FIGURE-RISE STANDARD (AMPLIFIED) IMPERIALDRAMON REVIEW
by GSquad Community Blog on Mar 10, 2021
(Read time: 5-10 mins)
Hello people, it’s your boy Liam from Millennial Model Mayhem here for another quick Digimon model kit review! The last review of Omegamon was done with the help of my girlfriend BlueParappa, and I’m happy to have her back again for this review of the Figure-rise Standard Amplified Imperialdramon kit. If you would rather see this review as a video, I encourage you to check it out over at my Youtube channel (where you will also get a glimpse of BlueParappa’s continued Plamo addiction!)
(Disclaimer - I’ve included Amazon Affiliate links for some of the products included in this project. Using the links will incur no additional cost, but will provide me with a small commission that helps support Millennial Model Mayhem!)
The Build Process
We approached the initial build of this kit in the same way we would any Gunpla, by doing two clips off the runners. First with the mediocre nippers, then removing the nub with the good nippers. The stickers were not applied during the build because we wanted to see how it would look as is before figuring out what kind of detail we were going to do. The quality of plastic in this kit was a noticeable improvement from the brittle pieces and lacklustre finish we saw with the Omegamon kit. Furthermore, the transformation gimmicks of Imperialdramon made for a more interesting build, particularly with the engineering of the arm extensions and hip joints.
Unfortunately as is the case with many transforming model kits, it’s more like ‘parts-formation’ with the number of pieces you have to remove/replace. The stability and articulation are somewhat compromised as well, but we’ll get into that more in the conclusion.
Detailing and Varnish
The only extra effort we put into detailing our last Digimon kit was panel lining with Tamiya black accent colour, so for this new kit, I wanted to show BlueParappa a couple of easy steps that could take her hobby skills to the next level! Our first step was to disassemble the kit and sand away all the nub marks with 600-1000 grit sanding sponges, which was great to not have to do by myself this time. Then after giving the parts a hot soapy bath and time to dry, we used Gundam markers to panel line the white sections grey, gold sections brown, and everything else black (but the black plastic received no panel lining for obvious reasons). We also decided to use all the stickers included.
I’ve had success in the past using both matte and gloss varnish on the same kit to help accent certain colours, so for Imperialdramon we decided to apply gloss varnish on the gold pieces, and give everything else matte. Once the pieces were all arranged on their alligator clips we got to work applying the thinned varnish through an airbrush; If you saw my last blog post/video about my Custom Sengoku Astray, you’ll know why I no longer use spray can varnish...
Conclusion
There is a lot we like about this Imperialdramon kit. It’s nice and big, has a great shelf presence, and is a great showcase of the intense Digimon design aesthetic that we love. Unfortunately, that design aesthetic results in some pretty mediocre articulation and pose-ability, especially while in the dragon mode! Despite having similar problems to the Omegamon kit in this regard, Imperialdramon is still a solid improvement, and we were still satisfied with the posing we could do while it was transformed into fighter mode. Out of the two modes, the fighter mode is the clear winner, and we will likely leave it in the mode for the majority of the time; the dragon mode does look cool, but unless you have an action base, it can’t pose much.
The way the hip and arm mechanisms are designed for the transformation does make some poses hard to maintain due to weaker joints, but overall, this is a minor issue. However, we got pretty frustrated with one arm to shoulder connection repeatedly falling apart on us! With all that being said, we’re still proudly displaying Imperialdramon on the shelf next to all our other Digimon merch. We recommend this kit for anyone that’s a fan of Digimon, but if you’re looking for a well-engineered build, you’re better off looking elsewhere!
Thank you for reading to the end of our review, we hope you found it useful and entertaining! If you enjoyed this content, I encourage you to check out my Youtube Channel and Instagram Page for more model mayhem!
