Bio: http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Kat
Wave: BSG Series 2
Body style: new styled female pilots flight suit (female)

  I always found the character of Kat to bit annoying on the TV series.  She was always like the little kid who didn’t want to stop bugging the older kids on the street.  Her character got even worse when she got hooked on pills to keep her awake.  Towards the later seasons, Kat saw less screen time but more responsibility as a character.  She took over a leadership position among the Viper pilots and matured very much from her earlier days as a Viper rookie.  Whatever your opinion may be though, she is very deserving of an action figure.

  The packaging used is the same used for all of the BSG figures thus far.  As stated in earlier reviews, it does a great job of not only displaying the figure but also all the great accessories that come with her.  I thought it was really cool how they did a dynamic pose with Kat holding her helmet and Top Gun Mug.  It was just a really cool choice by DST that really adds a lot to the packaging of this figure.

  This figure utilizes an entirely new body sculpt for the female pilot in flight suit. Being that Kat is pretty much the same size as Starbuck, it was a good choice to use this particular sculpt.  What I really like about this sculpt is the sleekness it has.  It really captures the look of the actual TV costume.  Sometimes I look at the Trek figures and yes the uniforms are nice but they sometimes don’t capture the actual look of the onscreen uniforms.  I honestly can’t say that with these. 

  Once again, I like the amount of detail put into this figure.  The arm patches are perfect without any noticeable imperfections.  The flak jacket has the perfect amount of minute details and also has multiple paint washes to give it an accurate look.  Even the paper in the pants pocket has little multicolored lines on it.  One thing that I usually look at to gauge accuracy is the bottom of the feet.  Kats boots have traction marks sculpted into them so pretty much this figure passes this test as well.  The paint colors chosen for this figure are also pretty good.  As stated in the Starbuck review, I would have liked more gold added to the flight suit but the green is pretty good too.  A change in color would also not fit with the rest of the flight suit figures so it’s probably for the best that the color stays the same.

  The likeness of this figure is just spectacular.  It nails both Kat’s look and her personality.  To me it reminds me of her later season appearances after she matured.  She has a very serious look on her face that speaks of leadership.  This may be DST’s greatest job at capturing a likeness in all their lines.  What makes it even more impressive is that the likeness stands up from almost every angle.  It just really is just a great job.

  Two of the main problems with this figure deal with the gun and the helmet.  For one, when the helmet is on the figure, it doesn’t quite look right.  This is mainly because the flight suit has the zipper unzipped and the sculpt does not have the metal neck ring.  I like this style better than the zippered version but it does look bad when trying to display the figure with the helmet on.  The second problem deals with the gun in the holster and the gun in gloved hand.  Both don’t really secure the gun and it usually falls out.  I have found a pretty simple solution to the gloved hand problem.  All you have to do is take a razor and slice the areas between the index and middle fingers.  If some of the underlying plastic is showing just take a black magic marker to it.  By doing this, the index finger can be placed on the trigger, thus securing it.  Problem solved.  I haven’t found a solution to the holster yet but I’m still looking.

  The articulation on this figure follows the standard set by previous BSG releases.  Kat has a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, swivel biceps, swing elbows, swivel waist, ball joined wrists, swing legs, swivel thighs, swing knees, swivel ankles and the extra swing hip joint.  Overall she has pretty good articulation that allows for a number of different poses.

  As always DST has really outdone itself with the accessories included with this figure.  The most impressive accessory is the Top Gun mug that is extremely detailed and expertly painted to look exactly like the one from the series.  She like Starbuck also comes with alternate hands that have a hand of cards in them.  She also has the non gloved hands that can be switched out for the gloved versions.  Finally she has the standard issue sidearm that has come with all the soldier figures thus far.  Overall, I think the only addition they could have made here is a bottle of stims but I’m not sure how appropriate that would be for the toy markets in which they sell.

  In conclusion, this is a very nice figure that really adds to the scope of the BSG line.  The body sculpt is very good and the attention to detail is amazing.  The likeness of Kat is spot on and really couldn’t be better.  As always with DST, Kat comes with some pretty cool character specific accessories.  They way in which she is packaged also adds a lot to the overall presentation (especially for all you MOC collectors!).  If you are a fan of BSG I say that this figure is a must have.  For the casual collector, this figure is a very good choice especially if you like MOC stuff. 

  I’m very happy with Wave 3 as a whole and think that DST has really raised this line to “must have” status for sci-fi collectors.  I’m really looking forward to see how the prototypes turn out in Wave 3.  Hopefully they continue to do what makes this line special: attention to detail, character specific accessories, and overall good likenesses. 

Positives:

Detailed accessories that are character specific

Multiple paint apps that are all near perfect

Good choice of points of articulation

Awesome likeness that captures the character

Dynamic pose in packaging

Negatives:

Issues with gun being held in gloved hand

Helmet doesn’t look good on figure due to unzipped jacket

Rating: out of 5 stars.

As Always

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