Foldabot Habol and Vivid Robo Reviews

I never made so much new designs before I printed them for testing, which resulted in just 4 out of the supposed to be 12 pattern cards. But out of the 4, was perhaps the most perfected designs I've made since Foldabots Mini, and on this edition, I'll be reviewing them.

Foldabot Habol

Pattern can be found here: http://ejsotto.blogspot.com/2016/05/foldabots10-folda-fan-spotlight-charles.html

He was designed to be like Sagip, with practically almost the same parts, save for the unique parts like the bumper, and the visor. The print was a little flawed with the fonts wrong but at least he still ended up as good as it's supposed to be.

Seizure Warning!

Habol in Foldabot mode; One of the most stable designs.

Stability wise, he's practically very stable unlike some other designs, and the proportion is way much better than of Sagip. I think above all, he goes great with Electricus once we get Tagas ourselves next month after coming to the event.

Vivid Robo

This is practically a quadruple crossover since the gestalt is based on a relatively obscure anime back in 2012. The other references were practically Voltron, due to the fact the resulting combiner has colored limbs corresponding to the Legendary Defender. I might do the girl with the black scarf (No, not Hoodie since he's a guy) as a stand-alone combiner set where she forms the torso of her super mode, and her weapons become the limbs, and from there, the Voltron reference will become more true. Another is Kamen Rider Wizard, also from 2012, which has four basic styles and dragon styles that came after. No wonder I found a picture of Vivid Red All Dragon Style somewhere in DA which does make sense why both Kamen Rider Wizard and VividRed Operation are almost one and the same if let alone the four colors in common. The combined form of Vivid Robo has a visor reminiscent of Wizard's Infinity Style, by the way. And the last thing is it's basically a Foldabots X-over, which you might have forgotten now is a mix of various movie or TV series and top it off the Foldabots System.

The individual units from pattern cards 1 and 2 are virtually the same patterns on all four of them, albeit with different designs that represent the main characters of the anime. The third card however is their weapons, which is of course almost the same as the show's, except it forms the main torso of the gestalt, which is the crowning feature of this set. Also, Make sure you fine tune the connections by cutting the tabs a bit save the nose parts, so that they can fit inside the sleeves perfectly. Don't cut them too much otherwise it will not be useful especially when combining to Vivid Robo.

The following pictures are the patterns, if you want to try them yourself. After these are the snapshots of the actual toys, and note these also have print defects.

Their individual vehicle modes are of course the same and the numbers on top of them correspond to the characters they're based from.

Identical Quadruplets

They also have a gimmick of combining into a train-like vehicle by inserting the nose parts onto the sleeves.

Parallel Docking!

In robot mode, the character designs may look vaguely to the characters themselves, but at least they have visors that also refers to Wizard's four styles.

HI-SUI-FUU-DO!

Next, we move on to their weapons, which is of course based on the show as well. On its own they can be used as weapons to the robots, or you can combine them to form a jet.

Well, almost show-accurate, but it has a hidden purpose.

Part 1: Red and Blue

Part 2: Green and Yellow

Here's how you'll do it: Open Blue Weapon's tab and insert Yellow Weapon with tab facing out, in order to place Red Weapon forming the nose part. Then open Green Weapon's tab insert it on Blue Weapon's rear sleeve, while the Wings are attached on the front sleeve.

You'll end up with something that looks like this...

Support Jet Vivid Armory

Another thing about the weapons is that they can combine with their respective units, as seen below.

Battle Modes Part 1

Battle Modes Part 2

Battle Modes Part 3

And now, combining the whole thing...

First things first, we should change these units to their limb forms and in this case, VM-01 and VM-03 are the arms, and VM-02 and VM-04 are the legs. It's up to you where you can place these girls, after all, they also have the Scramble System included. In fact, there are 24 possible configurations you can do with this gestalt.

Repeat, none of them forms the torso. Just the limbs.

Next is the Blue and Yellow Weapons, which where the interlocking magic comes in, followed by the Green Weapon and the two legs. This is perhaps tricky because of how to attach them by inserting the arms to the notched tabs. Surprisingly enough, the assembly feels very reinforced and solid like most official Foldabot combiners. Next, we connect the two parts together and frankly it's tricky again because we need a bit of clearance, just enough to insert the waist piece properly. Then we lock the assembly into place by inserting the small green tabs onto the slits, so it becomes more sturdy. Finally, the easy parts--Connecting the arms, wings and the Red Weapon forming the head. The next picture is my rough attempt in a stop motion animation, which I thank my new tripod (first used in my Aninotron review) and a white backdrop from an A3 sized card paper.

Grand Docking! Complete, Vivid Robo! Vivid Formation Finish!

Combined, it easily comes to conclusion that this is a bit like the Dynamo from the Original Powerpuff Girls (not the new one which is terrible) in terms of the head and its overall look--a homogenized character. And like I said, this has some Voltron vibe to it, but only subtle since I haven't started working on the extra unit based on Kuroki Rei which becomes its own gestalt and yet can swap parts with this one to make a more Voltron-ish gestalt.

Conclusion

Before I finish this blog, here's a stop motion I put together for Habol's transformation process. Recalling I've already done two, this one's my third attempt.

FOLD OUT!!!

With a lot of us disappointed after K-Zone abruptly cancelled Foldabots, news of moving to new publishers is still undetermined. I myself haven't got the schedule for the completion event in favor of doing the Electricus review myself. However, on the bright side, the spirit of Foldabots hasn't died in some of us, even though I myself is busy working on an animation project on the other fandom.

One of my new sights was the attempt of making Liokaiser from Transformers Victory (I do have Landcross, but not Landcross-y, but I promise I'll work on a pattern set for it.) by starting with Leozack. I'm seeing a potential that he'll add Jaruguar, Killbison, Hellbat, Gaihawk, and Drillhorn later on, to complete the gestalt. Well, it's complicated at this point, but expect some reviews of older Foldabots which was first debuted in 2006, and revised on Toy Books 1 and 5. And until then, we'll be catching you guys again next time on The Foldabots Archives.