#raiking

MODEROID Raiking / Great Gaiking

And we finally get to Raiking. While its limbs are a lot more slender than the other two, it matches Gaiking’s appearance a lot more than Balking does, making Balking stand out even more. The wings and scythe are a nice touch, too. And then there’s Great Gaiking, who’s an absolute tank in comparison to its components. It’s a neat set of robots.

The Good: Raiking has a decent set of posability. Nothing really goes beyond 90°, but it’s just far enough to get some really good poses. Despite its small legs and feet, it has decent balance, and comes with a small stand to compensate for the moments where it may falter. That stand also doubles for propping up its flight mode.

Great Gaiking is a lot of fun, and the engineering built into the individual machines to create it is pretty cool. It doesn’t technically require any additional parts to do so apart from the helmet. And since it uses the arm joints from Raiking and the leg joints from Balking it has their posability as well (plus some additional from the added thighs).

The Bad: Raiking requires quite a few parts swaps to go between its normal and flight modes, having a cover for its neck joint and swappable, shorter forearms. And remember when I said technically Great Gaiking didn’t require any part swapping? That’s only if you go from flight mode, as it requires the shorter forearms. You also have to pull a few parts off of Raiking as well. Speaking of additional parts and Great Gaiking...

There’s a lot. Remember, if you bought these as a set, you’re paying around $105 for that Great Gaiking, and that is something I HEAVILY recommend you consider before purchasing. You can hobble together two robots out of those parts, but they’re kind of weird. Also, as a random note I didn’t have any other place to put, Balking’s ankles, even when extended, aren’t as good as Gaikings, so have a stand ready.

The Details: I panel lined the back of Raiking’s knees O_O

And I painted the black in between the horns on Great Gaiking’s helmet. I’ve hinted at this a bit, but you’re not really building model kits, you’re building figures with these three, hence the severe lack of typical model-kitting going on.

MODEROID ライキング