KR|Dimness Review #15: Anobiac

Toy prototype details

Name: Anobiac^TM

Subtitle: insectoid bounty hunter

Line: KR|Dimness

Item type: action figure - Nº 11 in the line.

Character details

Name: Anobiac

Classification: insect

Sex: uncertain (the character was originally conceived as a male, but the figure's body frame size suggests that it might have been changed into a female during production)

Home: Tahron

Era: 5 years before Foundation

Affiliation: Dark Legion

Rank: auxiliary warrior.

Background

First appearance: KR|Dimness #2 - Masq-Lor's quest

Brief bio: using the magic of the ancient spirits enshrined in Clavisaur's body, the evil Wordron transformed some of the most savage animals of the jungles near the Ucamur^TM region into his own beastly servants. Grown to a human-like size and endowed with enhanced strength, these monsters fought under the Dark Legion banner as mercenaries. Anobiac was just a flying insect when one of the spirits possessed it and transmuted it into a ferocious warrior, who savoured destruction and death. Even after the Dark Legion's ultimate defeat, Anobiac continued to act proudly as a fearsome and deadly bounty hunter in his old master's name.

Articulation

Standard, excluding hinged abdomen, and with the addition of two ball hinged arms and four ball hinged wings.

Description

Head: insect-like, characterised by a segmented light-blueish hood that surrounds and merges with a black snout. It displays a pair of long, thin light-blueish antennae pointing forward, a pair of fairly large bulbous silvery compound eyes, three smaller yellow eye spots on the forehead and a whitish-jawed Predator-like mouth composed of a two-fanged upper labrum, two mandibles and two maxillae with cutting edges (the latter are flanked by two short black segmented appendages or palps), and a finely serrated lower labium (also flanked by palps)

Body: all her body is characterised by a segmented black appearance and is protected by a number of light-blueish chitinous exoskeletal plates, which act as shoulder guards, rerebraces and thigh guards (we can even get a glimpse of a similar harness-shaped structure on her torso, under the armour), and bear numerous details on their surfaces, such as cracks, spines, small porous warts and tiny hair-shaped appendages. Her slender arms and legs sport three-clawed black hands and feet, with the third claw of each foot pointing backward and down, and functioning as a sort of high heel. An additional pair of arthropod-like light-blueish arms, each terminating in a long bifurcated claw, project from her lower back

Wearables: an orange armour with red details (including a furry collar and a pair of spines projecting from the top of the shoulder guards), two scaly (with some of the scales developing a bit more into spines) orange wrist guards, two scaly/spiny orange shin guards, a spiked orange belt and a red furry loincloth.

Anobiac's stylised armour.

Action feature

In the comics, Anobiac can protrude a vicious dental plate at great speed from her mouth. This whitish chitinous structure lies in a horizontal position and has a row of curved, piranha-like teeth along the edge, resembling a circular saw blade; it also folds bilaterally, helping with the extending/retracting motion she uses to attack her opponents. So, the figure comes with a spectacular alternative head, which displays the open mouth armed with the threatening dental plate out.

Additionally, her back plate carries two sets of posable wings. The leaf-shaped iridescent silvery outer wings function as a menacing pair of sharp blades and, when folded, as a shield for the reduced club-shaped inner wings, which are light-blueish and carry a pair of toothed whitish chitinous structures at their ends. These parts are quite different from the dental plate, each having a series of five vibrating curved blades that in concerted sequential motion resembles a circular saw; although these organs do not fictionally rotate, they actually do in toy form.

Weapons and accessories

Apart from the alternate head, Anobiac includes an intimidating "corkscrew" spear, which consists of a long reddish wooden shaft with a metallic red handle and a pointed, spiral whitish chitinous tip. This weapon is actually never shown in the comics, but it's a quite cool addition in my opinion.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦♦ As a collector of the KR|Foundation line prototypes, Zektax was probably my favourite figure. Another insect character has been on my personal most-wanted lists for several years and now it's finally here

Articulation: ♥♥♥♥ The range of motion on the extra appendages is great and Anobiac looks awesome in a variety of flying poses

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣♣ I know this was a pet project for the folks at PoliganToys, and, indeed, they delivered a figure that makes for a visually stunning addition to the line

Accessories: ♠♠♠♠ The frightening add-ons she comes with should make everybody learn it may not be worth the trouble of fighting with this creature

Playability: ♪♪♪♪ This figure not only gives the Dark Legion a new monster amongst their ranks, but also further fleshes out Tahron's complex biology and perhaps provides a friendly foil for the Murmirians descendants

Overall: ☺☺☺☺ This is another triumphant concept-design made into action figure. I have often thought about how there really weren’t enough insectoid characters produced in the KR line. That's now changed with Anobiac being successfully produced in the Dimness series.

KR|Dimness Review #14: Moh-Qi

Toy prototype details

Name: Moh-Qi^TM

Subtitle: forest warrior

Line: KR|Dimness

Item type: action figure - Nº 10 in the line.

Character details

Name: Moh-Qi

Real name: Mohqiros^TM

Classification: human

Sex: male

Relationships: older brother of Koptros^TM

Home: Tahron

Era: 5 years before Foundation

Affiliation: Forseha (indirectly)

Rank: lone fighter.

Background

First appearance: KR|Dimness #1 - Into dimness: Part I – Awakening

Brief bio: born on the mountains of southern Tahron, Mohqiros and his younger brother Koptros were descendants of the legendary Cereutian knight Galamars^TM, who masterminded the construction of the multiversal walls. Unlike his brother, Moh-Qi (that was his nickname) never sought to prove that he was worthy of his valiant ancestor's legacy and, instead of enlisting in the Theriom army, spent several years training in the jungles near the Ucamur^TM region to become an ormurid tamer. Eventually, he became an expert with the blowgun and domesticated many ormurids as a member of the Forseha tribe. During a time of turmoil due to territorial disputes in the area, Moh-Qi confronted a number of hostile jungle clans until Dakun promoted an ideology of peaceful respect and cooperation; feeling in conflict with such ideals, he left the tribe to become a reclusive lone fighter in the Saseham^TM shrubland. Later, after he had initially refused Solamya's offer of an alliance, Moh-Qi single-handedly fought the volcanic monster Tolaaf to help his former fellows end the ruthless war declared by Wordron and his Dark Legion upon the brave tribesmen. Despite not being a Forseha member anymore, he returned to his old tribe whenever his fighting skills were needed.

Articulation

Standard.

Description

Head: Native American features, dark brown skin with a reddish tinge, long black hair partly arranged in a ponytail and amber eyes. He sports an orange finger-woven headband with black tribal designs on it, as well as a dangle hair ornament (composed of a beaded deerskin strip and a long feather) worn on the right side of the head

Body: the exposed parts of his body (i.e., arms and chest) show dark brown skin with a reddish tinge, while the legs are covered with tight orange deerskin trousers

Wearables: a sleeveless black leather jacket, a copper-studded black leather fingerless glove on the left forearm, a black leather strap wrapped around the wrist and part of the forearm plus an orange deerskin armband on the right arm, and a pair of black leather chaps. The jacket, whose hem falls to the waist, is completely open and exposes a necklace (from which a pendant similar to a stone arrowhead hangs down in front) and an orange shoulder belt made of deerskin, which incorporates several loops for a number of darts, a sheathed knife and a satchel (I'm very impressed by the smart way all these components have been combined in a single removable piece). Each sculpted dart seems to be made of hardwood and fletched with animal fur, while the knife is removable and looks like it’s made of bone. The chaps are buckled on over the trousers with their copper-studded black leather integrated belt; each legging is worn over a black boot (or rather a combination of a furry sock and a cross-strap leather sandal), giving the appearance of a thigh-high boot, and is fringed along the outside edge.

Action feature

In the comics, before engaging in combat Moh-Qi is shown to consume a small amount of the addictive, highly potent enchanted mushroom he carries in his satchel, which, in addition to his mystical connection with the jungle environment, grants him enhanced strength and agility, as well as acute senses and reflexes. Even though this detail will probably generate complaints from various drug prevention organisations, the figure comes with an alternate battle head that displays Zartan-like black face warpaint markings around a pair of solid white glow-in-the-dark eyes.

Weapons and accessories

In addition to the alternate head, Moh-Qi includes a blowgun consisting of a long copper tube, through which the above-mentioned darts are fictionally propelled by force of his breath.

Additionally, as a reference to Moh-Qi's comic book appearance, the figure comes with a mushroom's domed cap as an accessory. It resembles a weird mash-up of different mushrooms, with the shape of a wood hedgehog, the texture of a maitake, plus the colour of a black trumpet (which is a little darker than I’d like). It’s a cute item, even if it doesn’t really have a use, but it can be stowed in the satchel thanks to the bag's moving flap.

Finally, this figure and character has a long and controversial history. When Moh-Qi first appeared in the rough draft of the first KR|Dimness comic issue, he looked more like a concept version of Koptros. It turns out that there were two different pitches for a Native American-inspired character back in 2015: one became the basis for the actual Koptros figure, while the other one never went anywhere (until now). This figure is a tribute to them both, having its main look based on the discarded concept art as well as some add-ons that can make it reminiscent of Koptros' earlier version. So, Koptros' harness with hyper-technological backpack is present and re-coloured in black with orange details. A matching rod-shaped antenna for radio communications plus a corded gun-shaped 3D scanner are also included. The two black&orange accessories can plug into two sockets on the top and the side of the backpack, and (with some effort) can be stored inside the latter. In one more nod to Moh-Qi's complex origin, PoliganToys even slipped in the idea of making him Koptros' older brother, which explains the strong resemblance between the two.

Koptros' stylised harness repurposed for Moh-Qi.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦♦ I think PoliganToys is sewing up a lot of previously unexplored historical footnotes of Key Raiders. For me, Moh-Qi represents the most intriguing way of creating a new character - not only a discarded concept art has been given a new name, but it has also been given a neat backstory that helps the character integrate right into Tahron history as Koptros' older brother

Articulation: ♥♥♥♥ My figure doesn’t have any issues with loose joints and posing him in numerous ways is easy to do

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣ No, he is not just a repaint of Koptros with a new head and outfit. He has an abundance of new parts (including a pair of funky trousers) and his hair has gone from box-braided to straight with some embellishments here and there. Unfortunately, the alternate head has some black scuff-marks on the face and chin... I had hoped these would rub off, but then I realised this is the black plastic showing through (yes, this head is moulded in black)

Accessories: ♠♠♠♠ I have to say that I really like the Koptros gear repaints, they make for some interesting display options and the black makes them look really badass. I had a hard time deciding between having the figure wear the jacket/satchel and carry the blowgun or running around in high-tech armour with a cool "gun". At the end I've decided that Moh-Qi looks great with his original outfit and I can't wait to swap the black Koptros armour with the one that came with the original figure

Playability: ♪♪♪ Potentially, he'd be very much a nod to die-hard KR fans, representing just how dedicated PoliganToys is to the line. I don't think Moh-Qi is a must-have figure, except for completists, but he's fun and the colours do give him a great savage look

Overall: ☺☺☺ Overall, I’m happy with this figure despite his strange origins and his being based on a rejected artwork. Personally, I think the idea of Moh-Qi is really fun and I am glad to have this mysterious character on my shelf. He’s a welcome addition to my collection.