Being invested in things that are 1:12 scale or up means skipping over a lot of action figures in the smaller scales. I’ve never had a specific bias against 1:18 scale figures, but over time as more and more companies devote time and resources to larger scales I very rarely feel the need to dig into anything smaller. Recently a lot of Kickstarter endeavors have been aiming towards 1:18 scale, and some smaller companies have been picking up the highly-articulated slack left by some of the larger companies, one of which is Hiya toys.
Hiya toys have been around since 2009, and currently have the license to two of my favorite sci-fi/action/horror properties: Alien and Predator. I recently got the chance to test out two of their Predator 2 figures. Let’s see how they do.
The first Predator is one of the best action movies of the ’80s. and oozes that pure, unfiltered testosterone that the ’80s had in surplus. A sequel was inevitable, but I think everyone was surprised at how different it was from the first. Where Predator took place in a steaming jungle, the Predator 2 moved into a jungle that was more concrete than wood. Where the first one featured a team of commandos lead by Schwarzenegger, the second one featured a few cops and Danny Glover’s “cop that plays by his own rules.”
It’s hard to top the first Predator, and while the sequel doesn’t accomplish that impossible mission, it doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining on its own. It’s merely buried under the weight of what came before.
Predator 2 is noteworthy for featuring a handful of brand new Predator aliens at the end of the movie, all of whom have received names over the years. I’ll be covering City Hunter Predator, (light colored skin) who is the main Predator featured thorughout the movie, and Guardian Predator, (darker skin, animalesque mask) who can be seen alongside several others of his race on the ship at the end of the movie.
It’s hard to know what to expect before you hold an 1:18 scale figure in your hand, both froma detail and an articulation standpoint. I’m so used to the high articulation and detail of larger figures that I expected to be a little disappointed. But once I opened these up and freed up a few stuck joints (the City Hunter’s hip balls were stuck, but a little heat and silicone fixed them) I was pleasantly surprised. It kind of reminded me that there’s a lot of pocket-size fun to be found in this scale.
The articulation works very well for the most part. Both feature:
- Ball joint at top of neck/ head
- Ball joint at torso/bottom of neck
- Disc shoulders
- Bicep swivel
- Single-jointed elbow
- Ball-jointed wrists
- Ball-jointed torso
- Ball-jointed hips
- Hip swivels
- Double-jointed knee
- Disc-jointed ankles
Of these joints, the only one I’d like changed would be the ankle joints. A peg that inserted forward into the foot like recent Marvel legends figures would give them just that extra little bit of flexibility that would help enormously in being able to balance them a little better, and allow them to place their feet flat on the ground in any position.
Otherwise, they posed very well, and I was able to achieve much of what I wanted them to do, within reason.
Their dreadlocks are made of a very soft plastic that doesn’t hinder their ability to turn their heads. Their wristblades slide in and out, and are made of a soft plastic so they don’t accidentally snap at their smaller size. Both come with removable shoulder cannons that slide up and down a channel on their torso armor, so you can have them at rest or in use.
The sculptwork is beautiful. My “gold standard” for Predator figures has been NECA, and these easily match the detail in those much larger figures as far as the netting and armor goes. There doesn’t seem to be any glossing over of detail, and the paint brings out every bit of the sculpt with washes on the armor and precision paint on the netting. Everything has a used, well-worn quality like you’d expect.
Each Predator alien features three sets of hands: gripping, open and splayed. There can be a little difficulty getting the hands on depending on the hand, and they can come off a little too easily,again, depending on the hand, but overall they work well and hold what they’re supposed to hold, be it the Combistick or Smart Disc.
As for accessories, both figures come with a base with a single peg (the bases can be combined) two version of the Combistick — extracted and retracted — and a smart disc. The Guardian Predator comes with a skull, and the City Hunter Predator comes with a skull with attached spinal column. Both of them come with a side holster to attach their discs, but to be honest I couldn’t quite get them attached so that they stayed in firmly. I think the holes on the discs were about a micron too small, so I’d need to widen the holes in order to get them to snap securely, something I’m planning on doing.
Both figures stand at a little over 4 ½ inches tall, which means they will scale just right to any 1:18 scale figure, of which mine are currently mostly inaccessible for scale shots.
If you’re a Predator fan, these are excellent figures that are a lot of fun to move around. They’re actually more fun to fiddle with than they are to just dryly pose in various static positions. These are good to pull out of your pocket during dull boardroom meetings, or fiddle with on that long commute to work. Unless you’re driving, in which case … you may want to keep your eyes on the road.
They’re currently just shy of 20 dollars at Big Bad toy Store, where both City Hunter and Guardian are in stock.
**Thanks to Hiya Toys for providing these figures for review.**