MODS NOW DONE FOR PHASE V :Hot Toys Iron Man MKV Armour Up Deluxe Set Review, Comparisons And Mods

First of all no shenanigans with postage this time for a lovely change! Same company as I'd had occasional problems with before. In fact I got a super bonus this time! I'd ordered and paid for the standard box set but got sent the deluxe box set! That's £60 + difference in postage and import tax I got for free! Basically everything on the right hand side of the top tray was free for me, all the suitcase and morphing accessories for it.
As far as a review, well it's Hot Toys and it's Iron Man so that's a win/win in my books. Anything to complain about? The clasps on the front of the back's armour that connect to the front's armour don't seem to work very well BUT I'm using a different body and suit for the armoured up look, although I have watched reviews that say there is a similar problem with the provided figure being used. On a personal preference note, I'd rather have more armour provided for the back off the legs and arms and top of the head than the alternate parts provided for different display options. I won't personally be using those options but I can see how Stop Motion guys would love them and if you could afford multiple sets I'm sure it would make a great dio of all the transformation steps to be displayed on a shelf in order.



 











THIS WOULD BE THE STANDARD SET BELOW



BRIEFCASE AND ACCESSORIES FOR IT, YES THE ACTUAL BRIEFCASE ITSELF TRANSFORMS WHICH IS PRETTY SLICK! THERE ARE METAL PARTS BUT NOT MANY WITH THIS HT VERSION











INITIAL SUITCASE MORPHING STAGE









SUITCASE IN SECOND MORPHING PHASE











UNDERSIDE OF ACCESSORY



THIS IS WHERE IT'S GOING TO START TO GET A BIT CONFUSING FOR YOU GUYS LOL! I ALREADY HAD/HAVE A DIECAST VERSION OF THE BRIEFCASE MORPHING THAT IS VERY ARTICULATED SO THIS IS A COMPARISON

HT




NOT HT








AS CLOSE TO A BRIEFCASE AS THE DIECAST VERSION CAN GET





NEXT CONFUSING PART, I ALREADY HAD A CUSTOM RACING TONY STARK FIGURE AND BRIEFCASES FOR YEARS WHICH IS WHY I'D ORDERED THE STANDARD VERSION OF THIS SET, I'LL BE USING HIM INSIDE THE ARMOUR AND THE HT ONE SEPARATELY WITH AS PHASE 2 OF THE SUITCASE/BRIEFCASE AND BOTH BY MY COMPLETE MARK V WHO IS FIGHTING MY CUSTOM WHIPLASH.

HT FIGURE NEXT TO OLD CUSTOM















THIS IS PHASE 3 OF THE HT SUITCASE ARMOUR ON MY OLD CUSTOM





USES SOME DIFFERENT PARTS TO THE PHASE 4 YOU'LL SEE LATER















THIS IS THE MAIN PART OF THIS SET AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED (ALTHOUGH SOME REVIEWER SAID HE WAS GOING TO KEEP IT IN THE BOX AND ONLY USE THE SUITCASE WITH TONY WHICH I THINK IS ABSOLUTELY BONKERS!) THE PHASE 4 SUITCASE ARMOUR ON MY OLD CUSTOM RACING TONY STARK.

PARTS UNASSEMBLED FIRST, RIGHT SIDE OF EACH PART IS 'EXPANDED' WHILE THE LEFT SIDE IS 'COMPACTED'. BASICALLY THE PARTS CAN BE ARTICULATED INTO DIFFERENT POSES       OR STATES OF ATTACHMENT















BEFORE I KNEW THE UPPER ARM ARMOUR WAS POSABLE, PICS WERE TAKEN BEFORE THE ONES ABOVE, ARMS LOOK A BIT LONG AS I NEED TO TRIM THE NEW WRIST PEGS FOR HIM























PARTS I HAVE TAKEN OFF THE 'NOT HT' MORPHING BRIEFCASE  
AND WILL ADD TO THE PHASE 4 OF THIS SET TO CREATE A PHASE 5. THE LEFTOVER ARMATURES ETC.. WILL BE GREAT FOR ANOTHER IM PROJECT I HAVE IN MIND. THE FACEPLATE WILL COVER UP THE INACCURATE HAIR STYLE AND ARMOUR BITS WILL FILL IN GAPS ETC..









LEFTOVER

Thanks for the review and images. Lots of sharp and impressive detail. Then again, it is HT, so if anyone is going to excel, it is them.

That’s pretty cool. Yeah, the details on the HT version are better, but the NOT HT wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

GubernatorFan wrote:Thanks for the review and images. Lots of sharp and impressive detail. Then again, it is HT, so if anyone is going to excel, it is them.

Well they need to, plenty of competition around nowadays but not with Iron Man, they fiercely guard that 1/6 and 1/4 scale figure licence!

Stryker2012 wrote:That’s pretty cool. Yeah, the details on the HT version are better, but the NOT HT wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

Well they are now both combined giving him more armour coverage, phase 5 as I call it (should that be phase V? ) which adds more articulated bits and more 3D to the suit up effect and ironically a fair bit of diecast too!

The new parts I scavenged from the NOT HT set are denoted with bright green 'tadpole' squiggles. They needed a fair bit of hacksawing, Dremeling, filing and gluing first though to get them to fit.

Wow! You are a brave man to hack all those parts together. Pretty neat.

I am not sure which Tony Stark is made by HT so I would say the one with messy hair is way better than the combi hair, in terms of eye clarity and the expressions, though both of them are great. I'd never buy any Ironman because their accessories are just beyond my management capability, but I can see why you enjoy this, and look like a piece of cake for you, by just looking at your room fills with other complex action figures..

I know we each have our thing, but it is absolutely impressive how you can keep track of all this and put it to good use.

Stryker2012 wrote:Wow! You are a brave man to hack all those parts together. Pretty neat.

Well I pretty much knew what I was doing even if this armour is a bit like origami, a jigsaw puzzle and an 'old school' paper road map of the world on a rainy,gusty day while stuck on your motorcycle in full leathers gloves and helmet on the hard shoulder of a busy motorway in a foreign country you've never been to before!

lawlaw91 wrote:I am not sure which Tony Stark is made by HT so I would say the one with messy hair is way better than the combi hair, in terms of eye clarity and the expressions, though both of them are great. I'd never buy any Ironman because their accessories are just beyond my management capability, but I can see why you enjoy this, and look like a piece of cake for you, by just looking at your room fills with other complex action figures..

Thank you, it was a fun side project that didn't take very long, just needed a bit of imagination crossed with engineering, luckily a skill set I've been using for many years now.

GubernatorFan wrote:I know we each have our thing, but it is absolutely impressive how you can keep track of all this and put it to good use.

Well to be fair all the extra parts came from one item this time to make a nice change!

As always, I am not sure what it is you are doing at first but the results are always great!

Ovy wrote:As always, I am not sure what it is you are doing at first but the results are always great!

LOL! I usually don't either, thanks!

Both seem like two great sets, at least from this side of the screen. But I see how mixing from the two of them creates something better than one or the other can accomplish, only you could pull this, the God of Customizing.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Both seem like two great sets, at least from this side of the screen. But I see how mixing from the two of them creates something better than one or the other can accomplish, only you  could pull this, the God of Customizing.

Thank you incredibly much TBB! More of a devil than a god I think lol. The Racing Tony stuff before the HT set were individual parts sold by different companies/manufacturers so not really a set just parts bashing or kitbashing as we call it. The 'phase V' set I ended up 'creating' is pretty simple once you have the parts, you just need to work out where you want to put them to get the most out of them!