Grimlock's 1-step figure
is a bit of a chunkified, kibbly, off-color version of his t-rex mode.
I mean, RID2015 Grimlock's t-rex mode IS a bit chunkier than an actual
t-rex, but not to this extent. The chest and stomach are way too thick,
and this is probably accentuated by the fact that Grimlock's t-rex head
is a tad small. There's also really obvious robot feet sticking out on
the sides of the tail, behind the t-rex feet. They're not even really attempting
to hide them. The mold detailing on the t-rex head, the tail, and the lower
feet and claws is quite good and show-accurate, but the mold detailing
on the sides of the chest is really weak; it's supposed to be the t-rex
arms, but the detailing is far too simplistic and the arms way too large
proportionally. The arm parts are also where the transformation rotates
around, so they're permanently pointed downwards and look incredibly awkward.
Grimlock's basic color scheme of black and green is intact, but there's
some blah light milky gray plastic used not just on the arms where it's
often used, but on the feet and, worst of all, the hips, where they just
look incredibly out-of-place and is obviously not at all show-accurate.
The paint in general in this mode is very under-used; there's only some
silver on the hands and upper jaw, blue on the eyes, and green on the lower
legs. As for articulation in this mode, Grimlock can open up his jaw (complete
with a tongue inside molded like he's roaring-- nice touch), and his legs
can move SLIGHTLY back-and-forth at the hips, but that's it.
To transform Grimlock,
fold the hip pieces up against the sides of the t-rex upper chest, and
the entire toy folds around those pieces along with it; then you fold up
the t-rex feet to become the robot hands. The resulting robot mode looks
a bit better than the awful t-rex mode, but still definitely has some issues.
For one, the aforementioned folding up of the feet into the hands makes
the resulting hands a bit oversized, especially compared to the rest of
the arms which are otherwise fairly well-proportioned. The feet, on the
other hand, are also undersized and completely static parts, and the chest
is far too oversized and blocky. The tail on the back could technically
be considered kibble, I suppose, but it folds out of the way from most
angles and doesn't really look that bad, so I don't mind it. Grimlock's
head is sculpted quite well, complete with a dull orange face and light
blue eyes. As with the t-rex mode, though, the paint is rather lacking
otherwise in this mode; there's the aforementioned green paint on the lower
arms (the t-rex legs), as well as some on the robot legs. Unfortunately,
that's it beyond the head. The legs are completely black, and waaayy too
undetailed. Between that and the odd proportions, they just look like way
too much of an afterthought for this toy, like they completed the design
and were just like, "Oh, crud, we forgot the robot legs!". They just look
bad. The wide chest could also have been made much more palatable with
some well-placed paint to get rid of the light milky gray plastic on the
sides and some paint in the middle, but that's unpainted, too. The shoulders
are also missing paint on the circular bits. As for articulation, Grimlock
can move back-and-forth at the shoulders, can rotate at the wrists, and
his hands can open and close a little bit because of the transformation.
RID2015 1-step Grimlock
is very easily the worst of his various (non-combining) toys. Both of his
modes have bad proportions and not nearly enough paint, and his t-rex mode
has really awkward molded-on arms and very obvious kibble in the form of
the robot feet. There's plenty of easy-to-transform RID2015 Grimlock toys
that look much better in both modes; get one of those instead. Only Grimlock
completists should even consider this toy.
Review by Beastbot