Kotobukiya 1/10 scale Rockman Review

Having been a Mega Man fan for not as long as most, I came in during Mega Man X, so I honestly didn’t know much about the original save for what I “learned” from the old Ruby Spears cartoon. Yes, it was pure cheesecake, but it was entertaining for my young age. I own all of the classic series and have beaten 2 ~ 5, most of 1 and 8, and only a couple of levels of 9. With the exception of character introductions, I know there’s not a lot of story to miss. >_>

The announcement of this kit was definitely a blind-sided left hook. I had always wanted a Mega Man (or in this case “Rockman”) model kit since my discovery of the Mega Armor Series back in the late 90’s.
I wasn’t able to obtain it right when it launched, but I still got mine prior to the official US release (which I think is still pending), during Ohayocon 2011 in my “Tax Refund, I Don’t Want You No More” spending spree…

T_T

This is my second Kotobukiya kit I've worked on, following a non-scale King Kittan from Gurren Lagann that I built and painted for a friend. I gotta admit, when I started working on it, the size caught me off-guard. It’s a tad taller than most early U.C. (0079 - 0083) HGUC’s.

Front View

Back View

Judging by the face and proportions, It seems like they based this off of Ryuji Higurashi’s than Keiji Inafune’s original concept. Probably for a more solid, crisp look, as it definitely has that going for it! And no extra details were added to throw off Rock’s simplicity.
Very little painting was necessary, and what was painted by me seemed to be more optional. Such as the rim around the neck to give the torso a little extra cobalt blue. I lined the mouth with some light umber to give it a more deepened look, but not look drawn on. And the vents on the back of the helmet were filled black.

The jewels in the “ears” were painted silver on the inside to give them a reflective look.

The Rock Buster/Mega Buster is optional, and can be put on by removing the forearm, like seen below.

Red added on Photoshop for better visibility.

The notches in the buster are to allow it to be placed onto either arm while keeping the solar panel on the outside. I keep it on the left, as he seems to be seen with it more in artwork that way.

As with the “ear” sensors, the jewel in the buster was given a silver back coat to appear more, well, jewel-like. The inner rim was painted in the same robin’s egg blue as the body (color matched) for some color differentiation.

The bottom of the foot has a jewel molded to the bottom of it. However, being an opaque blue part, I had to improvise and do my standard silver-with-clear-coat treatment. The effect, unfortunately, did not go so well, as the silver I used thickened up in random spots, making the whole thing look messy. *sigh* As with the buster, the inner rim was painted with the light blue.

The Buster effect parts are molded in a clear plastic. The yellow one is the standard shot.

And the charge shot effect is molded in a clear blue. I decided to do a right-hand shot just to show the ability to switch arms.

For both of these I applied a coat of white at the attachment point to make it brighter at the base of the shot. Doesn’t pick up as well as I’d hoped, but it was more of a conscience issue, I guess.

The articulation for this kit is great, but, disappointingly, it’s no now-days action figure.

(This debuts my Tamashii Stage base I’d picked up from GGinfinite.)
Trying to mimic the first illustration for Rockman.

Power slide is achievable with patience. While trying to steady him, I must have knocked his face a little loose… Oops!

Cover illustration pose from the Mega Man Official Complete Works.
One issue I have with Kotobukiya kits is their polycaps are much less wear-resistant than Bandai’s. It’s legs droop very quickly due to their size/weight.

The faces are interchangeable (as displayed in earlier pics). The kit comes with four pairs of eyes: Two with center-printed pupils, and two blank. I used the water slide decals and made the extra ones look to the left (to accommodate my left-handed buster logic).
The eyes can be switched among the faces by how they fit. The happy and serious faces have straight-lined bottoms to the eyes, as the teeth-grit face has upward-arched bottoms.

The E-Tank was another atrocity on my end, as I attempted a silver-with-clear-coat treatment method again, only to turn out lumpy. I ended up just mixing some light blue with silver and painting the whole thing like that. Somehow I lost the peg for the open hand to hold it, so it’s just a useless display item now… Oh well.
At least the decals turned out good!

And there you have it folks! All in all, it’s a decent kit. It’s no MG Gundam Astray, but it’s undoubtedly better than any Mega Man/Rockman (I can do this all day) figure we’ve gotten in the past.

Rating: 3 out of 5

And while this line has a great prospective future, I do have a feeling something soon will be stealing that title…