Huffer
(Beast Hunters)
(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 the Prime commander Ironhide toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the Prime commander Ironhide figure here.)
Although his overall
design only shares a few minor design cues with G1 outside of the general
alt mode and size, Huffer here is colored almost exactly like his G1 version;
that is, he's mostly a rather light, semi-bright shade of orange. If he
were SOLELY this color he'd be pretty obnoxiously bright, but thankfully
he's got quite a few other colors-- nearly all of them dark-- to help even
things out. He's got a lot of black, though-- with the exception of the
paint on the windows-- most of it is of the "charcoal-esque", brownish-tinted
variety, which may work for the wheels as a way of making them look a little
"dirty" but otherwise would've looked better as a straight "pure" black.
There's also some dark metallic gunmetal gray on some parts like his dual
guns that blend in pretty well with the brownish-black plastic, and all
of these different black shades contrast excellently with the orange. What
goes even BETTER with the orange is the really nice shade of dark purplish
blue that's used for Huffer's main push-missile launcher, stripes on the
sides of his vehicle mode, and on his robot head and knees. Purplish-blue
(or purple) with orange is one of my all-time favorite color combos, and
Huffer here is no exception. That said, I'm glad it's not used more than
it is, as having it be a non-accent color would look really out of place
for a truck-- even moreso than the light orange. Additionally, Huffer has
a bit of silver paint on the "blades" on his roof, on his lower arms, and
a bit on his robot face-- it goes well with the dark blue on his head,
but the silver isn't quite dark enough to contrast against the light orange
(though it certainly doesn't look bad). Heck, the head in general
on this mold is just generally wonderfully painted, with the dark bluish-purple
"helmet", sky blue eyes, and silver mouth evoking Huffer as much as you
can without changing the headsculpt (which I wish was done).
No mold changes have
been made to Beast Hunters Huffer specifically, though he does have the
same mold changes from the base toy that Beast
Hunters Trailcutter has.
Whether or not I'd recommend
Huffer over the other releases of this mold depends on whether you like
more realistic or more eye-catching, "semi-loud" color schemes. If you
like more realistic schemes, go for Trailcutter or Ironhide. If you want
more colorful schemes, this is the version of the mold I'd recommend the
most-- just don't get too attached to it being a direct update of G1 Huffer,
as there's too many differences in the design for it to adequately function
as that if you're looking to plug that particular hole in your collection.
One of these days, Huffer, you'll get a mold made for you first... one
of these days...
Review by Beastbot