I finally got a hold of some of Arealight's newest printed items. For those of you who haven't heard of Arealight (come on... surely everyone has!) he has been in the business of manufacturing custom helmets, torsos, heads and jetpacks that are minifig compatible. They are very much based in a galaxy far, far away which is why I love them so much. So, onto the new pieces...
First up, the new line of printed jetpacks. Pictured above is Boba Fett sporting his jetpack. It is worth noting that the warhead (here is silver) and the jetpack are two separate parts - I couldn't find my sand green ones so I stuck this silver one in. You can also buy smaller rocket heads to attach to the jetpack as well. The printing here is good, lined up properly and matches really nicely with the official Lego helmet (and, obviously, the corresponding printed helmet Arealight offers). Pictured below are the other printed jetpacks I received, they are all equally well printed and match their corresponding printed helmets arealight offers.
As you can see, these jetpacks are all pretty well printed and I think they are much better in design than Lego's own version.
Now onto helmets... I have to say, I am not a clone army builder - I like Jedi, Sith and Mandalorians but I thought I would go ahead and get some of these helmets, just to see what they were like.
The middle helmet here is Lego, for a comparison. The Arealight helmets are more compact vertically but a bit longer horizontally (as you can see in the picture below). The printing is pretty good, although is there a reason the camo one has a gap at the back? I dunno, maybe so. I tend to find it a little awkward that Arealight helmets have holes where the eyes are... only because it means you need a black head underneath but that's just my own personal niggle, I'm sure others prefer it this way round. There is a very large range of clone helmets to choose from in his store, plenty for any army builder.
Finally, shadow arf trooper helmet, here compared with the Lego original.
Again, the shaping here is different, not sure which I prefer... maybe Lego just edges it but I do like the silver printed decal on the Arealight helmet. Factor that in with the limited run of the Lego shadow arf trooper and Arealight is onto a winner!
In conclusion, I am very happy with these items that I got from Arealight. I am particularly fond of the jetpacks and am making some good use of them on my Mandalorian army. They are quite pricy for small bits of printed plastic... but Arealight is offering some genuinely brilliant accessories for any minifig enthusiast. Arealight has always produced good plastic pieces but with the addition of printing he is really raising the bar. If you can afford it I would certianly recommend buying from him.
http://www.arealightcustoms.com/shop/home.php
