So on the left is Skullgrin and on the right, Straxus. Both are a heavy artillery tank or mobile gun with numerous auxiliary 3mm clip weapons; a rocket pod, mounted gun and smoke launcher. In this mode, Skullgrin has the best colour scheme for realism, with a wintery feel. Straxus is very, very blue and while that's alright, it is a weird colour for a military vehicle. He also sports a nasty patch of 'default grey' in the middle.
Straxus is obviously who this mould was created for and his robot mode looks rather imposing! The pickaxe is a nice, iconic touch and the colour scheme is now broken up with red and grey with the metallic gold central torso. Still predominantly blue, though and that is where my issue lies with him.
Now Skullgrin and as you can see I have mistransformed the pickaxe into a pitchfork! This to me is the more successful robot mode as all the panels have opened up to reveal this bloody red and dark grey, differentiating both modes in much more of a stark manner than with Straxus. Skullgrin achieves a unique robot mode, not merely looking like an ill-fitting repaint.
So all in all, I think Skullgrin is superior even though the mould is obviously Straxus through-and-through. The key lies in the revealing of a different colour pallet and thus a more obvious transformation. I'd love to get a hold of a United Straxus as he seems to lack the 'default grey' but if you think the Generations version is too blue, then you ain't seen nothin' yet!
-Mattersmasher
4 comments:
I agree with you on all accounts.
Skullgrin's head sculpt came out of some poor Hasbro employee's nightmares. The United version of Straxus is much better, but Skullgrin is still superior.
I initially thought Skullgrin's head sculpt looked like creamed crap, but I was so very wrong.
You should give United Straxus a go should you ever find yourself in need of burning disposable income. I think his black lifeless eyes add more to head sculpts character than the Hasbro yellow.
I'd love to. The blue paint on the face does liven up the sculpt - how does the shiny paint look and where is it?
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