Payload
(Autobot Alliance)
(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the voyager RotF Long Haul toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the voyager RotF Long Haul toy here.)
Payload here is colored--
more or less-- like the "yellow Long Haul" skin seen in the Revenge of
the Fallen video game. A dull yellow by far the dominant color on Payload,
with black serving as the main contrast color. It's hardly the most original
color scheme-- particularly with all the Bumblebees we've been geting lately--
but it works, and is certainly appropriate for a dump truck. The transparent
orange headlights and windows are a nice touch and go well with the yellow,
but what I really like about the color layout is the gunmetal gray and
dark metallic purple paint, both mostly visible in robot mode. Both are
extremely attractive colors, and go very nicely with the black plastic
they're predominantly used on. There's also some of the gunmetal paint
wash on parts of the robot mode to give him a really nifty "worn metal"
look. (The head in particular just looks EVIL with the paint apps on it.)
However, there are parts about Payload's color scheme I'm not fond of,
too-- mainly the brown. Yeah, brown makes sense when it's used as a sort
of "mud splatter" paint effect on construction vehicles, but Long Haul's
entire tires are just solid brown plastic. It doesn't look that great,
and the shade of brown makes them look too much like milk chocolate, honestly.
I also have some quibbles about the charcoal black paint wash used on the
sides of Payload's vehicle mode. Yes, it looks cool where it's done, as
it definitely brings out the details of the yellow plastic and makes it
look "worn", but it's only used on a couple pieces of the toy. If you're
gonna use it, use it on all the major pieces of the vehicle mode--
or at least on the all the pieces you'd think would get worn down more
quickly-- otherwise it just looks odd and out-of-place, only on part of
the sides like it is.
No mold changes have
been made to Autobot Alliance Payload.
Autobot Alliance Payload
is a decent enough repaint of Long Haul-- I like the gunmetal gray and
purple paint apps, in particular-- but generally it doesn't work for me
quite as much as the original colors on this mold do. The odd selective
usage of the black paint wash, those solid brown tires, and just the fact
that in generally I'm not a big fan of yellow make me recommend Long Haul
more than this redeco.
Review by Beastbot