AmperZand

[REVIEW] Crazy Arms differently angled arms, satyr legs, and afro

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Last year, I backed a Kickstarter project by Crazy Bricks to produce minifigure arms angled differently from official LEGO ones (Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstar...res/description). The project exceeded its funding target and unlocked additional colours, another arm angle, some satyr legs and a new afro hair piece. This is a review of Crazy Bricks' new parts.

I used some of the Crazy Bricks parts in four of the minifigures shown below, specifically for the front musketeer's right arm, the devil's legs, the Zulu warrior's hair and the Greek hero's right and left arms. I have more Crazy Bricks parts that I haven't photographed but still considered them as part of the review.

crazy_ensemble.jpg

1. Functionality 7/10

The arms don't attach to the torso in the same way that LEGO arms do. Each Crazy Arm is fixed to a piece inside the torso that itself attaches to one of the studs on the top of LEGO legs. You get one internal attachment piece per arm. It's an ingenious design and I'm sure there must be a reason for it, but I can't help but feel that these new arms would have worked just as well if they had used TLG's simpler attachment method.

The Crazy Arms are easy to assemble and the articulation rotates perfectly both at the wrist and at the shoulder except the straight-out arm (the musketeer's right arm and the Greek hero's left) which is very stiff.

Unlike LEGO satyr legs, Crazy Bricks' - which they call "Digitigrades" - aren't articulated and don't have any printing.

2. Compatibility - arms & hair 7/10, legs 2/10

The Crazy Bricks arms and hair parts sit flush with LEGO minifigures and have perfect clutch. After additional research, I discovered that the satyr legs stress LEGO torsos and can cause small patches of discolouration to or even cracking of the sides of torsos.

The arms, hair and legs are sculpted to look like they could be LEGO parts and if you weren't a FOL, you wouldn't guess from their shape that they aren't. But the colours and lustres aren't exact matches. The arms and legs are ever so slightly glassier than LEGO's: shinier with less rich colour, while the afro is a bit more matte. Also, the reddish brown (not pictured) is fractionally lighter than TLG's. In fairness to Crazy Bricks, I have exceptional colour acuity and I can only see the differences in shean and shade in good light. A casual observer wouldn't notice.

3. Material 9/10

The new parts seem to be made of similar ABS to LEGO. My guess is that they will last just as long.

4. Manufacture 6.5/10

The parts are well cast with minimal moulding lines. The only problem is that some of the arms and legs have quite noticeable partition marks where the piece was originally attached to its sprue.

5. Variety 7/10

The angle of arms allows for quite a range of poses from spear-chucking to archery to two-handed-along-the-middle-of-the-body. The range of colours is a bit disappointing though. Yes, many expected colours are there: white, black, reddish brown, dark bley, yellow and dark tan. But it's a shame, there's no blue, red or dark brown. I don't think there are any green ones available though I could be wrong about that.

That said, the range of colours allows you to create satyrs in more colours than TLG's reddish brown.

6. Usefulness 10/10

These arms are incredibly useful for anyone wanting to create a realistic archery pose and many other stances. They also break up the monotony of large groupings (crowds, armies etc) of minifigures, making them look more life-like.

7. Originality 10/10

I'm not aware of anyone else injection moulding variously posed minifigure arms. This is one of those ideas that you wonder how we ever lived without.

Even the satyr legs are original. At the time they were announced, TLG had not yet revealed that it would be doing goat legs.

8. Service 10/10

Dealing with Crazy Bricks has been a delight. They kept backers of the project up to date with regular bulletins and were happy to comply with special shipping instructions.

9. Value 6/10

I appreciate that designing, testing and producing relatively small quantities of injection moulded pieces is expensive but even so, Crazy Bricks parts aren't cheap compared to other suppliers of third party minifigure parts and accessories.

Overall, I'm very pleased I backed this project and was able to obtain these new parts. I have only used some of the Crazy Bricks pieces I ordered but have already planned what I'm going to do with my spares. My only regret is that my budget didn't stretch to ordering more. My guess is that Crazy Bricks will eventually make these parts available for sale through their site. If you didn't catch their Kickstarter project, do yourself a big favour and get them when they do.

Questions? Comments? Craziness?

Edited by AmperZand

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Ohh, I envy you... Thanks for the review!

I Imagine they solve one big problem: mounted archers. Up to now that looked weird. Could you take a picture of a mounted archer with a longbow? Also how about mounted javelin throwers?

Edited by Wardancer

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Thanks for the review!

You're very welcome :sweet:

I Imagine they solve one big problem: mounted archers. Up to now that looked weird. Could you take a picture of a mounted archer with a longbow? Also how about mounted javelin throwers?

I hadn't actually prepared a mounted archer or javelin thrower for my display collection, so I assembled the following just for these shots. I used a LEGO bow and arrow for the archer as that's the part most people will have, but the toxophile looks better with a separate bow piece (one not combined with an arrow) such as this one by BrickForge: https://www.brickforge.com/Recurve-Bow.html. I imagine it would work just as well with a BF longbow.

Hope these pictures help.

crazy_horseman_archer.jpg

crazy_horseman_lancer.jpg

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