Death's Head
07-11-11, 08:30 AM
“I think my name is …Silverbolt. Yes! Pure, strong and fast!”
Like a fairytale prince, Silverbolt was a dashing and courageous type. This also made him a slightly pompous, almost snobbish character. Thankfully, the writers of Beast Wars gave him a bit of colour by having him develop an attraction to the Predacon Black Arachnia which stopped him becoming a slightly insufferable ‘goodest of the good guys’ wonk. His toy was also one of the better efforts of the Fuzor subline being a fusion of an eagle and wolf which gave him a Griffin-like appearance.
The beast mode itself is nicely textured with “fuzz and feathers” and the sculpt is fantastic, with a great snarling face and those big eagle talons for forelegs. Paint applications are kept to a realistic minimum, with the grey hair of the wolf dominating, with a few splashes of brown and black to break it up. The feathers also blend in a bit of white to stop the whole thing looking monotonous. Pulling on the tail feathers will also make the wings flap, which is cute until you catch the triggers for the wing mounted missile launchers and send his missiles shooting across the room. As the wings are hinged, they can also be adjusted to move up and down. A great toy to play with in this mode, Silverbolt is only spoilt somewhat by the huge amount of join lines that riddle his body.
Silverbolt’s transformation to robot mode is one of my favourites out of the Beast Wars line simply because it is so slick. The eagle legs unclip and fold down on a couple of axles to form the waist, the wolf head rotates downward through 180 degrees to clip in place over the legs, the head is revealed by rotating a small panel around in the chest cavity and the robot arms unravel and swing forward from the hind legs. The rear tail feathers then fold down to cover the jumble of parts visible from the back. If you’ve managed to retrieve the missiles, these can be held in Silverbolt’s hands as club/ spear / sword type things. The wings can be positioned how you please. They are , unfortunately, quite cumbersome and it’s a shame there’s no way to really move them out of the way, leaving Silverbolt with what look like huge shoulder pads. Still, its no worse than the Armada Seekers whom have a similar design. The robot mode itself is very nicely proportioned and has the usual incredible amount of articulation for these figures. He’s very stable and there’s no beast parts getting in the way to hinder movement. The robot mode is perhaps a little bland being mostly grey with just a few splashes of bronze and black to alleviate the monotony, and its hard not to think how much better Silverbolt would look with a few more applications of white or even some varying shades of grey mixed in. A later Universe redecco would really go to town with the paint applications at the expense of realism, trading Silverbolt’s greys for purple, red, yellow and black. Nice.
12041205
Like a fairytale prince, Silverbolt was a dashing and courageous type. This also made him a slightly pompous, almost snobbish character. Thankfully, the writers of Beast Wars gave him a bit of colour by having him develop an attraction to the Predacon Black Arachnia which stopped him becoming a slightly insufferable ‘goodest of the good guys’ wonk. His toy was also one of the better efforts of the Fuzor subline being a fusion of an eagle and wolf which gave him a Griffin-like appearance.
The beast mode itself is nicely textured with “fuzz and feathers” and the sculpt is fantastic, with a great snarling face and those big eagle talons for forelegs. Paint applications are kept to a realistic minimum, with the grey hair of the wolf dominating, with a few splashes of brown and black to break it up. The feathers also blend in a bit of white to stop the whole thing looking monotonous. Pulling on the tail feathers will also make the wings flap, which is cute until you catch the triggers for the wing mounted missile launchers and send his missiles shooting across the room. As the wings are hinged, they can also be adjusted to move up and down. A great toy to play with in this mode, Silverbolt is only spoilt somewhat by the huge amount of join lines that riddle his body.
Silverbolt’s transformation to robot mode is one of my favourites out of the Beast Wars line simply because it is so slick. The eagle legs unclip and fold down on a couple of axles to form the waist, the wolf head rotates downward through 180 degrees to clip in place over the legs, the head is revealed by rotating a small panel around in the chest cavity and the robot arms unravel and swing forward from the hind legs. The rear tail feathers then fold down to cover the jumble of parts visible from the back. If you’ve managed to retrieve the missiles, these can be held in Silverbolt’s hands as club/ spear / sword type things. The wings can be positioned how you please. They are , unfortunately, quite cumbersome and it’s a shame there’s no way to really move them out of the way, leaving Silverbolt with what look like huge shoulder pads. Still, its no worse than the Armada Seekers whom have a similar design. The robot mode itself is very nicely proportioned and has the usual incredible amount of articulation for these figures. He’s very stable and there’s no beast parts getting in the way to hinder movement. The robot mode is perhaps a little bland being mostly grey with just a few splashes of bronze and black to alleviate the monotony, and its hard not to think how much better Silverbolt would look with a few more applications of white or even some varying shades of grey mixed in. A later Universe redecco would really go to town with the paint applications at the expense of realism, trading Silverbolt’s greys for purple, red, yellow and black. Nice.
12041205