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I think it's high time I admitted to the world... I'm Hirofumi Ichikawa's bitch. There's no more denying it. The man just does such great stuff. It's because of him that we've now gotten "official" GoBots crossovers into Transformers, with the e-hobby Minibots 6-pack recolored and given the names of same-form GoBots. "New" Autobots Pathfinder, Small Foot and Road Ranger face off against "new" Decepticons Bug Bite, Tredz and Bad Boy. I love it.
Takara somehow managed to avoid replicating one of the several dozen South American Bumblebee color variants when they made this one. Mind, this color scheme doesn't make him too terribly interesting, since the black parts remained black. Glyph and Tap-Out proved that you don't HAVE to do that. Mind, I'm not sure what would have worked with the white plastic, but still. I haven't invested much time into that thought process. Maybe just a medium-to-dark gray.
There really isn't much to say about painting this one. I went very toy-like with solid black legs/crotch (yeah, the toy has no crotch, I know, but still), since it helps make him a little more distinct from both Bumblebee and my version of Glyph.
When I showed the early photos of this guy to various friends, I kept getting comments along the lines of "man, he looks evil", as if I had anything to do with that. The smirk is MOLDED like that, I didn't alter it in any way. Maybe it's just the red eyes and how they ended up looking narrowed compared to, say, the HOC version. My HOC Bumblebee has "larger" eyes thanks to an iffy paint job, which makes him cuter, I guess.
I was tempted to give him a visor too in order to call back to the original Bug Bite toy, but ehn. I didn't think it'd look very good.
Speaking of temptation, I want another Bumblebee spare or two in order to make a double-blaster, again to call back to the original. I'd like to work with unpainted spares, just in case I screw up. I'd rather not ruin a perfectly decent Glyph and Bug Bite if I can avoid it.
I just wish they'd have let Ichikawa give each of the GoBots individual cards, instead of a group-bio. For two different factions. Wow.
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