Upgrade : DNA Design DK-47 - Legacy Dinobots Combiner

[Razyel Kayne]

 

[Grahf]

I want to like this kit so much but it sucks. Just like almost every single non-MP release for the past 37 kits or so. 

Let's start with the good.

And now onto the mediocre.

The fillers fill spots. Congrats. Color match isn't good.

The combiner pelvis is interesting. It looks okay but again, color match isn't good.

The weapons work as intended.

Everything else looks good other than color matching.

Now onto the bad.

Color matching but I've mentioned this already several times already without saying much else...yet.

The new chest pieces for Grimlock pop off the ball pegs very easily when being transformed. The dino arms also slide in and out awkwardly and don't actually really add anything to the overall presentation of the dino mode.

Back to the weapons for a bit. They never actually replaced any of the stock weapons. So you have to lug them around still. Not only that but they ran the three sword and gun molds twice each. So while you have six guns and swords for the individual figures, you're supposed to give them all two matching weapons each. This is again on top of their stock weapons. So Swoop gets his two guns that make the stock fist and two swords. Grimlock gets two swords and his stock tail weapon. Snarl gets two guns and his stock sword...that none of the new swords match. Slag has two swords and his stock tail gun thing. Skarr has two guns and his stock tail gun fist thing. Sludge has two guns. None of the weapons combine or anything. They store away yes but badly. The insides of the feet should've housed some of these parts as they're hollow underneath anyway. Skarr's guns in particular don't point forward when in dino mode and point dead upward instead. What? 

The new feet are okay at first glance but aren't exactly long enough. You can fix this by adding Grimlocks tail to the back of one of them...but only Grimlock's tail. Not Skarr's tail or Swoop's fist. The feet have trouble staying plugged in as well. They also can't store weapons while being used as feet as there's not enough clearance and the storage ports are only supposed to be for when you do the stupid display thing. Again, the undersides of the feet should've accommodated some of the weapons when in combined mode. Or at least Swoop's fist with Skarr's being used as the second heel spur alongside's Grimlock's. There's one other little problem with the feet. Since you have to keep the new weapons, you still store Snarl's sword on the front of his foot as shown in their instructions. The problem is, the central toe spike on the new feet is way too long and wants to occupy the same space as the sword. This is why every photo provided by DNA have the feet so comically spread apart. So that the ankles are pivoted far enough so that the central toe spike clears the hilt of Snarl's sword. 

The large swords have 5mm pegs but you have to use the rectangular tabs to port them into the hands. This never goes well.

Speaking of the hands. They might as well not even articulate as the range of motion you get is useless for anything. The fingers also have a tendency to pop off and they're tiny so good luck finding them. The swords will eventually fall out as is the nature of the sideways tab and slot connection. I fucking hate this style system. Just leave it 5mm. 

Onto the arms now. These are by far the worst parts of the whole set. Let me slow this down...One      arm     is     longer    than    the     other.        Not only that but the elbows bend at different spots on the arms. So when you bend them both at the same time, they're at different levels. But don't worry, Swoop's new arm won't hold a pose with the sword anyway as the ball peg is too weak and it didn't tighten up using water based polyurethane like every other joint ever for the most part. So that new arm droops. This is after they delayed the set and spent more time on this arm. I couldn't even imagine what it was like on earlier models if this was the end result. The arms being different lengths and the elbows being located at different spots is why in every single photo provided by DNA, the left arm is always shifted back at the shoulder before being shifted forward at either Skarr's hip or his knee. This is to make it appear as though the arms are the same length and to mitigate how goofy the arms look when bent at the elbows at the same time.


There should've been six individual swords and two sets of guns for each all based on the original G1 toy loadouts except for Skarr obviously who would've needed newly designed weapons.

All the stock weapons should've been replaced. Snarl's sword so that the new sword matched the rest. Swoop's split fist guns. And especially Grimlock's, Slag's and Skarr's tails. That would also require a new combiner head and abdomen but they made an entire pelvis anyway so why not? The head could stand to be bigger anyway and give it some up and down articulation while you're at it. The new tails then could've combined and formed a shield or something from three smaller shields or something. Maybe make two the heel spurs and the third the pelvis or a back plate or something. Or you know, just set them aside since you have to set pieces aside at times anyway. 

Color matching should've been better.

Things shouldn't be popping off at the ball pegs.

Grimlock's new dino arms shouldn't suck.

Feet should attach better.

THE ARMS SHOULD BE THE SAME LENGTH AND THE ELBOWS SHOULD BE AT THE SAME SPOT ON THE ARMS.

In short, this kit went back in the box once I got better arms and feet. Which are the QQT Studio pieces as I wanted the wings anyway.

Color matching isn't good on the wings either don't get me wrong, but they're the wings and swoop's are the wrong color already anyway.

These arms are actually the same length. The elbows also bend at the same spots. The fists are also 5mm and don't pretend to articulate other than wrist rotation. They also don't pretend to be anything else when not in use. You just set them to the side. Which I don't really like but at least there isn't some stupid base that you make from all the parts as it's just setting them to the side anyway but with more steps. 

The feet actually stay on as well. They also don't have toe spikes to get in the way of anything. However the toes are separately printed pieces and do slide out easily. I tightened the connection with water based polyurethane. The feet don't rotate though and only pivot so you're losing out on some meaningful articulation compared to the DNA feet. And to be fair, those ball and socket joints were actually very good on the DNA feet. So I don't know what happened to the elbow, fingers, thumbs or Grimlock chest flaps.

Tolerances are fine on everything. The elbows can be tightened at a screw which was VERY helpful. 

The wings are large enough for Volcanicus and have some decent articulation. There's even a little spot behind the new back plate that the wings peg into for me to sit PotP Slash up there and lock her into place. I had her sitting up there before and was worried the new wings were going to completely cover up a place to put her but they didn't.

I am using the sword that came with this set but Slash is holding it along with Skarr's fist gun as there's no good place for me to put that with her sitting where she is as the 5mm pet on Slag's legs isn't accessible with her wedged in there. The sword from this set was just way too small for Volcanicus. Instead I gave him two PotP Slag/Sludge guns to double fist in one hand and an oversized FoC Grimlock sword I got from the BPF 1:1 KO PotP Grimlock. It's the perfect size for this Volcanicus. 

So Slash sits up on top of my winged Volcanicus with arms the same length and level elbows.

I also got the blue swords from the DNA kit. I ended up snipping off the side tabs and giving them to Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime. The orange swords went back in the box along with everything but the fillers and the pelvis. I'll put the fillers back when I get new fillers. At which time I might put the pelvis away too.

This kit looked good from far but was far from good.

The Apelinq kit was good though even if it did come with a bunch of useless pieces and the arm swords are using 6.5mm or larger pegs. I was looking forward to using the bonus set of swords on someone else but I can't. So Apelinq has a pair of blades on each arm as the gauntlets were molded with two ports on them as they're not side specific.