S.H. Figuarts Iron Man 3 Iron Patriot

I've been meaning to write about this figure for a while seeing as I've had it for several months now!

SH Figuarts do great work and are well worth the money to have imported from Japan. The articulation, accessories, paint application and sculpt are all top drawer on SH Figuarts figures and this Iron Patriot is no different.

Firstly, Iron Patriot comes with six repulsor effects that can all be attached to his palms or bottom of his feet.

He also comes with his minigun that attaches to his back, which also comes with a blast effect that attaches to it.

And as far as hands go, we get 4 different pairs. There are closed fists, blaster hands with pegs to attach the repulsor blasts to, blaster hands without pegs, and flat palms.

Iron Patriot himself is just a class act.

The paint is gorgeous and metallic, with flecks throughout adding to the realism. This figure looks metallic though it's not - the feet are die cast metal though to keep the figure balanced and to stop it from falling over.

The paint is also incredibly clean and neatly applied.

Iron Patriot's minigun fits nicely into one of two slots on his back. The gun is also articulated so it can sit flat against his back or angle it over his shoulder ready to fire.

The articulation on Iron Patriot is great. The head looks up and down and left and right. His shoulder armour is articulated so the shoulders aren't hindered at all. The shoulders have a ball joint inside and out so it's almost like a butterfly joint giving his arm a great range of motion. Elbows are double jointed and the wrists are articulated. There is an ab crunch and waist swivel.

There are articulated flaps at his hips so that his legs aren't hindered when moving. His hips have double joints, again almost like a butterfly joint so there's a great range of motion forward, back, and outwards. There's a thigh swivel, double jointed knees, articulated flaps at the front and back of the feet, ankle pivot and hinge and toe articulation.

This figure is one of the jewels in my collection, I absolutely love it. It's almost flawless as far as I can see - the only 2 things that are missing for me are: the eyes and arc reactor look as though they should light up, but I guess if they did this figure would cost even more! And secondly, I wish it came with it's own flight stand - that would make it.

If you can afford this figure, I'd say it's well worth picking up. Of course you can get about 3 Marvel Legends for the price of this one figure, but I'd recommend this over those all day - especially with the prices that some of the rarer Marvel Legends can hit.

Go Figure!

Revoltech Iron Man MK VII

I ordered this online a couple of months ago, but since I decided to look at horror stuff through the month of October I've got some catching up to do!!

So Revoltech do highly detailed and articulated figures and if you want one in the UK, you'll probably need to look at ordering online as these are mostly imports.

Iron Man comes with several accessories, including a stand and a name plaque, that mentions what movie this armour was used in. I really wish the stand was better though. All this does is keep Iron Man standing. That's it. No flight poses, and you can't really get any running stances.

Two kinds of repulsor blasts, one with a longer blast and one shorter, made in a nice partially transparent orange plastic

As well as closed fists he also comes with one set of open hands, and another set of flat hands with holes for the repulsor blasts

And finally a small orange box to keep all of the accessories in

Taking Iron Man out of the packaging he was covered in plastic over and in between his joints. I had to take him apart just to get the plastic off.

That was frustrating, but at least it kept the figure in nice condition and made sure that the metallic paint didn't scuff. It also meant that I got a pretty hands on look at the Revoltech joints.

This is a great looking figure and I'm glad I could add him to my collection and my growing Avengers team. Though honestly, I kind of wish I'd held off and picked up the Figma version, or maybe even the upcoming Figuarts version. Throughout this write up it will probably become apparent why. But like I said, this is a pretty great figure.

The great metallic shiny paint really makes this figure look like Iron Man armour, though I wish the arc reactor in his chest was more than just a white circle. I would have thought that it would be as well, considering the rest of the figure is so nicely painted and detailed. Iron Man is mostly a brilliant metallic red, with metallic gold and silver highlights.

The articulation on Iron Man is really very good, but for me, it's lacking a few very important points.

His head is on a peg so moves up and down and left and right nicely. His shoulder pads are articulated so that when moving his shoulders up there's no hindrance. His shoulders move up, forward and back, his elbows swivel and bend right in and his wrists swivel and bend. He's got a diaphragm crunch, his hips move his legs forward and back a little and for me, this is where the articulation falls down. I really do wish that the hips moved outwards so that we could get him in crouched poses.

The knees bend right in and his ankles move back and forth with the aid of small flaps that are also articulated around his feet, meaning the feet can move more and still sit nicely in the armour.

Iron Man also has two flaps on his back that open for air brakes. Sadly, no flight stand like I mentioned earlier, so they don't really have any fun posing possibilities.

So because of some of the limitations in the hips and because of the lack of flight stand, this figure is pretty limited in his poses. But the poses that you can get him in are classic Iron Man and the metallic paint make this guy look brilliant.

Like I said the main falling down points are a couple of missed points of articulation and the lack of a much needed flight stand. But over all, I like this guy a lot. I wanted to pick up a good looking Iron Man for a while, for the simple reason that Iron Man is such a great looking design I didn't want to go for one of the Marvel Select or Legends figures, even though some of those do look really nice. I really wanted one I could pose more and had that really nice metallic shine to it.

Also, the arc reactor has to be circular. None of this triangular nonsense.

I would recommend this figure. It's an excellent representation of the Mark VII suit from The Avengers and it is a nice looking piece to have on your toy shelf. It's also a more palatable price point than the Figma version - about half of that price - and it'll probably end up being cheaper than the Figuarts version that is due for release.

Go Figure!