Lugnut's vehicle mode is an "Animated-ized" WWII-style bomber plane. Out of all of the Decepticon jet modes, Lugnut's is probably the most exaggerated, which is probably fitting given his rather exaggerated proportions in robot mode, as well. Anyways, the rear half of the plane looks fairly "normal" as far as proportions are concerned--at least for Animated-- and the front is where Animated's cartoony aesthetic particularly kicks in. The cockpit is pretty rounded, the bombs are very rounded and HUGE proportionally, and the wings are also rather rounded on the end and slim, but thankfully not short proportionally, so it's not TOO much of a stretch to see him flying with those things. I also like the exaggerated four tail fins on the back end of the plane-- they look really nice. There's no real robot mode extras to speak of, except for the tips of the robot mode toes, which can be seen a tad from a side or bottom view. That's REALLY being picky, however. The overall dull blue-and-purple color scheme is very fitting for a Decepticon, and works surprisingly well, despite there being no large amounts of a bright "contrast" color. There are several details on the vehicle mode that really looks nice, such as the transparent red cockpit, the light red front of the rear "thrusters", and the yellow/black "hazardous" stripes on the bombs. There's also a small rotating double-barrelled turret on the top of this mode, as well as two other turrets on the sides of the cockpit, which can each move on their own. One final feature Lugnut has in this mode is that he has two extendable landing gear-- on the bottom front end and bottom rear end of this mode, with the latter having two wheels as opposed to one to keep Lugnut more stable.
    Lugnut's transformation is fairly straightforward, though he has a pretty cool partial auto-transformation; as you bring down the flap of the rear "shell" of his vehicle mode, his head rotates up from the torso and his cockpit splits in half and slides onto the sides of his chest, all in one smooth motion, which is pretty darn cool. (Some people have reported the cockpit halves not fully closing back together once you transform Lugnut back into vehicle mode, but this problem hasn't occurred with mine.) Although certainly easily recognizable as the character from the show, Lugnut's robot mode is one of the least accurate of all the mainline Animated toys, unfortunately. He has tiny upper arms as opposed to the huge upper arms on his show mode, his hunchback isn't large enough, and his claws on his bomb-hands open up the wrong way (though part of this reason is to allow him to hold his mace-- discussed shortly). Plus, he's short, even for a Voyager. This isn't a toy design issue, to be sure, but considering most of the other mainline Animated toys are at least in the ballpark size-wise, to have a toy so small when Lugnut is one of the largest, beefiest characters on the show is honestly a little off-putting. Still, on the plus side the proportions are generally pretty good in this mode if you ignore the small upper arms, and the head sculpt is really well-done. (Unfortunately, the dark red translucent plastic is so dark it doesn't allow the "light piping" for his one transparent optic to shine through, so it's eternally dark.) The cockpit halves on the sides of his chest give a really nice look, and I love the relatively small feet and "toes"-- all in all, it gives him a ton of character. The only real vehicle mode extra in this mode is the rear "shell" panel on his back, but it stays out of the way and doesn't stick out much, so I don't particularly mind it. The wings fold up and become part of the shoulders/remarkably well, so no big extras there. As for Lugnut's gimmick, it involves his mace, which is mostly made up of the rear thruster/fin assembly. By plugging the assembly into one of the ports in his claw-hands and pressing in all the way, then smacking the bottom of the weapon on a hard surface, the four tailfins will open up partially to make it look more like a crowned-mace weapon, which is pretty cool. (Make SURE you plug in the weapon all the way before you activate its gimmick, however-- I didn't realize I had to do it in this order, thought something was wrong with the gimmick, partially unscrewed the tail assembly, messed up the gimmick, and thus that's why Lugnut's holding his tail assembly unchanged in the above pic. Blah.) As far as Lugnut's articulation goes, he can move at the shoulders (at four points), elbows (at two points), hips (at two points), the knees (at two points), and a bit at the ankles. Due to his girth, he's not the most posable 'bot, but he's certainly not bereft of enough articulation where he's brick-like.
    Lugnut has a ton of character, a great color scheme, and an excellent plane mode, but compared to the character model on the show, his robot unfortunately falls short, particularly in terms of how skinny the upper arms are and how short the toy is in general. I'd still recommend it to fans of the character, but for people who are buying the toy on its own merits, there are definitely some other Animated Voyagers that deserve your attention first, though I'd say this one's second-tier. (Plus, Lugnut will always have a prime spot on my shelf, due to my fan name for his explosive punch-- the "Punch of Kill Everything", or P.O.K.E. for short-- becoming canonized by the head writer in the Animated: The Arrival comic miniseries, which obviously left me ecstatic.)

Review by Beastbot

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