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Thread
:
S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk Gallery
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07-07-2018, 11:18 PM
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Den-O
Admin
AKA Zordon
Content Director
@DenO_TokuNation
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Lexington, Ky
Posts: 16,328
"Ciao!"
The menace of Mars,
Evolt
has had many forms and guises over the course of his time on Earth. By far the most memorable of them all, was as the secreat founder of Faust,
Blood Stalk.
At one time the mysterious Blood Stalk pulled strings from the shadows orchestrating the rise of the Kamen Riders and the fall of Gentoku Himuro. While he may terrorize the nation as the all powerful
Kamen Rider Evol
now, there's something to be said for the unique personality and intrigue this character cultivated in his early interactions with the cast. Following on from the release of
Night Rogue,
today we have a gallery of
S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk!
Packaging
Uniquely
Blood Stalk
features some rather different packaging than Build or Night Rogue. In large part due to the
effect parts
included. The front half of the box features Stalks' trademark green & red colors while the back half is grey for the effect parts. It comes across as a really unique two-tone look, though at he cost of any stock photos of the figure itself on the back. It is quite interesting though.
Thankfully the packaging gets the romanization of his now down just as it needs to be. No more "Blood Stark" or "Brad Stark". Just Blood Stalk, making the correct implication about his motif being that of a snake.
Main Figure
This figure looks good. Very very good. People seemed to have some misgivings about the design of
Blood Stalk
prior to release. Complaining that both stock photos and display prototypes looked inaccurate. I have never seen these flaws and in hand I most certainly don't. Night Rogue was a great design that translated extremely well to figure form. That mold has been used again extremely well. One of the few flaws I originally found with the mold, was the ankle design. Because of the way the cuff of the shin armor comes down around them, you do lose a small portion of movement. But as you can see in this gallery, that doesn't make it difficult to pose him. I was a bit worried about the way the hips and thigh swivels may not be useful as well just because of his bulk. I'm happy to report and show you that Blood Stalk is every bit as poseable as Rogue. Though I recommend you definitely pull the hips down far enough because if you don't, the waist armor will dig some small grooves into the hips. There's plenty enough to work with in the legs to get Stalk in poses just brimming with personality. Also I just want to mention how really cool and well defined all of the details on the lower body are. At first glance they're easy to miss because of the uniform color scheme. But ever rivet, zipper, strap, and seam is present that should be, and it looks very good.
As with Night Rogue, one could reasonably assume that the upper body would suffer from the bulk of the chest armor as well. Fantastically though Tamashii has managed to give Blood Stalk the same dynamic upper body as Night Rogue. It's pretty wild that the ab section cam move as much it does, albeit in a little more limited fashion than Rogue. The chest can still arch pretty far back and move a fair bit forward. While slightly more limited than Night Rogue, this is still some excellent upper body articulation. The detailing of and around the
Cobra
emblem, the sort of electrical wiring, all the little details are just really well done. The whole upper body is fantastic.
The arms do leave just a little to be desired however. The bicep swivel is a bit tight and somewhat limited because of the shape of it's design. The elbow can hit about a
90 degree angle
so that's all good as far as I'm concerned, but they could have had just a little bit more freedom. The biggest issue with it is the wrists. Where Night Rogue had some limited movement because of how flush the hands sat with the wrists, Blood Stalk has the opposite issue. The hands are rather shallow, or perhaps the wrist pegs are long? Either way you can more easily make use of the wrists, but the fists themselves actually have a rather loose fit. So the hands do come off very easily.
Finally that brings us to the head. I've seen a number of people both before & after this figure was released who thought it was inaccurate, just like Night Rogue. Again, I simply don't see it. The subtlety of how the eyes can be seen under the visor is just perfect in proper lighting. The effect is just fantastic. The shape of the heads seems on point to me as well so again I don't really get the complaints I see off and on. This is an excellent sculpt with very good detailing. Overall this is just a really fantastic figure. It's just got true presence in hand. If you don't believe me then check out the photos below.
Accessories
Blood Stalk's accessories are actually identical to Night Rogues. In fact the only difference being the color of the hands. There are however some bonus effects.
1 - Transteam Rifle.
The trademark weapon used by both Night Rogue & Blood Stalk, this multi-form weapon is actually real well done in toy form. As the full Transteam Rifle it's a nice long range weapon that looks good and hefty and adds quite nicely to Stalk's look. The components can break down into the
Transteam Gun
&
Steam Blade.
The standard handgun form is the one used for transformation sequences and the most common version of the weapon either user was seen with. The Transteam Gun also contains the
Cobra Full Bottle
which is removable like the Bottles in the Build Driver, though it is so sparsely detailed that it looks exactly like Rogue's Bat Bottle. The Steam Blade uses the Stock of the rifle mode for a handle, it's a bit too thick to be held perfectly, but it works. The pressure valve on the side of the blade can be turned freely, though the scope on the end of the blade can't be properly lifted like in the show. But honestly this is still a really great accessory. I love full functionality, or at least as close as possible functionality. The Transteam Rifle and it's alternate configurations more than make the grade.
3 - sets of hands.
You get one pair to hold the Blade, 1 pair to hold either the Rifle or Gun modes, and one open palm pair of hands. Not bad really. Even the Gun holding hands work well as just menacing open hands. I'm pretty well satisfied with these. Dedicated "finger guns" hands would have been great to have though for obvious reasons.
1 - set of Steam Effects.
Meant to replicate the steam that shoots from Stalk's chest as he transforms, these parts are versatile enough to work with Build & rogue as well. They can be attached to the two included stands if you so choose, or they can be used with regular Tamashii Stage arms.
As with Night Rogue's wings there's one noticeable thing missing from Blood Stalk. His big
green Cobra.
The CG model used in the show for this summon is actually a modified version of Kamen Rider Ouja's Contract Monster,
Venosnaker.
I included some shots in this gallery with S.H. Figuarts Venosnaker for reference and I think if that figure was modified appropriately it would be the perfect add-on. Make it happen Bandai! Of course the most simple inclusion would have been a to scale Pandora Box. I tried to make due with what I had lying around for this shoot, but it's just not the same.
Final Thoughts
The
Kamen Rider Build
line of Figuarts is 3 for 3 as far as I'm concerned.
S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk
is just brilliant. This figure has so much personality. Even though it's practically the same as Night Rogue, the playful and menacing persona of Evolt shines right through. The additional steam effects just give this figure another layer of play bility that it's predecessor didn't quite have. I eagerly await getting hold of Cross-Z and the Machine Builder this month.
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Last edited by Den-O; 07-07-2018 at
11:26 PM
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