Dave's Transformers Artifacts Rant: RotF Mini Clips

     Optimus Prime/The Fallen
     Megatron/Bumblebee
     Ironhide/Starscream
     Grindor/Sideswipe

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/RotFminiclip1

     Mini Clips are little figures on ball chain loops intended to be hung
from backpack zipper pulls or cellphone charm strings, etc.  They're part of
Basic Fun's licensed line of Revenge of the Fallen tchotchkes.
     You know, for someone who didn't even get named in the movie and got
jobbed, Grindor gets a lot of toys.  :)


CAPSULES

     Optimus Prime/The Fallen: Both are decently molded, but the Fallen is
monochrome.  At least Prime has some blue, red and orange bits, even if he
looks a bit too light.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99 at Toys R Us.
     Megatron/Bumblebee: Megatron is fairly dull and has a weak pose, but
Bumblebee is one of the best of the lot.  Recommended.  $3.99 at TRU.
     Ironhide/Starscream: Weakest coloring jobs of the four sets, and
Ironhide is in a boring static pose.  Starscream is at least lunging forward.
Neutral. $3.99 at TRU.
     Grindor/Sideswipe: Grindor is a solid sculpt in the wrong color,
Sideswipe is an otherwise great mold with a weird flaw to it and the right
colors.  Recommended.  $3.99 at TRU.

     If you only want to get one set, I'd recommend Megatron/Bumblebee.


RANTS

     Packaging: On small blister cards about 5.5" (14cm) wide and 7" (18cm)
tall, with the Decepticon trade dress.  The cardstock insert in the front of
the blister has Starscream's mug, "MINI CLIPS" as a name and a Decepticon
symbol.  The cardbacks show all eight figures without indication of which
ones are packaged together...I suppose it's possible that different shipments
of them might mix up the pairings, but the case's worth I looked through was
consistent in the pairs.  The upper right of the cardback has the Deluxe
Class Cybertronian glyph.
     The blister is glued on all sides, no tape, which means these have to
hang from a peg, you can't stand them up on a shelf in package.  The figures
are held in by the blister alone, but their ball chains are taped down into a
channel to the right of each figure.

     Common Elements: They're all made of a single color of metallic plastic
(or regular plastic dipped in metallic paint, I'm not going to slice one up
to check) and glued/pegged onto a circular black base 30mm wide.  The figures
are soft plastic, but the bases are fairly rigid plastic, so no worries about
wobbly bases.  A ball chain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_chain) 6"
(15cm) long is looped through a jump ring attached to a small eye screw stuck
in either the back or the top of the shoulderblades.  The eye screws can be
unscrewed to turn these into game-style miniatures, but they're in soft
plastic so the threading is likely to strip quickly...decide which way you
want to use them beforehand.  If you remove the eye screw and then put it
back in, it may well fall out under any significant force.  Presumably
they'll hold well enough to be used as backpack zipper pulls if you don't
mess with the screw, though.
     The mold details are pretty good, comparable to pre-painted miniatures
game pieces (HeroClix, Monsterpocalypse, etc), although the softer plastic
means modification will be more difficult.  Mind you, the Bayformer aesthetic
just doesn't work at this scale without some loss of detail, and busier
designs like Grindor's can end up looking like a random mess.  Well, moreso
than usual. 
     Priming shouldn't be needed if you want to repaint them, since the
existing paint will work.  Just clean in soap and water first.  If you're
really detail-conscious, the hole in the back from removal of the eye screw
can be filled with a little putty or even a dab of white glue.
     They do NOT share a common scale, with Bumblebee and the Fallen being
most blatantly out of scale.  Rather, they're all about the same height,
ranging from 35mm to 41mm.  So, as a scale representation of the characters,
they fail.  However, this is the range of "heroic" miniatures these days, so
they'd fit in pretty well popped onto a HeroClix base.  Only the Fallen is
close to the same scale as units in Monsterpocalypse, but if you ignore scale
(as MonPoc tends to), they work well as unit swaps too.  A 3-4" tall
Devastator PVC would make for a good Monster figure.  ;)  Most of them are
close to the railroading Z-scale of 1:220, though.
     As mentioned above, it's possible they all use the same base plastic
color and dip it into metallic paint first, but I will work from the
assumption of different metallic plastic colors.

     Optimus Prime: The tallest of the set at 41mm, making him 1:208 scale
give or take a bit (using the Offical Movie Guide for height reference).
Silver base plastic, a few bits of blue and red on various panels and
pieces.  The blade edge of his sword is orange.  No black paint for his
wheels, I'd consider that and a black ink wash to be minimal alterations if
anyone were to try painting one of these.
     This Prime has no hands.  His raised right arm ends in a sword, his
lowered left arm ends in a cannon.

     The Fallen: Only 35mm tall in his usual crouch, I'm going to assume his
listed height in the movie guide includes crouching, so this is 1:366 scale.
He's dark gunmetal with no other colors on him at all.  No orange highlights,
no red eyes, nothing.  Kinda disappointing.
     His right arm is bent acutely at the elbow so that the forearm just sort
of blends into the upper arm.  He has the bits connecting his upper arms to
his chest.  While a repaint job would require a VERY steady hand, the molded
details are all there.

     Megatron: 37mm tall, 1:288 scale.  Silver plastic, and like the Fallen
he has no other colors on him.  His right arm has the sword claw thing
deployed, but it's held against his side and most of it sort of blends into
the torso.  The puny left arm is bent acutely but not merged together.  He
doesn't really have a hand per se on that arm, though.

     Bumblebee: The figure is 37mm high at the top of the wings, I estimate
that if it stood up straight the robot would be about 37mm tall at the head
too, for a scale of 1:133.  Dark gunmetal plastic and extensive yellow paint
on the armor and car panels.  Could stand a dot of red on the forehead and
some bits of blue on the eyes and cannon barrel.
     This is Cannon Bumblebee, with launchers deployed over his shoulders and
right arm in gun mode.  In a slightly crouched striding-forward pose, one of
the best poses and sculpts of the set.

     Ironhide: 36mm tall, 1:212 scale.  A sort of bluish gunmetal plastic
with silver on his feet and chest.  While not the most boring paint job of
the lot, it's definitely the worst.  This one would need to be redone from
the ground up, there's really not a quick tweak or extra color that would
redeem it.
     He's in a fairly static pose, but the bulkiness of his design makes it
hard to do anything else at this scale.

     Starscream: About 36mm tall (leaning forward and charging), 1:262
scale.  The same shade as the Fallen, the same lack of detail.  I suppose
this could pass as the "Deep Space Starscream" version, but they must have
been awfully limited in their pallette to choose this color for him.
     Lunging forward, his left arm is raised with the hand transformed into
gun mode.  He makes up for the dull color scheme with a dynamic pose, at
least.  

     Grindor: 35mm tall at the shoulderpads, but crouching a bit.  Standing
up straight I'd call it 40mm tall, and assuming Grindor is as tall as
Blackout that makes for a 1:255 scale.  The same dark gunmetal as the Fallen
and Starscream, but he has three little squares of metallic blue-purple on
his chest, making him the only Decepticon in the set with an accent color,
nigh-invisible though it may be.
     His pose is one of "about to attack something on the ground" with his
rotors as a shield on his left arm.  One of the better sculpts.

     Sideswipe: Would be 39mm tall if standing up straight, making for
roughly 1:197 scale.  Silver plastic with a bit of black paint on his
wheels.  The black paint is a bit sparse and in want of touching up, but as
the main accent color on Sideswipe in the first place, it's nice to see the
effort. 
     Oddly, his arm blades replace his forearms entirely, rather than being
mounted on the backs of his forearms.  If it weren't for that oddity, this
would be the clear winner in terms of sculpt, however.

     Dave Van Domelen, still has the little Christmas ornament figures from
the first movie hanging from one of his shelves.