Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Sci-fi Revoltech Woody Part 3

Good Guy mode

A look at Sci-fi Revoltech Woody's articulation design and gimmicks after the previous posting. ^^




Horizontal tilt can be done very easily.


Due to the upper neck joint's placement inside the head, vertical tilting to the side of the head seems to be possible.


(Left) Unfortunately, on the toy itself, much of the joint's movement space is blocked by the face part, so the head can only be tilted to the side for just a slight degree.
(Right) Bending the head upward (or downward) is very easy, and the movement can be seen very clearly too, thanks to the two neck joints that permit such a wide movement range. ^^


A closer look at the two Revoltech joints enabling all the head's movements.


Very wide shoulder articulation range since there's no special attachment of any sort on Woody's shoulders to block such movement. ^^


Unfortunately, the part design of the sleeve at elbow level restricts the range the elbow can be bent. This is as wide as the latter can go. ^^;



Side-to-side and forward-backward movements are enabled by the Revoltech waist joint.


A closer look at the Revoltech waist joint.
This is the joint design I was hoping for Predator actually. It's very simple in design, doesn't expose a huge blocky part in front and behind the body, but the range of movement enabled by this design looks just as flexible. ^^;


The hip, knee and ankle are all powered by Revoltech joints. ^^


The ankle joints are exceptionable flexible. The hip and knee joints on the other hand, suffers from the same issue as the elbow joint. The part design at hip and knee levels restrict how much the joints for the two can be bent. ^^;


Adjustment here and there to the lower body's joints and a nice kneeling pose is still possible with Woody. ^^
You can see that the left hip joint is somewhat struggling there to connect the thigh to the hip. ^^;



Overall, the articulation design on Woody is pretty good I would say. While the elbow joint being restricted by the sleeve part is quite a disappointment, it's a minor one anyway. And with the design of Woody's shirt, I guess a tradeoff between the articulation and better look at elbow level that leans towards the latter is fair. Wider range of movement for the elbow would probably mean that the joint would have to be made to be more exposing, which would affect the grid pattern on the sleeve. Given how the figure's appearance always seemed to get the emphasis in areas where similar tradeoffs are required on Alien and Predator, I'm not surprised by the same feature on Woody.

Some action poses of Sci-fi Revoltech Woody after the introduction on its articulation design:





With support using Soul Stage Act 3 Action Support Clear Type.









Woody's articulation design is in the "good" tier in my opinion. He moves a lot better than the two Sci-fi Revoltech figures mentioned above, and the action poses are a lot easier to adjust as well. ^^ All the joints used on Woody are Revoltech joints actually, and that design itself is already something very different as compared to Alien and Predator. The eyeball's movement is excluded from this little joint count of course - I see that as a gimmick and not part of the articulation design, even though technically the eyes do move. ^^;

The option face part with the creepy expression has yet to make its appearance. ^^

Monday, July 30, 2012

Sci-fi Revoltech Woody Part 2

Weakness of unrestricted flexibility

After the long introduction yesterday, this posting will focus on the option parts included in this Sci-fi Revoltech set and more images of the figure to examine its details.


Sci-fi Revoltech Woody and all of its accessories.


Woody's accessory list is definitely longer than that of Predator. ^^


Woody's unbelievably creepy-looking (but also funny in a way ^^) option face part and a little spanner-like tool to adjust the eyes.


Woody's creepy expression in this Sci-fi Revoltech set has earned him a cult status (ha!) on the Internet. The detail design and paint work given to this part must be commended for that special recognition given to this figure. ^^;


The rear view of the figure reveals the pegs connected to the eyeballs that allows independent and very flexible adjustment.


(Left) The special tool's hook is used to the eyeballs.
(Right) The sharp flat tip of the tool can reach between tight spaces for the eyeballs' adjustment. For the ultimate convenience, the tip can be used to push the pegs around as well. ^^




A few examples on the Woody's "unrestricted" eye movement. ^^


Two separate Revoltech joints for the head: one inside the head (left image) and another one at the neck's base. Two separate joints is necessary to accommodate Woody's long neck. Similar design should be given to Alien to address its limitation in neck articulation. ^^;



Woody's default head part with the "normal"-type expression. ^^


(Left) The head parts can be separated very easy.
(Right) The part separation design is completely identical to that on the option face part, obviously for compatibility.


The eyeballs can be adjusted as well.


Woody's head with the option face part.



Woody's cowboy hat.
The Disney/Pixar copyright statement molded beneath the hat looks strangely fitting for this toy of a toy. ^^ (Not that again ^^;)


On Woody's head.
No tab or slot to secure the connection, just pressure between the head and the hat that does the job. ^^




Lenny the Binoculars ^^
The wind up is not available for this accessory. ^^


Apart from its bright color scheme, the little exposing pin of the wind up key that seems to be made of metal, or looks incredibly so adds a great feel of realism to this accessory item. ^^
Sense of realism and toy are hard words to interconnect I think. XD



A microphone that looks more like a torchlight XD


Four option hand units included.


One of the right hand units has a peg on the palm area.


The peg is used to connect to a slot on the binoculars to display Woody holding it.


The special right hand unit to hold the mic.


A perfect fit for the two parts. ^^


The default pair of spread palms.


Comparison between the default pair with the two option spread palms.
Just some minor differences in finger design (the thumb and index finger) separate them (excluding the special part with peg to fit onto Lenny the Binoculars).


Also included is a special right hand unit for Buzz Lightyear that has a peg on the palm as well to hold the binoculars.


Like this.


The wrist joint's slot size is different between Woody's and Buzz Lightyear's option hand units. So no magical Buzz Lightyear's hand on Woody for folks who were thinking of having such "extra gimmick". ^^;


A typical name plate featuring the character name and movie origin.
There's no display base given to hold the name plate though.


(Left) The very generic RevolContainer and RevolChip.
(Right) Except Lenny the Binoculars, Woody's option face part and his cowboy hat, all accessories can be stored inside RevolContainer.

More images of Sci-fi Revoltech Woody:










Closeups on the details:





[Head]





[Body]




[Arms]








[Legs]

This is the first merchandise of Woody in my collection. Its colorful appearance is to be expected since that's Woody's character design, but I still find the colors to be really nice. It's a great toy character design, nicely executed in this Sci-fi Revoltech format too. ^^ I can certainly see Woody's attraction as a toy character for kids because of his colorful design, with or without the movies. ^^

For this Sci-fi Revoltech version, one particular design point I really like is how the different Revoltech joints used are molded in complementary colors as the body part: flesh-color neck and wrist joints, yellow elbow joints, blue knee joints and brown ankle joints. ^^ The colors don't actively hide the joints' appearance, but they do help in blending the joints with the various body parts. I really like this considerate design put into the figure by Kaiyodo. ^^

The gimmick of eyeball adjustment on the two option face part is perhaps the biggest selling point of Woody when it was first announced. His good buddy, Buzz Lightyear has the same gimmick as well. I really like this feature initially, especially considering a special tool is also included for the user's convenience in adjusting the eyes. I even thought to myself how great it would be for other "applicable" characters in the series to be designed with this gimmick too. I'm pretty sure other releases like No. 21 Anguirus, No. 26 Gamera [1967] and No. 29 T-Rex could make good use of the eyeball gimmick since they don't have that many facial expressions to show (obviously ^^;). Their heads are big enough to accommodate this feature as well in my opinion.

After trying out the feature myself, I can't say it's that awesome as I imagine it to be in the first place. ^^; It was indeed fun to use the tool for that purpose the first time, but after a while when the attention turned from playing with the gimmick to trying to fix the eyes in the right position as you want them to be in, the unrestricted movement of the eyeballs become quite a nuisance. ^^; I'm not sure if it was just my imagination or it was indeed the case, I couldn't align Woody's eyes properly for a quite a while in the beginning, and that became very annoying. ^^; For convenience, I used tweezers and even my own fingers to adjust the eyes in the end, which work much better than the special hook tool included.

The creepily evil expression on the option face part is pure gold. XD I would say that 80 percent of my intention in getting Woody is because of that face part. XD With it, Woody could very well be the most sinister collectible that I have ever. XD