At last it has finally arrived! Weeks AFTER the regular editions shipped, those of us waiting for Sideshow’s EXCLUSIVE version of the Predator 1 Diorama are finally getting visits from our local friendly delivery folks and tonight we check it out from all angles!

The Exclusive edition includes 2 head options… the default masked head, as well as a sexy closed-mouth unmasked head option. The packaging gurus at Sideshow did a great job making sure this beauty survived shipping, despite the fact that the blades, hands, arms, head etc… are all pre-attached and look VERY fragile. The only thing not connected to the body already is the cannon and base, which have their own compartments. The base consists of the tree section, and the black bottom with the raised Predator title. Should you wish to wall-mount this statue, you simply pop the tree section off the base and it can be mounted with a couple of screws (not included). Once assembled, it’s quite an impressive site.

I did have some trouble inserting the cannon for some reason… The cannon has a rounded tip that squares off, and you can tell that the tip and square portion should fit in the square hole on the backpack, but I just can’t get mine to fit and I’ve scared I’ll break it. So yeah, I can’t get the square peg to fit in the square hole, go figure… I never was good at geometry (or anything else math related for that matter).

Looking at the sculpt, there are a couple of things that seem slightly off if you really want to look for things to criticize, and even then you may not agree with me at all:

1. The unmasked head seems too small from certain angles. Now, I know this goes against most of the complaints being the head is too big (Hot Toys and Cinemaquette), but the head is supposed to be slightly oversized compared to the body. When you look at this one from the side, the head looks too small to me.

2. Second issue is with the backpack and cannon… it seems all shifted too far up and far forward on him to the point that the backpack and cannon stick up further than his head! Maybe it’s the way they did the pose or something, but it looks weird. I mean, he wouldn’t even be able to turn his face to the side, he’d get a face full of backpack.

Other than that, the sculpt looks awesome and very detailed. Castings are crisp and the base is WONDERFUL! The tree has tons of rough bark details and moss and looks absolutely perfect for the piece, so a huge round of applause on that.

I have to admit when I first saw photos of the unmasked head option, I was worried because it looked pretty… meh. But, it’s actually better in person even though I don’t like the closed mouth pose.

In my humble opinion, the only reason a Predator piece should have a closed mouth pose is to fit a helmet over top of it should you desire. Seeing as this is a non-issue on this piece as it comes with two heads, why on earth is it closed mouth?! I guess Sideshow decided to listen to that minority that wanted a closed mouth pose for once hehe… way to be heard all 5 of you that wanted a closed mouth lol! So it is nice, but I’ll be displaying this with the masked head for sure. I do want to mention I love the way they painted the eyes, they are very detailed despite the tiny space. Pre-paints tend to get tricky on the small details, but the eyes look fantastic.

Speaking of paint application, the overall paint looks great on this piece, especially the armor. The weathering looks very realistic and natural, as opposed to shoddy dry-brushing. The skin tones look fine too, but I feel they sort of screwed the pooch on the spots. Rather than applying the spot patterns properly (the dark skin areas should have more spot density and it gets less and less as the skin lightens), they simply covered the legs in spots all over the place and overdid it on the face. He kind of looks like he has a bunch of big honkin’ beauty spots. Buuuut we have to bear in mind this is a pre-paint, so from that standpoint, it’s really not all that bad. Especially considering the price.

Overall, my feeling on this piece is that for $150, you just can’t beat this… Sure you can get a sweet model kit pro painted that will blow this out of the water, but it will also cost you 5 times the price for the same scale. The price point is excellent, the sculpt generally rocks and the paint looks great unless you’re looking for things to comment on. This is a GREAT buy and I would highly recommend anyone that can get this on the secondary market for under $250 to grab it ASAP! As of now however, both the exclusive and regular versions are sold out at Sideshow. Told you guys to grab it quick

I also had a chance to snap a bunch of pics and had some fun with jungle style backdrops… click the icon below to see all the new photos:

I also had a chance to record a little video review for you guys. I’m getting a lot of good feedback on the little videos so it looks like despite being unprofessional and usually all distorted you guys dig my little clips! Hey, who am I to complain? So here’s a new one showing off the dio and it’s extra shakey this time as I didn’t use a tripod… not out of laziness, I just needed to move the camera around a lot. I think I need a camera or something. Anyhow, you can check out the video below:

So that’s it guys! Thanks a bunch for reading my review and I hope you enjoyed it. Please be sure to post your comments by clicking the comment button below.

Take care!
Dan