Dreadwind
(Botcon 2007 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 Classics Jetfire. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Classics Jetfire here.)
Dreadwind is a very obvious
update to the G1 ultra-pessimist of the same name-- both the alternate
mode and the robot mode show some definite similarities between this new
version and the G1 toy, both in terms of design and color. Unfortunately,
Dreadwind is a character from that latter era of G1 where the color schemes
seemed largely determined by randomly throwing darts at a color wheel.
While I'm all for homages to obscure characters, G1 Dreadwind was a fairly
ugly toy color-wise, and true to form, that's true for Botcon Dreadwind
as well. The off-white doesn't make for a bad color scheme, and the purple
and gray serve as nice secondary colors (particularly the purple, which
is a rather eye-catching shade), but that putrid pastel gren and dark bluish
green just completely ruins the entire color scheme. It not only clashes
horribly with the gray, the pastel green in particular is just a horrible
shade to put on a Transformer no matter who they are.
Dreadwind has a mold
change-- namely, the core head has been remolded to be a near-exact match
to his G1 self. It looks fairly well-done, though the right side of the
face seems to be slightly "higher" than the left side, particularly at
the eye-level, like he's twisting his "eyebrows" slightly or something.
The paint details are excellent, however. The helmet that goes over the
core head is the same as Classic Jetfire's mold-wise, likely because of
budget constraints, so I don't fault them for not changing that.
Botcon Dreadwind makes
use of a great mold and is a brilliant update to a G1 character, given
the similarity of this mold to the original G1 mold, but quite frankly
the horrid green ruins the color scheme, not to mention that his primary
color is white, just like Classics Jetfire's, ruining the uniqueness of
the toy a little. Unless you're a big-time collector, I'd just stick to
Classics Jetfire instead. My least favorite of the Botcon '07 exclusives.
Review by Beastbot