Aloha folks. It's been awhile since I did something with my figures. I've still got a whole lot of TF toys to open and review, but work and another part of life makes it difficult for me to do so. Tonight, insomnia got the best of me so I decided to play with a base stand I bought a while back. Today I do a brief review on the
Bandai Hobby Action Base 1 display stand. With it, you can deliver the impression that your Gundam figures are flying and duking it out with other rivals while suspended in mid-air, perhaps re-creating a memorable dramatic scene you saw in the anime. But since I don't own Gundam figures, I will test out this stand with none other than my TF figures. So what you see is what you get.
The above link is the how the packing looks like. I did a take pic but it didn't come out well with all the glare in place. I just decided to include a link and if you are impressed then you can buy it after.
Yep, assembly is required. Took me nearly half hr to 45 mins to assemble this stand. It's fairly easy if you follow the instructions but boy this took some time. Comes with three different holders based on your Gundam figure. Since my figures aren't Gundam, I'm already unable to use what I call the screw on holder and the pincher holder. I could only use the one that resembles a four way "Y" holder. I like to call it the fork. It comes in three different sizes each differing in width. The unit holding the fork is adjustable and can be extended a few inches giving your character some decent height and hang time. Now on with our first character.
Slugslinger guest starring Stepper.
I originally wanted to use Starscream but I had some difficulty using the forks on him though I was only using one size at the time. I gave up on using Screamer and utilized Slugslinger instead. I have to admit it looks neat to finally do some decent photography on flying TF's. The only drawback is that the stand can be fairly wobbly and your character (Slugslinger in this case) could spiral out of control due to how light the stand can be as opposed to the weight of your character. In an other words the fork can and will get loose at times. Due to TF characters not having the same anatomy as the Gundam figures, you had to find an opening for you to put the fork in. The fork will fit his buttock area whereas Starscream was nearly impossible. What makes the action base stand impressive, providing that you can do the poses, is posing the character on alt mode. Look at the pics and tell me that Slugslinger doesn't look awesome flying! Only drawback is weight again which can cause your character to fall off or even cause the extender port to fall off completely.
However, another test character proved to be fairly tough: Next we have Cyclonus guest starring Galvatron!
I thought Cyclonus be a perfect fit for this category, but you can see how limited the aerial poses he had for this part. First off, the only way to have him fly decently in the air is to use the fork and shove it up his... or should I say ride it up his crotch area. And sadly, it doesn't grip on that well in comparison to Slugslinger. For his alt mode, I had to fork one of his feet and yet it still does not hold too well. Not to mention, if you shake the unit a bit, he already falls off. I tried a Superman pose with him but he kept crashing down. Moving on.
Conclusion: At this point I kinda gave up. It's a huge trial and error for every character. Some characters like Slugslinger works decently while it's a letdown on Cyclonus. I'll probably play around with this stand using other figures down the road, but for now, just a have a nice day folks. I would avoid this if you are using non-Gundam figures.
