Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes tin set

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
I picked up the Modal Nodes tin set the other day. It's an exclusive to Walmart. The tins are pretty cool, and it's nice to enlarge my Cantina Band (which up until now consisted of one member :p ).

The new band memebrs are slightly different from the earlier release...better in some ways...worse in others. The original figures had all blakc outfits....with grayish pants. A plastic "poncho", for lack of a better term went over the basic figure. The hands and heads were a peach color with a rosy overspray. The instrumens were a solid brown/bronze plastic.

The new figures have three-color intruemnts..which are awesome. They are also rubber-banded to their hands....another plus. The outfits consist of a white undershirt....black overshirt.....and a black soft-goods outer jacket. The jacket is shorter than the plastic poncho...and feature a collar that sticks up. While it is an interesting concept and probably more movie-accurate....I don't think it looks very good. I know Hasbro thinks soft goods make for better selling features.....but they just don't look real. You can't take a piece of fabric and make it look to-scale with a figure that small. It's be kinda like taking a big wool blanket....stitching it together with leather cord, and putting it on a mannequin....expecting it to look like a shirt. :( But I digress. :p

The other feature that is different is a dark orange color wash on the head and hands. This has a nice effect of enhancing th sculpt details. However....it makes for some messy and blotchy paint jobs on their heads. I like the air-brushed overspray better myself.




So....I now have 6 band members.....only one shy of a full band.

For those wondering..the band members are:

Figrin D'an......band leader and kloo horn player (long horn with curved mouthpiece)
Doikk N'ats...plays the long straight horn
Ikabel G'ont....plays the short straight horn....the fanfar
Lirin Car'n...plays backup Kloo horn....he was at a table gambling in the cantina
Nalan Cheel...plays the bandfilll....the box horn that hangs around his neck
Tech M'or...plays the omni box....the box with the circular radiator thing on top
Tedn Dahai....also plays the short horn.....the fanfar
 

Barada

Saboteur
darthskellington;71105 said:
I know Hasbro thinks soft goods make for better selling features.....but they just don't look real. You can't take a piece of fabric and make it look to-scale with a figure that small.

I must disagree with that.

The vintage line was full of cloth capes that looked MUCH better than the vinyl ones we got on Obi-Wan, Vader, Tusken Raider, etc. The Jawa may have been the best one of all, and the vintage Jawa to this day looks better than any modern version. The Endor Luke, Han, and Leia are three more examples. The vintage Royal Guard blows away all modern versions with plastic capes.

Look at the VOTC line. Vader and Lando have capes much superior to plastic versions. The Tusken is the best modern Tusken bar none. Han Endor again looks fantastic with a cloth cape.

You don't even need to go with the supposed high-end VOTC figures either. Garindan looks spectacular with his cloth cape. Both Luke and Qui-Gon's Tatooine ponchos look great as cloth accessories.

Cloth jackets tend to look awkward, but in my opinion, overall it's much preferable to have cloth accessories than stiff pre-molded plastic.

As for the Cantina Set, I personally think the combination of paint and the cloth coats make these far superior to the Fan Club exclusive from the late 90's.

Barada
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Here they are in action. :dance:

326850289_1cc13d6cc7.jpg
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Okay...well...in 99% of your examples..I agree. :p The vintage ones rocked. And compared to the POTF2 figures..they are awesome. I think where I dislike them is with all the jackets...which look horrid to me. Also...all the massive cloth Jedi robes look way out of place....hence my mannequin example. However...the thin starched fabric ones they made for ROTS look pretty cool. I really like the soft goods on Luminara. While the VOTC Tusken is an awesome sculpt....you can't see it for all the masses of fabric. :p I guess my main complaint is with jackets and massive fabric cloaks. Qui-Gon's poncho looks massive to me...and it's so ig that if you try to pose his arms....the fabric pushes them back to a neutral position. I do like the new fabric poncho Endor Luke....it rocks. :cool:
 

Barada

Saboteur
That's more of what I was trying to say Skel.

When they do fabric right, it's by far the best choice.

I do agree that several Jedi robes were much too bulky - and I did acknowledge that jackets look awkward in almost every attempt Hasbro has made at making them in fabric.

Barada
 
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