From what I understand of the storyline of the ZIVON, he is a creature from a realm of shadows in which the Kahgarak, the VISORAK elites, can use their spinners to open a gateway to. When summoned the ZIVON usually works with the VISORAK in battle, but tends to eat them as a food source, thus they try to avoid summoning him. His spinners have four abilities, each taking away a sense or ability from the foe (Sight, speech, hearing, the ability to feel and touch).
Thanks to the instructions from BZP member Darth Penguin, I was able to build ZIVON. The instructions span two pages from the BRICKMASTER magazine. I am reluctant to post or link to the instructions since doing so can depreciate the value of buying brickmaster.
I find it rather hard to review ZIVON, he does not really have any mechanisms other than the two pinching claws and rhotucka (one rhotucka on each VISSORAK head/body plate), which isnt really anything new, but how he is built may be of some inspiration for MoCing. The left and right claws are basically the VISORAK with just the biting mechanism and the rhotucka. The mandibles on his head however tend to jam and get stuck not quite being build the same as the two claws. The reason it gets jammed is because the wedge that pushes between the mandibles to make them bite goes all the way in and locks in place, where usually the part you push down on stops on the part where the VISORAKs hind legs attach to.
For the most part his body is just four chassis linked together with parts attached off of it. The front view of the ZIVON looks interesting but looking from the back it seems rather empty. A big problem with the instructions is that they do not clearly show where and how to attach the tail. It appears that it pops into the back just under the blue VISORAK body, however the round ball joints tend to keep it from completely popping out, and the tail often falls out.
The legs are probably the most annoying portion to build, and though they can surprisingly enough support his weight altogether they are bulky and cumbersome to play with. With work you can effectively pose it, making this build more of a model to display than to play with. A word of caution however, the blue friction pegs are VERY difficult to remove from double sockets when the plus side is in the plus shaped slot. Ive had to seek out special gripping material to wrap around them to pull them out. The front legs are the main load-bearing legs, as they are attached to the body at two points via the double ball joint parts used for the VISORAKs hind legs. They look interesting, but I think the back four legs look better, and I recommend taking a look at the design since I think they would look good in more monstrous looking MoCs.
I personally do not like the ZIVON, he looks better in the pictures or from looking at him from the front. Otherwise he looks empty as I stated before. I wouldnt recommend buying the parts just to make him unless you are a combiner fan. I in fact took him apart after I got the pictures because I felt the parts would be best valued for my MoCs. Even if you do decide to build him he leaves a few decent parts leftover to MoC with.
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