Strike a pose 1/52
A photo of Takara Tomy’s Action Hero Pro Ryukendo figure sans armour and weapons. Action Hero Pro + air guitar pose = Air Guitar Hero Pro. The 16cm-tall figure was designed with posability in mind and it packs an incredible amount of joints in its small frame.
The low-down:
- Head – ball joint.
- Neck – ball joint.
- Shoulder – two ball joints.
- Bicep – swivel joint.
- Elbow – double hinge joint.
- Wrist – ball joint.
- Fingers – fused together with a hinge joint at the base.
- Thumb – swivel joint.
- Chest – ball joint.
- Waist – ball joint.
- Hip – ball joint plus swivel joint.
- Thigh – swivel joint.
- Knee – double hinge joint.
- Ankle – ball joint plus hinge joint.
- Foot – Two hinge joints.
That’s a remarkable 38 joints but wait, the packaging for the toy claims (in English) the figure actually has 40 points of articulation. Where are the last two joints?
The back of the thighs.
Each thigh has a panel on the back that hinges into the thigh and those hinged panels are there to accommodate one and only one pose: when the legs are bent doubled at the knees.
Of course, joint count alone doesn’t mean great posability. Those joints need a good range of motion to be of any value. I’m glad to report the Action Hero Pro joints have a fantastic range of motion.
Here’s what I’m going to do: beginning from now, I’m going to come up with one pose a week for this figure. This will simultaneously demonstrate its posability and challenge me to make use of all those joints. I’m always going on about articulation and posability so here’s where I get to show what I can do with all that posability possibility.
One figure. One pose a week. One year.
Yeah, I can do that.
No problem.
Su-u-ure.
Right.
Um.