SDCC exclusive TF Prime- Optimus Prime Deluxe review

Haven't done a transformers figure review before and wasn't originally planning to, but these arrived at work earlier this week(benefits of working in a comic shop??) and I figured I should jump at an opportunity to get my hands on some SDCC exclusives. We'll be looking at the SDCC exclusive- Transformers Prime: first edition optimus prime deluxe figure. A few things to cover about packaging, and very cool packaging it is.

The packaging is large and would take up 2 units of space on a store peg. Quite the large box for only a deluxe figure. What else could possibly be in there...

Binding our main means of access to the inner package is a very nice and large magnet with the autobot emblem centered, along with the show name and Optimus prime printed on it as well. The silver embossed letters are a nice touch. Very eye-catching. Background is what seems to be a blue energy covered spread with lightning on the sides. Its not necessary, but its a nice little extra.

With the magnet now out of the way, we see the box front is actually optimus prime's chest windows. Just what is in there??

Of course, you gotta have you exclusive SDCC sticker somewhere to officialize it.

The back of the box packaging is prime posed with a stylized matrix not yet seen before. Prime's shown with the matrix held above himself similar to how Hot Rod did in the 1987 animated film. The quote above prime is also from the 1987 film as well. NOW, onto the inside!

Inside of Prime's "window" package is none other than the matrix! HOLY...if that's not some attention to design and detail for just the packaging, I don't know what is(we haven't even got to the figure and something this cool already??)

Now that the dramatic reveal is done, lets take a look at inside some more. Here, we see more of that blue energy with lightning background on the inside as well. My guess is that its energon or something along those lines that this design is supposed to represent. Very cool and very fitting if it is.

On the left inner tab, we see a spread with our main autobot cast with the decepticons in the back, looking ominous and sinister as always. Here on this tab, we get the setup for the story thus far and essentially the setup for the series itself. With the inclusion of dark energon from war from Cybertron, it seems TF: prime has influences from G1, Michael Bay's Transformers, and War from Cybertron. Certainly plenty of material to use for a robust story to enjoy, isn't it?

On the right inner tab, we see the same used pic of prime from the back of the box packaging once again, this time with a quick bio print about Optimus Prime and how he came to possess the matrix.

Onto the "second" phase of packaging, we have the deluxe prime figure in a plastic clam shell designed as the matrix. It also has Velcro straps so you can wear the matrix around your neck.

Or you can of course, remove the straps so you can display your prime figure on your shelf still in its display-friendly matrix, completely able to stand upright on its own. Nice touch.

The back of the "matrix" shows the same reused prime image once again and what seems to be a gunmetal rear insert.

Prime is on a separate tray held by the new Hasbro eco friendly cardboard twisty ties. the clam shell only has a few plastic tabs and sections taped so removing the tray is quick and painless. It also means that you can also reseal the clam shell easily for a sorta wannabe matrix replica. Without the prime figure, you can see the energy core inside the matrix which gives off a nice effect. The front inserts include multiple inserts for gold trims as well as more gunmetal pieces.

Even if this is just hollow packaging and cardboard inserts, this is a pretty nice and cool looking matrix. you can hold the handles, you wear in on your person if you reattach the straps. The only thing that could have been done left is to include even more specific plastic tray construction for a 2 piece splitting outer matrix to access the prime figure inside. If that happened, I would probably have a TF fanatical meltdown or something, followed by instant plans to fabricate an LED matrix core to turn it all into a real functioning replica. Anyways, enough of my delusions of packaging grandeur, onto the figure!

Optimus normally comes already in his robot mode, but for the review- we'll start with his vehicle mode first. No longer the old mac 10 box cab design of G1, Optimus takes on his usual truck form, but more closer to the design of Bayformers Optimus instead. Though, technically- Bay wasn't the first to put prime in this particular truck design. Optimus had this form for his G2 design, aka Laser Optimus Prime and in later redeco/incarnations in other media, Scourage, aka Nemesis Prime. Despite the design choice, this is definitely and instantly recognized as a G1 inspired paint scheme.

The molding has lots of little details without being overbearing, such as rivets, diamond cross paneling,etc. due to the mold and since this was a first edition prime, I kinda hoped for a more extravagant paint scheme. There's silver paint on this figure, but there's also lots of bare grey plastic. Tsk tsk, Hasbro. Silver on hubcaps, fender panels, headlights, and above the windshield. That's it. Grill and smokestacks are bare grey along with other little spots. Asides from that, not much to say about this vehicle mode, its straight to point, rolls well, could have more paint apps, and looks overall like a good representation of the CG model.

For size comparisons, we'll use the War for Cybertron Optimus deluxe figure.

Both have a nice metallic red on both figures, while the blues on WFC prime appears to be darker. TF Prime- Optimus is taller in vehicle mode, despite Hasbro cutting back on plastic costs and making their figures smaller these days.

However, it seems that WFC optimus has a bit more length on the TF prime Optimus. Not sure how in scale these figures are so these figures could be accurate to their proper sizes or be off as they are from 2 separate continuities. With that done, onto Robot mode.

In robot mode, Optimus has a tall and lean composure, showing G1 colors, with hints of Bayformers Optimus design throughout the figure from the head sculpt to how similar his backpack appears to look similar to Bayformers Optimus(at least to the toy model, not so much for the actual TF Prime CG model).With much more exposed grey, this is where I would've preferred more paint work on the figure. Like the Vehicle mode, detailed, but still streamlined as not to clutter the "flow" of the overall design.

Nothing too notable about Optimus' articulation. Pretty standard stuff.

Optimus doesn't have many joints, but most of them work well for him. Note that I said most, not all. His shoulder joints has great range and motion and even has a secondary swivel joint in the actual shoulder armor for transformation/range, BUT the base of the shoulder to torso joint is not centered. Whats that mean? It means Optimus looks great standing in a calm static pose with his arms to his side. Rotating the arm up for any pose(shooting,etc) leaves Optimus looking like he has a broken shoulder or very bad drooping shoulders. Hardly fitting for the leader of the Autobots, right?

That said, Optimus is still very capable of accomplishing some poses and his legs have a great balance to them, especially the foot/ankle joints. they're able to allow wide leg poses and give enough support for even one legged poses. If only the arms were this awesome...

Optimus doesn't come with many accessories, just one. His buster cannon. It doesn't shoot, or have any gimmicks.

This isn't a bad thing though. Accessories don't have to have gimmicks; they just have to enhance the figure and the buster cannon does just that.

Even with Optimus' shoulder "problems", he's able to still look cool and impressive with the addition of his trusty buster cannon. I would've loved 2 cannons, and include a blade(or 2), or even a photon rifle, but this IS a deluxe so one accessory can be acceptable. I suppose...

That said, since the cannon is essentially just a piece of molded plastic, I would've like to have seen more paint apps on here as well. The cannon is bare gray plastic with some energon blue and gunmetal.

For size comparisons, we see Optimus is tauting Bucky Capt. with a high five and Bucky doesn't seem to be havin it. Prime in his Robot mode seems to fall closer to the 7 and a half inch height, so he's a bit taller than some 6 inch scale transformers.

So Overall, how does this Optimus stack up? Is he "prime?" In my honest opinion-I've seen better prime figures. Not to say that this figure is crap or anything, but the cons against it are kinda important.

CONS:

-For figures, using less plastic and made smaller, you would think some sort compensation would counter balance the quality. Like paint apps. Overall, this figure feels like its been cheated out of some much warranted paint work, even for a deluxe.

- The shoulder joint issue really kills the pose options and look.

- since a non-gimmick accessory was included, another inclusion would have been nice considering the usage of weapons shown in source material.

PROS:

- for a deluxe, it does well to represent the CG model in a small scale

- Has all the usual staple of joints most figures these day, should have.

-transformation is fun,simple, with a bit of precision needed to not mess things up.

-Packaging is simply amazing. Any TF fan could appreciate the work put into such a nice little presentation.

FINAL WORD:

A decent figure. Not horrid, but definitely not a must pick up. It feels as if this figure's been cheated out of something. more paint. more weapons. better joint placement. SOMETHING. ANYTHING. The biggest and quickest fix would be the shoulders. That's definitely a buy killer. SDCC packaging is great, but unless you really dig that packaging and will be satisfied with paying essentially for just that, I say pass or wait on this figure. That, or wait on the voyager mold which looks to potentially be simply amazing. That's been my thoughts on it at least. Thanks for viewing.

Quick pics from WonFes 2011 Summer so far

Just a quick pic post since Wonder Festival 2011 Summer is underway.

The upcoming devilman-Amon figure by Sentinel coming out in September is looking great so far.

Took me a moment to figure it out, but this is from Shonen Jump's Shaman King property.

From the highly acclaimed series, FLCL(Fooly Cooly) comes a new figure for the very cool robot, "lord" Canti.

CANTI!!!! Unless this is some crazy super expensive limited item, this is as good as bought!

Not sure what this is, but for a moment- I thought it was from tekkaman blade. It certainly has some similar design aesthetics. I remember seeing this at the last wonfes as well.

As a ZOE fan, how could anyone say no to getting anubis??!!

I can't wait to see Anubis colored!!

A look at Riobot's upcoming Gurren Lagann figure. Details are looking pretty good so far.

There was another pic I found earlier,but it ended corrupt in the upload so that sucks, but it shows the jetwing pack with slightly sculpt on the shoulder armor. Either way, I'm looking forward to see how Riobot does with their Gurren Lagann and ZOE line...

Not sure what series or property this is from, but I really like the look of it.

It wouldn't be WonFes without at least one saber somewhere. Here's the version of Saber in the red outfit from the last psp Fate game. Not a bad Sculpt...

Even this isn't a figma or anything, I think this was a very cool piece that should be shown.Plus, Alter Saber being more of a badass on a bike? how could anyone refuse?

More Revoltech goodies for the upcoming MLA(MuvLuv Alternative) line from Kaiyodo. The EF-2000 is looking pretty slick with its sniper rifle. I wonder if it'll come with its massive arm blade attachments....

Not sure if this is another robot damashii set coming out, but look at all those weapons!!! I've been looking for an excuse to get an m9 to add to my FMP collection. I might have a great reason now...

Here's what looks like some sort of BRS variation, possibly from the upcoming BRS game. Totally gettin kingdom Heart vibes alittle.Wait! is that a pistol?? Just when you thought BRS wasn't a badass before...

Ooh, a chance to have BRS' bike from the game?? my poor wallet...

Coming out later on, A BRS game version figma looking very detailed and cool.

I'm really diggin the look of the cannon and her booster parts.

The upcoming new Drossel figma, based on her design on the recently finished series, Fireball Charming. Looks like she'll be sporting plenty of cool accessories like her other figma did. There will also potentially be a release for drossel's awesome unicycle bike as well. I'm such a sucker for accessories.

And to finish on wicked note, massive figure of Shinonono Houki for the last season's Infinite Stratos series. Look at the design and the massiveness of that! I would really love to see more IS merchandise made, I really like the designs.( or maybe I just dig mecha musume design in general,heh)

Pics were found from amiblo,twitpic tags,flickr, toysdaily, and other forums.

Revoltech Jehuty Review

A wayy overdo review, but here it is finally- the review for kaiyodo's Yamaguchi Revoltech series, No. 103 Jehuty from the Zone of the Enders game series. I wanted to wait til my custom effect part for Jehuty's Burst attack was finished, but progress is moving at snail speed right now. I'll just have to do a separate update video and post about it when its completed. With that out of the way, lets get to it!

Jehuty is no. 103 in the yamaguchi line for Kaiyodo's Revoltech line, ratchet-jointed figures known for being able to be posed in very dynamic poses and hold said poses for almost an indefinite amount of time. Every aspect from the sculpt, the joint placement, to utilized toy technology shows that jehuty is definitely a later generation revoltech and how after more than 100 figures, Kaiyodo is improving more and more with each and every figure. Though, this figure is by no means a perfect figure, it still has some very noteworthy positive marks going for it.

Early revoltech figures were known to have some great details for their size, but some inconsistency in the quality of certain sculpted areas were questionable. There was also some revoltech owners who spoke of some figures having symmetry problems. While there will always be some QC issues with some things, one thing can be said about Jehuty and this figure- Its a very detailed mech design and this figure does a pretty awesome job recreating that design and feel with all the details placed on it. From the proportions to the hard sculpted metatron "veins", one can't really complain about the look of this figure.

Like previous revoltech releases and even figma releases, you can expect extra hands for numerous posing options. The sets of hands include: a pair of directional pointing hands(right side), a pair of closed fists(middle), a pair of calm relaxed opened hands(left), and one special hand used to simulate a grab function from the game used on everything from environmental objects to enemies. All to be thrown, swung like a weapon, or used like a shield(top right).

Also included with the accessories are a pair of swap-able landing stabilizers for the legs when jehuty is planted a surface and not in flight mode(bottom right), one active melee mode for the blade weapon(middle right), one active long range mode for the blade weapon(middle left), a pair of energy wings used to simulate flight thrust(left).

It doesn't end there with the accessories, there's more! There's also a pair of double jointed elbow joints for more range in the arms as well as extending the arms for those really cool "hack n' slash" style poses( bottom right), a revol-container to store accessories or the ones that can fit at least(middle), a slash effect part/barrier effect part(left of revol-container), one enemy radar ring(top), a standard base with a revoltech joint(top right), and adapter pieces to give height when using the base as well as using the radar ring(top left).

Though not as weapon heavy on the accessories as the getter robo revoltechs or other releases, jehuty certainly comes with a plethora of accessories to recreate many poses.

Instead of showcasing every boring angle and each and every range of all of Jehuty's articulation, I've decided to show a pose that uses all of its joints as well as other poses to show how articulate this figure can be or how great it can look.

Here's another angle of this awkward weird looking pose. Almost all of Jehuty's joints consist of revoltech joints except a few areas which have swivel peg joints. This is a pretty notable shift from how some of the earliest revoltech releases saw only some revoltech joints with lots of doll cut style swivels.

Here's Jehuty in flight mode wieiding its extended blade in melee mode and using its grabbing hand. Normally, the wrists have very small revoltech joints in them(possibly the smallest revoltech joints ever. I've yet to see this joints sold seperately like some of the bigger sized joints), but the grabbing hand has a static peg for stability instead. Well thought, Kaiyodo.

Here's another angle. Fun fact- the revol-container is painted the same color as the many metal crates/plates featured in the game that is used by the grab function.

And here we see Jehuty displayed with the radar ring. Its attached via a special adapter piece used between the stand and the Jehuty figure itself. It has a very nice aesthetic to it to recreate moments in the game. However, that's where my praise for its functionality ends. Due to space restrictions, posing with the radar ring can be a chore or at least requires some serious patience. The more extravagant the pose with it, the more you'll have to adjust everything to get it all to look just right.By itself, the radar ring only looks cool, but gets in the way for playability and easy posing. That's not to say that it doesn't have other uses...

When combined with the effect part and certain poses, Jehuty can now be shown with a cool energy slash effect part.

Or when posed in other ways and other angles, Jehuty can now be shown utilizing its barrier shield.

Or can be launching points for the projectile looking "options" normally placed on jehuty's hips. These "options" are used for all forms of offensive manner in the game so this is another nice aesthetic touch for the ring. Personally, I would've preferred a larger ring since the game does feature the radar ring in different sizes. This would allow easier posing options as well as keep all the other uses for the ring as well.

This is more of a positive mark for revoltechs in general, but Jehuty benefits from this as well. More revoltechs, more accessories. Many, which can be interchanged or added on.

Overall, this revoltech release for Jehuty isn't a bad one, just not perfect. Its very attractive,has great sculpt, nice paint apps, incredibly articulated, and has lots of accessories. However, the accessories make this figure feel less like something to play with and more like just a display piece(a nice one though,heh). Which is a shame, because it just screams to be played with. With that all said, its another good revoltech release from Kaiyodo to some & an answered prayer to Zoe fans who've been wanting more Zoe merchandise(myself included ^^;)

As an additional closing note, this is what I have so far for the custom burst attack effect part I've been working on so far. I'm still working on the internal sculpt and the paint work.