Mini Review - Nonnef Upgrades (Various)
I picked up a few of the upgrades available for some of the Titans Returns figures from Nonnef Productions. I grabbed the Upgrade kits for Battletrap and Perceptor, as well as new feet for Quake and Hardhead, and weapons for the Clones!
The upgrade kits show up on sprues similar to model kits and are easily trimmed and attached to the new figures. The "nubs" for Perceptor's new wrists are a bit small and can be easily smushed if you aren't careful installing them. I squished one of mine but it still holds in well enough via friction. Other items like the single weapons typically come in a small bag and are already trimmed and cleaned up. There may be small pieces of flash to trim or clean sometimes.
The guns for the clones actually come in a set of 8, however I chose to split an order with a friend to help offset some of the cost. Each clone weapon has it's own unique design homaging the original G1 weapons included with the original figures and the likeness is spot on.
The Perceptor kit adds much needed ankle tilts, wrist swivels and a new rear piece for his head. I'm surprised how much the head piece actually improves his look as I had originally thought it would be an unnecessary addition to the set. You have to disassemble the Titan Master included with Perceptor, to salvage the face-plate as well as the ball joint/head and attach them to the new piece. The existing hands and feet simply un-tab from their existing homes and you replace them with the new components. Now I just need to attach his targeting monocle and my Wreckers Perceptor will be complete!
The new feet for Hardhead and Quake are great, they add some height to the figure that can help offset the longer arms, and the addition of a very expressive ankle ball joint really brings an already awesome figure up to another level.
The battletrap kit is mostly new weapons; a double barrelled blaster homaging the original G1 weapon, a small black blaster so that both components can have a gun when separate, and a new rotor/sword that more easily fits into 5mm hands. You can keep the original rotor attached or swap out the new rotor. personally I use both so that I can avoid unnecessary stress on the connector tabs down the road. There is also a small black peg piece that can be used in conjunction with the larger blaster to combine the two vehicle modes into something similar to the G1 toy.
All in all I'm very satisfied with these kits. They fix some of the small frustrations I had with these figures, and add a lot of play-value to toys I already own. I do have a few tolerance variances that I will need to fix; Perceptor's new hands are slightly larger than 5mm so his stock gun falls out of his fists, and the rotor/sword for Battletrap is every so slightly too small to be used in his hands without falling out. These are minor inconveniences that I expect with hand made items. They are easily rectified and may not apply to all sets in the same way so your mileage may vary. The benefits of the kits easily outweighs any inconvenience caused by minor tolerance issues. At the end of the day I would recommend any of these upgrades to anyone on the fence about them.
Check out the gallery below to see the upgrades in action! Don't forget to check us out on Facebook to keep up with daily photos and a little bit of news and discussion as well!
