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Nova Ubiquitous Action Figure Displays
We received a sample of the Nova Ubiquitous Displays direct from the manufacturer to do a write-up and give our readers an idea what Nova is offering up. I wanted to give my honest impression as I’ve picked up a number of different customizable display systems for my action figures over the years and this one is impressive.
   
The series so far, is made up of 3 sets of customizable action figure displays. There is the Ubiquitous UB-01 (the set we received, $70.00) starter set; the Ubiquitous UB-01LS ($100.00), which is the same as the starter but features a remote controllable LED lighting system built into special light panels; and finally the smaller UB-EX expansion set ($60.00) to build onto the main sets. Prices are a rough estimate and may vary depending on the retailer.
There is also a hint recently from the company at more, and possibly sets specific to "a galaxy far far away", in the future. Think along the lines of something quite Imperial hallway looking. My wallet just cried a little.
   
The UB-01 we were sent contains over 21 unique parts, and you get a hefty box full of them. It really does have some weight to it when it arrives! The panel pieces have some nice foam separators to keep them from scraping one another and putting marks on them in transit. That was a nice touch of care in how the product arrives to the customers. It also makes me feel you’re getting something much more with finicky collectors in mind. You can’t be unhappy to see that.
 
The kit also comes with a relatively thick universal instruction manual that also features the UB-01LS instructions for running the wiring for the LED panels. There are also quite a few pictures of various designs you can build with your kit, or create your own. Without even opening the box you can instantly recognize there is a lot of flexibility, as is implied by the name. The booklet doesn’t feature many different designs in step-by-step instructions, but it does give you one initial large build to try out and see how things generally go together.
 
The product basically puts together a sci-fi/industrial looking background for your action figures. You can make a wide variety of looks you might find on any spaceship, battle station, or headquarters (“Ubiquitous”, duh) in any given property from Super Heroes to Sci Fi. The design is very generic, yet detailed, so you will find it works for just about anything you can come up with.
  
As far as sculpting for the parts goes, you get interior and exterior panels, squares, angles, some piping pieces, and other doodads. There are no blank cavities on one side with this set that comes with others, it displays from every angle, since you have to put the interior panels into the exterior panels to create one thick wall/floor piece. The panels feature open grated floors or walls, light panels (translucent plastic set into a wall panel), some raised and recessed panel lines, rivet details, simulated pipes and tubing. A lot of detail is there for those looking to customize with a paintjob.
 
Construction is fairly simple, if not a little tight (strong hands help), and holds together in a nice sturdy fashion when complete. While there are some limitations when trying to build your designs (some pieces fit a specific way), they are few, and not something most people would find a distraction when working with them. But I’ll note them later as we take a closer look at the kit we received. The manufacturer also passed along a note to us that the set can be made to fit into an IKEA Detolf display quite nicely. As I am not an IKEA aficionado, I can’t say how that works exactly, but I know a lot of collectors who have all their displays done with IKEA hardware in mind.
  
I found the kit fairly simple and straight forward to attach pieces, though some of the joints (they’d held together with clips) are pretty tight and removing the clips can be a little difficult to reconfigure. Nothing too challenging, and better sturdy than flimsy! That said, I did have a tiny little pry bar I use in hobby work and a small flat blade screwdriver handy to pry panels from one another carefully. Clip removable and assembly just took using my hands, and your fingers may feel the burn after a while of building your masterpiece. Think of how the lego building feels on your fingers after a lot of building, and that’s a similar feeling I had after playing with the UB-01 kit for a while to do the photography.
I did receive the NON-lighted UB-01, and I can tell you the entire system can be easily lighted if you’re handy with wiring LEDs and can’t afford the UB-01LS kit price. The light panels have frosted clear pieces in them (you get them missing the LED component inside), so they are still lightable, you just have to learn that skill. Search youtube for tutorials! It’s not hard, trust me.
That said, the LS kit is made very specific and simple to work with for the displays, and if you’re interested in lighting yours, you really should consider the more expensive set, in my opinion. It’ll save you time, and it’s a very convenient micro-USB design and even lets you control the LED system via a remote, to change the color of the lighting or other settings. It is all very simple plug-and-play as they have it designed.
  
I wanted to snap a few photos of the original octagonal display I did with the instructions just basically showing the scale of various figures from 3.75” to 6”, so our readers could get an idea what they’re looking at with what they prefer to collect. I also threw in a few larger figure/vehicle combos I have to give a different idea of how these can hold some pretty big action figures or other toys. I’d dare say even a 12” figure could be made to fit quite well in a set like this.
  
Decoration is pretty much simply the color plastic it's molded in. This isn’t something the manufacturer really gets into at all. The panels are a gunmetal/dark grey color with a little metallic sparkle in the plastic. Fairly plain but still with a metallic industrial look. There is no paint to speak of, and they are simply cast this way. Too much effort to decorate with paint is going to limit the reusability of the parts, not to mention additional cost, and I think the manufacturer was wise not to do anything with paint applications. Some yellow/black hazard marking stickers, or other types of environmental stickers might’ve been a cool little extra, but nothing really worth worrying about. Again, customizing is your friend if you want something more specific and/or detailed. I think for the average collector they’ll love it out of the box unchanged. Design and print your own stickers at the office store even.
   
 
I did a little experimenting as I built and tore down the set a few times. I threw together some fairly simple designs quickly, and I didn’t rely on the instructions or packaging designs for anything but the large octagonal box which the instructions have you build to start. I wanted to let my mind create some basic things one could put together quickly for their toy photography or whatever, so I tried a couple hallway designs since I feel a lot of people will want to try these first. I like that you can have angled walls or just a basic 90 degree wall and floor look. Either way looks pretty great to me.
 
I also I wanted to see how the set stacked up to look like a landing pad for a 3.75” Star Wars fighter too. Upon building the large octagonal box from the instructions, I immediately realized this was plenty big enough for many vehicles in the roughly 1:18 scale world.
 
Sometimes simple is better though, and I sort of just stumbled into how easily you could make a simple barrier for your figures to stand behind in a firefight. This leaves you room to add depth even by having a barrier in front of a larger display behind it perhaps.
I found even simply turning the basic octagonal display they start you with in the instruction booklet, makes a quite giant bunker, fuel tank, or some other structure for your starport or headquarters. The display possibilities are very broad and don’t require a lot of planning or over thinking things to come up with something pretty great looking.
  
While going over the Ubiquitous Displays, I also found that they are not too dissimilar to other display systems out there, and actually seem like they may have been designed to be similar but with a bit more polish and “finish” to them. That gives them a much nicer final look you’ll not be as tempted to paint.
 
I found the Ubiquitous Display even lines up rather nicely to another great product, the GTP Space Walls, which I’ve also recently fallen in love with (at both scales they sell at). While the line-up isn’t perfect, I think these two items compliment one another more than compete against each other. I could easily see one expanding on the other for your toy display or photography needs. It’s great when multiple products come together in a fairly seamless fit, and don’t have to necessarily be separated on your shelving.
There were some distractions or limitations with the UB-01 set, but few. The only real design drawback was the inability to really go vertical with the way these are designed. There are no pillars for support you can plug in to hold a 2nd story of displays atop the first, and so on. Sure you can simply set one Ubiquitous Display you create atop another, but you can’t truly connect them and have multiple levels of displays connected on each other, thus simulating deck upon deck of a space station or building.
While not a huge drawback, having “floors” or levels is a pretty neat feature I’ve seen done with similar displays. It’s something I’d like to see them incorporate in a future expansion pack maybe! But that is a great feature about these, actually. They can work in new ideas in the future I believe, and not force customers to have to re-buy an improved product later. They should be able to just modify the existing design to have add-on parts I would think, and sell them in add-on sets.
Also, I think it would be interesting to see door panels (hopefully functional opening ones) or window panels done by Nova at some point, so that a basic hallway could be capped at one end perhaps, or have hatches made to work into the set somehow. This might be too scale-specific for them to want to try though, and deviate from the concept of keeping the displays scale-neutral. It was just a thought I had while fiddling with these incredible displays.
The end result overall though, is one that leaves me pretty impressed for what all you get in just one kit. Again I’ll say the box’s heft alone really impressed me before I even opened it up. I hadn’t realized how much plastic they were packing into just one kit, and I’m now considering at least one expansion set if not buying a UB-01 kit to accompany my current kit. I could easily fill shelves with Ubiquitous Displays, so long as my wallet could hold out. I’m excited to see what the future holds for this newcomer in action figure displays.
Currently the Nova Ubiquitous Displays are being sold through a variety of online retailers, and you can check them out at Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. Hopefully you’ll have one (or more) in your collection room soon. Nova’s Ubiquitous Displays are definitely taking action figure displaying and photography to a different level.
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