OK… mind has been blown! Completely out of left field, Narin drops a bomb with his latest kit release! I had no idea this was in the works so no yelling at me please. I am very excited to present to you Narin’s Alternative Hunter kit, the Wolf Predator as a young hunter!

Ever wonder what the Wolf looked like before he had half his face melted off and had a fully stoked trophy case?  Well, wonder no more, Narin brings you his vision of what the young hunter looked like in STUNNING detail in this brand new 1:6 scale kit.  This kit measures over 15″ in height (13″ without the base) and comes in 17 parts, all cast in solid high quality resin directly by Narin and his team.  This is the SAME quality as the Death Warrior and all his other amazing direct releases.  Not only that, but this dude comes with a couple of surprises!  First up… that killer mask of his comes off.

Oh and did I mention that you can ALSO mount the helmet to his shoulder?  How cool is that?  Yes I know… ultimate badass, what else did you expect from Narin?  The armor on this guy is absolutely STUNNING.  He’s loaded with tons of detail all over the place, and I’ve seen people saying this is their new favorite piece.

Oh and did I mention the price?  We all know that the Narin direct releases are pretty expensive (but worth every cent!) so Narin is offering this piece for a very reasonable $289.99 plus shipping which nets you the young Wolf in to your loving arms and on to your display shelf.  Contact me for additional details.

Sorry for all the pics, I just can’t stop staring at this thing… one more ok, then you can see the rest in the gallery.

ZOMG that backpack is SICK… SICK I TELL YOU!  OK when you’re done drooling all over the place and wiped off your keyboard, click on the photo link below and check out the gallery:

For any additional details please contact me, or post your thoughts and feedback below by clicking on the comment button!  And don’t forget, if you need a model kit painted up, please be sure to check out our professional painting services page, where I list all the amazing artists I have dealt with in the past for my own buildups.

BOOYA!
Dan

HERE IT IS!  The review that I know many of you have been waiting for!  It’s been almost a year now since we’ve been waiting for the Berserker bio helmet to ship out from Sideshow central, and after a little FedEx fun and snow delays, this highly anticipated piece has finally arrived.  Join me while we tear this baby down and find out if Sideshow has returned to bio glory or do we have another meh AvP style release.  Enjoy…

Let’s start things off with a little spec review…  here’s the breakdown from the Sideshow product page:

Sideshow is proud to partner with KNB EFX GROUP to bring you the Predators Collectible line from the 2010 film release. Each prop replica is an exact full-scale reproduction of the original on-screen prop, as created by KNB. The Berserker Mask Prop Replica is cast in fiberglass and features a light-up targeting site and the Berserker’s trademark animal jaw. Each piece is complete with a polystone stand that can be displayed on a desktop or shelf or mounted on your wall. This detailed The Berserker Mask Prop Replica is an incredible addition to any Predator legacy display, an outstanding beginning to Sideshow’s new Predators collectible line.

Artists:
KNB EFX Group
The Sideshow Collectibles Design and Development Team

Before we go any further, I want to shout a HUGE HURRRRRRAAAAAAY to Sideshow for hearing us out and FINALLY using REAL lexan plastic lenses!  This is a HUGE improvement and makes the helmet so much more impressive, realistic and movie accurate.  So thank you Sideshow, huge step forward in your Predator prop replicas and I am very happy to see this action was finally taken.  With that out of the way, lets move right along in to our review shall we?

Sculpt and Casting

The sculpt of course is accurate due to it’s source… the original movie molds at KNB EFX Group!  Despite the absolute deluge of movie memorabilia generated for any type of movie, you have to appreciate how studios now know the value of holding on their molds and props for fan replicas.  Years ago movie molds were generally destroyed, thrown out or otherwise abused in to oblivion… case in point – Predator 1.  There are no movie accurate Predator 1 props like the bio helmet (No, the HCG helmet is NOT from the movie molds no matter how many times HCG wants to say it is… they recast an original backup hero piece from SWS, it wasn’t even used in the movie… and don’t get me started on their cannon lol!), the cannon, backpack etc.  The molds were destroyed after production and thus forever lost.  Hindsight of course is always 20/20 and studios started picking up on the fact that fanatical die-hards would rather spend money on props than useless stuff like food, electricity and personal hygiene products.

So, the prop is dead on from the flic, not much question there.  The base has undergone some cosmetic changes from the standard base used for all the AvP bios…  the general swan design is the same however.  Yes I call it the swan base because from the side it looks like a swan in the water… don’t ask.  So you still have the option of either a shelf mount or wall mount base but this time the base seems inspired by a combination of a deeply pitted rock texture, a space ship and a plasma cannon.  I’m sure you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, but you get where I’m going the second you see the base.

The casting quality varies from helmet to base in my opinion…  the helmet is well cast, with smooth edges and crisp detail.  No complaints at all on this one… the detail areas like the craters and battle damage on the helmet are crisp and look realistic (except that little tiny damage mark at the top left that looks like a little king’s crown or something…  there’s a crown on the crown, get it?).  Same thing with the usual hammered texture Sideshow uses in all it’s Predator helmet reproductions on the inside area, it looks nice and crisp, no pockets, air bubbles or detail loss of any kind.  So full points on the helmet casting.

If I were to be fussy,  I would have to say that the base doesn’t seem to be quite as well done.  I’m going to assume that a combination of the heavily pitted texture and a non-pressured mold is the cause of my complaint… gravity based molds are easier (especially at the size needed for this base) but they tend to have problems when the piece being cast is heavily detailed and/or textured.  So when I examine the base closely, I’m able to see quite a few resin balls and little holes caused by air bubbles that get trapped when pouring the resin in to the mold.  But again, this is being really picky as there isn’t a ton of them, PLUS this is on the base, which you barely see anyhow once the helmet is connected to it.  Not only that, but even without the helmet attached, you can’t see any of these issues unless the bio is several inches from your nose.  So really not a big deal, I’m probably just being snooty about the entire affair.

The only actual valid complaint I feel is worth mentioning that will likely find a few folks in agreement is the decision to mold and cast the helmet and jawbone section as all one piece.  When I first pulled the helmet out of the box, I noticed something seemed a little off about the entire jaw section.. I know some folks were wondering if the sculpt was off or maybe it was the paint.  To me, I think the reason it seems off is because the result of the single casting completely loses the effect of a piece of bone that has been attached to a metal helmet.  The fact that there is a little bit of dark paint run-off on to the bone from the helmet portion doesn’t help matters either.  Now I certainly understand that for production purposes, it was WAY easier for everyone to have the jaw section and helmet all as one piece.  No assembly, easy to paint, easy to pack and less likelihood of breakage when product is in transit.  But there is no question this piece would have been better had they found a way to make both sections separate and then you connect them for display or have them assembled at the factory.

I will admit however that once again, this is only noticed when the helmet is in-hand… when it’s mounted to the base and standing 6 feet away from you, it looks kickass and most of us will agree that’s the bottom line.  But we’re also allowed to have our fanboy moments right?

Paint Application

Let’s get this out of the way… the paint application isn’t ANYWHERE near as detailed as we saw in the initial photos released by Sideshow.  This is plain as day so don’t even try to tell me otherwise… take a quick peek at the Sideshow product page and see for yourself.  Look at their gallery photos and compare them to my shots and you can see what I mean.  So while this is unfortunate, it’s pretty much to be expected… there is no way you’re going to get a richly textured and layered paint application on a factory pre-paint.  In this case the helmet is finishes in a semi-flat black color with a tiny hint of brown (it’s definitely not pure black.. if you hold the bio against something black you’ll see it has a slight brown tone) and then tiny flecks of dark copper was applied to the top.  See this photo to see what I’m talking about.  That’s it.. that’s the texture used for the entire bio.

After that they applied dry brushing streaks over any pitted battle damaged areas.  I’m not sure if they were trying to make blast marks, scrapes or some kind of weathered scratches but it looks weird.  It’s passable, certainly at a distance, but I certainly wouldn’t repeat this technique on future helmet releases.  Please see this photo for an example of the effect I’m talking about.  The other weathered effect is this sort of scraped look, but again it doesn’t look weathered so much as it looks like someone at the factory accidentally dropped the bio on the ground and scraped it before packing it.  It’s tough to explain but the best I can come up with is this…  rather than looking like years of wear and tear on the helmet due to battles and such, it looks more like the helmet was brand new and it was accidentally scuffed up within minutes of being used.  This effect is especially prominent all along the brow area of the helmet right above the eyes.  Here’s a photo I took showing the effect… judge for yourself.

Once again, not something you see the same when it’s up on the wall, but you know what they say… the devil is in the details.

The jaw bone section is very well painted, I love the weathering and it looks great!  It looks really old and genuinely looks like bone, so this section of the piece gets top marks.  Where the weathering isn’t so hot on the helmet, it’s beautifully done on the jaw bone.  As mentioned earlier however, there are spots on the jaw bone where the dark black/brown color of the helmet has been painted on to the bone.  Unfortunately this is unavoidable due to the issue of the bone and helmet being all one solid piece, any artist would have a hard time painting that area 100% cleanly.

 The base is very simple in terms of paint…  silver overall with a little bit of drybrushing on the top area and a little bit of a black wash over the entire thing.  Looks good but I would have added a heavier wash to give the base even more age and depth to the paint application.  Not a big deal though, but if you plan on holding on to your helmet and want to pimp it up, give it a couple layers of black wash and it’ll punch it up quite a bit.  A black wash is easy to apply as well… simply dilute some black acrylic paint in water and liberally brush it all over the base.  Then pick up a lint free towel, dip it in the diluted paint and then rub it gently all over the base and mop up excess paint.  Let it dry and if you want to darken it further, re-apply the same way.  Disclaimer: Don’t blame me if you fubar your base royally, I’m just babbling and barely know what I’m doing as it is!

Final Notes

The helmet uses the exact same lighting system as prior releases… 2 AAA batteries (included) are inserted in a small door within the inner side of the helmet power up the 3 LEDs in the laser shroud.  The switch is located just below the battery door.  Looks great as you can see in the photos (don’t forget to visit the gallery below) and is a good replacement for lasers.  By the way if you’ve never seen my other reviews, Sideshow can’t use lasers… trust me, it was the first thing I bitched about when I reviewed their first helmet release.  I spoke to Sideshow production about it and turns out that due to US regulations, they can’t use the lasers.  If they did, the product would have to be safety certified for each country they want to ship to and you can imagine how unrealistic that would be unless they would be able to sell 10 million units.  That reminds me, this run is limited to 750 castings and the helmet seen in this review is number 52.

I would also like to thank Sideshow for hearing out the fans and going back to full glossy artwork on their retail boxes!  Sideshow seemed to have crossed a dark line when suddenly retail boxes were just plain brown boxes with the product name and license logo slapped on the side and maybe a decal if you were lucky (all AvP releases, Darth Maul bust and many more for example).  The Berserker helmet includes a gorgeous glossy retail box…  thank god because that’s really important….  I mean, who the hell wants a boring retail box that you’ll see once and then pack away in storage for the next 20 years.  Right?  I expect my stored boxes to be glossy and pretty dammit!

Overall I feel this helmet is a huge improvement from the AVP series of releases… it’s obvious right out of the box that this is a superior product.  The use of real lexan semi-reflective lenses just dials up the realism of the piece enormously and Sideshow deserves for marks for going this route instead of the dreaded painted method or god forbid, PAPER. *giggles* I would still have to say the Wolf is the best Predator helmet release from Sideshow, but the Berserker is a close second.  If this is any indication of what we’re going to see in terms of quality in the rest of the Predators based helmet replicas, I would say buy confidently and get ready for some gorgeous new props in your collection.

Oh, one more thing… yes the Lexan lenses are transparent, but very dark and thick.  So yes you can kind of see through them, but the helmet is heavy and not made to be worn.  The plastic lenses are very thick and what you see through them is distorted a bit.  I definitely don’t recommend you strap this $325 prop replica to your manard and prance down Main Street.  But if you do, please get it on video and email me a copy!

Manard = your head… the one that separates your ears.  Pervs.

Now I know what you’re thinking…  stop yammering on and let’s get with the visuals!  In case you would like to spend some quality face-time with me and the Berserker helmet, I give you… VIDEO:

I put together one my longest review since the Cinemaquette Predator review for you guys and went in to every detail I could think of on this piece… please be sure to check out my HD video review on YouTube and get a look at this impressive prop release…  You can check it out by clicking HERE or clicking the YouTube icon above.

And what’s a review without some photos right?  I snapped a ton of shots of this piece to really show you all the little details such as the weathering, textures and dent marks and hand some fun dealing with the glaring LEDs mucking up all my shots!  You can check out the full gallery by clicking the photo icon below (my photos are the ones with the white/light background.. the photos with the black upper background are the Sideshow promo shots):

For this wallpaper I had some fun with placing lights under the helmet to get a P1 style glow effect in the lenses.. I was finally able to get a shot I liked and it ended up being my favorite pic, and this review’s wallpaper.  Hope you like it!

To download a wallpaper, simply right-click on the appropriate resolution for your desktop size and click “save as” to save it to your computer.

This helmet is already sold out with Sideshow (it sold out long before it even shipped) so if you plan on adding one of these to your collection, you’ll need to hit the collector forums of fleabay to grab one.  Hey don’t be mad at me… if you would just join the newsletter or follow us on twitter, you would get a heads up when cool shit like this is released!

Aight that’s it for me gang… please be sure to share your thoughts on this review or this product by clicking the comment button below.  I love to hear your feedback, so don’t be shy!

Thanks for reading,
Dan

Told you guys January would be a busy month for reviews! This week we start things off with a little review/show off article on a GORGEOUS kit released last year by Predastore called the 2 Guns Cleaner, which is the Wolf Predator from AvPR lokoing like he’s about to unload Old Western style on a few bugs… check it out!

This badass piece is sculpted by none other than our favorite Predator sculptor Narin, and if you think this looks familiar, you’re not as insane as  your friends and family may have led you to believe! The base of this kit is in fact Predatorstuff’s exclusive 1:6 scale full-body Wolf kit released a couple of years ago.  Predastore contacted me ages ago asking if he could use the torso as a base for a kit he wanted to produce, and being the fun loving guy that I am, I said hell yeah Batman!  The result of that discussion is the 2 Guns Cleaner, featuring our beloved Wolf Predator knee-deep in the muck brandishing his double plasma cannons in hand held mode ready to peel off some alien arse.

The kit itself is solid resin and weighs quite a bit.. it’s a high quality resin casting, that same awesome stuff Narin uses for his direct releases that has a light peach color to it and is a model builders dream.  Virtually no cleanup required, you can basically paint this right out of the box.  Flawless castings and sculpt by the Narin crew as always.  The kit comes in 9 pieces and features new hands and weapons and a very realistic liquid-looking base that Joe has built up with what looks to be 5 cans of gloss to make it look like real water.  As usual Joe’s paint application is mind-numbing with it’s awesomeness, leaving no doubt who the master painter of Predator kits is…  I promise you, you only need to see one in person to understand why I drool every time I see one of his builds.

The bad news though… the kit was limited to 50 castings (each casting includes a numbered COA) and of course this badboy has long sold out.  Of course if you’re a Predatorstuff fan and you’re part of our newsletter and check our site all the time for updates, you saw when this was announced and ordered it anyhow… right?

I would also like to thank my friend Simon, who was kind enough to lend me this statue to review… he knew I missed out on this piece and was extremely generous in shipping this over to me and allow me to play around with it and give it a full review.  Si you rock man… and get this folks, not only did he lend me this guy, but I have MORE Joe Dunaway buildups on the way provided by Simon!  Class, say thank you to Si please…

To Narin and Predastore, kick ass release guys, perfect as always and I am so glad I was finally able to see this kit in person and get a chance to share it with the rest of the Predastuff.com readers.  Joe – amazing build as usual… always a pleasure to see your work in person, you make my retinas happy every time! (That kinda sounds kinky…)

OK how about some photos?  Please click on the photo icon below and have a peek at the photo gallery for this piece:

I suppose a Video Review would be nice as well right?  Have no fear… I put together a little review (and pissed and moaned about the Berserker Bio not arriving today) so please check out my HD video review on YouTube and get a look at the goods up close and personal…  You can pleasure your eyeballs by clicking HERE or clicking the YouTube icon below:

And lets not forget a wallpaper!  Click on the resolution you need for your PC and have this guy taking over your desktop in seconds!

To download a wallpaper, simply right-click on the appropriate resolution for your desktop size and click “save as” to save it to your computer.

And that my friends concludes another review, thanks so much for reading and watching and I will see you VERY soon for the next review coming this week…

Peace!
Dan

Fans asked for it, and Narin delivered! After we drooled over the amazing Encounter kit, many Narin kit fans asked for a special edition of the Classic Predator in a solo pose rather than a diorama format… well folks, here it is! Narin’s classic P1 Predator kit has arrived:

This gorgeous kit is actually taken from the Encounter kit and has been modified in a solo pose and a brand new base… remember this sucker is 1:5 scale (although it is listed as 1:6 scale, it’s actually closer to 1:5) so it is HUGE!  The kit includes 31 parts ( including two heads… one regular masked and one battle damaged with the side of his helmet smashed off and his face exposed ) and two sets of dread locks made from a special flexible rubber resin.  Just a word of warning… this kit will be gone fast, it’s limited to 20 castings and then it’s gone.  Each base will be hand-signed by Narin as well.

Narin sent in these photos of his gorgeous painted build up, so please click the photo icon below to check out the full gallery.  Be sure to check out the photo of the Chameleon sitting in Narin’s hand… that will give you an idea of how big this kit is.

Finally… a definitive Predator 1 kit with some awesome size. Need more information on this kit?  Please click here to contact me directly if you have any questions…

Enjoy and congrats to Narin on another gorgeous release!
Dan

Hey gang! Welcome to our first official review of 2011 and the first of many kick ass products coming up this month as a I finally start whittling away at the pile of killer statues I still have to share with you guys.  If there’s anything I love as much as Predator, it’s STAR WARS STUFF!!!  I luuuuuv Star Wars and I love my Siths to be hot, stacked and ready to kick the ever loving poop out of whatever is standing in their way.  So you can imagine my delight when mister postman dropped off a box with DARTH TALON written on the side and the purring that ensued as I lovingly unwrapped her.  I had to keep things somewhat under control as my girlfriend supervised the unveiling with a look that seemed made up of part curiosity, part concern and part “omg what a loser”.  So here she is… Darth Talon!

A Lethan Twi’lek from the ranks of Darth Krayt’s One Sith, Darth Talon’s crimson skin is marked with the signature black tattoos of the Sith. The female Sith Lord earned each mark in ritual combat, imprinted by Darth Krayt himself. Her loyalty to Krayt is unrelenting, and she follows every word of her master without question. Seeing her faithfulness, Darth Krayt appointed Darth Talon as one of his Hands, trusting her to carry out his most important tasks…

Let’s just summarize the bottom line on this statue before we get any further… it kicks absolute ass.  It’s as a gorgeous as I thought it would be and as mind blowing as the first day she was unveiled on the Sideshow site and it worth every nickel.  This is only my second female character statue (my first was X-23) and even though I loved that statue, this one blows her out of the water.  This is the kind of quality work I expect to see from Sideshow and man did they hit the nail on the head with this beautiful combination of sculpt and finishing.  I’m just blown away by this piece and look forward to another couple hundred words prattling on about how cool this statue is.  Let’s look at the specs as per the Sideshow product page:

Product Type: Premium Format Figure

Product Size: 18″ H (457.2mm) x 11″ W (279.4mm) x 9″ D (228.6mm)

Product Weight: 12.00 lbs (5.44 kg)

Artists:

Adam Beane
Mike Najera
Anthony Mestas
Joe Allard
Kevin Ellis
Seth Rinaldi
The Sideshow Collectibles Design and Development Team

The Darth Talon Premium Format figure captures every stunning detail of the Twi’lek Sith Lord. Each piece is individually painted and finished to exacting standards, each with its own unique quality and detail that is the trademark of a handcrafted Sideshow Collectibles Premium Format Figure. The striking and boldly colored figure is cast in high quality polystone, and complete with hand-painted detailing. The Darth Talon Premium Format figure is an outstanding addition to any Star Wars collection, the perfect centerpiece to any display.

Sculpt and Part Breakdown

I’m really digging the use of magnets to attach the various parts of statues together.. this is something somewhat recent for Sideshow as a mainstream feature on their statues and as long as the parts line up properly and the magnets are securely glued to the sockets it works great.  On Darth Talon, her left arm and head both connect with magnets with the right arm connecting via a male/female plug system, which delivers juice to the LIGHT UP LIGHT SABER!  Yes friends… the lightsaber lights up on this one, I love it!  All the connections are solid and the parts fit together beautifully.  The statue connects to the base via a footpeg and you can press a rock on the back of the base to activate the lightsaber once the statue is all assembled… just make sure you pop in the batteries before you pull a Dan Richard Classic and assemble the entire thing and perfectly align the cloak only to realize you have to flip the base over to put in the batteries duh.

The sculpt itself is absolutely gorgeous and the female form used is breath-taking and downright sexy as hell.  Perfect combination of delicious curves and muscularity to make her feminine, but leave no question that she could hand you your ass on a plate in roughly 5 milliseconds.  The sculpted textures overall look fantastic and realistic… smooth skin, the pitted rough armor and the rough terrain all look extremely realistic.  I also love the way the black tattoos have been sculpted, each one having a light outline to help them really stay sharp and crisp, not to mention probably helps with the final paint application to avoid runs.

The castings also appear to be excellent… I couldn’t find any casting faults whatsoever, the polystone parts are very smooth and well finished.  No complaints in the slightest.

Pose and Attitude

I absolutely ADORE the pose and the entire thing drips a confident and powerful feeling but very calm… kind of like she’s just disposed of an army without much of an effort and she’s walking to the bar to top up her Pina Colada while looking over her shoulder wondering if there’s any heads she forgot to detach.  There’s no question when you look at the statue that you’re looking at someone that kicks serious ass.  Love it!

Paint Application

Very happy to report a gorgeous paint job on this piece, not a single paint rub, run or error… the black tattoos are very crisp and don’t run on to the red anywhere, the metals are beautifully weathered and the red skin is flawless and smooth.  The eyes are centered and looking in the same direction and there no white dots (fake shine), and the overall paint on the face looks great.  The leggings have a good leather-like finish and while the base is pretty simple with a single weathered color, it works.  The overall color spectrum on the piece is simple and limited, and that’s exactly why it works…

Material

Bear in mind only the Exclusive Edition (which is sold out) comes with the black hooded cloak, but honestly you could make one of these in an hour or less by hand, and in 5 minutes if you or someone you know can use a sewing machine.  The material is very light, with some braided string for drawstrings.  Her cute little derriere is covered with a spandex type material and the long flowing strips of material flowing from her belt are real material with thin wires inserted so you can pose them as desired.  I checked every hem, and all the “real clothing” items are well sew with no holes, loose seams or any other issues.  The materials also all look very realistic and well used on the statue…  again they kept it simple and it works great.  I really love the pose-able flowing bits from the belt… cool idea!

In terms of scoring, I would line this right up there with the perfection of the Berserker PF or even Lurtz in terms of product development and final production piece.  She looks just as sweet in person as she does in the initial promo shots and is without a doubt one of my favorite PFs I’ve been able to get my hands on.  The sculpt is especially well done… in fact with some good mood lighting you can photograph this piece and make it look like a real person standing there with red make-up on.  I have to congratulate Sideshow on yet another amazing piece, way to go guys!

OK now it’s time for goodies…  We’ve got photos, video and a new wallpaper for your desktop!  Lets start things off with the video review:

Be sure to check out my HD video review on YouTube and get a look at the goods up close and personal…  You can pleasure your eyeballs by clicking HERE or clicking the YouTube icon above.

Next up the gallery… I had a great time shooting this statue, trying for some sassy poses.  You can check out the full gallery by clicking the photo icon below:

I loved this piece so much, I even made some wallpapers to share with you guys!  Click on the resolution you need for your PC and have this guy taking over your desktop in seconds!

To download a wallpaper, simply right-click on the appropriate resolution for your desktop size and click “save as” to save it to your computer.

If you’re wondering how to buy one of these gorgeous statues, you’re going to have to go to secondary market as both the regular AND the exclusive versions are completely sold out from Sideshow at this time.  Told ya she was hot!

Hope you enjoyed the review, thanks for reading and see you soon for more awesome products!  Please be sure to share your thoughts on this review or this product by clicking the comment button below.  I love to hear your feedback, so don’t be shy…

Peace out dawgs!
Dan

PS. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

PPS. Please check out some of these other kick-ass instock Star Wars statues from Sideshow:

Sideshow has just posted a sneak peek at their Predator 1 LSB format and from what we can see, it looks pretty damn awesome!  So if you missed out on the full scale bust and don’t have the $1500 to buy one on the secondary market, here’s your chance for a badass bust for a fraction of the price.  Right now this is the only image available, so stay tuned for additional information in the near future:

I love start the new year on a high note… Happy New Year everyone, here’s to another year of kick-ass Predator and sci-fi collectibles!  By the way if you didn’t receive our year-end newsletter sent out just before Christmas day, be sure to sign up by adding your email to our newsletter subscriber list using the form located in the middle column of this site.  If you are a subscriber, make sure you whitelist @predatorstuff.com so you receive our emails!

Take care,
Dan

Good afternoon everyone, hope everyone has been well and have been out getting an early start on your Christmas shopping!  I of course have done no such thing and plan to wait until the very last minute so I can go absolutely mental in the mall on the 24th in a blizzard.  That’s how I roll…  OK enough of me, lets talk about Predator kits and one hell of a badass project coming from Predastore called the Until Death Diorama.  The Dio will be a series of 4 statues, each with a base and divinity totem that will all interlock together to form a single diorama.  Today we’ll get out first look at the first statue in the series and talk about what to expect later down the road… so without further ado, check out the Assault Hunter!

The Assault Hunter (as well as all the other kits in this diorama series) is sculpted in a large 1:5 scale format by the artist known simply as Sky, who has really started to make a name for himself over the last couple of years with several very cool Predator and Alien sculpts release through Nightmare Collectibles.  This particular piece features a nasty looking cyborg style Predator hauling some serious weaponry, curved wrist blades and some beautifully detailed armor.  The backpack and dual cannon rig is insane and I love the heavy arm gauntlets.  Top it off with a terminator style cyborg eye and you have one seriously pissed off looking Predator ready to take down just about anything unfortunate enough to get in his way.

The base is part of the interlocking series that will fit together with the other diorama pieces, and features a Kapatek Kalowac idol.  The kit is cast in solid high quality resin, including a new special soft style resin for the dreads, allowing them to bend and be shaped without snapping.

The additional kits in this dio are also already planned out and in production.. here’s an approximate schedule of when to expect the other releases:

1. Assault Hunter and Kapatek Kalowac idol sculpted by Sky – Available Now!

2. Spitter-Hunter and Rataka idol sculpted by Sky – Coming Soon!

3. Last kiss good-bye and Pakawana idol sculpted by Narin – Coming in 2011

4. Tromblon-Hunter – Coming summer 2011

The Assault Hunter is ready to ship now and retails for $239.99 plus shipping from the producer.  To give you an idea of the freight costs, shipping to the USA or Canada runs $38 and shipping to Europe is $45.  Please contact us should you need additional shipping information or have any questions about this kit!

Looks like another amazing release from Predastore, I can’t wait to see the rest of the series!  Check out more photos of Joe Dunaway’s build-up of this piece by clicking on the photo icon below:

I should also mention that very soon Predastore will have their very own shop online, looking forward to checking that out!  I’ll update you guys when I hear the site is up and running live for the world to see.  Congrats to Predastore on another badass release, I honestly can’t wait to see how the entire diorama looks once it’s done.  What do you guys think?  Post your thoughts by clicking the comment button below.

Enjoy!
Dan

Hey guys!  In our last two videos, I showed off a sweet new T-Shirt designed and produced by Lair member Matt Skeins featuring a gorgeous illustrations he made, and even a custom Lair product tag!  Here’s how you can place your own order if you haven’t already been able to get your hands on one…

Neither Predatorstuff or the Lair make any money with these shirts, they are fan-base items made by one of our members to show his love for the community and to help spread the word about the Lair.  Just in case you didn’t know about the Lair, The Hunters Lair is the net’s largest forum dedicated to Predator fans, specifically those looking to create costumes of their favorite Sci-Fi alien badasses!  The site also discusses prop replicas, collecting, statues, kits, movies and just about anything else you can imagine that deals with Predators.  You can visit the site by clicking HERE!

Now, lets get to the order part!  The shirts are $20 each plus shipping, and shipping is available worldwide.  To make things easier for you, I have available a Microsoft Word .doc file with all the order information, how to pay, where to send funds, how much for shipping etc.  So please download the order information document by clicking HERE!

Check out the detail on the front and back, including the custom retail style tag, all custom made by Matt:

State of the bad-ass-art!  Thanks again to Matt who took the time to design these shirts and make them available to us at a reasonable price.  Again, be sure to download the order document for all the instructions on how to place an order, or contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks and enjoy!
Dan