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.

 

Jetpacks!

Alright, here’s the last of the reviews: Jetpacks

To be blunt, I feel these stand out the most out of this new release. Arealight’s jet pack design was already amazing, adding to them is just like icing on the cake. I was really excited about these when I was first told he’d be producing them and even more so when he sent me one of the original runs that didn’t turn out just right.

The one on the left was the original run, the one on right is the final version of the Jango Fett Pack.

Left To Right: Boba Jetpack II / Isabet Jetpack / Mij Jetpack / Jango Jetpack / Vizla Jetpack / Boba Jetpack I

Arealight released 6 jet packs. Each one comes with the rocket accessory unlike their unprinted versions which include a warhead. Warheads and rockets are both sold separately.

I find the rocket goes better with the jetpacks anyways.

I’d rather not bore you with describing each on it’s own since they all have very similar print designs, so instead I feel it’s best to just let the pictures speak for themselves in regards to that. Each of them is colored specifically toward a character and Arealight did a great job of matching those colors.  I personally felt would have improved them would have been having the print on the boosters go all the way around, but the printer’s ability to print on that type of surface is pretty limited. Regardless, the printing on all of these are extremely clear and crisp. I can easily suggest getting any of these to anyone even if you aren’t that big of a Star Wars fan. Even though each design caters to a different character, the variety still allows you to make your own custom figure in the star wars universe or outside of it.

Small side note: The two Boba Fett jetpacks have the same print on different colored jetpacks (Sand Green and Blue).

Being completely honest here: It’s hard for me to recommend one over the other, so if you do intend on picking just one or two up: go with the color scheme you enjoy the most. You really can’t go wrong with any of them and they are definitely a step up from the normal Lego jetpacks which were just a wee bit too small.

As a closing note to this:

In regards to Wave 3 itself, I personally see it as a stepping stone for future print designs. Arealight printed onto two items he’s never printed on before: the AT-RT Helmet and the Jetpack. Both of these items have odd shapes as well, which in turn make the printing process harder than it already is with the normal helmets. While I can’t exactly say what is planned for the future I can easily tell you that more great print designs are definitely in store as well as a few other fun things.

I hope you enjoyed these and I hope they help you in your purchases.

-Apples