Ironhide
(Animated) [Toys "R" Us Exclusive]
(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 Animated Cybertron Mode Ratchet. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Animated Cybertron Mode Ratchet here.)
Given that Ironhide and
Ratchet were made from the same mold in G1, it's not surprising that in
Animated their original Cybertronian forms would share the same design
as well. Animated Ironhide, as can be expected, takes the straightforward
red-and-black G1 homage colors route. The black provides a very nice contrast
color to the red, but honestly the red is a few shades too light-- to me,
Ironhide toys always look better when the red is a little darker. He also
takes the gray/silver from G1 Ironhide and really does it justice with
the dull metallic gunmetal gray paint on a few areas like the robot upper
legs and face. Even on the place where it's just gray plastic, it looks
prety good as it's not that dull, boring milky light gray that's so often
used on Transformers, but rather a more metal-looking color. Painted Ratchet's
"shock paddles" gunmetal gray and putting them on Ironhide's fists also
really makes them believable iron knuckles (moreso than they were believable
shock paddles, at least), and works really good with his character, of
course.
Ironhide has a new head
mold, which is really well-scuplted and pretty much spot-on when compared
to how he looks in the show-- his characteristic Animated smirk and butt-chin
sticking out slightly from his roman-style helmet are all done quite well.
The light piping used for the optics also worked nicely-- no problems here.
Animated Ironhide I'd
recommend slightly over Cybertron Mode Ratchet, primarily due to him being
a "new" character for Animated and the weapons working better as iron knuckles
as opposed to Ratchet's shock paddles. I think the red is a few shades
too light-- and that is a bit thing to notice considering how much of him
is red-- but otherwise I have no complaints about his color scheme, it's
certainly Ironhide-y.
Review by Beastbot