Sometimes a toy doesn’t have to “be” anything specific, you know?
The Modibot feels like a spiritual successor to Stikfas figures, and as someone who bought at least one of every Stikfas, I had to get at least one of these little things.
I first learned about the Modibots from the CrafsMan Steadycraftin Youtube channel, an educational, informational and just plain charming channel run by a puppet. Or a man behind a puppet. Or something. It’s all quite mysterious. But he deals with a wide variety of craft, toy and creative enterprises. When he covered Modibots a few weeks ago, I had to order one to fiddle with.
In doing research, I was surprised I had never heard about them, as they’ve been around in some form for around a decade now. Obviously, despite a similar “feel” to them, Modibots aren’t a straight one to one copy of the Stikfas formula, but rather take inspiration from a wide variety of modular figures, from Stikfas to Xevox,Lego, Micronauts and anything in between where swapping is part of the play process. But these are definitely their own thing, and they offer a wider range of customizing potential.
Modibots are fully ball-jointed and come in a wide variety of colors. Technically, the name of this little dude is a “Modibot Mo.” It’s made of PETG, which is the same type of plastic that soda/water bottles are made of. The plastic feels very sturdy when popping things apart and putting them together, so I doubt there’s any chance of breakage unless you’re completely ham-fisted with them.
The Modibot site also sells 3d-printed accessories to upgrade your Mo with, plus you can find 3D printable files to upgrade your figure on your own. In addition, if you’re able to do such things on your own, you can design and print whatever you can think of to compliment the figure. There are hexagonal ports that are spread out over the figures entire body, and the hands have a 4mm grip.
These are sold as singles in solid colors, in a 3-color multipack and like the one I bought, which is a combo color. Somehow I got crazy lucky and bought the very last red and black combo figure that they had on their site. I don’t know if they’re planning on replenishing their stock of the red and black, but as that’s my favorite color combo, this is the one I wanted most of all. Lucky lucky.
Modibots are ideal for Stop-Motion animation tests, and you can buy separate magnetic attachments for their feet to further facilitate unassisted poses. The Modibot is extremely light and balanced, so even without magnets it can balance quite well in almost any poses you can think of.
The ball-joints allow for a huge range of motion. It’s hard to think of a pose that he can’t achieve. The posing freedom of a toy like this can inspire you to try and recreate similar poses in other action figures. 9 times out of 10 you probably won’t be able to, but the lack of limitations uncracks your brain a little.
You can find all the various solid colors on the Modibot site here. The colors seem to go in and out of stock fairly frequently, so if they have a color you want but you don’t see it give it some time and it will probably come back in stock soon. Or just pick up another color.
The combo color figures are here. All but the red and black are in stock. I kind of want the pink and black. I dig ___ and black combos, and that looks pretty snazzy. These are more expensive, but worth it if you like the aesthetic.
The triple-figure packs are here. These seem more likely to be in stock.
For an experimental purchase, this ended up being a very cool figure. The collector part of me wants to have one of each, because the collector part of me is insane, but for right now I’m glad I was able to pick up my favorite color combo. I do want to try designing some weapons for him and printing them out. The possibilities are wide open.
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Source: Fwoosh
