Review of Custom Chinese Armors & Weapons

[KimT]

A while ago I noticed the 2012 plan posted by BrickTW and I knew I instantly had to get me some of his customs.

And they're great - the quality is very high and the lead-in marks from the molding are very discrete.

The overall look and feel of these customs is highly proffessional and I'd recommend them to anyone who'd like to spiff up their Eastern Armies.

As soon as the order arrived I started putting together a few minifig mannequins.

What better way to present and review these parts?

I also did a little photobox to do the pic in, otherwise Sir Dillon would have another go at me like he did in the "Show Your Army"-topic and I'd rather not go there again

So without further ado, I present a little sample of all the parts I got.

The lot:

So many colours and designs

(Notice how I managed not to get photographed in the shiny chrome parts - the table did though )

And now to do a more simple overview of the colours available through BrickTW.

Blue:

Milky White:

Chrome Silver:

Yellow:

Trans-Clear:

Pink:

Chrome Gold:

Trans-Blue:

Dark Grey:

Red:

Trans-Red:

Black:

Tan:

White:

Trans-Green (Jade):

Trans-Light-Blue:

As I said, great colours.

I actually think my favorites are pink and tan.

But don't tell anyone that I liked the girly-colour.

There's only a few spots were you can see the molding process and everything fits together very well.

Except the chrome headgear-feathers.

They don't fit in the chrome helmets, but the do fit in the regular colour helmets and vice versa.

Still that is a minor detail and one that I'm sure a little careful pushing and twisting can fix.

Shield assembly:

Now this is genious.

The little handle fits perfectly in the rear side of the shield and allows more several different poses to be used.

See the proffessional BTW mark? - That's dedication if I ever saw it

Shield Types:

Rectangle Shield for Spear Soldier - Round Fighting Shield - Rectangle Shield

Another look at the shields in non-chrome non-transparent colours.

I think the shields are great.

So much detail and perfect molding.

What's not to like?

Now let's explore just how "insane" this customizer is.

All armors and helmets are (claimed to be) historically correct.

Now I am not an expert of Eastern armors and helmets, but I'll take his word for it anytime.

Armors:

Ching Dynasty Armor - Armor Clothing of Ching Dynasty - Zhao Yun's Clothing - The Armor of Zhao Yun

Zhao Yun (? - 229) was a major military general during the civil wars of the late Han Dynasty and during the Three Kingdoms era of China. For most of his career, Zhao Yun served the warlord Liu Bei, playing a part in the establishment of Shu Han. In literature and folklore he is lauded as the third member of the Five Tiger Generals.

See?

Headgears:

A little look at the different ones.

And now to break them down into pairs:

Army Helmet of Kin Dynasty & Steel Helmet of Kin Dynasty

Army Cap of Ching Dynasty & Army Helmet of Ching Dynasty

Zhao Yun's hairstyle.

Great helmets - again with much detail and the little holes on top allow the different head-feathers to be applied to any helmet, so you wont have to be historically correct.

Headgear ornaments:

Ching Dynasty Feather Ornament - Ching Dynasty Feather Ornament - Ornament of Ching's Helmet.

And I've actually forgotten one

Ornament of Kin's Helmet

Swords:

Revolution Broadsword - Slaughter Broadsword - Saint Sword - Broadsword with Seven Stars - Combat-style Bloody Broadsword

A nice selection of swords to pick from.

The do seem a little too big to be "real" weapons - not that it matters at all.

Bow & Spears:

Cross Dragon Spear - Dark Hell Halberd - Flame-style Bow

(From the top and down)

I prefer the Cross Dragon Spear.

It's simple and yet very effective.

[KimT]

With my order came a very nice collection of capes:

Luckily the figs were happy to get out of the heavu armors and put on these sophisticated neck-wears

The Leather Cape:

A great use of an ornamented piece of thin leather.

But as much as I like it, it's kinda too not LEGO-ish for me to use.

The Silver Cape:

Very good use of cloth and colour.

The only downside is that it's a little fragile and it took me half a second to make a bend in the back of it.

Dammit!

The Trans-Red Cape:

Now this one I can see loads of uses for.

The transparent look adds a very wizardly look to it and together with the ornamental printing, it's just great.

Again this is a little fragile as milky white bends easily appear - but then again, this isn't a toy.

The Trans-Blue Cape:

Same as with the red one.

The Yellow Cape:

Now this is more classic and more to my liking.

Add the Asian head from Indiana Jones and you've got a real deal Asian Wizard.

Again we have some ornamental printing

The Red Cape:

Straight up LEGO look.

Will do in almost any medieval MOC.

The Black Cape:

Meow!

Not much to add that hasn't been said with the other colours.

All capes:

All capes are cut perfectly and they look and feel equal to TLG's quality wise.

If you're dropping an order with BrickTW you even get some of these for free - depending on the size of your order.

Business link:

Bricklink Store

BrickTW's smiley:

BrickTW made this smiley of some of the available colours.

Right now I can't think of any that are missing - but I'm sure you guys can.

Drop your thoughts on these products and which colours and stuff you'd like to see and I am sure BrickTW will either read this or be informed about it.

[KimT]

When this review has been outpaged, I'll move it from here and into the MCW Forum.

I just thought you guys wanted a look at some historical customs

[Artifex]

Amazing work! Congratz!

[HumanPackMule]

I'm loving how those broadswords look.

[KimT]

Indeed.

The swords are pretty cool.

I can easily imagine the trolls of Fantasy Era handling those in a diorama

And the halberd in trans is also quite scary in the hands of a wizard.

Crystal staff of Magi anyone?

[Commodore Hornbricker]

Another really great review on this excellent topic of customs. I've had my eye on some of these for a while. One of these days I will have to make a purchase. I really have my eye on the red one and the blue one.

[WhiteFang]

Excellent review!! I am really looking forward to order these lovely oriental customs from Taiwan. It will be great to have them inside my armies assortment. It's great to see so much details in there. Thanks KimT!

[Sir Dillon]

Nice review KimT! Your pictures are good and the background makes a nice difference.

I don't think I'll be buying any of these items, but they look like quality customs. The swords are my favourite.

[KimT]

And now it's time for this to meet EB's finest Customizers in the MCW.

[TheCrimsonTrooper]

Another really great review on this excellent topic of customs. I've had my eye on some of these for a while. One of these days I will have to make a purchase. I really have my eye on the red one and the blue one.

With recent and past event I figured you might get those colors.

Great review, I may not be a fan of eastern-themed Lego MOCs and customs, but for these, there is a difinitive exception to my usual opinions.

[Captain Green Hair]

These look great, how is the plastic quality and how does it al fit (or stay put) on the minifigs?

[LuxorV]

Thanks for a great review yet again, KimT! You're really digging the customiser nature aren't you?

Those items look very nice, even if one has to get used to the unusual formats and the richness in details, unlike the standard LEGO armours (printing apart), swords and shields.

Just how posable are the MF's legs with long armours like this one?

[KimT]

These look great, how is the plastic quality and how does it al fit (or stay put) on the minifigs?

It's a perfect fit.

The armors have cutouts to ensure that the minifig heads sink in and fit perfectly.

I've noticed no troubles with fitting.

In fact they fit somewhat better than some official parts like TLG's recent crappy helmets - Rebels from Tantive IV & Endor Troops and for example the king's crown in Castle which has a habit of popping off or the whole Viking helmet incident a few years back?

These customs are of very high quality and perhaps TLG ought to hire BrickTW to their design department?

Thanks for a great review yet again, KimT! You're really digging the customiser nature aren't you?

Those items look very nice, even if one has to get used to the unusual formats and the richness in details, unlike the standard LEGO armours (printing apart), swords and shields.

Just how posable are the MF's legs with long armours like this one?

Well obviously the legs are a little locked in this particular armor as it's a lot lower than the minifig's waist.

But it's a lot wider than it looks.

I'll do some side view photos of a minifig in that armor and you'll see what I mean.

(It's on my to-do-list)

And yeah, I'm really getting to appreciate the work these customizers do.

Perhaps I should consider doing a Medieval Eastern MOC instead of hanging around Star Wars all the time?

[HumanPackMule]

It's a perfect fit.

The armors have cutouts to ensure that the minifig heads sink in and fit perfectly.

I've noticed no troubles with fitting.

In fact they fit somewhat better than some official parts like TLG's recent crappy helmets - Rebels from Tantive IV & Endor Troops and for example the king's crown in Castle which has a habit of popping off or the whole Viking helmet incident a few years back?

These customs are of very high quality and perhaps TLG ought to hire BrickTW to their design department?

Maybe TLG should hire them to do the stuff they normally give us from China(Taiwan really is just the cast-out former democracy of China after all) for the battle packs or animals(camels anyone?).

[vexorian]

Maybe TLG should hire them to do the stuff they normally give us from China(Taiwan really is just the cast-out former democracy of China after all) for the battle packs or animals(camels anyone?).

I think LEGO outsources to China because of mass producing options, I wonder if BrickTW would have such capacity.

These parts are very nice actually. I can see uses for them outside of historic themes, some would do nicely in sci-fi/futuristic fantasy MOCs.

[XimenaPaulina]

Thank for sharing this with us 'KimT'! Those are indeed very interesting customs. I especially like the chromed swords and shields. But I'm not so sure about the trans-colored pieces, I don't see any use for them, probably for "Ghost Armies?"

[natelite]

nice, though i'm not sure about the zhaoyun's hairstyle? isn't that era suppose to feature ponytails? i think that version is probably the xbox/ps3 remake. those videogames reimagined versions can transform an original grandpa into a superstar. :D

[KimT]

Thank for sharing this with us 'KimT'! Those are indeed very interesting customs. I especially like the chromed swords and shields. But I'm not so sure about the trans-colored pieces, I don't see any use for them, probably for "Ghost Armies?"

I feel the same about trans colours.

Except that the trans-jade (or other trans) weapons might prove useful for wizards or summoned creatures from other planes.

But I certainly prefer the realistic colours.

The chromed parts are of very high quality and a chrome armor and weapons looks awesome.

Perhaps I should do a few combo pics with chrome and non-chrome parts together?

I can do that along with the poseable picture I promised yesterday.

I'll see if I can find some time to do it today.

I have to go purchase a new tent and run some errands for the wife.

[echobanzai]

thanks for the pix!!!

im working on an asian themed comic, so i was thinking of making the characters out of lego. im going to have to order some of these armors after seeing your pix.

i hope this will encourage other artists to start creating full on brand new minifig piecs.