J.Norad Reviews: Obitsu Multi Purpose Clear Stand MLST-AO1C

Thanks to reader Sabine for pointing my attention to Obitsu's Multi Purpose Clear Stands. I've been using Gundam Action Bases at the moment to pose the girls, using the hip holding forks. It's great if they're wearing dresses, but it won't work well if I decide to give them pants.

I bought three clear stands for evaluation ($8 each, shipping included off eBay; MSRP 294 yen; $4 at Parabox, $7.50 at Mimiwoo) in the event I liked the performance of one, I would have two more ready to fiddle with without having to wait another 2 weeks for shipping. You can inspect the contents and possible configurations at Parabox's site.

Here's a comparison of the Gundam Action Base (left) and the Obitsu MPC Stand (right). Obvious differences is that the Gundam Action Base takes a large foot path and only mounts by crotch grab. The Obitsu MPC Stand is cleaner and is designed for a doll in mind. Nothing that you couldn't have figured out by the stand names already.

From the back, you can see the massive tradeoff for using the Gundam Action Bases. The question is why use the Gundam Action Bases now that you have the Obitsu stands? The answer is unfortunately simple:

Weight. Hotaru is doing fine supported in the air with the Gundam Action Base, elevated a good 4-5 inches off the ground. Lia, on the right, is limited to poses that keep part of her body touching the circular baseplate to offset the load from the thin and delicate arms. I've tried putting the Scout on the Obitsu stand and there's no possible way I could suspend him in an airborne pose with it. The thin rods are not suited for large objects and it seems like they'd either tip over or snap before they'd cooperate with doing aerial acrobatics with anything heavier than a tournament pack of Magic: the Gathering cards.

So, the Gundam Action Base is beefy to support weight, but  has a limited use due to the grip. The Obitsu stand has great usage but is limited due to the strength of the support rods. What if we could combine the two...

I noticed that the rod ends from the Obitsu clamp fits into the Gundam support end, and snugly.

And so the Gun-bitsu Multi-Action-Base was born. Reminds me of that egg turner in Jurassic Park.

The setup lets me pose light weight objects in interesting manners. I'm no longer limited to clear runners in holding up props. The combined base lets me put objects higher than normal, and with a fair amount of strength and grip.

It's not suited for extreme weight, but I found that the Gun-bitsu stand is VERY good for posing the minigun. The minigun has been a tough item to pose due to the lack of a stand and the massive weight. The Gun-bitsu stand has a fairly mechanical look to it, and still blends in fairly well on a bright white background. It looks like it'll be well suited to propping up gun models in the future.

As for the Obitsu MPC Stand itself, it's great for posing light arms in addition to 27cm dolls. The Obitsu MPC Stand is best suited for 1/12 scale figures and anything the weight of 1.5 Magic: the Gathering tournament packs or less. For posing 1/6 scale figures, it's a toss up. The largest claw/clamp does not fit completely around a male doll waist, but you could put them around the thigh instead. Its not a good idea to have them doing anything fancy with the stand, as their weight will topple the stand.

As for female dolls, putting the claw around the waist may restrict the clothing's appearance, so you may not have the ability to have a free flowing look. It's still better to put them around the thigh. You can still do some interesting poses with it in either configuration. They're best suited for static poses and nothing absurd like a Guile flip-kick.

---=="""=._.=//Random Statistics\\._.="""==---
Price per stand: 4 good uncommon cards or 40 terrible common cards
Weight Limits: Less than 140 Magic Cards
Tools required: Phillips screwdriver, sprue cutters
Time spent assembling stand: 10 minutes (includes gate trimming)
Time spent figuring out how to use stand: 2 minutes
Time spent trying to make stand useful: 30 minutes


Rankings: MiniMS Stand vs Obitsu MPC Stand vs Gundam Action Base
(listed in order of best to worst for each application)
Stiffness: GAB/Obitsu/MMSS
Range of motion/posability: MMSS/Obitsu/GAB (Bendable wire beats liftarms any day)
Grip/Attachment/Support Versatility: MMSS/Obitsu/GAB (wires can be claws or racks)
Stability: GAB/Obitsu/MMSS (can't beat a crapton of plastic)
Aesthetics: Obitsu/MMSS/GAB (The MMSS stand can be used to store stuff, but then it looks ugly)

This Weekend's Project: 1:6 Scale Acoustic Guitar

Every figure collection at some point needs a guitar for their accessory pool. It's one of the unspoken rules of collecting idolatrous representations of paganistic figureheads, er, I mean, toys. Your shelf's awesome quota gets fulfilled by 3% with each guitar with a ceiling of 15% maximum added value.

I actually just wanted a guitar for my Engineer. It's way better than the Gunslinger since I don't have to amputate an already half assed glove sculpt and make reinforcements to make it work. More of also just wanted the Engineer to be able to do the taunt kill with a guitar.

First, like a good Engineer, we'll need some schematics. Unfortunately, I couldn't be bothered drafting up any, so I did the next best thing: have someone else do it for me. Here's a great set of schematics that I used to build my guitar, courtesy of Christophe Grellier's guitar site. I scaled down his drawing to 69.5% to achieve 1:6 scale.

To start off, we'll need to build the body. I chose to make an 18mm thick guitar, so subtracting the thicknesses of two 4-card stacks for the back and front faces, we get 15mm of body height to make up for. Some Ronom Unicorns and Surging Sentinels were sacrificed to achieve the task. I split the cards into 15mm wide strips, then arranged them inside the stencil 5 layers thick. Use tape to hold the walls next to the stencil as you layer the insides with more cards. I ended up using 5 layers instead of 4 because I had excess material from cutting up 4 cards. More is better anyways.

 Using the stencil, I made the front and back faces. I opted to use the back of the card as much as possible stylistically rather than paint the guitar. I wanted the "Deckmaster" logo to appear on the front, and the "Magic: the Gathering" back to be unobstructed on the back.

The neck was fairly simple. 8x Magic cards with a slight bend at the top portion. I honestly know nothing about guitars, so I'm going to call parts as I see it. I cut slats in the head part for the strings to feed through. The base is composed of 20x Magic cards, cut to a taper by simple diagonal planing with an X-acto knife. Same technique used on the Hellfire.

 To make the bridges, I used some unspecified gauge stripped electrical wire and glued them to the neck. I trimmed any excess with diagonal cutters.

For strings, I used some white sewing thread. If I had silver wig hair, that would be better in terms of appearance. I think white thread works just fine. Coating the thread in some glue would help stiffen it. The threads were secured to the body and upper neck by glue. 

I looped the strings around the tuners at least once, then secured them in place with glue. Key is to pull them tight during the process so they remain relatively taught. They won't be functional, but slack will be ugly and noticeable.

And there is the finished Deckmaster guitar. The entire process took about 2-3 hours with lots of down time for drying and not trying. Could probably make another one within an hour. 

Here's the back with all the Magic: the Gathering glory.

Unfortunately, I don't have a 1:6 scale pickup truck or a campfire. Got the guitar and that's all that matters.

At long last, Coldsnap is finally playable. It may be a while before more firearms get developed, but some variety is good. Off to bludgeon people with a guitar!