Bulkhead's vehicle mode is one of the most unidentifiable out of the initial waves of Animated. It's... a really chunky military transport thing. Really don't know how to describe it better than that. Out of all of the Animated bots that has an "Earth mode", this is definitely one of the toys with the most exaggerated style-wise with its extremely round proportions. I'm not all that fond of proportions quite THIS exaggerated, honestly, but on the plus side there's no real robot extras visible in this mode. There's an abrupt curvature on the roof of the vehicle near the back end as a side effect of those parts forming the lower arms in robot arms, but no actual "robot parts" like hands or anything are visible, so I hestitate to call those "extras". As expected from an Animated toy, his mold detailing is rather sparse, though his paint detailing is fair, particularly on the front end. His back end-- namely, the molded-in doors-- could really use some paint, howeve,r and the front end could use some more paint on the bumper.
    Bulkhead's robot mode definitely has some good and some bad to it. The most obvious bad point which I'll get to is that he has a LOT of backpack kibble. Pretty much the covering to the entire back half of his vehicle mode is hanging off of his backpack, and unfortunately most of it doesn't lock into place. This is especially annoying on the side panels, which though fairly tight aren't quite tight enough to stay flush with the surrounding parts. On the plus side, the two large panels that hang up and over his shoulders have a way to angle slightly away from each other, which looks quite a lot better sitting over Bulkhead's shoulders than if they were just to stay as one solid piece above his head. Bulkhead's proportions are also very love-or-hate-- they're fairly accurate to the show, but his legs are very tiny, and his waist and arms very large. (The only real difference proportion-wise when it comes to his main body is that the upper arms on the toy are skinnier than they are on the show.) I don't mind it, though it's not my favorite Animated look. It does give Bulkhead a TON of personality just from a casual glance, though, and his "strong jaw" look etched into his face really accentuates that personality. He has only three oddly-positioned finger-claws at the end of each arm, which also accentuates his whole "clumsy" personality, as it's hard to imagine anyone being particularly dextrous with those hands. As for his gimmick, Bulkhead's got three. The first has to do with his transformation-- as you bring his lower legs into their set position in robot mode, the head flips around into its proper place AND the arms swing forward-- a pretty impressive "Automorph" gimmick, I must say. Bulkhead has a second gimmick on his right arm, though I'd barely call it a gimmick-- straighten out his arm and then press on the large black lever on his upper arm and them the lower arm jerks up in a weak "punching" action. Pretty lame. Bulkhead's combat-oriented gimmick has to do with the "wrecking ball" he uses often in the show-- open up the claws on his left arm and press up on the lever near his elbow and his wrecking ball will launch out, on a tether. (You fold up the tether in the lower arm again and push the ball back in while pressing down on that same lever to reset the gimmick.) It's a fairly cool gimmick, though the wrecking ball could use some paint. And speaking of his overall color scheme, military green and black isn't the most exciting scheme in the world, but it works for Bulkhead, and the green military stars make him look like a bit of an homage to G1 Hound in terms of paint apps, honestly. The milky brownish-gray and bronze serve as nice accent colors, as well, so no problems there-- and his more of his paint apps go towards breaking up his robot mode compared to his vehicle mode, so he looks noticeably more interesting in this mode. As far as articulation goes, Bulkhead can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points), elbows, at the base of each claw, and at the hips (at two points) and knees (at two points). However, he is a bit back-heavy, which can limit his poses when combined with his tiny legs.
    Animated Voyager Bulkhead is honestly one of the weaker Voyager-class toys, due to his kibble-tastic robot mode, though he's definitely not the worst. He still has a lot of character and a kibble-free (if funky-looking) vehicle mode. If you like the character and money isn't an object, I'd go for the Leader class version instead, easily-- however, this one isn't too bad of a substitute.

Review by Beastbot

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