KO Custom Minifigs Nightcrawler Review! (Patreon)

Being one of the only customizers to make a 90s Nightcrawler, KO Custom Minifigs have somehow done it twice!

This fig is fantastic! The 360 for the arms and legs is great and the balance of simple design work is perfect! It’s not overly complex, the use of the recolored Elves spiky hair is perfect, and the custom shoulder piece is a clever idea to let the black of the torso continue right up to the neck for maximum comic accuracy!

This marks KO’s fourth mutant release over the last few years since their comeback, and this one just takes the cake! 

Not only that, but KO blows the preorder hullabaloo out of the water! It was barely a month between the announcement of this fig, to having it in my hands! I can’t stress it enough how much that really raises my opinions of a custom fig designer! Especially coming from a veteran customizer from the flickr days!

This fig also came with actual Lego parts to build his power of teleportation! Like how cool is that! No weird bonus “action figure looking” mold or something extraneous, just good old fashioned brick built stuff! Not to mention they included some nice quality glossy instructions that feel just like they’re from an official Lego set!

But enough of my doting over dumb stuff like branding! Let’s talk about the fig for a sec!

Both head prints are great, easily the best quality aspect of this fig, and I really love that smiling expression! However when you get down to it with a macro lens, a little bit of the shine wears off.

The 360° white print around the arms is impressive against the black plastic. Though in certain shots you can see how the top red layer is a little on the thinner side. Same thing goes for the legs, as they also suffer a little with the same layering problem with the red on top. It’s hard not to see once you notice it. In fact most of the time it ends up looking like it was intentionally supposed to have dark red lining  on the boots and gloves. Though clearly in the render on the back of the instructions, this was not the case.

After staring at this fig for like three hours collecting my thoughts to write up here right now, I noticed that my copy had a bit of residue or gooey gunk on the inside of the hip piece… Might have just been my luck (like these things usually go) but just thought it was an oddity worthy of noting… wow… look at that mystery goo!

Speaking of the hip area, the custom tail is so clean! The blue color matches perfectly to the head and it’s a softer plastic (not quite rubber) but clearly treated in a gloss of some kind that keeps it stiff. The same stuff is also applied to the hair (but we’ll talk about that some time later)

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Oh look… it’s now time to talk about hair! It's certainly later than it was just a moment ago! (comedy is fun you guys)

Get a load of that hair! Ahhhh it’s so good! If you know your Lego parts, you''l recognize it from the Elves Minidoll line of sets from few years back. Though here, it's been very neatly repainted, and gossified (...that’s a word, surely) into what looks like a regular Lego hairpiece!

It’s got the perfect shine to it, and soft to the touch both inside and out. The only true giveaway that the part is made of rubber is that it bounces much more lightly when you drop it (also it doesn’t have that iconic Lego sound… you know the sound, don’t act like you don’t)

The custom shaped pauldron/shoulder piece is an interesting choice. It’s modification makes it good for color blocking and improves to the overall design certainly... but it’s just the official Lego piece that lost a fight with a dremel tool frankly.

It's snipped on one side and hollowed out to fit the neck differently. The element does feel a little stressed if you lift the figure’s arms too high or go to remove the part. It’s veeeeery thin, and honestly I’m nervous of it breaking if not careful.

Lastly of course we’ve also got to talk about how this is a re-release of KO’s original Teleporter from back in 2015. One of their very first releases nearly seven years ago! Now here we are in 2022 and they’ve truly gone to the moon and back here, being one of the earliest custom brands on the Flickr scene to make this fig… and come to think of it, one of the only brands to do it twice!

KO really has come full circle in a lot of ways and this figure (just like their recent Wolverine re-release) have put them back on the map!

So even with some minor nitpicks and a little bit of goo, it didn’t damper my opinions on this fig! For me it all comes down to two things!

First one being that perfectly simple design! The torso only has three layers of ink. You don’t need anymore than that to nail the look! Plus having 360° arm and leg print really helps get the look right, bringing the whole thing together!

Of course the second point that absolutely impressed me yet again with KO (and I can’t shut up about it apparently), is the production and PR of this little dude! A $75 price point! Only $5 for shipping because KO is here in the USA! AND the fact that there was no preorder wait! 

I don’t have a rating system, but if I did it would be a five star golden ten figs out of a dirty dozen certified fresh home run success on every level known to humanki— okay that’s enough! …you get the idea.

While this fig isn’t the most perfect Christo PCB Jaka fig out there, it got a lot of things right! And hey, that’s really what counts in the end, eh? :)