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This is in fact based on a real Takara toy, a recolor of DeathSaurus released as part of Takara's Legendary Hero Da Garn toyline, one of several pre-Beast-era non-Transformers transforming robot lines under the general banner of "Brave". He didn't come with DS's second breastplate partner EagleBreast, for whatever reaason. Maybe they thought it was lame.
The Brave lines had a few other TFs turned villains; Dai Atlas, Sonic Bomber and Great Shot were all turned into Brave toys, and apparently the cartoons featured a few more TF designs for non-toy baddies. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
I got my Red Geist at a Hungates before I even knew who DeathSaurus was, back in '94. I miss that Hungates. They had a large selection of Japanese stuff, very random, but there were some real gems, like other robot toys, PVC sets (still treasure my Street Fighter II 12-pack), CDs, calendars, gumball machine prizes, and buttloads of model kits. Eventually it moved to another mall and reduced its Japanese section to just a bunch of models, which over the years dwindled to an endcap full of overpriced old Gundam kits. Oh well.
I suppose I should talk about the painting of this one. Man, is that a weird pose.
I did quite a lot of detail touch-up and adding to this one since the last set of pictures. The most noticable change being several black parts now painted Gunship Gray. There's actually not all that much genuine black plastic on the Red Geist toy; his torso, hands and feet are actually a much darker gray than the black of his legs and pelvis. Considerably darker than that gray, but ehn.
I thought Airstrike's face was a pain to paint. I was wrong. Death has a pair of tiny eyes hidden deep insde his helmet with an overhanging beak. You can barely see 'em. Which is a real shame, because he's got green eyes. There aren't enough bright-green-eyed Transformers, as far as I'm concerned. I've never liked the Autobots-blue-Decepticons-red eye-arrangement the cartoon started.
Geist has a weird symbol on his wings in robot mode, in a big flat area covered by a sticker. Apparently, it's Redron's personal symbol. This area doesn't exist on the PVC, though I painted the smaller recessed areas roughly where it was a deeper blue. I'm unsure about going over the ridges with dark blue and then painting that symbol, like I did with Stepper.
You can only barely see it in the pictures, but I didn't paint the little recesses between the red and blue deco on his boots. The decals there on the toy actually have a somewhat pewter-colored stripe separating them. Heh.
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