Starting in Vehicle mode, and... that's a lot of either brown, or army green. I should probably explain this one. For Transformers, while in places like the US, England and Australia get the figures released by Hasbro, in places like Japan, they are released by a company called Takara Tomy, with the two working together to release the figures. Hasbro often focuses on budgets, cutting corners when possible to release the figures, its why Combiner Wars could be called the Transformers version of Attack of the Clones. Repainting molds that could be passed off as other characters, sparing details on paint ect. Now don't get me wrong, repaints have happened since Generation 1, and Takara is just as guilty of repaints too. However, Takara tends to focus on details with paint, while Hasbro whenever possible tends to leave details as molded plastic. This tends to only become an issue for Hasbro with things like the Car formers, as details like headlights, tail lights, rear windows, fake chestplate details in a case I have and more, tend to not get painted. To each their own in regards to that being a problem or not though. On these two, the only major paint app in vehicle mode is the role bar, wich gets painted in Gun metal grey. Both have small alliance insignia's on them in two places, once on the hood, and one on what will become their left arms, Hound also gets a silver star and silver headlights, a silver gun while Swindle gets gun metal grey, and that's about it. Rest is molded detail. They do carry the ATV look, as both of them look like they're built to go anywhere, though probably without drivers as neither of them have somewhere for them to go, another issue with carformers, but considering the main function, many live without it. They both do roll very well, the wheels move with ease. But there's not much else to it, they're ATV's.
Leg mode then, which is what Swindle normally is... its a slightly squashed ATV with a foot that looks tiny on it. Leg mode is probably the worst mode for this mold. Arm mode on the other hand is really good, helped by the fact that Hound's designated limb is Arm mode. Of course though there is the whole Scramble City part to this, so they can be whatever you want, hence why I review all modes. The arm looks beefy, it looks like its on steroids, and its one of the few arm modes that makes the hand part of the hand foot gun look size accurate, at least in comparison to the Arial bot transformations from Vortex and Blast Off.
Robot modes and while I like the looks of them, there are just little details that don't work for me. Both of them have chests that look like they're meant to be, what as been dubbed by the community, Fo chestplates, designed to look like something from the vehicle mode, but not actually being that. In this case, the front ends of their ATV's. Only problem is that neither of them look like they could have been the font of the ATV's both in paint and in mold. That design idea only works if it looks like it could have come from the vehicle mode. The arms as well also feel a little small on them, but only by a few mm's. Swindle's chest is where most of his paint went to, adding some Decepticon Purple to break up the brown, and both of them also get gun metal grey on their legs in what looks to be their attempts at engine legs. The other issue I have is that, like with Blast off, the back pack comes out a little too wide, breaking up the look of the figures. Overall though, I'd rate this as one of my favorite molds in the CW line that I own, at number 3 behind Vortex (mainly because I don't own as many of the mold as some do) and one I haven't reviewed yet. But that one will have to wait a while, because next Sunday we'll be doing Brawl, and before then, I feel like hitting the track again with Mario Kart Wii.
No comments:
Post a Comment