Kotobukiya Danger Room Sessions: Psylocke

Hail Fellow Geeks!

My apologies on being away from toyconstruct for a longer than expected period of time...I grossly underestimated the stresses of medical school and just got over another hurdle of exams. JQ and I are really thankful for your readership and support, and truly love to be part of this growing community.

As a little "forward" on this post, I can say that I am still in the process of learning how to take photographs. This time, I am trying a new technique with lighting, by reflecting light off white surfaces (like a wall or a piece of white card stock), instead of shining light on the miniature itself. It's a "poor man's studio lights", and I've found it to be a really useful to get more detail that would be obscured by shadows, albeit with some uncertainty due to its crudeness.

Without further ado, let's get down to business!

This time, I will be featuring one of my favorite collectibles of all time: Kotobukiya's sculpt of Psylocke, which is a statue a that is part of their wider X-Men Danger Room Sessions Series. I think they're a few out there now, which includes Rogue, Gambit, Colossus, Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Cyclops (I'm not sure if I have listed all).

A cartoon schematic of The Danger Room.

The Danger Room is the X-Men's main training simulator, designed to provide training for the X-Men to improve on their individual ability and teamwork. Do not let the "training" label fool you. The Danger Room lives up to its name and people have died using it, albeit outside safety parameters, such as intentional tampering and use without supervision. The Beast (aka Dr Hank McCoy) maintains the Danger Room, which happens to be built on alien holographic technology (Shi'ar to be exact), and is subject to frequent updates for the X-Men to be familiarized with their foes.

A really hefty box for a rather large statue.

The entire statue in its LED-lighted glory.

Psylocke is probably one of the sexiest mutants alive. Period. I got this piece off a good price (due to a distressed box) and Psylocke came in a really hefty box. Out of the box, one can quickly see the effort and imagination put into this beauty. The sculpt features Psylocke gracefully on top of a de-digitizing hand of a hapless Sentinel, with a katana and psychic knife at the ready, and a ice-cool expression to boot. Plus, the base includes a couple of LED lights that give the sculpt additional coolness (AAA batteries were included too). Massive kudos go off to Erick Sosa for Psylocke's sculpt, and Avinash Hedge for 3-D design of the mechanical base.

A close-up on the mysterious and beautiful Psylocke.

Originally born as Elizebeth Braddock, Psylocke has quite a complicated history as a mutant. Psylocke is the twin sister of Captain Britain and started out as a member of S.T.R.I.K.E (aka Britain's SHIELD), and has been occasionally involved with the X-Men too. Psylocke is known to have experienced inter-dimensional travel throughout her career (way too much to list in this post), which has been a huge impact on her life.

Psylocke is famous for her telekinetic abilities, particularly for her psychic knife, which is seen here on this statue. Her psychic knife does not give physical damage, but overloads pain receptors and results in the incapacitation of her enemies. Also, Psylocke's psychic knife can pierce another's mind, which allows her to read the other's thoughts and even become connected with them.

Waves = additional coolness!

Against the backdrop of the severed Sentinel hand.

Psylocke also possesses impressive martial arts skills, which was the result of transferring her mind into the body of a ninja (Revanche). One really cool touch of this statue is the detail of the blade, it's not just some cheap plastic accessory, but has "waves" cut into them to simulate an actual katana. Psylocke is also known to be able to summon a psychic katana, which is a more powerful version of her psychic knife.

The base itself is a work of art. It's a Sentinel's hand that is in the middle of de-digitizing (or to borrow from Borderlands, de-digistructing). I think it's quite amazing that Kotobukiya could pull off a half-digital hand that also has scratches and battle damage at the same time. The LED lights at the bottom of the base are a nice touch, but are not enough to illuminate the entire statue.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the photos of this beautiful sculpt (at least in my own eyes), and I thank you once again for coming down to this humble blog. If you're interested, you could read Comicvine's really extensive overview about Psylocke, which kind of shows her widespread involvement in a great number of story arcs. As always, I am still in the process of learning and who said learning could never be fun? :)

Cheers!