Moving on to the articulation design of HCM-Pro Gundam RX-78-2 Roll Out Color Ver. after the previous posting. ^^
A ball-type neck joint it is, but it's too short to provide the head with much flexibility to be bent to any direction. The head felt really hard to turn, but the issue is actually the head colliding "effortlessly" with the collar instead of the joint being too tight. ^^;
The swivel joint portion of the shoulder joints allow the arms to swing forward and backward.
The shoulder joint has a hinge that allows either arm to be bent forward as well.
The design of the shoulder hinge is very much identical to that on the HGUC Gunpla version. ^^
Limited by the shoulder armor, the arm can be bent upward on the side of the body for 90 degrees only.
A look at the simple swivel-hinge combination joint designed for the shoulder.
With the upper arm swivelled around so that the shoulder joint is facing upward, the arm can be bent upward for a full 180 degrees.
As seen above, the shoulder armors are connected to the shoulder joints instead of the upper arms, which allows them to be tilted independently of the shoulder joints for a slight degree.
The upper arm can be swiveled around on the shoulder block.
The forearm can be pulled downward for a slight degree to enable it to be swivelled around at elbow level. ^^
The forearm is detached at elbow level to reveal the very Gunpla-esque connector linking between the upper arm and the elbow joint. ^^
90-degree elbow bend.
Limited bending for the hand units, despite having ball-type wrist joints. ^^;
Just side-to-side swivel for the waist.
The front and side skirt armors can be hinged upward.
Molded mechanical details behind the front skirt armors.
The side skirt armor can be pulled slightly away from the waist to extend its range of upward bend.
As a matter of fact, the armor parts can be completely detached from the waist. ^^
While they are hard to be seen in the pictures due to the molded color of the parts themselves, but like the front pieces, the back face of the side skirt armors feature some minor molded details.
The front skirt armors can be detached as well.
While they are designed with ball-type joints, they are rendered to only have hinge-type movement when tabbed in place in front of the waist.
The very Gunpla-esque "polycap" movable-type slot for the side skirt armor. ^^
The legs can be expanded to their respective sides for 90 degrees. ^^
While the hip joints are of very normal ball-type, notice the gap on top each of the thigh's slot that accommodates the the hinge joint, which allows the flexible articulation point shown above.
90-degree forward bend is possible for the hip, but backward bend for the joint is limited by the back armors - a very common weak spot on most action figures. ^^;
While the side expansion range is impressive, the ball-type joint's own movement is very limited. ^^
90-degree knee bend.
Some minor molded details on the knee joint.
Pretty flexible forward-backward and side-to-side tilts for the ankle joint.
The ankle joints are a bit loose, resulting in the figure suffering from the tendency to lean forward in certain standing poses.
The hydraulic pipes are not only fully painted, they are fully functional as well. ^^
The leg is detached at ankle level to show off the separate parts of the hydraulic pipes.
As you can see, the hoses and pipes are designed with their own hinge joints that allow them to move independently of the ankle joint.
The design is really impressive for a 1/200 scale figure. ^^
Despite having the noted flaws in the different joints' design, the hip, thigh, knee and ankle joints still work very well together to give Gundam RX-78-2 a good kneeling pose. ^^
The articulation design is rather basic I would say, although the flexibility of the hip joints is evidently quite impressive. ^^ However, as the other joints are stiff and limited in how much they can be adjusted, the overall lack of posability kind of render the hip joints useless. ^^;
It's still a good, posable figure. Just don't compare it to what you can get out of the newer High Grade Gunplas or Robot Damashii figures. ^^;
The hydraulic pipes of the ankles are perhaps my favorite feature on the entire figure. ^^ They are super puny, but are fully painted and functional. ^^ The ankle joints themselves are capable of supporting the feet's movement, so the hydraulic pipe sets are there mainly for cosmetic purpose, but their intricate design that actually works, at the scale of 1/200, is fascinating to behold. ^^
Some action poses from the figure to demonstrate its posability:
With support using Soul Stage Act 3 Action Support Clear Type.
More action poses from this HCM-Pro action figure coming up in the next posting, which is going to be the last one for this review series. ^^
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