Dave's TF Studio Series Rant: Deluxe Wave 17

#88 Sideways (sports car)
#86-16 Arcee (extensive retool of Thrilling 30 Arcee)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Deluxe17

So, Sideways is a new mold for a character who appeared for less than a
minute before being bisected. Arcee didn't manage an entirely new mold, but
they managed to get the funding to significantly retool the extremely good
Thrilling 30 Arcee mold, rather than trying to get more mileage out of the
pretty bad Earthrise mold.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeT7 - Arcee original mold

CAPSULES

$25 price point.

#88 Sideways - A pretty good execution of the design, with a challenging
but not frustrating transformation. The only serious flaw is that it's a
fairly screen-accurate Bayformer, and that's purely an aesthetic issue.
Recommended if you don't mind Bayformers.

#86-16 Arcee - Original mold was strongly recommended (and kinda hard to
find). The changes bring it more in line with the G1 animation model,
although at the cost of some stability and looking blander. Recommended.

RANTS

Packaging: The same no-plastic version of the packaging seen in wave
16.

DECEPTICON: SIDEWAYS
Assortment: #88
Altmode: Unlicensed sports car (Audi R8, sort of)
Transformation Difficulty: 20 steps
Previous Name Use: Armada, Cybertron, RotF
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: RotF
Scene: Shanghai Pursuit

SIDEWAYS attempts a speedy escape through the SHANGHAI streets before
being sliced in half by SIDESWIPE.

Yes, his only notable characteristic is how he died. And apparently
Shanghai is trademarked.

Packaging: Six plastic ties hold the robot into the inner tray, with a
rectangle cut out for the hunchback to poke out. The weapon is held in by a
pushed out corner fold at the bottom left.
The backdrop is a bit of Shanghai alley with a window being blown out
and the back of a building covered in ventilation fans, I've seen this one
before.

Robot Mode: Your basic gorilla-armed sorta-digitigrade gray and silver
Bayformer with a face that looks like an insect crossed with a pile of metal
shavings. The doors sticking back and up rather than spreading out further
strengthens the resemblance to an insect. So...screen-accurate. One odd
detail is that there's a bit of fake vehicle panel connecting the knee to the
toe on each leg, but with a cut in it so that the leg joints can still move
(and look weird when moved away from having the pieces line up).
4.25" (11cm) tall at the head when the legs are correctly crouched (the
ankles on mine are too loose to support a more straight-legged pose anyway),
5" (12.5cm) to the tops of the door wings. The colors are basically darkish
warm gray and silver with smoky clear windows. There is lightpiping, and if
you shine a strong enough light through it you can see that the eyes are
painted clear red...all four of them, because Bayformers often have extra
eyes to be creepy. The door wings, the lightpiping, and some of the backpack
are smoky clear plastic. Everything else is a warm darkish gray plastic.
There's silver paint on most of the face, the right and left torso, the
bicep panels, forearm door panels, borders of the door wings, a bit of fake
vehicle detailing on the thighs, and the top chunk of the knee-to-toe
connector piece. There's five narrow silver stripes on the sternum. The
backpack is car shell, and described below. As noted above, the eyes are
painted transparent red, but you need a strong light from either side to
really see that. As usual for Bayformers, there's no Decepticon symbol.
The neck is a ball joint, with the socket in the clear plastic of the
lightpiping piece. The waist is a smooth swivel, and it's not blocked by any
kibble. The shoulders are ball joints on the ends of double-hinged struts
(transformation joints), the elbows are ball joints (so no bicep swivels).
The three claws move together on one hinge, the thumb on another hinge. Ball
joint hips, swivels just above the hinge knees, and ankles that are (kinda
loose) ball joints.
The hands are not able to really gold 5mm pegs, they don't have rounded
bits to close around one. Instead, the thumbs have notches in them that go
onto tabs on the arm cannon to secure it. There's a 3mm socket in the back
of the pelvis.
The cannon is pinned together so looks like there should be some joints
that there aren't. It's made to fit over either of Sideways's hands, being
almost symmetric (the storage tabs break that symmetry). While Sideways
can't use it, there's a short 5mm peg on the inward facing side. The cannon
itself has three barrels, each of which ends in a tip that's a little wider
than 3mm, but some Fire Blasts can stretch to fit over them (they're a little
too close together for some Fire Blasts, though). The whole thing is 2.25"
(5.5cm) long, no paint. It has a pair of thin tabs on the outer face that go
into the rear bumper in either mode for storage.

Transformation: He's dummy thicc and it took me several minutes to
figure out how to fit his thighs into vehicle mode. One bit that misled me
was that the hands look like they should fold closed for vehicle mode, but
actually they need to be opened up to grab his own butt. It's a pretty tight
fit for all the pieces, and it's not hard to accidentally pop something off
(especially a hip joint) when trying to get things lined up, but at least it
did all fit together well once I got the hang of it. No "this panel won't
quite close because something needed to be rotated ten degrees" stuff.
Going back to robot mode is relatively easy, although several steps are
more cosmetic than others (and may not even be properly transformed in
package, FWIW), such as the upper arm panels that fold out or the dent in the
chest bumper.

Vehicle Mode: It's not an Audi R8, but it's fairly close. The silver
bits now end up on the sides with dark warm gray long the top, as usual for
movie Sideways. There's some stripe details along the top, but what it
really needs for movie accuracy is a dotted "cut here" line.
4.5" (11cm) long, so about 1:40 scale if it's supposed to be an R8,
mostly silver and gray with smoky clear windows. The windshield, side
windows (and a little of the door tops), and rear window are clear smoky
plastic. The rest is dark warm gray plastic. There's a bunch of silver
paint along the sides and fenders, with a few bits left unpainted for
aesthetics and a few left unpainted because of joints. Five thin silver
stripes are on the front of the hood (but not the part that opens up to let
the head through in robot mode), the roof (interrupted by a hinge), and the
rear little bit of the not-a-trunk. The front end has silver around the
grille and headlight pieces, but no separate paint on the headlights. Oddly,
while the headlights are unpainted, the taillights are painted red.
It rolls okay, although the rear wheels are on the backs of the hands
and are hard to keep aligned properly. No standard connectors, but there's
rectangular slots flanking the tailpipes that are used for arm gun storage in
this mode.

Overall: As Bayformers go, it's a decent toy. The ankles can probably
be fixed up with washing or at worst a little topcoat, and the design doesn't
really need the ankles to be stiff anyway. If you don't mind the aesthetic,
this is competently executed.

AUTOBOT: ARCEE
Assortment: #86-16
Altmode: Cybertronian coupe
Transformation Difficulty: 18 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: Gen:T30
Movie: TFtM
Scene: Battle of Autobot City

When the DECEPTICONS launch their attack, ARCEE converts AUTOBOT CITY.

Packaging: Six ties hold the robot down on the inner tray (and she looks
more "tied down" than most), one tie holds the pistol down in the lower
left. There are no other weapons.
The backdrop is the partially burning Autobot City street scene used
previously in at least one other '86 toy.

I think I'm going to review this as a mostly new mold with a list of the
UNCHANGED parts, because they seem fewer in number.

Unchanged Parts: In robot mode, the head (although it's all opaque now
with no lightpiping), the shoulders, the upper arms, the "bra straps," the
chest, and...that's it other than the backpack kibble below. The new thighs
are slightly shorter and the new shins are slightly longer, leaving the
overall height about the same.
In vehicle mode, the hood (including windshield) and front fenders are
retained, although new parts fold out to fill in the gaps on the sides under
the front fenders. While pretty similar, the roof ornament in back is
slightly different from the T30 version.

Robot Mode: At first glance it looks about the same except for the less
saturated pink and the use of gray instead of black and the absence of
blue...a bit washed out by comparison to the T30 toy. But there's plenty of
physical differences as well: the legs are simplified, she has spurs jutting
out sideways from the backs of her heels, the pelvis is more flat-fronted,
her hands have been changed to hold round 5mm pegs so she's not limited to
just her own gun (which is good, since she only gets the small pistol now),
and even more of the vehicle mode is offloaded into the backpack. The
backpack is slimmer but longer, folding up more so that there's not a bustle
going on (but also losing the accessible 3mm socket). Plenty of smaller
details have changed as well.
5" (12.5cm) tall at the head, a little taller at the backpack, in a
light cool pink and white with a few medium gray accents. By cool pink, I
mean it's ever so slightly purple, especially standing next to the bright
pink of T30 Arcee. This color of plastic is used on the shoulders, the "bra
straps," the outer part of the chest (it's actually several pieces of plastic
glued or fused together), the pelvis, and a majority of the backpack. There
seems to be two type of pink plastic, the plsatic used on the chest, pelvis,
and backpack parts is a little glossier and darker. White plastic is used
for the head (all of it, no lightpiping this time), the collar, the shoulder
struts, forearms, the rest of the torso, all of the legs, some panels holding
the backpack together, and the buttcape portion of the backpack. A lightish
medium gray plastic is used for the pistol and the wheels, and the windshield
visible on the backpack is clear light blue. Weirdly, the upper arms are a
very light pink plastic that looks white at first glance, and as far as I can
tell is not used anywhere else on the toy. Unlike the white plastic, which
has a very strong UV glow, this very light pink plastic doesn't glow at all.
I wonder if it's even supposed to be different, or if there was a weird batch
variation happening.
Torso stability is pretty bad, some bits that are supposed to peg
together inside the torso don't actually lock at all, and there's not enough
friction to hold it all in place.
A darker glossy pink paint that's almost the same as the chest plastic
is used on the forearms, elbows, and kneecaps. A light pink that doesn't
quite match the upper arms is used for the face. The lower half of the
abdomen is painted medium-light gray (good match for the plastic), as are the
"spats" on the feet. Full red lipstick, unlike the thin line on T30 Arcee,
bright blue eyes, and a red Autobot symbol on the top of the breast-shelf.
Now, the somewhat blander look is much closer to the animation colors than
previous Arcees (like T30) managed, but she's missing the gray on the bottom
of the ribcage and the red row of belly buttons.
Ball joint neck with the socket inside the head, swivel waist at the
narrow point of the hourglass. The shoulders are ball and socket joints,
there's swivels at the tops of the biceps, and the elbows are soft-ratcheting
hinges that bend almost double. Simple universal joint hips replace the
weird hips on T30 Arcee, with swivels right above the hinge knees. The
ankles have dual hinges for forwards/backwards and sideways to support flat
feet.
The new hands can hold 5mm pegs and have about 2/3 of the way around.
There's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the thighs, and a completely
covered up 3mm socket on the back of the pelvis. The rectangular sockets on
the shoulderpads remain from T30.
She has the small pistol from the T30 toy in all gray with no paint, and
that's it. No larger gun, no swords, no where to store the other weapons
(the pistol now stores kinda loosely on the underside of the vehicle mode,
but still goes on either hip in robot mode).

On Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 8:57:32 PM UTC-7, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> While sometimes the headlights are yellow in the cartoon,
> they're usually left white for simplicity in animation, and such is the case
> here.

I'm going to gently challenge this statement, since I don't remember Arcee ever having yellow headlights. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure where the headlights would be on her design. (Maybe in the same place as Scourge's cockpit?)

Zob (doesn't exist)