Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Deluxe Wave 13

#74 Bumblebee (already reviewed as #74BB, slight redeco)
#75 Jolt (Chevy Volt)
#86-08 Gnaw (Sharkticon)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Deluxe13

The wave also had reships of 86-01 Jazz. Gnaw was both shortpacked and
aggressively hunted by troopbuilder collectors, so I ended up ordering it on
Amazon with an "in stock soon" promise. I also ended up finding it at Big
Lots, of all places.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/DeluxeBB74 (Regular #74 lacks
the Sam figure, and might be a slight redeco, I didn't care enough to get
one).

CAPSULES

$20-23 price point.

Jolt: While it has positives in both modes, they're overwhelmed by a
crippling case of shellformer syndrome, plus brittle tabs that break off.
Neutral.

Gnaw: Has some stability issues due to over-reliance on joint friction
and a lack of same, but a fairly clever transformation and good details in
both modes. I like the Titans Return version more, but this one still comes
Recommended.

RANTS

Packaging: Same as previous regular or '86 Deluxes, as relevant.

AUTOBOT: JOLT
Assortment: #75
Altmode: Chevy Volt
Transformation Difficulty: 23 steps
Previous Name Use: G2, Arm, Uni2, Cybertron, RotF, DotM
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Revenge of the Fallen
Scene: Pyramid Desert Battle

When JOLT uses his electro whips to link the AUTOBOT leader with jet
parts from JETFIRE, OPTIMUS PRIME takes to the skies as JETPOWER OPTIMUS.

Yeah, Jolt really only exists to cover Optimus in Jetfire corpse pieces
as a powerup. IIRC he gets one really brief fight scene bit as well. But no
lines, and no personality (to the extent any Bayformers get one).

Packaging: Five plastic ties on the robot, one each on the electro whip
weapons. The hip panels are deliberately mistransformed to fit in the box.
While the toy is supposed to be from the Desert Battle, the backdrop is
a dense urban core, either Chicago or Mission City.

Robot Mode: Kinda short, in part because so much of the mass is just
folded up in a massive backpack or stuck to the thighs as awkward armor
panels. The thigh panels fold in a vain attempt to make them less of a
problem, but they simply don't get out of the way enough to be meaningful, nd
the folding actually makes them more in-the-way since the joints they're on
lose most of their range when you do that. It doesn't help that the only
storage for the whips when not in use is on the thigh panels. Anyway, the
upshot is that Jolt looks like he fell onto an entirely different car and
he's still stuck in the wreckage. I'd be tempted to remove some of the
kibble, but the backpack is pinned in place and the hip panels feel like I
might break something if I tried to pop them off.
4.5" (11.5cm) tall at the head, with the backpack kibble rising
significantly above that. Two different shades of blue plastic, although
it's not really obvious in this mode, plus two shades of gray plastic and
some clear smoky plastic (notably on the fronts of the thighs, I guess
they're supposed to be fake rear windows or something?). The upper torso is
blue plastic with lots of fake engine detailing, pretty much everything else
blue is part of the vehicle shell (shoulders, backpack parts, forearms, hip
panels, feet). Smoky clear plastic is used for most of the backpack, plus
the fronts of the thighs and a bit in the front of the pelvis. (They put a
lot of thought into aesthetics of the non-shell parts, but then zero into
dealing with the shell!) Slightly metallic medium gray plastic is used for
the upper arms, hands, whips, non-clear parts of the pelvis. Darker gray
plastic is used for the head, abdomen, non-clear parts of the thighs, the
knees, and the wheels (which are cleverly folded under the soles of the feet
in one case, and not-cleverly stuck no the hip panels in the other).
Plenty of silver paint on the face, torso, forearms, thighs, and ankles.
Some fake vehicle shell bits around the upper "calves" (the legs are
digitigrade, so they're really more like the heels) are painted goss blue, as
are the eyes, some "hair," and some bits of the backpack. While mostly
hidden in this mode, the wheel hubs are painted silver.
Articulation is...ugh. I mean, it has the usual complement of joints,
but so much kibble getting in the way. Ball joint neck, technically a swivel
waist (it can barely wiggle), ball joint shoulders, bicep swivels, hinge
elbows, and I guess the thumbs can wiggle a bit in their sockets. Ball joint
hips, hinge knees, swivels above the hinge ankles. The figure is pretty
back-heavy, so you need to use that digitigrade pose (bend knees and ankles)
when you don't have the whips shooting out forwards as counterbalances.
The only 5mm sockets are where the thumbs or whips go. There's a 3mm
socket on the backpack (right behind there the roof part stops at a hinge),
and rectangular slots on the hip panels for storing the whips. The whips are
supposed to be his thumbs lancing out on cables, so you pull the thumbs off
and replace them with whips. The whips themselves are 4.75" (12cm) long with
5mm pegs perpendicular to the ends. They can kindasorta be held as spears in
the three-clawed hands, if you put their storage tabs between the two finger
claws and make sure the thumb is firmly in place.
When the whips are in place, the thumbs that they replace go into slots
on the hip panels, which are the slots used for storing the whips in vehicle
mode. However, the fit isn't great, and it's easy to lose the thumbs
entirely if you try to keep them in their intended locations. 5mm round
sockets would be more secure, but this toy has literally zero of those aside
from the hybrid sockets (round with slot tips) on the hands. If you flip up
the backplate there's some 5mm wide gaps insied the abdomen where you can jam
the thumbs...it's not that strong of a hold, but they're safely inside and
away from accidental brushing.
http://www.dvandom.com/images/JoltThumbStorage.JPG shows the thumbs
stuck into the abdomen.

Transformation: As a very shellmastery toy, transformation is mostly
pretty simple conceptually (the arms folding to make the rear bumper area is
probably the closest it gets to "clever"), but prepare for a LOT of panel
massaging to get all the tabs into the right slots. At least, unlike SOME
Studio Series toys, the panels do all go into the right slots and the result
is fairly solid with no major gaps. Usually. After a while. The down side
of this is that it can be hard to get some of the tabs apart again when
transforming to robot mode. When undoing the back end, one of the tabs was
clearly in the process of snapping off, it had gone past "white stress mark"
and into "starting to crack." It did break off entirely on the second
transformation, but that doesn't seem to have affected stability. Another
tab in the same connection had an edge scraped off partially.
One aesthetic down side of the transformation is that since I had to
focus on all the little tabs, I saw so many sprue marks and flash lines that
should've been polished down or been done cleaner or something. Makes the
toy feel like a knockoff when there's so many light patches where sprues
broke off.

Vehicle Mode: It looks pretty good, although the three different shades
of blue do tend to be more noticeable in this mode (two plastics, one
paint). As near as I can tell, this is a faithful reproduction of the 2011
production model, rather than being based on the 2007 concept (the main
difference is in the back end). But, you say, this is his appearance in the
2009 movie! Yeah, but they already knew what the production model would look
like, and had teased mock-ups as early as 2008. Anyway, one thing that makes
it stand out visually is that the windshield just keeps going back all the
way to the spoiler, for a futuristic dome appearance (there's still posts and
stuff inside, it's not a pure glass roof). While the window plastic is smoky
on the toy, under bright enough light you can see Jolt's head in the back
seat, as if he's riding along inside himself. There's patterning in the
roof, but while it looks kind of like an Autobot symbol at first glance, it
isn't one.
At 4.75" (12cm) long, it's about 1:37 or 1:38 scale. Predominantly blue
with smoky clear windows, dark gray tires, and a fair amount of silver trim.
The front bumper, sides, and rear bumper are a glossy medium blue plastic.
The hood, part of each front fender, and most of each rear fender are a more
matte medium blue plastic. The bubble roof and windows are smoky clear
plastic, and the wheels are dark gray plastic. There's medium gloss blue
paint (darker than the plastic) on the borders between roof and windows, and
almost black matte paint on the lower borders of the windows and the boundary
between the front and rear side windows. The headlights are painted metallic
very light blue. The grille, molded Chevy logos (front and back), side
mirrors, and wheel hubs are painted silver. Much of the top half of the back
is painted gloss black, and there's garnet paint on the taillights. The
license plate location on back is left blank.
The whips store via slots on the lower edges of the doors (same place
the thumbs are supposed to store in robot mode), but the tabs are a lot more
secure than the ones from the thumbs. It does make it look like Jolt is
kitted out as some sort of bumper racer RC car, though. No other useful
connection points accessible in this mode. The wheels roll okay.

Overall: Decent vehicle, quite a bit of thought put into appearances,
but then totally let down by a shellformer design that makes the robot a
walking salvage yard. Put it in vehicle mode and leave it there. Or better
yet, leave it on the shelf.

QUINTESSON: GNAW
Assortment: 86-08
Altmode: Sharkticon
Transformation Difficulty: 17 steps
Previous Name Use: G1, Gen:TR, Cyberverse
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Transformers the Movie
Scene: Mockery of Justice

GNAW and the SHARKTICONS lurk beneath the QUINTESSON COURTROOM, ready to
carry out the sentence of any bot unlucky enough to fall victim to QUINTESSON
justice.

The last few years have been pretty good for Sharkticon army building,
between Titans Return, the upsized Warrior version of the mold in Cyberverse,
and the Tiny Turbo Changer Sharkticons that came in a pack that ended up
cheap at Ross. Prior to Titans Return, there had been sharks and even
Sharkticons, but not Gnaw-style since G1.

Packaging: As a rather short figure, it's packaged high up in the box,
with the robot more portrait covering mainly empty space in the bottom of the
box. But while it's short, it's also thick, and the backpack (top of the
shark head) has to be in the tray separately, some assembly required.
Four ties on the robot, one on the rifle, one on the dorsal fin, one on
the backpack, one on the tail mace.
The packaging uses the new Quintesson faction symbol that looks like a
death metal band logo. The instructions have as their accent color a sort of
teal-blue that's not the same color as Mini-Cons used, but otherwise evokes
the "neither Autobot nor Decepticon" deal. The instructions do, as expected,
have a short "some assembly required bit" for the backpack, which goes on
with a sliding t-beam sort of deal rather than pegs.

Robot Mode: While short for a Deluxe, Gnaw is also quite stocky, so
there's less of a feeling that this should've been a lower price point toy.
The mold is fairly faithful to the G1 animation design, although without the
"wings" they had in the cartoon as a consequence of some shell bits folding
outwards. The mold is a little more detailed than the show model, but is
definitely working from that rather than from the sticker designs of the
toy. They do compromise on the shark teeth, with more than were generally
visible in robot mode on the cartoon, but fewer than would be seen in beast
mode. There's also molded details on the roof of the shark mouth that seem
to better match how the upper jaw teeth were portrayed in the animation
model, although they're not painted.
4.5" (11cm) tall, with the beast upper jaw rising a little above that.
A mix of warm light violet, purplish light gray, slightly desaturated light
blue, and very light gray, plus a few detail colors. There's also dark gray,
but that's mostly on the back. Dark gray plastic is used for the beast head,
back, and fin. Less obviously, due to all the paint, the lower jaw that
forms a collar, the torso front, and the rotating-for-transformation torso
core are also dark gray plastic. Purplish light gray is used on the head,
some internal upper torso bits, shoulders, upper arms, forearms, hip struts,
beast upper arms, and rifle. The warm light violet plastic is used for the
neck strut, shoulder struts, the fists, thighs, shins, and heels.
Desaturated light blue plastic makes up the boots, the beast forearms, and
the tail mace. There's not actually any light gray plastic, that's all
paint.
Speaking of which, the light gray paint coats the chest, torso core,
face, and helmet crest. The wrist cuffs (beast feet) and the weird tusk
things on the lower jaw of the beast head are painted light blue, but it's
glossier and not quite the same shade as the plastic. Good coverage on the
interior of the forearms, at least. The lower jaw and upper not-really-lips
are painted warm violet, again glossier but otherwise a decent match for the
plastic. Metallic yellow-green is used for the eyes, and some details on the
collar and waist. There's red paint on some other tech details on the color,
and on the helmet forehead. The beast teeth are painted silver. More
beast-specific paints covered below. No faction symbols.
The neck is a very limited ball joint on a strut that can fold forwards
so it can look down its collar (well, for transformation). No waist
articulation, due to how the core of the torso rotates around an axis that
points forwards. Pinned universal joint shoulders, bicep swivels, hinge
elbows. The wrists are pinned hinges that fold inwards for transformation.
Pinned universal joint hips, although if you try to lift the leg too far to
the side it starts stressing the plastic. Thigh swivels and hinge knees are
normal enough, but the lower legs get a little weird. There's a
transformation higne mid-shin (where the violet shin enters the blue boot),
but it doesn't snap in place...if you don't bend it too much, it can kinda
fake being an ankle joint. The actual ankle joint is an instep hinge that
doesn't even pretend to hold in place or fill the gap, it's just a "sliced
your leg almost all the way off" effect. The heels are hinged for
transformation, but it's not a useful point of articulation in this mode.
The collar is hinged and flops up and down when it's not really supposed to,
but pinned joints are harder to firm up.
There's 5mm sockets in the fists, the undersides of the toes, and one on
the back for holding the shark fin. There's a 3mm socket on the left side of
the backpack for storing the rifle in beast mode, but it's kinda blocked by a
beast arm in this mode. No other 3mm connectors. Strangely, while the
backpack is secured via a 5mm peg in a socket, this doesn't line up with the
fin peg hole, so you can't actually get the fin all the way into the socket
in this mode.
While the animation model lacked a rifle and got by swinging the tail
mace in the cartoon, during the figure's "Fan First Friday" reveal, it was
noted that the figure comes with a rifle as a reference to the G1 toy's
accessory. It's a pity they didn't put enough design thought into the rifle,
though. The barrel is bigger than 5mm, and the stud at the tip is about 4mm,
so the figure can't hold it as a club or attach any borrowed fire blasts.
It's 2.5" (6cm) long and unpainted, with a 5mm peg grip at the very back and
a 3mm peg on the side of the magazine clip.
The tail mace has the same weird hollow pattern as Cyberverse Gnaw's
mace, and while molded in a snaky position only has a single hinge joint just
above the 5mm peg grip. Total length including the grip is 3" (7.5cm).

Transformation: The main weird thing is that the torso opens up via a
hinge at the collarbone and another for part of the back behind the
shoulders, and then the middle panel of the torso rotates around so that the
legs can fold up (using that extra boot hinge) to tuck away inside the
torso. Then the backpack snaps down over it, leaving the robot arms way at
the back as beast legs. A new 5mm socket is revealed for the tail to go
into, and the rifle stores on the side via that 3mm peg.
Of course, it wouldn't be Studio Series without at least a few weird
tabs and slots that only do their job if everything else is positioned
perfectly before you even get them near each other.

Beast Mode: I'll say this for it, the altmode doesn't LOOK like it
should be able to stand without support, but it does...even without the tail
plugged in! Basically, the front toes are just a few millimeters ahead of
the center of mass, as long as you set it on a flat surface. Even a little
downhill slope and it faceplants. The forearms come out from the upper jaw,
which is a bit weird, and a side effect of not putting them on the fold down
"wings" like G1 did.
From bulldog-like snout to mace tail tip, it's about 6.25" (16cm) long,
with the same colors as robot mode but a lot more dark gray. The back and
the top of the tail are dark gray plastic with no paint, more like an ocean
tuna pattern to the fins than a shark pattern. Other than the area around
the eyes, the upper jaw piece is mostly painted a light gray that's a decent
match for the purplish-gray plastic. The eyes themselves are metallic
yellow-green, and there's a red rectangle painted between them. No faction
symbols in this mode either.
The legs retain the articulation found in the robot arms (minus the
wrists), while the tiny arms have hinged shoulders and elbows. The upper and
lower jaws are hinged to let the mouth open and closed, although opening it
too much reveals the robot head (if you only open it some, it looks like he
has a spiked tongue). The dorsal fin is just pegged in, so it can rotate,
for what little that's worth. The tail joint has its full range of motion
plus the faux-swivel from being pegged in place.
All the attachment points in this mode are spoken for (tail, fin, gun),
the hands can't hold anything. Since the mouth is full of robot head, even
if the lower jaw joint were tighter the figure couldn't really hold anything
in its mouth anyway.

Overall: Is it better than the Titans Return version? Yeah, some,
although stability issues are a problem. But it's not twice as good, and the
extra features tend to come at the cost of those nagging stability problems.
Pretty good for a Studio Series Deluxe, although that's damning with faint
praise.

Dave Van Domelen, might even get to the Ark by Christmas.