Reaper Bones Kaladrax

Today we look at the Reaper Bones Kaladrax model.  This is Sons of Twilights 400th post over almost 5 years in existence so we are looking at something big.  Kaladrax was one of the really great deals in the Bones Kickstarter where they had it as a 10 dollar upgrade and now it is priced at 75 dollars while some other 10 dollar upgrades are only 15 now.  I actually got an upgrade that is cheaper at retail which is a bit annoying.  Another upgrade like this was the Cthulhu which I did not get and in hindsight totally should have.  Kaladrax came in a retail box unlike most of the stuff which came in sealed plastic bags.  Once I got it out of the box I could not get it back in so it is packed pretty tight which is really not a great idea as the bones material is prone to warping.

Here are the box contents.  Head, 4 Legs, torso, 2 wings, 2 hip bones, 3 tail pieces. 

Here we have the model just push assembled.  Not glued, cleaned or straightened.  The space marine sergeant is provided for scale purpose.  You can see the model is very large.  It is actually larger than they intended it to be.  Apparently there was a conversion error between the sculpt and mold production that lead this model to be upscaled.

Another shot of the front.  Still big.

Here is a close up of one side of the base.  The base itself would make a line of sight blocking terrain piece in a game like 40k.

Close up of the head.  The plastic in the head is very soft to allow it to come out of the mold.  All the edges are pretty smooth.  Most of the Dragons in the Bones series have 2 part heads for easier molds removal allowing for a stiffer plastic which translates into more detail in the end product.

Here we can see that the claw is about the same size as the marine so this model is the scale where the dragon holds the human in its hand.  Not a ton of dragon type models available at this size at any price point.

Here is the backside. You can see the hip bones holding the rear legs in place.  

The back leg is pretty high off of the ground or base.  Not sure if this is just a warping problem or how it is designed to appear.  The inner part of the torso is calcified flesh.

Here is the tail tip.  Spikes ready to crush any foes.  This piece is also very soft plastic with no real detail level.  No sharp points or clear features just sort of a mass of blunt spikes.  I would say that my 7 year old could have sculpted it.  This is again a mold issue where the plastic has to be very soft to get out of the mold combined with accidental upscaling.

Now how would I rate this model.  At 10 dollars in the kickstarter, it is outstanding model that most people probably should have plunked down for even if the details over the whole model are weak due to a combination of material/production and accidental upscaling of the master.  I would say at 40 dollars it would also be a good buy but they have it priced at 75 dollars at retail or their webstore.  At that price the question is really what do you use this for.  It is so big that it is not going to travel well or be really useful on the table top.  As a display piece the weak details sort of hurt the presentation.  Bones is not the material for competition or center piece painting.  I have seen some pretty nice Bones paint jobs so they can look good but if you are going to put in the time for a model this big you would want the basic model to have a little more to show.  Even the pro painted one on the box does not look really great since the painter does not have that much to work with.  It will look great from across the room but once you get close this model does not hold up.  While it is better than the painted plastic dragons you can buy at stores like Michaels it is not like a Forgeworld resin model but at this size those are like 300 dollars.