(Femme-Bot Friday #63)
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I find the name given to Iron Factory's take on Slipstream interestingly coincidental: I constantly referred to live action movie Megatron as 'The Shrike', a reference to a robotic killing machine in a series of Sci-Fi books by Dan Simmons, since he fits its description ("composed of razorwire, thorns, blades, and cutting edges, having fingers like scalpels") surprisingly well... It will be obvious from the images in this post that this is not a movie-style interpretation of Slipstream, yet I can't see any other reason to call her 'Shrike's Feather'... Though it's very likely I'm missing something...Packaging:
From what I've seen Iron Factory seem to put a lot more effort into the boxes for their Femme-Bots than most of the others. Their usual boxes might feature a grid or dot pattern over a plain-coloured background (often just white or black), sometimes along with an image of the figure. The Femme-Bot boxes are invariably more elaborate, featuring more colour, textures, etc. The front of this one features photographic images of Streamwing in both robot and vehicle mode, over a purple-to-teal gradient behind a fleet of jet silhouettes in pink. The sides feature ghosted images of the figure over continuations of the front's background, while the back displays the more traditional product shots - a small image of her jet mode along with the robot mode in a variety of poses. As with most of Iron Factory's figures, the IF EX- number features prominently alongside a weird title - Shrike's Feather, in this case - while the character's name, Streamwing, is easily missed on the back of the box, just above the QR code.
It's a small box, but clearly a lot of effort went into it, and it's always nice to see a Third Party figure in a uniquely-styled box that nevertheless fits their established aesthetics.
Vehicle Mode:
Streamwing is based upon Iron Factory's diminutive Seeker mold, created originally for their Tyrant's Wings set - Red (Starscream), Violet (Skywarp) and Blue (Thundercracker) versions, later extended to add the Tyrant's Fangs set (the Coneheads) and other oddities like Sunstorm and Acid Rain. The jet mode appears broadly similar to the standard Tyrant's Wing set except in colour but, due to subtle changes in the transformation, every part is unique, even where there are common details, such as the panel lining of the wings.
And it's a pretty decent jet mold, clearly based on the F-22 Raptor, but with a few embellishments, and a certain Super-Deformedness about it. The colourscheme is typical Slipstream - the body of the jet is purple, the wings and stabilisers are teal, the tailfins are black, and there's a bit of purple and silver linework. The cockpit canopy is painted teal, with exposed tech detail either side - on the tops of what would normally be the intakes - painted silver, while the nosecone is painted black. It's simple, sparing, but effective. One thing that's not immediately apparent is that the purple at the very back of the jet is paint, on the backs of her teal plastic lower legs. The colour match isn't perfect - it's very slightly less saturated, to my eye - but it's easily close enough.
Naturally, the underside of jet mode is a bit of a disaster, revealing an undersized faux-nosecone in the middle of the robot's torso, sculpted turbines... and the robot's head and limbs barely hidden below the jet's nose and wings. The only difference between Streamwing and any of the Tyrant's Wings figures is that her arms don't hinge further back on the jet, probably because her slender body isn't big enough to accommodate the necessary hinges. Instead, they simply peg onto the underside of the wings, set at a slight angle. Being generous, one could say that that tops of the shoulders, being angled back toward the body, do give the impression of intakes on either side of the nose... but I sincerely doubt this is anything other than coincidental.
One thing I'll say in favour of the way this jet has been handled is that she has full landing gear. The simple act of transforming the legs reveals a fixed, sculpted 'wheel' in each shin, while a similar rounded chunk of plastic folds down from under the nose at the front. There's not much to be said about them - they actually look pretty perfunctory - and, while the front wheel can be folded up, the two at the back have to remain deployed until she's transformed back into robot mode.
Streamwing is supplied with two slender, silver-painted guns which, at first glance, appear to be identical to the weapons supplied with the Tyrant's Wings figures. As it turns out, they're also unique to this figure, though the main difference is functional rather than cosmetic: each one has a peg on one side, so they can be plugged into the undersides of the wings, and a socket on the bottom, so they can be attached to the robot's arms in robot mode. The weapons supplied with the Seeker-analogues remain connected to the arms in jet mode, so the pegs aren't present. The guns are nicely detailed, but seem a bit too large, sticking out almost level to the very front of the cockpit. Exaggerated proportions are nothing new to TransFormers in general, however, let alone Iron Factory's line of mini-figures.
Robot Mode:
Following a very quick transformation, you have a figure not entirely dissimilar to Takara Tomy's own official Legends Slipstream, albeit with Seeker wings rather than Windblade-style turbine wings. Given that the upper surface of the jet is so similar to the Tyrant's Wings figures, I'd expected that the lower legs would be reused, even if the feet are new, but it seems that the entire set of robot parts are new designs. The thighs, certainly, are rounded and rely entirely on the ball joint at the hip - no mid-thigh joint - while the lower legs are designed to look more slender and shapely, while keeping the overall style of the IDW-style Seekers represented by Iron Factory's Starscream/Skywarp/Thundercracker-analogues. The arms are similar to those of Windsaber and the Assassin figures but, again, the sculpts are unique to Streamwing. The torso is a single piece which shows certain similarities in style to the other IF Femme-Bots, but looks almost like a TFPrime interpretation of the female Seeker with its overlapping panels of curved armour around the waist and groin. Her slender appearance is spoilt somewhat by the wide jet panel on her back, and the range of the ball-jointed wings is hindered by a second plate that folds up from her backside. This panel can be left in place, if the wings' mobility is more important, but it does the extend the jet panel on her back down to her hips.
The paintwork is strategically applied and fairly minimal, though the thighs are entirely painted silver. Spot applications of silver appear on her hands, waist and sculpted chest turbines, while the faux-nosecone is painted to match the real thing, hanging off her back. The only other paintwork specific to robot mode is the block of purple on each kneecap. Minimal though the paintwork is, I don't think Streamwing really needs anything more - this is one of those rare occasions where too much paintwork would have spoilt the figure.
Her two weapons attach to the long pegs protruding from the sides of her biceps, and look even more oversized in this mode - the back ends are massive and increase the bulk around her shoulders, while the barrels extend just beyond her hands. I can understand why they were styled after those packaged with the Tyrant's Wings figures, but their bulk should really have been adjusted for this smaller figure. On the upside, they don't get in the way of her movement - she can still raise her arms 90° out to the sides, as the protrusion from the very back of the weapons fits over her head with just enough clearance to keep the head mobile.
The head sculpt is the probably the first real disappointment among the IF Femme-Bots, being essentially a cutesified version of the normal Seeker-style head. It's really just an adjustment of proportions to the helmet, and the standard cute-but-actually-quite-bland face with perhaps a slightly more prominent nose than her predecessors. Given that Legends Slipstream had a very much a unique style of head - not quite Classics/Generations, not entirely TFAnimated - it's sad that Streamwing's head is so comparatively generic.
Streaming's transformation is vastly simplified versus the other IF Seeker-analogues, with the jet's nose section simply folding down over the back to 'reveal' the head, the arms simply unpegging from the wings rather than hinging up into place, and there's no clip on the upper surface of the legs - in jet mode, they're held in place by the buttflap panel that tabs into slots behind the robot's knees. In all honesty, I reckon they could made her a touch more bulky and kept the transformation the same, though her head would have had to be smaller to fit that scheme... and the oversized, cutesy head is one of the defining features of Iron Factory's Femme-Bots.
Along with the simplified transformation comes much reduced articulation, sadly. Where the other IF Seeker-analogues are approximately the same size as an official Legends class figure, with the articulation of a Deluxe, Streamwing feels much closer to the top end of Legends class levels of articulation. The ball jointed neck and shoulders are par for the course, but she has ball jointed elbows in place of hinged elbows and bicep swivel. She doesn't have wrist articulation, waist swivel or a separate thigh swivel to complement the ball jointed hips, but she does have a ball joint on the inside of each ankle. Even though she's lacking many of the joints featured on the other jets, she's remarkably poseable and surprisingly stable, given the strange shape of her feet.
While she doesn't come with one of the transparent plastic stands of her own, she is supplied with an adaptor so she can make use of someone else's in jet mode - it plugs in over the robot's waist, giving her a mounting point on the underside of the jet. Her built-in mounting point is on her back so, to use it in robot mode, it's necessary to hinge both the nosecone and the butt-flap out of the way.
Much as I like Iron Factory's take on Femme-Bots, I have to admit I found this one a little disappointing. I don't own any of their standard Seeker-analogues, but I've seen from photos and video reviews online that they're vastly more intricate and, while I'm not inclined to buy any of them, they do look as if they'd be more fun to play around with. Of course, with those, you're almost committed to buying the full set to obtain the Ghost Starscream-analogue build-a-figure which is split between them, whereas Streamwing is an entirely standalone figure, like Windsaber and the Assassins.
In and of herself, Streamwing is not a bad figure, and looks great standing alongside her contemporaries... She cost me only a little less than an average Deluxe class figure (approx £18), but I don't feel she's overpriced... I just think she deserved to be a little more unique if she couldn't be as complex as the Seeker-analogues.
No comments:
Post a Comment