If you have Spray, or read my reviews on the previous versions, then you pretty much know what to expect here. Other than the Chrome there are a few color differences like the lack of eyes, but the more desirable yellow faceplate. I was a little disappointed that iGear elected not to paint in the windows though. I may try and look into paints that work well over vac-metal and black out those puppies myself, or look to Reprolabels to bail me out on this one.
The only other change is in the articulation. One of the big appeals of the MW line is having classics TFs in modern, articulated figureform and ChromeSpray takes a step back from that. All the same great articulation is there, but the figure wasn’t designed to have that thin layer of chrome covering the pieces and that makes the figure a little difficult to move around. It’s possible I’m being more careful than I need to be, but the creaking and the blue flecks of paint give me a little pause. It may ultimately be best to wear down the vac-metal and make the articulation a little more functional.
Overall, if you love this line, love Seaspray, or just love toys of characters voiced by Alan Oppenheimer, this guy might be for you. He’s a pretty basic repaint, but the G2 colors might just grab at the nostalgia of a slightly younger generation. Or this might be a situation where this Spray simply replaces the original one on display. That already happened to Rager afterall. ChromeSpray is still available at iGear’s shop and hopefully my shipping issues are an exception and not the rule.
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ooh, shiny thing!
/Cat
I think with paint redeco’s/variants, it comes down to a personal taste in aesthetics. You like, you buy; you don’t like, move on to the next thing. with these three, there are just enough differences they can be separate characters, like your Hubcap/CJ comparison. (or BB/CJ, the Seekers, Rumble/Frenzy, your last pic, etc)
That sucks about the box being damaged in transit. I’ve had a few problems the last few weeks with sending out my ebay auctions. One return (“failure to pick up”) almost looked like it had been stomped on! did yours go through Texas, too? LOL
also, two things that would annoy me: “Till”[sic] means to turn over ground, as for planting, or storage like a money till. Then there’s the “funky hollow type” that’s impossible to read.
fyi- glitch in p2 link = whole article on second page. 😉
Yeah, bulletproof packaging, it ain’t. Sorry to hear it, bro. I hate it when that happens.
I’m always a sucker for chrome paint on my figures, but given those comparison shots, I might just stick with the first version. It’s nicely tricked out, by the way. And I love that last pic with him “catching up.” LOL. 🙂
I would argue that the biggest fail here lies in not evening out the seams more properly. The alt mode really does suffer for it. But as a G2 update/homage figure it ought to suit completists of the era just fine.
Sweet review, neat toy, great pictures.
I was thinking about getting this, but eventually decided against doing so. As you’ve said, vac-metal coatings and articulation do not always get along well.
Still, nifty to get to see him for a bit!
I got mine in the mail last week. My box wasn’t damaged (despite the bubble mailer), but I had the same issues with the toy itself. Looks sharp (or at least it will look sharp after some Reprolabel windows), but the joints are super creaky and tight because of the chrome. The ball joints are already flaking.
I tighten joints all the time with clear nail polish. Is there a similar trick to loosen joints? If not, like you, I may just spin the joints around a bit to get all of the chrome off of it.
I detest chrome on my figures, most because I’ve never had one that held up at all. The things are usually flaking right out of the package (as you’ve noted, yours is already shedding). I have an awesome Takara Car Robots Fire Convoy that my friends got me for my birthday the year it came out (before any of us knew it would be imported to America as Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime), and hwile it’s an awesome figure, its chest is now almost entirely a dull gray plastic rather than the shiny chrome it started as. And most of that happened long after I’d stopped “playing” with it and left it on the shelf as a display piece. The same thing happened with my Tripredacus Agent and a few other Transformers of that era, before Hasbro/Takara wised up and stopped vacuum-chroming their figures. That crap just does not hold up.
still gotta get my hands on one of these…
Noisy, you might want to try sticker sheets, available at Staples or other office supply stores, for the windows. They come in many colors, All you have to do is cut them down to the window size, peel and stick. It should work better than painting over the chrome.