REVIEW: Minifig Labs 'Bunker Boy' customised minifigure

[WhiteFang]

Hello everyone,

Let's welcome 'Bunker Boy', the latest customised product from Minifig Labs.com

I am very pleased to be given a chance to share a different type of review which I don't normally do. Some of you might be aware that I have previously done a review last year for these World Cup 2014 customised minifigures. Well, these minifigures including the one that I have received are made by the Minifigures Customisation Manufacturer in the local (Singapore) LEGO AFOL Community known as, Minifig Labs. In this very comprehensive review, I will be introducing and highlight the latest customised minifigure which are designed and marketed for fans of 'Bunker Boy'. Special thanks to the Scientist, founder of Minifig Labs for providing me with this intriguing customised minifigure.

The original packaging from Minifig Labs.com

The customised minifigure, 'Bunker Boy' including an accessory. I received the item in a well packed bubble wrap on the exterior and the product was stored in their own designed zip-lock bag. Can't wait to find out what do we have in here.

Taking a photo with WhiteFang and 'Bunker Boy'

You may find this character uncanny resemblance to a video game character known as Vault Boy in the Fallout game. Well, to some great extent, it's definitely very closely related. If you are a great fan as well as a LEGO fan, you may wish to consider to explore this customised video game character of 'Bunker Boy'. This character is part of Vault-Tec who designed and constructed advanced technologies. It was a major military contractor before the Great War, and as such, developed highly experimental, advanced and secret technologies. In time, Vault-Tec became so thoroughly integrated with top-secret military research done by the Pentagon that it had practically become a department of the U.S. government. Vault Boy is the mascot character of the Vault-Tec corporation within the Fallout universe, appearing in their adverts, manuals, products and training film. In appearance, he is a young male cartoon character with wavy blond hair wearing a vault jumpsuit. Most of the time, he expresses a wide grin on his face. To be honest, I am not exactly a subject matter expert on this video game though.

I personally find they did a good job to customise this video game character to the best they could. In the areas of production, Minifig Labs used the UV printing technology. UV printing used UV inks which is cured under UV light for faster evaporated effect. Minifig Labs customised minifigure is made of decent good quality which will allow end-users to have rough handling as long you do not scratch it deliberately with pointed tool or sharp fingernails. The print design looks nice from afar, but upon closer inspection, you may noticed some slight coarse surface that does not translate to smooth finishing which is one of the limitations of UV printing. I still consider Minifig Labs customisation quality to be in the mid-tier range. It is better than applying waterslide decals or usage of home inkjet printers. However, it is still not as good as full-pledged pad printing, which is a totally different class of its own.

Thus, Minifig Labs is more of a mid-tier range. Minifig Labs allows individuals to input their own customisation effect to some extend which is not made available in most channels in the LEGO community such as able to input the 'bunk number' which can be inprinted at the back of the customised minifigure. However, you may notice that some prints maybe slightly inconsistent and is not as razor sharp as one would hope for. This is just my honest opinion of what I think it should be. For info, Minifig Labs used 100% LEGO parts for their customisation works.

The alternate view of 'Bunker Boy'

The 'Bunker Boy' character has an alternate facial appearance. I opted for the LEGO generic appearance then the actual comic version, mainly is because I wish to integrate the minifigure among my LEGO collection as it is by able to interchange with one another. I chosen the bunker number as '24' for my vault or bunk. This is the side view of the customised character. It even include a customised printed 1x1 circular flat tile accessory which resemble the Nuka Cola. In this case, this is the 'Nuke Cola'. The yellow hairpiece is exclusively from the LEGO Green Arrow minifigure. On the price count, this minifigure is not exactly very affordable either. It cost an estimated USD$25 excluding shipping for this customised character. I am quite sure they are many who aren't so keen to get it due to the pricing and is probably priced in such a manner due to high operating production cost and this minifigure might ultimately be suited for niche market. With all these factors considered, I gave this customised minifigure, an average scoring. So, what do the Eurobricks Community rate?

'Bunker Boy' in the midst of the Big Bang Theory cast along with another special guest

Could you like to come into our apartment to join in our scientific discussion?

All in all, I hope you have enjoyed reading this simple and informative review.

Pictures can be found in My Flickr.

[mediumsnowman]

Hmm. I haven't played Fallout, but this is just... a bland figure. Thanks for the review anyways.

[YellowCorvette]

Thanks for the good review, but the minifigure is very bland and lacking in personality.

Edited November 5, 2015 by ArmstrongYong

[pittpenguin123]

Thanks for the good review, but the minifigure is very bland and lacking in personality.

so is the design of the character in the game

[Vorkosigan]

I think they did a good representation of the source material, the printed bottle cap is probably the best aspect. But it seems like a poor value given the simplicity of the character and figure. Being a mascot its not something I'd really see many using in MOCs either. A game accurate power armored figure would be more exciting.

[HawkLord]

It's a good representation of a pretty basic character design, so it's successful there. The bottle cap is cool, maybe it could use another accessory.