FansToys FT-24 Rouge

(Femme-Bot Friday #55)

Many Third Party companies attempted to fill the Arcee-shaped void in the TransFormers toy lineup in the years before Hasbro and Takara Tomy released their own, official Deluxe class figure... and, strangely, other Third Parties are still churning them out. Every single attempt has had its detractors, but none of them seemed to fully capture the essence of Arcee better than the TransFormers Legends version released back in 2015...

...Until, that is, I clapped eyes on images of FansToys Rouge - a Masterpiece-analogue attempt at creating an animated movie-accurate Arcee in both robot and vehicle modes. Toy World may have released their Leia earlier, but its proportions - and particularly the head sculpt - look pretty awful to me, and the vehicle mode appears to be missing its back end. Rouge, meanwhile, looked to be utterly gorgeous, well-proportioned... and was to come packaged with a variety of faces, including one version featuring the red visor she deployed all of once in the animated movie.

Recently, I've learned to be cautious when it comes to Third Party figures, owing to a few mishaps over the last few years... but the images of Rouge were enough for me to throw caution to the wind and preorder her. In the month or so leading up to her official release, several YouTubers were granted early access, and complained about flimsy joints and a ridiculously overcomplicated backpack. Undaunted, I awaited the arrival of mine and (partly thanks to cancelling another, delayed figure) the shipment containing Rouge arrived during the week after my birthday... So let's take a look, and see how bad (or, y'know, good) she really is...

Packaging:
I have to say I'm a little bored whenever one of the Third Parties just blatantly apes the old Masterpiece box style - black background, white frame, G1-style black/yellow boxes for the product number/name... it's not just unoriginal, it almost comes off like an intentional attempt at being misleading... But at least Masterpiece figures have a slightly different box style these days, so this almost becomes 'retro'. It's also a fully-gloss finish, where Masterpiece tends to be matte with some Spot UV gloss elements, but I'm not fussed about that kind of thing, particularly on a Third Party product's box. It's nice when it's there but, considering the expense of some of these figures, I'd rather not start thinking about the added cost of a special finish to the box. On the upside, the box is not unnecessarily large, given that the contents are protected within a sturdy polystyrene shell. The top of the box is virtually square, with the sides long and slim - looking for all the world like it might just contain a doll. The real shame of the packaging is that, with the figure inside encased in polystyrene, it couldn't be made a full-on display box, with a window and a flap on the front.

Given the utter beauty of Rouge in all the photos I'd been seeing online, the box art is a huge disappointment, bordering on outright ugly. The pink is largely washed out, yet the 'white' remains quite grey and, despite the fact that the robot drawing is clearly based on the Rouge figure rather than some idealised clone of the Arcee animation model, the proportions are off and the head is too small. Vehicle mode is similarly rendered, with all the figure's transformation seams and visible hinges... I do wonder why the didn't just use photographs of the toy rather than hand-drawn artwork, considering the figure could certainly adopt a pose similar to the one depicted.

The back of the box shows off the figure and her accessories very well, including a couple of shots taken using a display base which is not included in the package. What's most amusing is that the one photo of the Rouge figure in a reclining pose has per propped up with a block of something-or-other. I know lots of Femme-Bots just don't balance adequately for that sort of post, but it feels a bit cheaty to actually do that for a product shot on the packaging.

Rouge comes with a massive three paragraph bio which seeks to combine her vicious psychopath persona from the contemporary comics with her motherly, protective character from the old animated movie, but also includes a couple of almost Budiansky-style details about her skills and abilities. The final paragraph slips more towards the Fun Publications style, almost contradicting the earlier text to emphasise that she's "a girly-girl at her core". No numerical breakdown of her of her strength, intelligence, firepower, etc., which is a bit of a shame, but that sort of thing is perhaps best left to collectors' cards, if included.

Inside the box, Rouge is packaged in robot mode within her polystyrene shell. There was a sheet of thin, protective plastic laid over her front, and her accessories are bagged separately - spare forearms and flatter chest plate in one, faces and guns in the other - with the instruction booklet and collectors card slipped in between the polystyrene and the box. Sadly, the collectors' card features only a CGI image of the toy on the front and the same text bio, plus a couple of photos, on the back.


Vehicle Mode:
Arcee traditionally tends to be a pink and white retro-futuristic sports car with more than a little of Penelope Pitstop's car from Wacky Races. FansToys' take on the vehicle is, by and large, very familiar. At first glance, it looks just like an upscaled version of Takara Tomy's version of Arcee, but it doesn't take long before the altered curves and angles become apparent. First and foremost, the front end of the car appears to have an almost upward slant because it runs at a shallower angle than the wings. The white raised area toward the back of the bonnet is much taller, too - obscuring a good part of the forward view for anyone who would be seated in the vehicle. The headlights are translucent blue plastic with a pattern of vertical lines that don't quite disguise the two very obvious pegs sticking through holes in the plastic backing, while her side indicators are simply small blocks of yellow, painted on the sides of the white headlight frames, with no supported sculpt detail. She has the traditional curved, triangular design toward the front, but the white section of the nose seems smaller than average - not least because it doesn't reach all the way across to the edges of the pink section of bonnet. The grille is likewise smaller than usual, and painted a dark gunmetal.

The back end is almost identical in construction to Deluxe class Arcee, if not the specific curves and angles, and of course it's largely pink rather than white, because it's made up entirely of car panels rather than having the robot's legs partially visible with panels filling in the gaps around them. The tail lights are fully painted, and the legs are visible, poking out below the bottom edge of the car shell. The 'teardrop' nacelle thing on the back is proportionally smaller than Arcee's, hugs the body of the vehicle more closely, and seems to be angled downward rather than straight ahead. The centre section of the back is cursed by a number of obvious seams, because it's actually made up of four separate panels that don't themselves tab together - the structure of the back end is held together by a set of tabs on the top surface only. This is probably the sensible option, as the rear panels are rather small, and tabbing them all together may have increased the chances of breakage.

The cockpit is perhaps a little more detailed than the Deluxe class toy, with a die-cast steering wheel and a seprate, painted console coming out of the dashboard and sloping down into the area between the seats. To be honest, the cockpit is probably the weakest part of vehicle mode - yes, it has a complete steering wheel and two seats, but you can also clearly see the robot's feet folded up, not to mention the ground beneath the vehicle, through numerous gaps in the cockpit area. I also think the sides of the car seem artificially thick compared to the width of the seats inside the cockpit. The Deluxe class Arcee toy has a compact cockpit, certainly, but this almost looks like a single-seater that's had its cockpit artificially split down the middle. I'm also a little puzzled by the colouring around the cockpit, as her 'doors' are the white panels on either side - as indicated by the sculpted doorhandles toward the rear of each - then there's a wide pink section on the inside of the door, with one corner in grey because it's a robot part folded outward from the centre to reveal the seat. Given that this is an open-topped vehicle, I don't really see the need for doors, let alone how thick they seem to be. I appreciate the effort that went into trying to include a cockpit, but it's not particularly well done. Then again, I suppose it's no worse than the cockpit on the original Masterpiece Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, and one can hardly expect it to be Alternators/Binaltech-style.

I've often thought that Arcee's vehicle mode in the Animated movie appeared to be a softer, curvier version of Blurr's, and the similarity is particularly apparent on Rouge. FansToys have their own Blurr analogue - Jabber - on the way, and his vehicle mode follows this pattern, albeit keeping him as a hovering vehicle, where Arcee almost always has wheels. All four wheels on this figure are free-rolling and feature rubber tyres, though the rear wheels are a little stiff on mine.

The most unfortunate aspect of this vehicle mode is that, due to certain aspects of Rouge's transformation, her eyes are visible from the front, peeking out under the bonnet. It's not something you'd see from most angles, but knowing her head is under there and easily visible is a little distracting from an otherwise well-executed vehicle mode. She also has no apparent weapons storage, nor any obvious means of mounting them for use in vehicle mode. This is probably a good thing, to be honest, considering the impact of all those 5mm sockets on the average, official TransFormers toy's vehicle mode...


Robot Mode:
While I can't say I've really been clamouring for a Masterpiece-analogue Arcee, there's no arguing that she has - and Femme-Bots generally have - been under-represented in the toyline until fairly recently. Hasbro, in particular, seemed to be of the impression that nobody wanted 'female' transforming robots and actively avoided the concept for many years, while Takara Tomy released the occasional Femme-Bot, and featured female supplementary characters (not least the Godmaster Mega in their 'Super-God Masterforce' G1 continuity). I'd honestly thought that my particular Arcee requirements had been met in the Takara Tomy TF Legends toy, Mastermind Creations' Azalea figures and with Iron Factory's Pink Assassin, but then completely fell in love with the early CGI images and testshot photos of Rouge. Since I am attempting to make an ongoing feature of Femme-Bot Friday, I didn't take much convincing to preorder a Third Party, Masterpiece-sized version of the most widely-known Femme-Bot in the franchise.

The problem with Arcee is that, as one of the earliest-appearing Femme-Bots in western TransFormers media, her design was not conducive to creating transforming toys. There was a strong element of an idealised, almost cheesecake-style humanoid female form, just with a few bits of robot junk tacked on for 'authenticity' among the larger, beefier, blocker robots with obvious vehicle parts making up their bodies that had been there from the start. Rouge does a very good job of emulating this, with slender arms, a narrow waist, and lissome, limber-looking legs. Her hands, designed in the form of a loose grip, are appropriately small, and her feet are modestly-sized and, thankfully, don't feature the overt stiletto heels applied to far too many Femme-Bots as an lazy means of telegraphing their femininity. Arcee's traditional behind-the-shoulder bulk is present, albeit a little patchy, panelly and gappy, not to mention perhaps a touch larger than on other versions of the figure (that said, compared to the official Deluxe class toy and the likes of Pink Assassin, it seems fairly modest).

The overall figure kind of looks a little Barbie-ish, particularly with the default, slightly-busted chest plate, though the proportions of bust, waist and hips are far more realistic than any Barbie I've seen. The alternate chest plate is flatter and, (arguably) more accurate to the original character model, but neither are overly pert or Wonderbra-esque... which is actually quite surprising for a Third Party figure. The default plate features a very subtle curviness, without going anywhere near the extent where the chestplate almost screams "whoo! robo-boobs!" the way even some official TransFormers Femme-Bots do. The alternate plate can be switched in by unscrewing the back of each plate and replacing the die-cast panel, the plastic screw supports and the screws themselves, as they're slightly different between chest plates. Personally, I don't see the point of the flatter version, as it seems a little too flat and angular to me. The tops of her thighs feature a pronounced 'buttock' bulge, even though the pink groin/knickers section doesn't feature a sculpted 'butt crack' - just some fairly basic armour panel detailing. I'm glad the latter was omitted, but I'm not sure the former was entirely necessary either way. There are slight gaps through the torso from either side, but this is nothing particularly unusal, and I don't find it especially striking - in fact, it's barely noticeable from most angles unless you're actively looking for it.

One feature I particularly like is that her knee joints are built around the rear wheels - it's far more efficient than having them in the backs of the hips, like the Deluxe class toy, and serves as a visual indicator that this is a robot that disguises itself as a road vehicle of some kind.

Paintwork appears fairly minimal, but there's plenty of blanket coverage in white and the darker pink, largely following the pattern of Takara Tomy's version of the toy. The biceps and a section of forearm just below the elbow are painted a cool pastel pink, a wide band around the waist is grey with the little panel of tech detail on her belly picked out with pink and red, the area leading up to the chest is painted white, and the legs are entirely white apart from the pink kneecaps, dark gunmetal ankle guards and incidental details on her hips and above the knees picked out in a dark colour, possibly the same metallic colour as the ankle guards. She features plastic parts in white, grey and pink, with the colour matching between those and the paint being virtually perfect.

Rouge comes packaged with a small, grey pistol and a larger, pink handgun with an extended barrel and a stock attachment. They're effectively FansToys versions of the guns packaged with Generations/TF Legends Arcee, and both are of a decent size as well as being reasonably well detailed and painted. The photos on the packaging indicate that the darker pink barrel section can be removed to create a slightly smaller pistol, but it seems very firmly inserted, if not glued in place, on mine, so I'm reluctant to try to remove it. They have slots in the front of their grips which allow the stock hands to tab into them to improve their hold on the weapons and, while both fit perfectly well, the grey weapon is made of two halves, with the slot in the seam, and the grip on mine separates ever so slightly when tabbed into her hands. Aside from this, the grey pistol is my personal favourite of the two - the pink handgun/rifle doesn't quite work for me. The alternate hands are much the same, just without the tab - they can still hold the guns, just not as securely, and I suspect they're mainly included for posing Rouge with the pink gun in its rifle configuration, so she can wield it two-handed.

Much of the chatter online regarding Rouge and her nearest competitor, ToyWorld's Leia, has been complaints about the head sculpts for both, in terms of the general look and the size relative to the body. For my money, Rouge is the best we've had so far - proportionally even better than Hasbro/Takara Tomy's own effort, the face seems to be perfect within the helmet, and the choice of six different faces (two, technically - anime-style or more 'Western', just that the latter has four different expressions and one variant with her red visor, seen all of once in the animated movie) adds further value. That one of the open-mouthed faces is a subtle variant of another, where the eyes are only partially painted to give the impression they're partly closed, seemingly in response to some comments about the apparently lascivious appearance of the original face. I'm in two minds about which style of face I prefer and currently have her on display with the wider-eyed, smaller-mouthed anime version, but I do quite like the one with a subtle smile. All of them, bar the visored version, have the eyes painted a gorgeous metallic cyan, and any of the six allow this interpretation of Arcee to live up to her particular sobriquet, with the all-important - not to say trademark - bold, scarlet lips of the animated movie's animation model. Swapping them out is simplicity itself - open the top of Arcee's bonce, then pull the face off from the front and plug the next one in. If I had a complaint about Rouge's faces, it'd be that none of them look remotely robotic, and lack the hard outlines of her facial structure seen in the animation model.


I'm not going to lie: transforming Rouge is not something I would call a 'fun' experience. The engineering is such that several points have negligible clearance for the movement they're required to make, and getting everything lined up in vehicle mode is a pain in the backside. The upper and lower halves of her body couldn't be more different: the legs are relatively simple, with two extending joints in each - one above the knee, which allows the leg to bend back on itself sideways, the other mid-shin that serves simply to give the feet another couple of millimetres clearance to get the toes where they need to be, folded into the belly area - but the upper half is a nightmare at several points. Where many Arcee figures use the front wings of the car to make the shoulder protrusions, Rouge compacts almost the whole of each side into the rear wings, and the headlight sections swing in to become part of the robot's body (similar to the way the Masterpiece jets compact the lateral sections of the torso into the centre of the jet) after the bonnet has been fed through the internal framework to fold up into her back. This part of the transformation can be troublesome in either direction due to the lack of clearance. The shoulder protrusions are joined to the backs of the headlight sections by a multiply-hinged die-cast arm, which need to get past another hinged die-cast arm which handles transformation of the head and collar from the centre of what becomes her torso. While mine is nowhere near as floppy as some of those I've seen in video reviews, there's not a great deal of resistance in any of these hinged arms, and certainly no means to fix them in any position, so they do tend to move about and get in the way during the transformation process. The only other points of contention are that, while the shoulders peg into place very securely, the chest plate has a habit of popping off the two small pegs inside the belly that are supposed to keep it in place, the collar doesn't clip in place very firmly over the hinge running across the body at shoulder level... and then there's the connection between the upper and lower halves of the body: one small and rather wobbly peg, inside a hinged section which doubles as part of the dashboard in vehicle mode.

The weirdest thing about her transformation is the fact that the top of the head has to be opened - as if to switch faces - to allow the vehicle mode ground clearance. This strikes me as a bit of a design flaw, particularly in that it still leaves her face visible below the front of the vehicle. That said, almost everything pegs together very securely in vehicle mode and, while it can be tricky to, for example, get the backs of the heels pegged onto the insides of the car's wings, failing to do so fully doesn't result in them flopping down and causing problems.

Another of the big complaints I've read about Rouge is that it's difficult to get her to stand. Admittedly, her feet are proportionally smaller than those of the average official TransFormer - taking Generations/TF Legends Arcee for comparison, the length of their feet is idential, despite something like 6cm difference in height. Even if you ignore Arcee's heel spur (itself a little over half a centimetre), her feet are still proportionally larger than Rouge's. Still, Rouge has the advantage of a small amount of ankle rock along with a degree of tilt very similar to that of Arcee, not to mention rotation joints above the ankle and below the hip. The hip joints themselves are very similar to the Generations/TF Legends toy, with a small amount of compression included for the purposes of transformation. She actually balances very well as long as her weight is evenly distributed, but therein lies the real problem - with die-cast components in her upper and lower body, the weight distribution is all over the place, and the large backpack - despite being mostly plastic - tends to pull her backward. The fixed waist adds to the problems, as being able to rotate or tilt the body at the waist would have made her easier to balance. Slightly higher or larger heels would have been a great benefit, but she can stand unaided perfectly well with a bit of fiddling. The upper body is just as good - the shoulders are ball-jointed, the elbows double-jointed, and she has rotation at both the bicep and in the middle of her forearm (the latter facilitating the change to alternate hands). The wrists and fingers are pinned allowing for a fairly natural range of movement, and making it easy to get her guns into her hands. The neck can move forward and back very slightly, with the head then mounted on a ball joint with excellent freedom of movement without being so loose that it flops.

I've been getting a lot more jittery about Third Party figures since the likes of Perfect Effect's Leonidas and, to a lesser extent, FansProjects' Comera and recently ended up cancelling my preorder for TFEVO's inaugural release, Hot Fire, due to the bad press it was getting on forums and YouTube. I was incredibly reluctant to cancel Rouge, despite a fair bit of negative feedback turning up about her, because it looked like a nigh-perfect G1 Arcee. Having no previous personal experience of FansToys, the simple fact that Rouge is their 24th figure tended to suggest the company know their stuff and were unlikely to produce an absolute duffer. While certain aspects of her transformation are far from ideal, and while I am reluctant to spend a great deal of time transforming her back and forth due to signs of potential weakness already apparent in some joints and tabs, I don't feel she's in any way flimsy, poorly constructed or otherwise overly inclined to break on handling. She looks excellent in both modes, though perhaps has a few too many visible seams and joints in vehicle mode, and is more than adequately poseable in robot mode.

For my money (£72, specifically, so a bit more expensive than ToyWorld's effort), this is the definitive Masterpiece-scale Arcee, and unlikely to be bettered anytime soon. Its transformation may seem needlessly complicated, but it's remarkably well-planned and makes a lot of sense, as well as resulting in an appropriately lithe robot, and a complete-looking car (without the need to detatch any parts, like the hands on TW Leia). If you're looking for a toy - something to be constantly played with and bashed around then, just like any Third Party product, this is not the figure to buy. Personally, I'm delighted with her, and I reckon that, though she's certainly too short for the original Masterpiece Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, she'd fit admirably alongside the more recent official G1 Masterpiece figures. She certainly has more heft than the average contemporary Masterpiece due to the abundance of die-cast components, though I'm not sure the placement of those parts is entirely ideal.

As a side-note, I'd have to say that, in a lot of ways, Floro Dery's animation models and character designs are the worst thing ever to happen to the TransFormers brand, particularly those which were created from scratch rather than based on existing toys, or those simplified from the original Japanese advertising material. Were it not for their overly-simplified, curvy look, a character like Arcee might have been more easily achievable in transforming plastic form, and we wouldn't be in a position where Takara Tomy were producing a third Masterpiece Optimus Prime with even more fake vehicle parts on its robot mode than the last one, in an attempt to more closely match the crummy - yet somehow revered - animation model of the Autobots' leader.