Novastar
(Power of the Primes)
(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 PotP Moonracer. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of PotP Moonracer here.)
"Novastar" is the copyright-friendly
name for Firestar from G1. Her color scheme certainly fits her (original)
name, with her being mostly red, with a decent amount of light orange on
her upper legs, hands, parts of her Prime Armor, and then painted on the
sides near the rear, on her collar, on the top of her head, and on little
bits near the top front of the vehicle mode. It's a great color combo,
but she also has a fair amount of gray. In fact, it's used a bit more than
the orange-- on the wheel hubs, her robot feet/vehicle mode front, gun,
head, waist, part of her chest, and a large plastic section in the middle
of the rear of her vehicle mode. The gray isn't a bad shade-- it's not
that blah light milky gray used on too many TFs, more of a straightforward
shade of the color-- but it doesn't compare to the light orange in terms
of contrasting and complmenting all the red. As for other colors, there
is of course some clear plastic on the middle bit on her Prime Armor and
on the top of much of her vehicle mode, though the front section of it
is painted over by more gray. There's also some pale yellow, oddly used
only on a stripe on part of her vehicle mode side and on her robot face.
I would've liked to see more of that, such as on the headlights, which
are bizarrely painted gray. Some yellow/orange also could've been used
on a few other pieces like her feet, too, but in general she has a pretty
decent number of paint apps between her modes.
Novastar has two new
mold changes. The first is a new headsculpt, which mimics her G1 design
very nicely, with a rather round "helmet" puncuated by two siren-like bits
on the sides and a larger orange light fixture on the top of her head.
Her pale yellow face is well-sculpted, with light blue eyes and light orange
lips. She also has a new weapon, which is a rather wide, dual-barreled
gun with some neat circuitry-like details on the side. It's an okay accessory,
but I feel Moonracer's slimmer weapon fits the toy better.
Novastar has a superior
deco job when compared to this mold's first use as Moonracer, with the
fiery color scheme of red and orange looking great, overall, and generally
well-painted.
However, I feel a good amount of her gray could've been replaced with orange
(or perhaps pale yellow in some places) and thus resulted in better contrast
and just generally looked more eye-grabbing. As such, I feel that-- though
good-- this color scheme doesn't read the heights set by her "cousin",
Flareup.
Review by Beastbot