C
Cyrano
Guest
Depending how much you want to show your age let your mind drift back to those heady days of the eighties when polos cost just 20p and penny sweets really only cost a penny and you may remember a selection of toys called Zoids. Produced by Tomy these toys never really made the limelight but were a good idea nonetheless, somwhat akin to what you'd get if an airfix kit and a transformer jumped into bed. Based on either animals or dinosaurs they were built around either a wind up motor or in some cases a battery powered one allowing them to shuffle around and flap wings or lower heads.
Fast forward 20 years and amazingly these things are still going. While the fan base is small and the toys themselves have gone through many different evolutions Tomy still produce these and have also teamed up with a company called Kotobukiya who specialise in highly detailed kits and licensed collectibles to create some very highly detailed versions of them. Called HMM (High End Master Model) Zoids they are recreations of popular models from Tomys original line but with vast amounts of details and parts. Kotobukiya have decided to do away with the idea of a motor and the model being able to move in favour of intricate detail and maximum posability.
I never owned any as a kid and when I found out there were a line of high detail, more serious models available I wanted to give one a try. However the only way to get one in the UK is mail order which can make them prohibitively expensive. The Great Saber is advertised at around $70 on most sites and then add postage on that. I was lucky that I actually had a trip over to Hong Kong planned and was able to pick it up in person and get a bit of a discount.
The other things you need to know if you're not familiar with the models (either new or old) is that they come in parts on sprues like an airfix kit but they are snapfit kits (meaning no glue) and are are pre-coloured (meaning you don't have to paint them). This means if you want you can build them straight from the box with minimal tools needed.
So, onto the build! First impressions it's a big box and with some really nice artwork on the front.
Open it up and everything is well packaged and as you'd expect for such an expensive kit. The sheer amount of parts is finally beginning to make me realise this isn't even close to the kits I remember as a kid.
The instruction manual is detailed and in colour and includes concept sketches, illustrations, possible paint schemes pretty much everything you could need. Except it's in Japanese. Bugger. Still the instructions seem clear enough and thankfully with snapfit kits if you do make a mistake there is the potential to rectify it. (Depending how forgiving the kit is) There are also a selection of slides/stickers to apply afterwards.
I crack on with the build and again the amount of parts and detail is great; Take the head for example; 38 individual parts many of which can't be seen but are there because of the articulation designed into the model. Also because everything is pre-coloured everytime an area of the model has a selection of colours they are all made up of individual components. The ingenuity to not just create the idea of one of these models but to then have to work out how to reduce it to component parts that can then be rebuilt and be poseable is quite frankly incredible. Rather than post huge amounts of pictures and walk you through the entire build process I've uploaded them as a short slideshow on youtube:
[video=youtube;kZy-a6iQi40]
The rest of the build went much like the head, you build each segment at a time; head, torso is made of 3 parts, each leg and the weapon systems. There were no major problems although there are parts where next time I'd use just a drop of glue to make things more secure. The legs in particular were frustrating, a couple of parts have a habit of pinging off everytime you pose it. Also building it finally once you have constructed all the components is a painful moment. You have to push the legs onto their axles and pivot points and it takes enough force you worry about breaking something but does go together in the end.
All in all it was a fun build if time consuming. I'd estimate 24 hours build time with around 400 individual parts to cut and trim and fit...... Next time I'd certainly look at painting it and touching it up differently and considering it's 1/72 scale I really want to try a kinda "It Came From Space" dioramma with it facing off against a couple of Shermans or something.
Anyhow that's all from me for now; Any questions, comments, feedback always welcome.
Cyrano
Fast forward 20 years and amazingly these things are still going. While the fan base is small and the toys themselves have gone through many different evolutions Tomy still produce these and have also teamed up with a company called Kotobukiya who specialise in highly detailed kits and licensed collectibles to create some very highly detailed versions of them. Called HMM (High End Master Model) Zoids they are recreations of popular models from Tomys original line but with vast amounts of details and parts. Kotobukiya have decided to do away with the idea of a motor and the model being able to move in favour of intricate detail and maximum posability.
I never owned any as a kid and when I found out there were a line of high detail, more serious models available I wanted to give one a try. However the only way to get one in the UK is mail order which can make them prohibitively expensive. The Great Saber is advertised at around $70 on most sites and then add postage on that. I was lucky that I actually had a trip over to Hong Kong planned and was able to pick it up in person and get a bit of a discount.
The other things you need to know if you're not familiar with the models (either new or old) is that they come in parts on sprues like an airfix kit but they are snapfit kits (meaning no glue) and are are pre-coloured (meaning you don't have to paint them). This means if you want you can build them straight from the box with minimal tools needed.
So, onto the build! First impressions it's a big box and with some really nice artwork on the front.
Open it up and everything is well packaged and as you'd expect for such an expensive kit. The sheer amount of parts is finally beginning to make me realise this isn't even close to the kits I remember as a kid.
The instruction manual is detailed and in colour and includes concept sketches, illustrations, possible paint schemes pretty much everything you could need. Except it's in Japanese. Bugger. Still the instructions seem clear enough and thankfully with snapfit kits if you do make a mistake there is the potential to rectify it. (Depending how forgiving the kit is) There are also a selection of slides/stickers to apply afterwards.
I crack on with the build and again the amount of parts and detail is great; Take the head for example; 38 individual parts many of which can't be seen but are there because of the articulation designed into the model. Also because everything is pre-coloured everytime an area of the model has a selection of colours they are all made up of individual components. The ingenuity to not just create the idea of one of these models but to then have to work out how to reduce it to component parts that can then be rebuilt and be poseable is quite frankly incredible. Rather than post huge amounts of pictures and walk you through the entire build process I've uploaded them as a short slideshow on youtube:
[video=youtube;kZy-a6iQi40]
All in all it was a fun build if time consuming. I'd estimate 24 hours build time with around 400 individual parts to cut and trim and fit...... Next time I'd certainly look at painting it and touching it up differently and considering it's 1/72 scale I really want to try a kinda "It Came From Space" dioramma with it facing off against a couple of Shermans or something.
Anyhow that's all from me for now; Any questions, comments, feedback always welcome.
Cyrano