does seem quite accurate in comparison to the reference picture. The helmet itself is done very well, it has a very crisp printing job and the dark silver is actually printed all the way around the helmet.

The Dark Silver is a close match to both Brickarms’ Gun Metal and Brickforge’s Steel as well as the Platemail print for the new Lego Kingdoms knights. If you’re looking for a paint color to match this helmet, I’d suggest using Citadel’s Bolt Gun metal. The white on this helmet is transparent, but it works fine here since it is just small detailing ont he helmet. The highlights on the helmet seem to be a nice purple color. If you need something to match those highlights to, the Alien Conquest alien color works quite well. Over all, this is a great helmet; definitely worth it if you were looking into getting this helmet.

Moving on to the Rav helmet: This is personally one of my favorites. This helmet matches the reference quite well. The silver on the helmet is just plain beautiful and is printed relatively well. There are a few tiny tiny gaps that aren’t really noticeable unless you look closely between the print surrounding the visor and the sides of the helmet. The black print is very nice as well and goes from front to back.

The red of the helmet is a match to Lego Red, and the silver matches the Lego light silver. If you’re looking for paint to match the silver, Citadel’s Mythril Silver does the job well. The helmet also fits quite well with Arealight’s printed Torso, though I’m pretty sure they’re referenced from the same character. With that said, I can definitely recommend this helmet to anyone looking into getting a Mandalorian helmet for their collection.

Back photo of the helmet. The design goes all the way around.

Now as for the helmet itself, I’d like to make a note that it does in fact hold Arealight’s Phase 1 Visor.

HOWEVER, it is very hard to remove once you get it in; so do this at your own risk. The visor was not made for this helmet, but it does fit it very well and still moves up and down.

Alright so all in all: I would highly suggest you pick these up if you want some printed Mandalorian helmets. I personally like both quite a bit.

I hope you enjoyed these reviews and that they helped you in making your decision to purchase or not.

-Apples

Alright. So With that said, I’d like some input:

Arealight put me in charge of the blog, sort of; so I want to know what you, the reader, would like to see on here. What would make things interesting for you?

Printed Neyo Helmets

Good day everyone!

I’ll be doing two separate reviews for the “Neyo” and Mandalorian helmets on request.

First off, we’ll be reviewing the Printed “Neyo” helmets.

From Right to left: Neyo Helmet (Displayed with AT-RT Recon Trooper torso) / Clone Assassin Helmet (Displayed with a Clone Trooper Torso and custom printed Legs off of Bricklink)

Alright so, let’s start off with the Neyo Helmet. The 91st Logo is very crisp and printed in a Lego Dark Red ink. The mouth print and line above the visor are printed in black and everything else is the dark blue grey found on the Camo ARF trooper helmet.

The Dark bluish-grey actually works well here since it’s only detail work. I would like to mention that the over all print job on this helmet is extremely crisp and clean.  Personally I prefer this helmet out of the two printed “Neyo” Helmet options.

The second helmet for this review is the Clone Assassin helmet. This helmet totes a dark purple print that doesn’t exactly match lego’s dark purple; but is still quite close. The logo printed on the helmet is the same as the 91st Reconnaissance Corps logo printed on the Neyo Helmet, just in dark purple and on the opposite side of the helmet.  (Refer to above picture)
The Dark purple is used for the vents, dot on the ear pieces and the printing on the back. The mouth and line above the helmet are both black.  As requested on Flickr, I also decided grab a shot of the helmet with the new Azure Blue arms from the Alien Conquest line.
For those looking to make a clone assassin, here is what I would suggest: either paint the top half of those Alien Conquest arms white or go for the BrickForge Vambraces in Medium blue. I wasn’t able to find mine, but the sword from the Blacksmith Attack set from Lego might work nicely as the blades attached to the Trooper’s arms.,

EDIT: I’d like to apologize, I originally had dark blue listed as the color; however it was dark purple. The Dark purple on the clone assassin helmet is a close match the Lego’s purple (not alien conquest purple), it’s just a tad dark.

There isn’t really anything super special to mention about the top of the helmets as there are no details that are suppose to go from front to back on these, but here is a photo for reference.
Over all, I prefer the Neyo helmet over the Clone assassin helmet because it has a bit more color variation to it and the printing is a bit crisper for the Neyo Helmet. Either way you go, you can’t really go wrong.

I hope this helps in your decisions, enjoy.

-Apples

Later today I’ll be posting the Mandalorian Helmet Review.

Clone Commando Helmets

Alright, so today we have the Clone Commando Helmets.
Left to right: Scorch Helmet, Fixer Helmet, Sev Helmet, Boss Helmet, Omega Helmet

Scorch Helmet: Stormtrooper torso / Alien Conquest Legs // Fixer Helmet: Old Phase 2 Clone battle pack clone // Sev Helmet: Shock Trooper torso // Boss Helmet: Bomb Trooper torso and legs //Omega Helmet: Hazel Fantasy Emile armor with Alpha Team legs.

Alright so Arealight was nice enough to send me a copy of each of the commando helmets to review; so I think I’ll go ahead and start off with the Scorch Helmet.

The Scorch helmet itself is alright, but it doesn’t really match the reference work that well. The white ink used to print is a bit transparent so it isn’t a Lego white. Also, the lack of the mouth part on the lower area of the helmet is a bit of a let down for me. In my opinion had Arealight printed the helmet on a Dark bluish grey or light bluish grey helmet and done the black visor print with the white design print it would have been better.

Anyways, moving on to the Fixer helmet. The fixer helmet has a green stripe that goes from the front to the back and a black visor. The design itself is pretty nice and it matches with the Lego green color. It does not match with the sand green in the new battle packs.

I posted a picture since I think I remember seeing a few questions about the match.

Next up is the Sev helmet. I’m actually glad Arealight released this as I remember right when the Fixer, boss, and scorch helmets came out everyone was asking : Where’s Sev? Anyways, Sev is a pretty well designed in my opinion. The red seems to me to be a Lego red and the design does have a bit of a smear, making it look as though the “paint” was smeared across his helmet. The design for the blood smear only goes half way though, which I believe is how it is in the games anyways.

The one issue I do have is that the design sort of looks like it abruptly stops in a straight line. I think it would have been nicer if the thicker lines continued to the back and gradually got thinner. Over all, pretty good still.

Moving on to the Boss Helmet. This is personally my favorite out of the five, for some reason I just like the design. The helmet has a orange stripe with two black stripes running a long side it from front to back. The Orange matches perfectly with Lego’s orange color and works well with the Lego Bomb Trooper body. I think out of all of them, Arealight did the best job of recreating the reference with this helmet.

Alright, so the last Commando helmet in Arealight’s line up is the Omega Commando Helmet. I personally like this design, it’s simple and it matches the reference relatively well while still allowing it to match with a silver that Lego uses quite often. There isn’t to much to say about this since it’s such a simple design, but I think it would go well with Brickforge’s silver clone trooper decal.

A few other notes I should make is that they do not have printing on the back. [I don’t think they really need to with the amount of detail Arealight included in the base helmet though]

Also the “ears” of the helmet do not have printing on them either.

Also they do not have the gradient visor like in the references, but I just see this as them not having their visor lights turned on.

So to sum it all up,

The Commando helmets are a pretty good buy if you like them, I personally recommend the Boss helmet the most; it is the easiest to source parts to make a decent looking figure with. Otherwise, the other helmets are just as good.

Thank you for your time, and I hope this helped you decide on what you’d like to get.

-Apples

As a side note, there are one or two more reviews left depending on whether I want to do the Neyo helmets and Mandalorian helmets in one review or two. After that there may be a few other things popping up here and there.

Clone Commander Printed Helmets

Alright so I’ve got a bit of extra time today. So I guess you all get a second review.

Next up is the Clone Commander Helmets.

How I made these: (First off: These figures are not made for accuracy sake, it’s more of a way to display combinations and color matches.)
Fives Helmet:  Exoforce Torso, Series 1 minifigure Astronaut Legs and Arealight Jet pack.

Echo Helmet:Arealight’s Female Trooper Torso, Custom Printed Legs from Bricklink, Waist cape and Pauldron from MMCBCapes, Amazing Armory backpack.

Colt: Power Miners Torso, Pauldron from Christo on Ebay, Modified KZ Armor from Hazel Fantasy(Amazing Armory).

Gree: Lego Kingdoms Torso and Legs.

From left to right: Fives Helmet, Echo Helmet, Colt Helmet, Gree Helmet

Alright, so let’s go ahead and start off with the Fives Helmet. The design matches Fives Arc helmet quite well, however since these are printed onto Arealight’s Commander Helmets there is no Phase 1 fin. (As a reminder: Arealight currently does not have Clone wars Arc Trooper helmets in any of his plans yet; I have already asked :P)  The Echo helmet is also just as crisp of a design, but it is a tad less accurate due to the markings on the top of his helmet being one tone rather than two tone in the reference photo I had seen. However both helmets have clean and crisp printing and honestly you really can’t go wrong with it unless it just really bugs you that there’s no Phase 1 Fin.
There is a very very miniscule print error on my Echo and Fives helmets, the printing is shifted goes a bit out of indention. I also think that had Arealight added the hatch marks onto the bottom of the sides of the helmets similar to his previous helmets it would have turned out much better. However these are still great helmets and I love the designs.

Now moving on to the Colt helmet. This helmet is a bit interesting as it doesn’t really match the reference as well as the other helmets. It’s white printed onto a silver helmet like Gree. However, since white is often transparent, the white appears a light gray color. The printing on this helmet really isn’t as good as the other ones as it sort of messes up once it gets to the fin. The design it self would be really nice had it been printed the other way around (Grey on white) or if the printer was able to lay down a better coat of white ink.

As you can see, the design sort of curves and the ink sort of thickens at the edge of the design. It’s a helmet that I feel could have been executed better, but what’s done is done.  Most likely, I’ll be going over the ink with a coat or two of white paint to clean the look up a bit.

Now for the Gree Helmet. The Gree Helmet is quite nice actually; like the Colt helmet, it is printed on silver. The silver color of the plastic matches Lego’s Dark Bluish Grey color, the green is a bit darker due to the color it is printed on but it matches the reference quite well actually. The design is pretty nice and the printing is very crisp, but it isn’t completely without fault unfortunately.
The printing on the back of mine is a bit out of the indention it was made for. However I’m pretty sure this is just a misfire on the printer’s behalf.
Over all, I like these helmets. I would say that if you want to order a few you should. You have a really big selection to choose from, but if you want to order some of the Wave 2 ones; I would suggest either the Echo or Fives Helmet. Both of which have fantastic detailing and design work.

As always, I hope this helped you decide on what to buy and thanks for your time,

-Apples

Once again, there should be a few more reviews coming a long this week.