Author Archives: Confuzzled Apples

Print Wave 5

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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゛

Wave 4 Review.

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Hey everybody,

Wave 4 is now completely out and it actually goes a bit in line with the Star Wars The Clone Wars Season 4 Series.

So without further ado:

From left to right: Dogma, Jesse, Hardcase, Commander Wolffe, Boost(Couldn’t find a good picture).

*Dogma’s Torso comes from a decal applied by Republic Customs, Jesse’s torso is a modified arealight torso with Greenpea Toy’s arms and an MMCB wasit cape. Hardcase’s body is from Greenpea Toys. Commander Wolffe and Boost’s bodies are from Lego.

All of these helmets are a pretty accurate representation of the clone troopers that they are meant to resemble. To be perfectly honest though, the printing isn’t as clean or clear as the previous runs.

 

Dogma: Dogma’s helmet is pretty accurate as I said earlier, but one issue I have is that the blue on the edges is a bit light compared to the blue everywhere else. I don’t know if this shows up on other helmets, but it does show up on the copy I received. Regardless it’s still a pretty nice helmet.

Jesse: Jesse’s helmet features a Lego Blue print that has the republic symbol (which in my honest opinion looks pretty good for being printed onto a curved surface) blue trim around the visor, and your generic clone helmet markings. The print job is pretty good, but there are a few issues with the lighter colour with the edges that the printing got onto. Over all though the helmet is nice and has a great looking design.

Hardcase: Hardcase’s design is actually really nice. It features blue printing that shows up pretty clear. The only real problem I can see with this is that the design is off center on some of the helmets. It’s really not that big of an issue though since it isn’t too noticeable. If you’re good with Brasso and want Kix without adding any paint, Hardcase is the way to go.

Wolffe: Wolffe by far is definitely the star of this release. He features a great design, which matches Lego’s Sand Blue and Arealight made a pretty dead on replica of the design on the show. No real flaws that I can see on this besides the fact the back wasn’t printed. However, printer limitations prevented having a print that runs all the way around without the possibility of problems.  Definitely pick this up if you get the chance.

Boost: Boost from what I’ve seen matches pretty well. I haven’t been able to find a picture from the show to reference, but he is pretty similar to most Wolffe Pack Troopers and as before with Wolffe, arealight did a great job with matching the colors. A bit of brasso on the spikes under the visor and you’ve got your generic Wolffe pack trooper.

Overall: I would have to say that this Wave turned out extremely well despite being so small in comparison to previous waves. Although the print quality isn’t as good or clear as the first wave Arealight released, it’s still fantastic. (The printing is pretty hard to remove beyond scraping it off with a knife.) Honestly, I could easily recommend these especially to people who are a fan of the Clone Wars series. Even if you aren’t, I would definitely suggest picking up at least Wolffe, simply because his helmet looks amazing.

Anyways, here are a few more shots of the helmets. (Hover mouse over image for more information).

Review: Revamped Commando Helmets

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Hey everyone,

I’ll be reviewing the commando helmets that were released before Christmas today since Wave 4 will be coming out soon.

Anyways, let’s start off with some pictures:
Left to right:

Fi Helmet, Sev helmet, Niner Helmet, Fixer Helmet, Scorch Helmet.

Anyways,

These are highly similar to the previous helmets, except Arealight has gone back and added in the visor gradient.

Here’s a quit run down of the helmets individually:

Fi : The Fi helmet is a black print with a very dark grey for the visor with a blue gradient printed over the visor. Arealight did a pretty good job in making the visor visible despite the visors being two very dark colors. The design itself is essentially a black version of Boss/Fixer. As usual, the printing is very clean and clear.

 

Sev: The Sev helmet is basically a revamp of the older one. Arealight added in the blue gradient for the visor and made the “blood” print a bit more clear and has a bit more of an organic feel to it. (The marks are a bit more curved around the ends.) Over all it looks pretty good.

Niner: Niner is essentially a blue version of Boss and Fixer. I personally like blue and the print itself is extremely crisp . There isn’t really much to say about it, but if you’re a fan of the character or like the color blue; then I would go ahead and pick this up.

Fixer: Fixer is a revamp of the old helmet. The green is a bit brighter from what I can tell. The ink itself didn’t set correctly on some of them, but it still looks good.

Scorch: The scorch helmet is a complete revamp of the previous helmet. Arealight took advantage of the new Dark Bluish grey plastic he decided to mold his helmets in. The design itself is fantastic. The white is is pretty clear and the print design itself looks amazing. I believe this has to be my favorite of the helmets and it definitely is a step up from the original. I would highly recommend getting this one even if you already have the previous version.

Overall:
The revamped commando helmets are great. If didn’t get a chance to pick up the previous ones or even if you have gotten them, I would suggest getting these. The gradient itself looks great although on a few of the helmets it’s a bit off center. Regardless, the designs are all pretty clean and crisp and definitely a step up from the originals. Unfortunately I don’t have my Boss helmet on me so I wont’ be able to get those up.

Anyways the rest of Wave 4 will be coming out later this week and I’ll be uploading a review for it once I get my samples.

-Apples

News Update

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Hey everyone.

Just a few things I wanted to let you guys know:

-Delta Commando Helmets will be re-released on Monday. (This will be with the new blue visor print I believe).
-Store will be closed on the 8th for the holidays.
-Arealight has shipped contest prizes off to me, so I’ll be hopefully getting a picture up soon.

Thanks,
Apples