Dave's Transformers Rant: Holiday Ornaments Clear Faction Symbols Five-Pack Small Two-Packs Stocking Medium Two-Packs Snowglobe Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/Holiday1 For the most part, these do not have any individual names on the packaging. Target has them up as part of their aisle of licensed holiday stuff (locally they were between Star Wars and NASCAR, and that's probably the way it'll be everywhere). The manufacturer is Seasonal Specialties LLC. I only bought the faction symbols, five-pack and small two-packs. The others will just get comments in the Capsules based on looking them over in the store. CAPSULES Faction Symbols: Autobot or Decepticon. Durable and decent looking, although they decided to make the Decepticon symbol in light blue. Autobot is recommended, Decepticon is mildly recommended. $3.99 at Target. Five-Pack: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and small Autobot and Decepticon symbols. Probably the one to get if you only want to get one, since it has all the designs. $6.99 at Target. Small Two-Packs: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee or Megatron. Non-poseable, brittle, and a combination of high mold detail and low paint detail. Probably better off hanging Titanium 3" figures from your tree. $6.99 at Target. Stocking: Basic red stocking with white ruff, there's a decent-sized (about 4" square) lenticular motion image on the front. Didn't seem terribly durable, nor intended to be. $12.99 at Target. Medium Two-Packs: 4-5" tall statues of Megatron or Optimus Prime, each packaged with a to-scale vehicle mode. These are not poseable, and the wheels on Prime's truck mode clearly do not move (although it's otherwise about the same size and detail as the Titanium Series vehicle). Prime's in the punching-downward pose seen in a lot of the licensed material, Megatron has his arms crossed (pose used in the ornaments reviewed below). Given that I don't have a tree, getting these felt like overkill. $15.99 at Target. Snowglobe: Just looks to be Prime. Same pose as the medium ornament, but a bit smaller, and in a nice glass snowglobe on a wooden base. If I actually had room to devote to displaying snowglobes I'd have snagged it, it looks pretty nice. $15.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Except for the stocking and snowglobe, they all have about the same sort of package (the stocking hangs on a peg via stapled card, the snowglobe has similar packaging to the others but more open). While the shapes and dimensions vary, they're all in clamshell blisters (two halves taped together) stuck into boxes that are mostly open on front and back. The boxes aren't taped shut. Standard movie design elements, and Prime's face in the lower right. They all just say "HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS" along the bottom front, there's no indication of the product inside. The back has the "Earth from orbit" shot used in the posters and the licensing info along the bottom. On the sides are Autobot symbols (regardless of the figure inside) and "HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS" again. There are repeated warnings on several sides that this is not a toy, for decoration purposes only, and the front has a small warning that it may break into small pieces. The price is printed on the upper right of the front, along with an assortment number. They all start with "051 13". The final four numbers are 1045 for the five-pack, 1047 for all the small two-packs, and 1048 for the large faction symbols. I didn't copy down the numbers for the ones I didn't buy. All use metal eyehooks and loops of red string for hanging, and none come with hooks (yeah, like any tree ornaments ever come with hooks). FACTION SYMBOLS Each of these is made from a solid slab of 7mm thick clear plastic. On the front sides, the lines of the movie-style faction symbol are engraved about 0.7mm wide and deep. On the back sides, outlines of either Megatron or Optimus Prime are engraved with somewhat thinner lines. The idea is for each set of lines to be visible when light is shined through the ornament. A Hasbro copyright statement is engraved along the edge on the bottom. All the sides are rounded off. I'm not sure if these are made from colored plastic, or from colorless clear with a coat of translucent paint. The Decepticon symbol definitely looks like it has some sort of coat on it. Autobot Symbol: 74mm tall, 74mm wide, colored pale red. The Optimus Prime outline is the one where he's just standing at attention with rifle lowered, the one used in the Lunchables puzzle. :) It's 58mm tall. Decepticon Symbol: 76mm tall, 66mm wide, colored a pale grayish blue for some reason. The outline is Megatron crouching with claws out, 48mm high but shorter at the head. In general, these are nice and durable, and would make good suncatcher decorations. Plus, they're pretty kid-safe for those of you with small children. The Decepticon symbol has a weird color choice, though...is it so hard to get purple? I think they wanted it to be the same color as Megatron. FIVE-PACK A single set with three tiny figures and two small faction symbols. All made of rigid plastic with little copyright stickers on the backs or feet. The figures are about the right size for human-sized (or slightly bigger) miniatures gaming. :) Faction Symbols: 32mm high, 4.7mm thick. They're cut through at the eyes and the forehead holes, the rest of the lines are engraved on the front but not the back. They're painted black with a spritz of silver on the front and back. These ornaments also come with the small two-packs, but just the one appropriate to the figure. Optimus Prime: Rigid resin 34mm tall, with a base paint coat of silver and little bits of red, blue and gold paint on top of that. Given the size and mass-produced nature, the paint job is pretty good, as is the mold crispness. The eyehook in the back must be glued in, since the shoulderpads would have made it impossible to screw into its current position. The pose is the same one outlined on the clear Autobot symbol ornament. Right arm morphed into gun, standing at ready with arms to the sides. Megatron: Rigid resin 40mm tall, with a base paint coat of silver and various sloppily applied spots of copper/bronze paint. It's hard to say at this scale whether the face is the original version or the one that made it into the movie. Standing at ease with arms folded across his chest. Bumblebee: Rigid resin 34mm tall, with a base coat of silver (at this point, I'm presuming it's not silver-colored resin) and various yellow bits painted over that. Looks like Prime's the only one who gets more than two colors. The mold details are very crisp and look good. Standing at ease with arms slightly akimbo to the sides, he has hands rather than weapon morphs. Overall, a nice little set, especially if you're a minis painter and want something of that scale to touch up. The faction symbol medallions would also make nice necklace charms. SMALL TWO-PACKS Each of these has a single figure about the size of a 3" Titanium figure, but made of rigid resin and unposable. They come with a faction symbol ornament the same as those in the 5-pack. Each has a silver basecoat of paint and some black wash in the crevices. Optimus Prime: 73mm tall, in a ready melee pose with arms and legs slightly bent. Both hands are clenched in fists, no weapon morphs. There's red, blue and gold paint, with flame details on shoulderpads, leg armor and back plating. It could stand to have a bit more paint on the head, though, and I'd prefer it if the chest windows had their own paint color as well. Megatron: 78mm tall, in the same pose as the tiny one in the 5-pack. The detail level is better, and it looks like they did use the original head design. Same copper/bronze splashes applied sloppily as on the tiny version, although the black wash and finer detail level helps it look decent. Bumblebee: 65mm tall at the head, 70mm at the tops of the wings. He has his right arm raised level and bent at the elbow, left arm down but bent, and is striding forward slightly. Unfortunately, like the tiny version, he only gets yellow paint, and on mine it's chipped in several places. There's also unclipped mold flash on the left hand. For Prime and Bumblebee, you're better off getting the $4 keychains and hanging them from your tree, and a Titanium figure would be better for Megatron (although you'd need to add a connection point for the hook). Give these a pass unless you really want a wide variety of TF ornaments to hang on your tree, but don't want to hang actual toys. Dave Van Domelen, wonders if he'll get more copies of these from his parents for Christmas....