My legs are like a house of cards, I'm serious!
Unlike Rodimus and Cyclonus, I didn’t have any older versions of the Galvatron mold that was included in the “Challenge at Cybertron” three-pack. There’s a pretty good reason! Man, that mold sucks harder than your mom at a nickel convention. He always looked kinda iffy, and I was able to play with my friend Graham’s back when he came out, confirming my suspicions.
So, yay, now I have my own, and he isn’t much better. I mean, I guess he has a little more paint on him? I’m not actually sure. His robot mode sure has more paint, but his tank mode has practically none except for the treads. They really could have tried to paint something on it. It’s not like it had to be accurate to any onscreen cartoon tank or anything! They coulda had fun with it.
Once again, the left (cannonless) arm is painted over. I’m still not sure why! They’re going for cartoon accuracy, and Galvatron’s cartoon arms are purple. Entirely purple. And yet the purple-plastic arms are covered in gray paint. It’s not like that arm shows up in tank mode or anything. It doesn’t make a difference. Though in general, I do like the colors. Mostly-white toys with a much darker secondary color are always pretty.
Why did I take a photo? I could have just taken a blank Photoshop canvas and drawn an orange line.
But dude, this toy does not like to be transformed. It’s not that it’s complicated. The transformation’s probably about medium difficulty. Nothing about it is frustrating on paper. But, damn, does he like to pop apart. His arm will pop off and you’ll try to fix it and more of the arm will pop off of itself and then the backpack will pop off and then the cannon will pop off as you try to fix the arm and backpack. Later, you will lose both legs during transformation.
See, this is why I skipped him the first time.
Despite this, I may keep him. I use Energon Galvatron as my Galvatron now, and have for a number of years. But he’s huge, and space is increasingly a premium. It might be nice to try a smaller Galvatron for a while so I can actually fit in all those Sweeps. And the new Cyclonus’s Armada I have.
Some day we’ll get a good Voyager Class Galvatron. And he won’t suck! These are my hopes and dreams.
Maybe he’s “Arctic Assault Galvatron,” and needs all that gray is just camo?
Man, i was really hoping the crappiness of Galvatron would get me to stop thinking about picking this three-pack up, but it’s not. Maybe I can just find the Cyclonus cheap on eBay…
Yeah, I agree this guy is a bad mold because of the problems he has but I still like him quite a bit.
I just like having leaders that are deluxe sized. I enjoyed the prime and Megatron two pack despite Prime having a poorly convincing vehicle mode and goofy eyes. Or Megatron, despite lacking a right hand and elbow joint.
I still don’t understand why the arm is painted either but I think it was to make it cohesive with the right arm. I agree that the tank mode needed some highlights. If you think of it the cannon mode in the cartoons had some red, purple, and black highlights.
It’s not like they couldn’t have given a purple trim to the back of the tank and painted all the headlights red and all the grooves on the front of the tank a darker grey.
I’m definatly adding some paint to this guys tank mode if I manage to get him. I don’t want to break the realism of the tank mode much. So I think some darker grey paint applications, and some black would work nice. Probably just paint the front headlights orange or red.
Anyways, I love this mold despite how bad it is and I would be pretty glad if we either get a much better deluxe thats a bit sturdier and a bit taller. We know they can pull that off well. Or a voyager.
Universe Galvatron is in proper scale to Cyclonus, it’s just how small he is next to everyone but basics that is the big piss off. Thank heavens for Galvatron G even though he’s not colored as well as E-Galvy.
http://members.fortunecity.com/zobovor/galvatron_diecast_cartoon.jpg
See, how the animation model for this guys original cannon mode was like. I was thinking they could have painted purple trim like that on the back of the tank and put some black paint into the grooves.
It would work considering he’s a white tank purple trim wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary. He’s meant to be an emperor anyways and the purple trim would have given that vibe of regality to him if it was on an all white vehicle.
You know, I think that I may have gotten the only universe galvatron that was up to standard anywhere. Which makes it a shame that pretty no one else has a good copy, as this is quite a good figure when he stays in one piece. I had hoped that they would try and fix him for this threepack.
Mine is OK. He’s still kinda crumbly sometimes. But a delicate touch keeps him happy. (except for the arm…. the arm on mine is craptastic. I decided to move him across the desk, and the arm fell off… Yeah.
Maybe one day we will get a bigger Galvatron that isn’t crappy. (I LOVED him from the original movie. And through my childhood i was blissfully unaware of how he was in the latter seasons. Mostly because I was born in 88, and we didn’t have cable to pick up the re-runs. (although for a few months I DID get season one of Transformers)
I dont care about the lavender I love my Superlink Galvatron G.
Been using that as my universe/classics galvatron before the lines existed.
Henkei cyclonus matches him perfectly and the lighter blue used on botcon scourge ties the three together nicely as a set.
Size wise hes perfect, visually an upgrade from classics megatron and imposing over deluxes without being massive like the over sized energon version of the mold.
Still might check this set out if it ever hits the UK, only have one cyclonus (henkei) and would like another for use as an armada and may give his target master to scourge as a stand in for Fracas.
Bill Rawley said that the painted-over left arm on the original version must have been a mistake. The newer version may likewise be a mistake: possibly a “second-step” mistake, where the layout guy tried to do an interesting palette-swap and that included putting in a new wrong color where the old wrong color had already been.
And the Henkei version of this mold is significantly sturdier.
While I agree with the general sentiment this figure could have been better executed scaled up, I didn’t have horrible horrible problems with the popoffyness that most did. Slightly higher than average, but not as bad as the Animated battledamaged Cybertron two-pack Megatron.
I like the painted arm… Inverting the colours on the opposite arm is a nice look. Making the shoulder/bicep the same colour as the turret could work, too, but I think this works better.
Thanks to the lack of paint, I’m going to dunk him in orange paint and/or dye and turn him into “Crazy Lava-Pit Galvatron”.
Doug if you do that a wash would be much better. Maybe yellow and orange to signify superheated plasma with some brown to represent the dried up plasma.
If done correctly and with some battle damage it would work better than a completely orange mass IMO.
Although, it’s not easy to do a wash like that and make it look good. I think Jinsaotme has pulled it off pretty well. Using his style for panel lines bristling with energy may be a good start.
Thanks for the advice! I’m pretty new at customizing.
being as I don’t have Rodimus or Cyclonus, I may pop for this pack.
I”m in about the same boat. Just trying to figure out who I could give Galvy to.