Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Review: Star Diamond Blocks Soldier Deformation: 5-in-1 Robot set PART FOUR

This picks up from:
Part one: The Big Box of Robots!
Part two: The Cliffjumper clone!
Part three: The Hound look alike!

3  more robots to go!  And my girlfriend insists on building at least one of the beasts!  Woot!

After 3 articles in the series I'll dispense with most of the fluff and go straight to the Bot.

Moves like a Prowl.

This mecha is a police car in vehicle form and reminds me so much of the Autobot named Prowl.

The package is similar to his other brothers and again comes with a brick removal tool.



The instructions sheet is glossy and readable similar to a Lego instruction manual.


Here's the nice assortment of white and black bricks

Time to visit our fellow robot!  My Lego minifig retro robots checking out the scene


The legs offer the sturdy construction and tight joints that we've come to expect from Star Diamond.  This joint tightness is something that we only used to get with Lego.



The body of the Prowl-bot is less stockier than the Hound clone's was.


The gun and the shield.

The gun is smaller than the previous bots.




Done!

Time for some poses!



Yep look at how that head strongly resembles the Autobot Prowl.

Nice strong profile!

To serve and protect!



Do you see my gun?


To battle!

Battle Brothers!


Two more bots and I am done with their basic forms!

Til next bot!

Monday, October 28, 2013

Review: Star Diamond Blocks Soldier Deformation: 5-in-1 Robot set PART THREE



This picks up from:
Part one: The Big Box of Robots!
Part two: The Cliffjumper clone!

Time to continue building the big box of Star Diamond robots.

After building the Cliffjumper look-alike.

It's now Hound's turn.

Opening the box we get the same stuff that came with the first robot.  Similar to the Cliffjumper clone we also get a brick tool in the box.  


It also has two manuals with it: one for building the Hound clone and the other manual that let's you combine the parts of this box with another robot set (The Prowl lool-alike)




We have a nice set of stickers for application later on.



And all of them laid out nice and neat!





Here's Cliffjumper looking over the box of his unbuilt brother.



THE MANUAL

Similar to Lego manuals this one has clear and concise instructions that doesn't leave the builder confused.



THE LEGS:

Similar to Lego Hero Factory the joints are tight and can support the weight of the robot.


THE TORSO:

Nice looking torso here made of solid green bricks.



THE WEAPONS:

A nice mid sized gun for Hound.



Cliffjumper's gun is way bigger :)


Here are the two arms.  With a gun and a shield.



THE COMPLETE FIGURE:

Nice!  And because the Star Diamond joints are pretty tight it can stand upright and is fully poseable with lots of points of articulation.





BATTLE BROTHERS!



Looking very nice when you stand them together!

3 more robots to go then!




Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Review: Lego Minifigs Series 11 Part 2

Continuing with Minifig series 11 (Part One is here).



The Yeti

This bunch involves one of my favorite minifigs The Yeti!  The yeti looks like a cute white version of Chewbacca.  Plus the popsicle accessory just makes him all the more cuter.


Just look at that facial expression!




Hmmmm blueberry!



The EVIL Robot!

The evil robot goes well with other figs in the same theme.  They can actually form a group that can pass off as power rangers or other sentai teams.  I'm not impressed with the gun though as it uses a gun concept straight out of 1970s Lego space.  But the armor and the helmet are great touches.




The Barbarian

He's a pretty straightforward minifig.  Nothing in terms of gimmicks but he will fit perfectly in with other similarly themed figs.

Where is Rome?

Grahhhhh!



The Mountain Climber

This minifig looks like he came straight out of Sylvester Stallone's movie Cliffhanger.

Very nice bright red colors and the rope and Pick Axe accessories are nice.  The safety helmet is also good looking.


This is my Sly Stallone impression!




All four of them together!


Group shot!

And one more shot guys!


I really like the yeti with the blue popsicle!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Review: Star Diamond Blocks Soldier Deformation: 5-in-1 Robot set PART TWO

This is the 1st robot in that big box i got containing Star Diamond's biggest box of robots in brick form.

The unboxing post is here: Unboxing the Beast

The day I got the box is described here: A ton of bricks

And here was my first non-Lego robot: Ausini Guarder


Unboxing the Red Robot:

Opening the huge box gave me 5 smaller boxes inside.  Each box contained the parts for an individual robot.  A good assortment of bricks were inside the box.  And what do I see but something similar to Lego's brick removing tool.  That's awesome because you normally only get the brick remover from big costly Lego sets.  This box had 5 of them, 1 for each robot!



The instructions were in really nicely produced sheets.



There were two sets of instructions as the other one contained instructions for combining this robot with some of the other robots in the set.


When you open the manual it shows a colorful and well illustrated step-by-step guide to complete the model.


And here are the brick pouches again.  A nice assortment of reds and blacks.  And I still find it extremely satisfying to get that green brick remover tool.



I think it's great that everything is disassembled.  You need to connect almost everything.  Even the hinges.  Lego for one already has the hinges pre-constructed.  With Star Diamond they make you assemble them.


Lego has always had great rubber wheels.  In fact they are one of the biggest manufacturers of rubber wheels on the planet.  Star Diamond is tops as far as the Chinese manufacturers go in terms of wheel quality. Most of their models have rubber wheels similar to Lego (some of the small kits now contain plastic wheels unfortunately).  And the quality of the tires and mags are at Lego levels.



Building the Bot: 

Following the instructions sheet we start with the legs.  It is great to note here that despite not using toothed gear parts for the leg joints they provide a surprisingly stable and tight set of joints. This is a far cry from the loose joints of the Sluban flamingo transformable model I made a few weeks back (Here's the review for that one: Space Flamingo ).


Nice!  Even with the body attached it can still stand up on its own.

Here we have the body almost done.  The whole structure can still be supported by the legs.


And here we have the gun for the mecha.


The arm and the gun
We are almost done building this bad boy.

A couple of folks mention that he looks similar to the Transformer's Cliffjumper.  Yeah I can definitely see the resemblance there.

One arm attached

Even with one arm connected the model can still stand on its own.  That's a good sign.

One more arm and this journey is done.


The complete bot:

With the tight joints you can put the completed robot in almost any pose you can imagine.

Now complete!




It is a pretty handsome looking bot once everything was done.

Face front!






Nice!


With the gang:

Posing it with some of my other stuff for a size comparison.

The review of the yellow Guarder robot is here: Guarder

From left to right:  Star Diamond robot, Ausini Guarder robot, Gundam Farsia, Lego Green Lantern
 

Another picture with the gang!




One last group pic!  Green Lantern is happy in the back!


My decision to buy the big 2,000 peso box was well worth it.  If the rest of the robots in this set will turn out this way then I am in for a treat.

Watch out for the other 5 bots as I finish building each one.