I've been waiting years for this to be released! Why didn't I build my own? Well I have done a scratch built custom opening one from the front and it involved a lot of resin casting and electronics (this is my MK2 armour reveal way before HT did their Unleashed figure years back). Since the moulds are long gone (I think I was just using latex and tape back then!) I didn't feel like doing it all again although this might have been easier since it's just surface detail and not entire chunks of inner armour, basically, been there, done that sort of... but really like the look of this version too! 
I did discover a QC problem though which was a pain to fix as the metal hinge did not like super glue after having liked it too much before, translation: hinge was super glued shut from the factory (the one on the other side was too but I managed to pop that loose with a tiny screwdriver) but after I cleaned it with acetone etc.. it didn't want to glue back in place or to the part it articulated, I had to use my old trick of mixing glues to get that to work but that meant removing it completely. Anyway that's what all the odd pictures of hinges are about.
Aside from that, lovely figure! It does have some diecast, the hinges for a start! And some panels etc.. even the light up base seems to have a metal grill in it which is heavier than I expected and nearly scuppered my plans for a rotating system. Speaking of which, I'd always planed to make a rotating base with a usb power supply I just wasn't sure how I could do it without the wires getting torn up as they got twisted. I came up with various ideas like magnets, metal rings and such to act as circular contacts operating similarly to a 'lazy susan' turntable. I was going to make these out of metal washers soldered to wires but then I discovered this kind of joint already exists and is called an electrical slip joint used in robotics and on CCTV cameras, dirt cheap from China on eBay, so that saved a lot of work! Ignore the cut outs in the plastic parts of the motorised turntable, I was trying to be clever and fit it inside the actual HT base but since I never measure anything, it didn't fit!
No problem though, I just put it underneath and hoped the extra weight of the base's bottom wouldn't be too much for the motor, as you can see in the videos, it wasn't, works great!
ALL PARTS LOCK TOGETHER CLOSED WITH MAGNETS WHICH IS SUPER NEAT AND A CLASSY TOUCH CREATING PERFECT ALIGNMENT TOO!
Boxed pics
Missile pods
Inner and outer base sections
USB C powered
Battery compartment isn't set up for use, I guess they changed their minds since this is a brand new mould.
I guess I could have saved myself a lot of work just wiring up the battery case but that wasn't what I wanted!
Hinge issues, stuck hinge is meant to be attached to the small red rectangle at the top, it's not the big obvious hinge in the pic below.
Still glued shut and to the abdomen armour, it's meant to pivot the lower back armour open and closed.
Left part detached due to stuck hinge causing it to 'break' off/ come unglued.
Part on the right in place as it should be
Hinge broken loose
The hinge is what allows the lower back armour to open and close fully
Lube only the pivot pin to prevent a repeat of the problem
So many pieces of armour come into play and have to be carefully moved in a certain order and a certain way, some like the kidney armour is spring loaded.
Started refusing to glue at this point I think, no oil on the contact tabs.
Yup, had to remove the hinge completely from the armour to experiment with glue mixes and attach it to the pivoting armour part first before reattaching it to the abdomen armour... everyone fallen asleep yet?
I'm only documenting this as it's possibly a common factory QC issue, HT are always being accused of not using enough glue (especially on magnets) but they seem to have over compensated for the hinges, it's a production process learning curve as they get more ambitious with their engineering and material choices; no doubt looking at 3rd party Transformers for solutions to more complex articulation engineering but not being told which glues are used in the process.
Anyway.. enough of that, here's pics of the actual figure after I fixed that little QC issue.
As standard out of the box with just the inner base
External lights off, then on etc.. so you can hopefully see the details and light up effects
Lots of lovely circuit like detail with exoskeleton parts.
The arms can open up further on the inner side but then you need to fold the shoulder blade parts back in a bit so it's give and take.
The lights in the lower legs are a bit too blatantly blocking the path to fit a person in but behind the calves are switches and another USB port if you don't want to use a base at all and still light it up so a fair compromise.
You have to remove a magnetically attached heel to get access to the USB port on the figure/armour. Not shown here.
It's nice how some blue light bleeds through to the front via the hinged parts, it doesn't look like cheap thin material as they are sharp lines
Of course it's also great that the eyes and arc reactor light up too. There are also movable chest plates that I forget to close when showing the armour in the closed positions, sorry about that!
The chest panel I forget to close later..
Obviously you can see more detail this way
With external base/gantry added
Closed up with those really cool magnets locking parts in place.
Still leaks a bit of light but I think it adds a cool 'alive' look to it.
A sort of standby look.
Yup, forgot those chest panels!
Now they're closed but no power to the display.
Next... making the turntable light up base...
I did discover a QC problem though which was a pain to fix as the metal hinge did not like super glue after having liked it too much before, translation: hinge was super glued shut from the factory (the one on the other side was too but I managed to pop that loose with a tiny screwdriver) but after I cleaned it with acetone etc.. it didn't want to glue back in place or to the part it articulated, I had to use my old trick of mixing glues to get that to work but that meant removing it completely. Anyway that's what all the odd pictures of hinges are about.
Aside from that, lovely figure! It does have some diecast, the hinges for a start! And some panels etc.. even the light up base seems to have a metal grill in it which is heavier than I expected and nearly scuppered my plans for a rotating system. Speaking of which, I'd always planed to make a rotating base with a usb power supply I just wasn't sure how I could do it without the wires getting torn up as they got twisted. I came up with various ideas like magnets, metal rings and such to act as circular contacts operating similarly to a 'lazy susan' turntable. I was going to make these out of metal washers soldered to wires but then I discovered this kind of joint already exists and is called an electrical slip joint used in robotics and on CCTV cameras, dirt cheap from China on eBay, so that saved a lot of work! Ignore the cut outs in the plastic parts of the motorised turntable, I was trying to be clever and fit it inside the actual HT base but since I never measure anything, it didn't fit!
No problem though, I just put it underneath and hoped the extra weight of the base's bottom wouldn't be too much for the motor, as you can see in the videos, it wasn't, works great!ALL PARTS LOCK TOGETHER CLOSED WITH MAGNETS WHICH IS SUPER NEAT AND A CLASSY TOUCH CREATING PERFECT ALIGNMENT TOO!
Boxed pics
Missile pods
Inner and outer base sections
USB C powered
Battery compartment isn't set up for use, I guess they changed their minds since this is a brand new mould.
I guess I could have saved myself a lot of work just wiring up the battery case but that wasn't what I wanted!
Hinge issues, stuck hinge is meant to be attached to the small red rectangle at the top, it's not the big obvious hinge in the pic below.
Still glued shut and to the abdomen armour, it's meant to pivot the lower back armour open and closed.
Left part detached due to stuck hinge causing it to 'break' off/ come unglued.
Part on the right in place as it should be
Hinge broken loose
The hinge is what allows the lower back armour to open and close fully
Lube only the pivot pin to prevent a repeat of the problem
So many pieces of armour come into play and have to be carefully moved in a certain order and a certain way, some like the kidney armour is spring loaded.
Started refusing to glue at this point I think, no oil on the contact tabs.
Yup, had to remove the hinge completely from the armour to experiment with glue mixes and attach it to the pivoting armour part first before reattaching it to the abdomen armour... everyone fallen asleep yet?
I'm only documenting this as it's possibly a common factory QC issue, HT are always being accused of not using enough glue (especially on magnets) but they seem to have over compensated for the hinges, it's a production process learning curve as they get more ambitious with their engineering and material choices; no doubt looking at 3rd party Transformers for solutions to more complex articulation engineering but not being told which glues are used in the process.
Anyway.. enough of that, here's pics of the actual figure after I fixed that little QC issue.
As standard out of the box with just the inner base
External lights off, then on etc.. so you can hopefully see the details and light up effects
Lots of lovely circuit like detail with exoskeleton parts.
The arms can open up further on the inner side but then you need to fold the shoulder blade parts back in a bit so it's give and take.
The lights in the lower legs are a bit too blatantly blocking the path to fit a person in but behind the calves are switches and another USB port if you don't want to use a base at all and still light it up so a fair compromise.
You have to remove a magnetically attached heel to get access to the USB port on the figure/armour. Not shown here.
It's nice how some blue light bleeds through to the front via the hinged parts, it doesn't look like cheap thin material as they are sharp lines
Of course it's also great that the eyes and arc reactor light up too. There are also movable chest plates that I forget to close when showing the armour in the closed positions, sorry about that!
The chest panel I forget to close later..
Obviously you can see more detail this way
With external base/gantry added
Closed up with those really cool magnets locking parts in place.
Still leaks a bit of light but I think it adds a cool 'alive' look to it.
A sort of standby look.
Yup, forgot those chest panels!
Now they're closed but no power to the display.
Next... making the turntable light up base...
