Grimlock's t-rex alt mode for this new "updated" 3-step version is... rather odd looking. There's definitely some proportional issues, here. For one, His tail is too short coming off the back-- it's about 1/2-2/3rds of the length it needs to be, and just doesn't look right at all. The head looks slightly off as well, with the nose being a bit too flat and the head a bit too large in proportion to the nose. The biggest offender, though, has got to be the body. For one, there's too big "spikes" coming off the back that certainly don't fit in with the overall silhouette and aren't part of his design at all-- they're only there for the simple transformation, but those are pretty big things to overlook. The t-rex is a bit oddly flat and angular, and below his "chest flap" there's absolutely no body in there, with the robot fists blatantly visible near the back of where his lower body should be. It just looks bad. The feet are a bit better, but a bit too large proportionally and a bit too obviously his robot feet backwards-- they aren't situated like robot legs. There's also obvious clips above the hips, which look rather odd. For a color scheme, he's your usual black-and-green, though the green is a bit more milky and glittery than usual. His arms are painted silver-- COMPLETELY silver, which is a bit inaccurate-- and his upper jaw is painted silver as well, along with some pale gold on his headcrest and some fairly light blue on his eyes. There's some other black and green paint used here and there to keep things varied up, though using the accent colors a bit more would've been appreciated. Unfortunately, all Grimlock can move in this mode are his legs back-and-forth at the hips; he has no jaw or arm articulation, so he's pretty brick-ish for a t-rex. There is a port on the lower back for a Mini-Con Weaponizer or something with a similarly-sized port, but on his lower back? It's an odd place to put a weapon.
    To get him to robot mode, you basically flip his lower body around on its pivot to clip together for the waist and the lower legs, while his body also flips around in one motion and turns itself essentially inside out to form the upper body. This is definitely Grimlock's better of the two modes, as his bulky-but-muscular proportions are much closer to his show model in this mode, with large, stocky arms and legs, and a wide chest. His stomach is a bit too wide, but otherwise his core proportions are pretty decent, though there are some kibble issues. His t-rex arms are obvious on the sides of his body-- one of the reasons why his midsection looks a bit too fat. Behind his back you can see the core portions of the t-rex mode that his whole body swivels around-- some curvy black parts at the top, some hollow green parts on the lower body, and the biggest offender-- the dino tail poking out obviously upside down behind his legs. The new paint apps in this mode include some of that pale metallic gold on his rather angry-looking face, complete with blue eyes; some orangish-yellow on the center of his shoulders; and some green paint on the bottom of his chest and around the yellow circles on his shoulders. Again, it does a pretty good job of breaking up his various colors, but a bit more of those accent colors like silver or yellow would've helped even more. For articulation in this mode Grimlock can move forward a bit at the elbows, but that's it. (Unfortunately, due to the transformation his legs can't move forward without undoing the waist clip.)
    The robot proportions for the 2017 version of 3-step Grimlock are a little better than the original 3-step, the paint apps/color scheme are comparable, and the tail is attached in both modes this time. However, in every other aspect this is inferior to the first version. The articulation is more limited even more for a 3-step changer, there's some kibble issues in both issues, and worst of all, the dino mode just looks off and bad, with no real "meat" to the body and some bad proportional issues. Unless you absolutely must have the tail attached, I'd get the original 3-step toy over this. I'd say it's one of the weakest 3-step molds there is.
 

Review by Beastbot

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