Zob's Thoughts on the TFU Robot Heroes (Beast Wars and G1 Cont'd)
Zobovor
off because I'd been planning to do a special project and paint the
curbs in the parking lot of the condo where I live (and get paid for
it, naturally), but the people running things decided at the last
minute to give the project to somebody else, which left me taking an
extra day off work for no real reason. (Not a tragedy, by any means,
but it seemed silly to waste a vacation day when I didn't have
anything else lined up.) Then they decided that they needed me to do
the lawn edging along all the curbs, so I ended up spending all day
outside anyway, getting nicely cooked in the sun, only this time not
getting paid anything extra. (The really ironic part is that the guy
who they'd picked to do the painting over me may not be able to do it
now. If they'd just stuck with me, I'd have already done it!)
Anyway, I took a trip to Wal-Mart the other night to get some of that
goopy green aloe vera gel for my deep-fried bits, and they had a whole
mess of new Transformers stuff. This includes the Animated Activators
and the Bumper Battles and the Really Big Optimus Prime and the new
Robot Heroes. I've been setting some money aside specifically for the
Robot Heroes because I knew I'd snatch them all up as soon as I saw
them, and that's precisely what I did.
I like the new batch, but not as much as earlier figures. It's
possible the novelty is rubbing off and I'm no longer running on "aww,
cute widdle wobots!" excitement, but at the same time I know that I
*was* really into the idea of getting Hound and Blitzwing and
everybody when I first saw images online, so I guess it's the finished
execution of some of these figures that I'm finding somewhat lacking.
Sunstreaker's really good, and it's based predominantly on his
animation model, which is always a plus (it's probably much easier for
the Hasbro design team to grab a copy of IDW's The Ark off the shelf
for reference than to try to find a vintage Sunstreaker toy). I love
how you can turn his arms so that his shoulder rockets are pointing
forwards like cannons, something the original toy couldn't even do
because of the way his arms were designed. It's funny how Sunstreaker
as a character is suddenly been banished from the annals of second-
string obscurity and is suddenly finding himself in the limelight.
It's almost like they're primping him in preparation for a reissue.
(I know they're not. But it's still fun to think about.) I find it
odd that they'd match Sunstreaker up with Galvatron; it's clear
they're just matching up good guys with bad guys with little regard
for whether or not they ever actually encountered each other, let
alone whether they're evenly-matched opponents.
Galvatron's really *not* good, and I think his color scheme is mostly
to blame. He's such an erroneously dark shade of purple that I can't
imagine why this got final approval for production (and the use of
silver seems out of place, too, given that the original toy was cast
from grey plastic). I guess they get points for not just copying the
general look and color scheme of the Heroes of Cybertron figure
(arguably the best ready-made reference for Galvatron's animation
model they would likely have had laying around, so I wouldn't be at
all surprised if they used it for reference when sculpting this
version), but still. I don't understand why Galvatron is such a hard
character to get right, color-wise, given that even the Takara
versions of his animation appearance haven't quite captured his
particular shade of purple. Colors aside, it's a decent sculpt, but
it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. He's not squatting
in the characteristic Robot Heroes pose, which makes me wonder if they
did that so he would match Ultra Magnus more closely. (Something else
that kind of bugs me, though, is that they used the updated movie
version of the Decepticon symbol on him with those weird-shaped
trapezoidal eyes. How incongruous!) Complaints aside, at least he's
accurately-designed, and he doesn't fall apart at the waist like that
other tiny Galvatron.
Blitzwing's one of those characters whose animation model design
doesn't make a lick of sense, so I'm glad they ditched it this time.
(I suspect that while Floro Dery designed the front-view shots, he had
one of his assistants design the rear-view models, using the front-
view designs for reference but without ever actually looking at the
toys. There is a *lot* of design weirdness for characters like Hoist
and Astrotrain and others that can only be attributed to a scenario
like this, and one artifact of this is Blitzwing having his tank
turret mounted to the back of his helmet. It's ridiculous.) It's
nice that they freed his arms from the constraints of being attached
to his wing assemblies, which almost makes him look Starscreamish (the
fact that he's got a Decepticon insignia on his wing adds to that,
too). I really wish they'd colored his helmet yellow, though, since
that's one of Blitzwing's most distinguishing characteristics. He's
carrying a pink sword, which may or may not have been intended to be
his regular purple sword in some kind of glowing, powered-up state,
but I think the most important thing to keep in mind here is that he's
carrying a PINK SWORD. He's got the movie insignia, too.
I don't really get what they were trying to do with Hound. He's the
only one of the new batch with a swiveling waist (which also
necessitated mounting his front tires to his hips instead of allowing
them to hang underneath his arms), but he's posed so very strangely.
Put his left arm straight up in the air and he looks fairly natural,
but he can't stand up because he's off-balance. Bring his arm down
and his center of gravity is fixed, but now he looks like somebody
tried to rip his arm out of its socket. I guess the idea was to try
to avoid the cartoon syndrome in which characters who are extending
their arms out to the side suddenly have their arms attached to their
bodies by the top of their shoulders (like Robot Heroes Optimus
Prime), but in this case it really didn't work. Hasbro cheaped out a
little bit by skimping on paint applications that you can't see when
he's in the package (the front of his pelvis is painted black but the
back half is left green; the windshield on his back is left unpainted
as well). The sculpt is mostly accurate to his cartoon appearance,
complete with a (fore)shortened gun and those distinctive yellow
stripes on his wrists (but none on his waist). Good thing they
weren't using the old Hasbro toy for reference, or else he'd have
ended up with a gigantic Autobot symbol tampo-printed on the top of
his head.
The first batch of Beast Wars Robot Heroes is actually better than I'd
thought it would be. Rattrap's a much lighter yellowish grey than the
original toy (he is, in fact, the exact same color of plastic as
Blitzwing; I suspect some sneaky gang-molding), with gold, shiny upper
arms and legs that is probably supposed to evoke the CGI design. (If
this were the TV show model, though, the toes of the rat feet on his
back would be pointing towards each other.) He's got a single Maximal
symbol on his left bicep, rather than on his forearms as per the
show. His face is a bit too round, more like a beak than a mouth, but
overall, he's very cute. He also absolutely refuses to stand up.
Megatron's oddly disappointing and I can't quite pinpoint why. I can
tell they made an effort to go in the direction of his CGI model
instead of just doing a mini-version of the original Hasbro toy, so
he's got an actual left fist instead of a dinosaur tail, and his
helmet is black instead of silver (owing mainly to the fact that
Mainframe was working from an unpainted prototype toy). His nose
should be black like the rest of his helmet, though. He could have
used some black lines under his eyes, too (though I recognize that
sort of thing is difficult to do at this scale). His articulation is
pretty much pointless, since he can either point his T. rex head at
you, or he can point his T. rex head at you upside-down. He's got a
big, purple Predacon symbol on his left shoulder; there's no way they
could have fit a tiny one on his forehead.
Cheetor basically *is* a miniature copy of the Hasbro toy, in terms of
colors and paint deco, and I find that disappointing. There was an
opportunity here to create a really nice-looking show-accurate Cheetor
(doing things like crossing his animal legs behind his back and giving
him those cheetah "freckles" on his face in robot mode) but instead
he's a fairly slavish miniaturization of the transformable toy (the
green-eyed version from 1997, specifically), even down to the hinges
for his arms and the mount on his back for his gut-gun. He's got a
Maximal symbol tattooed on his left butt cheek, which was evidently
just about the only flat surface to tampograph (personally I've have
voted for just about anything else, like the back of his head or the
bottom of his foot!). He's kind of swinging his arms wildly, like
he's about to punch somebody out, trudging through a big pile of
strawberry ice cream or something. He's also got the goofiest-looking
grin on any Transformers toy ever made, Armada Hot Shot included.
Blackarachnia's very nice indeed, clearly inspired by her animation
design and colored very closely to her TV appearance. She could have
benefited from some different paint applications (her eyes should be
black, not red; her spider arms should be a dark gold color, not
yellow; also, the CGI model has a distinctive spider-leg design on her
chest that's missing here) but on the whole she's quite excellent.
(Strangely, my figure has got traces of gold paint on her helmet but
that color doesn't seem to have actually been used anywhere on the
figure. Wonder why?) Her shoulders and head are articulated, which
surprises me considering the smaller stature of the figure. They
could have gotten away with making this a statue, so the poseability
is a plus. She's got a ridiculously large Predacon symbol stamped on
her back, right over top of the body panels on the scuplt that clearly
weren't added with such a gigantic tampograph in mind. (What amuses
me more than anything about Blackarachnia, though, is her package
art. Somebody depicted her with an unflatteringly large nose, flat
lips, and breasts shaped more like pectoral muscles, suggesting that
whoever did this artwork may not have even realized this was supposed
to be a female character!)
It occurs to me that the really, really neat thing about Beast Wars
figures this small is that they're approximately to scale with the
original G1 toys. Heh.
Comments?
Zob
Chad Rushing
>
> Comments?
I was not as impressed with this wave as I have been with older
figures.
My Hound, Rattrap, and Blitzwing all have series balance problems, the
first ones I have really encountered with the toyline. They all want
to fall backwards, so I have had to prop them up against the side of
their respective display shelves. I even had to put a piece of tape
on the bottom of Blitzwing's foot to keep him from falling over.
I know that the BW figures are supposed to have a more organic feel to
them and be less blocky-robotic, but the proportioning of their limbs
seems way to small to fit in well with the G1 figures. Blackarachnia
is a good figure, but she seems to be way too petite for the line's
"chibi" design style; maybe, they did not want her to look fat or
amazonian by making her larger.
Also, the beast head on Megatron's arm looks strangely like an
earless, purple donkey rather than a T-Rex to me, especially with the
rounded teeth.
Lastly, I dislike the idea of "action" poses for these figures like
the one we get with Cheetor; I wish he was just standing there
instead. We got a few of those towards the end of the Movie subline
(somersaulting Ironhide, blasting-off Starscream, and morning star
Megatron), but I prefer a more neutral stance.
Overall, I am still glad I got them, but I am hoping that the next
wave is a little better than this one, especially the balance issue.
- Chad
wii...@gmail.com
(What amuses
> me more than anything about Blackarachnia, though, is her package
> art. Somebody depicted her with an unflatteringly large nose, flat
> lips, and breasts shaped more like pectoral muscles, suggesting that
> whoever did this artwork may not have even realized this was supposed
> to be a female character!)
I believe the Robot Heroes designs and packaging art are all done by
Marcelo Matere, who would definitely know that Blackarachnia is a
girl:
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Marcelo_Matere
Here's his concept art for the movie Robot Heroes:
http://mmatere.deviantart.com/art/Movie-Robot-Heroes-concept-art-62127255
and for pointing G1 Prime: http://mmatere.deviantart.com/art/R-H-Concept-Art-Prime-61280638
Matere is also the guy who does the Animated packaging art -- at
least, the art that isn't clip art. He's also doing the covers for
IDW's Animated mini-series written by Marty Isenberg:
http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/tf-animated-mini-series-cover-art-from-the-tip/12830/
AND he does the really terrible Universe boxart where everyone's
standing around with wretched dead grimaces on their faces.
http://mmatere.deviantart.com/art/Tankor-Classics-boxart-81892773 As
you can see, he's pretty versatile, with art ranging from "superb" to
"Blackarachnia's face."
--David
Which reminds me. I believe he has some Hot Shot packaging linework
he was willing to sell...
www.shortpacked.com
Chad Rushing
>
> AND he does the really terrible Universe boxart where everyone's
> standing around with wretched dead grimaces on their faces.
> http://mmatere.deviantart.com/art/Tankor-Classics-boxart-81892773
I have actually been very pleased with the recent Universe character
art even though it is not terribly dynamic; it has a solemn look about
it.
Also, it is nice to have one whole end of the Universe ultra and
voyager boxes taken up by unobstructed character art. The boxes look
really good side-by-side on the bookshelf with the character art
turned outward.
- Chad
Zobovor
> I believe the Robot Heroes designs and packaging art are all done by
> Marcelo Matere, who would definitely know that Blackarachnia is a
> girl.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had come up with the original
concept illustrations for the Robot Heroes figurines (the ones the
TakaraTomy sculptors used for reference to create the toys), but I
think the actual packaging artwork looks to have been done by somebody
who was using only the figurines as reference, with no further
knowledge of what the *characters* are supposed to look like.
I guess it's *possible* that Matere purposefully produced some artwork
that makes Blackarachnia look like a flat-nosed muscular boy, but...
eh. I'd prefer to think somebody else did the portraits.
Zob
Onslaught Six
> I have actually been very pleased with the recent Universe character
> art even though it is not terribly dynamic; it has a solemn look about
> it.
It's not the fact that the art isn't 'dynamic.' It's the fact that
everyone has the same exact look of DULL SURPRISE.
LiamK
Exactly. I can live with the slight puffyness, but I wish to god
they'd learn how to shut their mouths when they are standing there.
-Liam Kavanagh
Chad Rushing
>
> > > I have actually been very pleased with the recent Universe character
> > > art even though it is not terribly dynamic; it has a solemn look about
> > > it.
>
> > It's not the fact that the art isn't 'dynamic.' It's the fact that
> > everyone has the same exact look of DULL SURPRISE.
>
> Exactly. I can live with the slight puffyness, but I wish to god
> they'd learn how to shut their mouths when they are standing there.
I am talking about the voyager and ultra box art, not the deluxe card
art, as those boxed characters have no mouths to hanging open. I will
have to go back and look at the card art to see what you guys are
talking about.
- Chad
LiamK
Ah. I haven't picked up any of the big ones yet. After spluring on
Animated Megatron and Bulkhead (and still looking for Voyager Prime),
I'm not sure that I can afford the bigger Universe characters,
financially and from a space point of view. Although everyone seems to
be saying that Onslaught is awesome, so maybe...
They had a link to the Octane/Tankor box art above:
http://mmatere.deviantart.com/art/Tankor-Classics-boxart-81892773
The body's okay, if a bit puffy. But it's almost completely obscured
on the box, with the focus just being on the "duh, why me here" face.
-Liam Kavanagh
Derik Smith
>carrying a PINK SWORD.
The current school of thought (mostly via Dreamwave) that Blitzwing's
Electron Scimitar operates on principles similar (but distinct from,)
Energo Weapons. You wrap an energy field around the physical
structure of an edged weapon that both reinforces it structurally and
increases its 'sharpness.' (Their explanation was worded to sound
less stupid than this.)
I think it makes a lot of sense from an in-universe standpoint-b ut I
can see why Sunbow didn't want to animate Blitzwing's sword glowing in
every frame- those overlays would have been a nightmare to keep
straight.
-Derik
SteveD
<regen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I think it makes a lot of sense from an in-universe standpoint-b ut I
>can see why Sunbow didn't want to animate Blitzwing's sword glowing in
>every frame- those overlays would have been a nightmare to keep
>straight.
Presumably he had a switch on the hilt to conserve power...
-SteveD