[Lego] Black light - Umarak the Combiner

"You cannot summon the elements! You have left your world of light. Here, there is only shadow - shadow I command!"

 

Hi guys! Today we'll cover the official combiner model for Umarak - unofficially called "Umarak the Combiner (Model)" - a build made out of Umarak the Destroyer and the three Elemental Beasts.

 

Umarak the Combiner's design is mainly inspired by his Destroyer model, and a lot of parts of that model has simply been expanded and stretched out. One of the very few pieces which are kept almost as similar as possible is the shoulder proportion, the face and the build of the arms.

 

Umarak the Destroyer on the left, next to the combiner model.

(Yes, I have accidentally let a green lightsaber piece photobomb the picture on the far right.
Next time I should move Grievous a bit more away from the camera view)

Man, this model is tall. Just look at how significant larger it is compared to Umarak the Destroyer! It is that massive, that they actually had to connect two large foot pieces for each feet to make his footprint large enough to create enough stability. Yes, this thing does stand stable for the rather thin leg build, and certainly does the "General Grievous" ankle build support the stability. Talking about General Grievous...



On the left, #75112 General Grievous and on the right, #8998 Toa Mata Nui,

Umarak the Combiner isn't just "tall". He stands taller than the infamous General Grievous set! Yes, Umarak isn't as tall as Toa Mata Nui, but that doesn't give Umarak the Combiner less credit for going absolutely out of proportions. Then again, Toa Mata Nui isn't the tallest Bionicle/CCBS build... Ultimate Dume still holds the record for being the tallest Bionicle/CCBS build - which shows again, if you want to be tallest build, you have to be an evil character for some reason.

 

And yeah, for the people who apparently paid attention to the LEGO® sets I own (or to some blogpost in 2015), I do have Ultimate Dume - but the reason why he isn't on any of these pictures is because the entire model has been disassembled and stored in my parts supply (ever since 2004) and it will take probably more than 20 painful hours to find all the pieces back because I'm such a terrible person with sorting pieces. Perhaps I might consider to build him again one day in an unknown distant future, but it is not on my mind at the very moment - but for now, hopefully Toa Mata Nui is a proper substitute for the following height comparisons for you all. At least if one model does not tower the yellow Great Spirit himself, it surely won't be taller than Dume!

 

Back on Umarak the Combiner though! Because the height comparison picture was taken in a fully lit room, you can see the obvious mix of different colours you wouldn't be able to see that well in the more darkened pictures on this post. Yes, I know that many people found this "awful" to look at, and in a way I can understand that opinion.

 

It is kinda difficult to build a cohesive combiner model when you have four models with four different colour templates and thus four limited inventories. For what they could've done, I think that the design is okay. One detail I definitely like about this model is how the Shadow Trap halves are used to extend the rib cage! Surprisingly, Umarak the Combiner has a lot of pieces left from the Elemental Beasts sets. There's enough pieces to create at least one model of your own, or to change/add pieces to the combiner. Speaking of which...

 

The arms are heavy and only supported by one single ball joint with a friction connector (similar to the Destroyer model), so it does have issues with posing his arms up occasionally. Also similar to the Destroyer, most poses should do just fine, it's just the ones where the arms would be stretched out horizontally or above his shoulder height. Thankfully, there is plenty of pieces left to use from the three other Elemental Beasts sets, which makes me wonder why they didn't use them to reinforce the arms. But if you want to reinforce the arms-to-shoulder connection, you should be able to come up with something because there's plenty of pieces to use.

 

The combiner model surprisingly still uses the waist articulated torso from most 2016 Bionicle sets. One may wonder how such a top heavy model would make use of the turntable because of its sheer mass. Actually, it is probably one of the best models to play with this feature - the extra weight the body pushes on the turntable makes it run smoothly without the squeaking sound it usually makes on most other sets. In addition, this model has such a length for its arms that it's easy to turn the waist and hit stuff because of the reach the arms give. Imagine if a towering beast with those arms and fingers comes at you and tries to slash you...

 

So all in all, Umarak the Combiner might be one large figure, but is definitely to most people not a display model.

As a toy though, this model doesn't do that much wrong at all. This model isn't perfect, but it is certainly not a bad product either - to me, it scores higher than average. Perhaps this model does a better job than Umarak the Destroyer as a toy - there's nothing wrong with that, right?

 

 

Last but definitely not least, here's a bonus! Because Umarak the Destroyer comes with a Transparent-Neon-Orange variant of the Umarak the Hunter mask, you can make a recolour of Umarak in Transparent Neon Orange. Man, he certainly looks different in orange. I still think I prefer his original Bright Green design, but his Neon Orange is still awesome in my opinion!

 

That's it for now - the next Black light post will be about the Makuta Journey to One model. I'll see you guys again next post!