Vehicle Mode:
Straight away, this model manages to look better than the original simply because it's so extensively coated in minty green. And not just any minty green, either.. it's metallic minty green. So while Cheetor was largely bare yellow plastic (or seemed so - like this version, Cheetor's bonnet was transparent plastic painted over in plain yellow!), Tigatron is more instantly eyecatching. He has the same massive red Maximal logo printed on the bonnet, and his exhaust pipes are a lighter, though still faintly bluish metallic colour.
Taking his cue from Cheetor in one respect, the car's seats are 'tastefully' upholstered in white tigerskin. While it's the obvious thing to do, especially considering the way the pattern is revealed in robot mode, it's still very strange to see these two alien robots who, at this point in their lives, had never been to Earth, exhibiting animal patterns.
In every other significant way, this model is identical to BotCon Cheetor.
Robot Mode:
And, yet again, Tigatron manages to look far cooler than Cheetor, despite being the same mold. I don't know if it's my affection for the character (awesomely voiced by Blu Mankuma), or just the fact that white, black and metallic minty green floats my boat far more boyantly than yellow, black and metallic blue. Either way, Tigatron is superior.
The 'animal face' paint design on his chest has been adapted to be more suitable to Tigatron and his stripes, while still completely incongruous, work better on both the arms and the chest than Cheetor's spots.
Even the head mold got a different paint job - not just the face and eye colours, but there are tiny little 'whisker' lines painted on!
Naturally, this version of the mold has all the same shortcomings as Cheetor - flimsiness being the chief amongst them - but mine probably shows more signs of mold degradation than the version from the boxed set. The legs - both the ball jointed hips and the pinned knees - are particularly floppy (though not to the extent that he won't stand unaided), and the flaps on the back of his lower legs have a nasty habit of detaching during transformation. Thankfully, they do pop right back on.
It's a really weird thing that, with two instances of the same mold being used for Cheetor and for Tigatron, I prefer Tigatron in both cases. This isn't my favourite mold from Galaxy Force by a long chalk, and I never did pick up any version of GF Skids, but Tigatron manages to transcend all shortcomings. I can't remember how much I paid for him on eBay (probably over the odds), but he's not particularly easy to find these days, so it was essentially money well spent...
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