Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Wave 21

#86-22 Brawn (TfTM)
Gamer Edition +05 Cliffjumper (WfC)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Deluxe21

While wave 20 got pushed off the shelf by Rise of the Beasts toys, I did
manage to find wave 21 in a regular store.

CAPSULES

$25 at Walmart.

#86-22 Brawn: Given that Minibot Deluxes run the danger of feeling like
you're being overcharged, this is a decent toy. A couple of the aesthetic
and structural choices are a bit off, but overall I'd give it a mildly
recommended, maybe verging on recommended.

GE+05 Cliffjumper: Hell no. This is the worst kind of finicky
shellformer that only really works in the ideal world of computer renders, I
had to partially dismantle it and rebuild it to get it into vehicle mode.
And the robot mode isn't exactly a display piece. For all its aesthetic
flaws and transformation hassle, at least the original WfC Bumblebee mold
could be transformed. Even on the second try when I thought I had its
pitfalls figured out, it found several new ways to fall apart and refuse to
follow the instructions or any other method of transformation. Avoid.

RANTS

Packaging: Same as previous waves with '86 and Gamer Edition figures.
The windows have been getting smaller, which is a good thing given that
they're open.
(Note, the product codes are F7236 for Brawn and F7238 for Cliffjumper,
so my ordering isn't completely arbitrary here.)

AUTOBOT: BRAWN
Assortment: #86-22
Altmode: Offroad Jeep-like vehicle
Transformation Difficulty: 23 steps
Previous Name Use: G1, RotF, Studio
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: TfTM (1986)
Scene: Decepticon Shuttle Ambush

In an effort to protect the crew, BRAWN is the first to act when
DECEPTICONS attack the AUTOBOT shuttle.

Yeah, and the first to get jobbed.

Brawn's had a bit of a weird toy history. A lot of the more recent
neo-G1 toys have been TRU exclusives or simply not sold in North American
stores at all (outside of specialty importers). Titans Return Legends Class
is probably the easiest to obtain "looks kinda like the cartoon" version
prior to this Studio Series toy.

Packaging: As with most of the TfTM Studio Series toys, it's a
painted-style version of the cel art design, rather than cel-style. And the
art shows a squatter and wider head than the toy has.
Five plastic ties hold the robot against the inner tray, with the pistol
tucked into a tray flap in the lower left. Mine was slightly mistransformed,
the back gate piece on the backpack was supposed to be folded up against the
rear window, and it wasn't (and the joint was stiff enough that until I
checked the instructions I assumed it wasn't supposed to go any farther).
The scene backdrop shows the side of the Ark bridge, with a hole blown
in it and some purple smoke starting to fill the area.

Robot Mode: The head feels a little off (sides are too close to
vertical), and the boots/feet are definitely a heavy compromise (the feet are
more like little flaps at the bottom of chunky boots), but it's generally as
true to the animation model as a physically transforming toy can be. There's
little things here and there that are also definitely concessions to physical
reality, like the arms being a little too thin, and the pelvis being just the
middle block rather than the entire "trunks" area, but overall it does a
decent job.
A bit over 4.5" (11.5cm) tall at the head, with the panel behind the
head rising a little above that. Mostly school bus yellow, olive drab green,
and silver. The head appears to be yellow plastic, it's entirely painted
over but mine had some tiny scratches that showed up under strong light and a
magnifier. Yellow plastic is also used for the shoulder roots, the pelvis,
hips, and the piece that acts as both the knee and a transformation hinge for
the vehicle side panels. The gun, wheels, and spare tire on the backpack are
black plastic. Everything else is olive green plastic, including the torso
front (which has a lot of paint).
The top and front of the torso are painted school bus yellow in a decent
match to the plastic, as is the panel behind Brawn's head. The forearms and
fists are dipped in silver, which is also used on the face and part of each
kneecap area (basically sections of the front fenders). The helmet is gloss
medium gray, the eyes are the same light gloss blue as the vehicle mode
windows. There's a red Autobot symbol printed on the belly.
The neck turns on a smooth swivel, but between the gray paint on the
helmet and the yellow paint on the torso top there's a lot of paintlock to
overcome. The waist is a smooth swivel with a decent range before the thighs
run into the backpack. Ball joint shoulders, upper arm swivels, hinge elbows
that bend a little more than 90 degrees. The wrists can bend inwards on
transformation hinges, but paintlock is a huge issue there too. Universal
joint hips, upper thigh swivels, hinge knees. The ankles have sideways
rocker joints and both the toes and heels fold down for transformation, but
the end result isn't all that stable.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's a 5mm socket under each heel, and
one in the center of the spare tire. The tire itself is removable and
reveals another 5mm socket...since there's no 5mm sockets on the shoulders or
forearms, though, there isn't a good place to mount the tire as a shield (it
can be the hilt of a sword if you put a Fire Blast or something in it and
have the wheel held in Brawn's fist). No 3mm sockets or studs on the robot
itself.
The pistol is a single piece of black plastic with a 5mm grip near the
back end and a 3mm stud at the tip, 3.5cm long and a good match for a pistol
he used at least sometimes in the cartoon. The spare tire is also a single
piece of black plastic, the same diameter as the real wheels at 1.8cm, with a
5mm socket in the hub and a 5mm peg opposite that. Neither accessory has any
paint, which makes the spare tire stand out a bit in vehicle mode given that
the regular wheels do have silver paint on their hubs.
Others have pointed out that you can evoke the stilt-like legs of the
original Brawn toy by just unfolding the legs. The resulting "feet" are
tipped backwards somewhat, so the figure has significant difficulting
standing like this unless you lean it way forwards at the hips.

Transformation: Fold the head and torso front forwards so you can rotate
the grill around, then close it back up. Turn the waist 180 degrees now,
because it's a lot harder to do later, as I found out. Rotate the shoulder
struts down 180 degrees. Lift the backpack up as far as it'll go, and the
panels that the shoulder struts are attached to fold in so that the arms come
together. When you're done, the folded fists will point down, and the tabs
and slots on the arms will connect. Here's where it gets tricky: the legs
unfold and wrap around the sides, but alignment is very important, and a
joint being even a little off can make it difficult to get all the tabs to
stay in. The folded-up toes and heels go into gaps in the sides of the
torso, while the rear gate panel folds down to put a spacer between the knees
and otherwise stabilize things.
Getting the grille piece turned around the first time was difficult, it
felt like I was about to break something if I couldn't move a bit out of the
way. I guess there was some mold flash or something that broke away, because
subsequent rotations were easy.

Vehicle Mode: While generally seen as a sort of jeep or SUV here, Brawn
was based on the Suzuki Jimny SJ20, which is a pretty small jeep-ish kind of
vehicle, only about 10 feet (3 meters) or so long. It has the general look
of a rugged SUV or camper-shell pickup truck, but chibi. A compact SUV, if
you will. It has a permanent shell in back, rather than the canvas shells
that some WWII-and-after Jeeps (and some Jimny models, for that matter) could
sport, but it's still in basically military olive drab. In fact, the SJ20
had a front end that strongly resembled the now-very-trademarked Jeep grille,
something they were careful on this toy to avoid. The gun stores on top,
using the spare tire as a mount in the same way that G1 Brawn's retool
Outback did. (Will they make an Outback out of this mold? And if they do,
will they still get away with Autobot Outback, or will they need to go to
their...Fallback position?)
3.5" (9cm) long, making it about 1:36 scale. Almost all of the yellow
is hidden in this mode, with light blue windows replacing that as the
secondary color. Other than the black on the wheels and spare tire, or a
couple of visible hinges on the back corners, the entire shell is olive green
plastic.
The front and side windows are all painted light gloss blue, but the
rear window is unpainted. The grille and the front edges of the front fender
(the kneecaps) are painted silver, with the middle section of the bumper
itself painted school bus yellow. There's a big red Autobot symbol printed
on the hood. The wheel hubs are painted silver. If you want to add some
paints, in addition to the rear window needing some, there's some roof lights
that could stand a little on their lenses.
Thanks to the chest detailing, there's very little ground clearance, but
it does roll okay. If things aren't aligned enough to keep all four wheels
on the same plane, the fenders will start popping off anyway. The spare tire
socket is accessible, but the sockets from the fists and the feet are buried
inside. There's no other connection points.