Author Archives: Confuzzled Apples

Clone Commander Printed Helmets

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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.

New ARF Helmet Prints

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Alright, so today I’ll be reviewing the ARF trooper helmets.

How I put the figures together: ARF Trooper: Body from the new Lego Star Wars Clone Battle pack / Rancor Trooper: Commander Fox torso with custom print legs from bricklink / Camo ARF  trooper consists of a KZ Body armor from Hazel Fantasy and the body from the new Lego Kingdoms sets.

From left to right: Regular ARF Trooper Helmet, Rancor ARF Trooper, Camouflage ARF Trooper

Each of these presents a good amount of detail; not to mention Arealight did do a pretty good job on matching the reference photos as usual. The best starting place would probably be the typical ARF Trooper Helmet.

The helmet with this same design was also produced by Lego, but to be honest I do prefer Arealight’s version better as it just seems more visually appealing to me personally. And since I mentioned it, here is a comparison between Arealight’s ARF Trooper helmet and Lego’s helmet.

As you can see, Lego has a bit crisper printing on the stripes at the top of the helmet. I’m not sure if it’s just my copy of the helmet or if it’s on all of them, but the stripes on the top are a bit blurred. The color for the blocks of color on the front of the Lego helmet match Lego’s sand green (correct me if I’m wrong) while I’m not really sure what the Lego color equivalent would be for the Arealight helmet’s markings. As for the logo on the “sun visor”, Arealight left out some of the small small details there that Lego was able to recreate. Personally, I think it would have looked better if Arealight could have gotten the detail in or if he had altered the logo a bit.  Regarding the shape itself, I personally like the Arealight helmet because it’s a bit more simplistic and surprisingly fits in with Lego figures a bit better than Lego’s version. The fact you can change the visor color by simply changing the head is just an added bonus.

Moving onto the Rancor trooper: [Middle]

Arealight did a fantastic job with this helmet, the detailing matches perfectly to reference and has a great amount of detailing. There really isn’t much to stay about this, the print itself continues all over the helmet essentially.

Arealight had even included a detailed print of the emblem on both sides of the helmet.

Alright so lastly we have the Camouflage ARF trooper helmet. [Far right on all pictures]

At first glance the helmet’s print job doesn’t seem as good as the other two because it’s a design that is suppose to go all the way around the helmet, but it doesn’t.

Beyond that, the design itself is pretty nice. I’m a bit disappointed though, the color of the print currently does not seem to match any sort of Lego parts that are currently out. The closest color to it that I’ve seen is the dark bluish gray. Also the underside of the visor is still a plain white color, so it limits your photography a bit if you want to take a picture of it without showing that white underside.  All in all, I feel as if this was a helmet that was sort of shafted by the printer’s capabilities.

To wrap things  up:
I would say that the ARF troopers that came out this wave were alright, not as good as some of the other printed helmets. But! If you do plan on getting one of the three, I would suggest getting the Rancor trooper helmet as you will definitely be getting one of the better printed helmets out there. As always though, the best thing to do is to pick the one you would like the best. I’m just here to help you decide ;).

-Apples

Check back for more reviews and possibly a few “how to”s after I finish these reviews!

Not usually my job but…

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Good day everyone :).
When I joined up Arealight as a spokes person one of the tasks I was given was reviewing products. To be completely honest, I’ve never done this before so this will be the first review I ever do but definitely not the last.

The way this will work is that I will have several items of a single type in one photo.  And I will include single photos as necessary. We all know slow loading times are lame, so I want to keep those loading times as low as possible. I also apologize for the photos, my room is currently a mess as I still haven’t gotten around to making room for a  photo space so I’ve been making due with a little area of my desk.

So, I suppose the best starting point would be the airborne helmets.
So for about $5.00 USD, you can purchase one of these four helmets. The price itself is actually pretty decent when you take into account that the helmets themselves retail for $2.50 and most retailers who will do printing, charge a lot more for the printing on flat surfaces. These figures consist of Brickforge Vambraces, MMCB Waistcape and Pauldrons, Lego Torsos [Clone trooper torso / Snow Trooper Torso/ ExoForce Torso] and Legs [Series 1 Astronaut / Clone Trooper Legs].

From left to right:
Utapau Airborne trooper helmet, a 501st Airborne helmet, Commander Keller Helmet, an Airborne sharpshooter helmet.

Over all they are all pretty nice helmets. Here is a rear view of the helmets:
Each of them look the same on the back and only have the black stripe on the back except for the 501st airborne helmet, which has it’s design continue from the front to the back. The Arealight Jetpack is a tight fit and you can only use the warhead without any real problems with moving the helmet. The only thing is that the helmet itself locks into place if it’s put in a straight forward position.

Here is a side view of the Utapau helmet. One of the two problems I do have with the helmets is the fact that the printing on the stripe on the back goes out of the indention on the helmet, but this is easily fixed with a bit of brasso and paint.  The other problem has to do with the vents on the lower part of the helmet. As you can see, there are some white areas showig out of the black, but other wise these are great helmets.

Here’s an overhead shot, as you can see the pattern on the 501st and Keller Helmets go from front to back.

So to finalize:
Utapau Helmet: This helmet is actually is quite accurate from what I can tell and matches the Lego orange quite well.

501st Helmet    : This one has a single production error on the front of the helmet above the visor, there seems to be what looks like a small chip on the very front of the design. However, Arealight did do a good job of matching the reference picture. The helmet I received of this one is a bit less defined than the rest on the edge of the design in the back.

Keller Helmet     : You really can’t go too wrong with this one. It matches the reference quite well and I personally love the cleanness of the design itself and how it fits so well on the helmet.

Airborne Sniper: Arealight, once again, did a good job of matching the reference for this helmet. The sizing on the design is quite nice in relation to the helmet size.

Overall, I’d have to say that these are pretty good products. The printing in general is pretty crisp and clean and Arealight did do a very good job in matching the reference pictures for these products. The only real problem I found was the line in the back going out of the indention that it seems to be made to fit into. If you’re trying to decide which ones to get out of these (due to lack of funds or what not), I would personally suggest the Keller Helmet mainly for the reason that the design on the helmet itself is very clean and works quite well on this helmet honestly.

Thank you for your time and please check back for future reviews and possible “How-To”s.