Okay, I left this a few days before posting because I wanted to give a balanced opinion rather than one of disappointment which was my initial reaction due to damage. I have finally looked him over and taken a few pictures. It's no secret I've been extremely excited for this guy so I'd like to concentrate on the good stuff first.
I love LSB's, they are for me the perfect balance of size and detail while being easy enough to display well, this is a very nice example of that. It is larger than the Warrior and when you take all dimensions into account, it is larger than the Predator also by some margin. The Warrior was surprisingly light which some people didn't like, well they will be happy here because this guy is much heavier. The organic look of these Alien LSB's is excellent, and Sideshows design team and sculptors/painters should be commended on the design of them. It is indeed a large and impressive piece. Alien fans will love this!!
And then there is unfortunately a the not so good bits. Nothing to do with the design element or Sideshows implementation, all of which is excellent if you take these as the artistic representation they are. The bad parts is simply down to the factory production which seems rushed. The first sight I was greeted with was a small piece of plastic loose in the box, I knew straight away this was part of a tendon as it seems a high percentage of these have arrived broken. Sure enough the tendon on the right side is snapped off, the biggest annoyance here is that most of it isn't in the box so I can't glue it back on. It has clearly been broken in the factory and then broken further in transit given its weakened form. The next thing I was as I pulled out the EX plaque is a huge paint chip. Not a great start but that is fixable so not the end of the world.
The Paint, Anthony Mestas and Casey love created a bit of a masterpiece that I doubt any of us expect to be matched in reality. I set my hopes around that of the Warrior which damage aside (of which mine has a lot) It has several subtle layers and really does look nice for it. This guy doesn't quite have the same kind of detail, it is black with a kind of grey dry brush effect all over and some lines on the shoulders. The bronze tones and highlights of the prototype are missing. It isn't terrible by any means, but the Warriors is quite a bit nicer. Mine also has several chips and rough areas where the paint hasn't been finished properly, not as bad as my Warrior in that regard though. And everybody knows about the teeth, they are just bad.
The biggest problem on mine is the dome. I said early on that my biggest worry was the dome area as once sealed it can't really be fixed. Sure enough there is a whole host of problems on mine. First of all there is a huge black line on his skull, looks like some spilled paint or something. There is a huge amount of air bubbles in the plastic of the dome. But most of all there is countless scratches on it, including a few massive ones, all of which are underneath the dome so there there is no way of getting rid of them. Mine also isn't sealed properly like many, so it is already full of junk like polystyrene and bits of dust etc that cling to this thing like you wouldn't believe. I really wish this could have been designed so that the dome simply sat on top of the head loose, but it wasn't. I'd love to remove it but I fear I'll crack it while trying to do so.
So over all? Well it's a great piece, damage aside, I am happy with it. Alien fans, and anybody who appreciates a good bit of creature design will love it. The problems are the same as with the Warrior in that there is no care taken putting various pieces together or when handling them for packaging etc it seems. They are just rushed and that needs to change. Get a good one and you'll be nothing but pleased though.
The Engineer and his creations..
