Steeljaw's wolf-SUV vehicle mode has the same general feel/silhouette of his other toys, but there's definitely some things that are "off" here. For one, because of the transforation, the rear part of the front hood is actually a bit higher than the front part of the front hood, and this looks kinda weird-- especially since there's a little gap underneath this rear part. The spoiler on the back end is a bit smaller proportionally than it should be, too. There's also some really obvious extras in this mode, as the side windows are open and inside you can see Steeljaw's head-- not to mention there is no real back end of the vehicle mode, just Steeljaw's feet. Particularly because of the colors, these feet are quite obvious-- this toy additionally isn't show-accurate in terms of the color breakup. The main color is the usual somewhat pale milky blue, but instead of a straightforward light milky gray, it's a much lighter shade of gray-- almost white, in fact. Although it's still not an exciting color, I do think it looks better than the light milky gray on most of the other Steeljaw toys as it provides greater contrast and... well, just personal preference, I guess. The gray is on the side doors and on the rear section of this mode, though, which is decidedly not show-accurate-- those should have been blue. There's also some semi-metallic charcoal black on the windows (at least those that are "closed" and not "open"), on the the top rear sides of this mode, and on the wheels. To fit in with the very light gray, there's a bit of white on the sides of the hood section that has Steeljaw's RID scan symbol on it, and some really nice orange highlights on the wheel hubs, headlights, and on the sides of the RID scan symbol. Otherwise Steeljaw mostly looks pretty good in terms of color breakup, with one major exception-- the front grill is COMPLETELY unpainted beyond the headlights! The whole darned point of the front grill was to look like a wolf nose, and with it unpainted on this big of a toy is a big oversight. As is usual for a RID2015 toy, the mold detailing is fairly sparse, and on this large of a toy, this is all the more apparent, with (mostly) only the bare details on the SUV mode, though there are some nice angular mold details on the grill, wheels, and spoiler.
    To transform Steeljaw to robot mode, you lift up on the top section of the vehicle mode and then swirl it around; the rest of the toy mostly transforms during this, and then you split this section around the top and back of the robot mode to unveil Steeljaw's head and fold back his tail. Although I have some issues with the vehicle mode, this mode is definitely the weaker of Steeljaw's two molds; there are some really obvious proportional issues and show inaccuracies. The most obvious-- since your eye immediately goes to it-- is the head. The sculpt is just completely off, and just does not look accurate to the show model beyond the broad strokes-- it honestly almost looks like a knockoff head, it's so off. Steeljaw's shoulders are also too low, and his lower arms are very anemic from a frontal view. There's large blue claws on the end of these anemic parts, but only the top of the top claw is painted black and the way they're molded they look a bit weird and overly clunky, too. The upper legs are also far too long and the lower legs far too short, which also looks really odd. There's some wheel chunk bits on the sides of the legs, which I wish had been integrated a bit better into the actual legs themselves, but otherwise they're not a big deal. There's also a bit of an extra-- the roof just hangs behind the upper back rather obviously. It doesn't get in the way of articulation, though, so at least there's that. On the plus side, the mold detailing on the waist and stomach is fairly good (though the chest is angled the wrong way). There's also some nice detailing on the knees and the middle toes, with some nice metallic black paint and a bit of dark red on the knees, inside of the shoulders, and pelvis as well, to give a bit more color variety. Just like with the vehicle mode, though, there's definitely some inaccurate color breakups-- beyond the arms, the entire legs are that light gray, which isn't accurate. I really don't know why that color was used so much. Steeljaw does, thankfully, have a tail piece, though it's a bit small proportionally. For articulation in this mode, Steeljaw can move back-and-forth at the shoulders and base of the tail and that's it. I really wish he at least had hip and/or shoulder articulation (the latter is admittedly impossible with his transformation), but this is about average for the 3-step changer size regardless.
    3-Step Steeljaw is easily the weakest of his various toys. The vehicle mode is generally decent, but with a few obvious extras and an odd front hood; in robot mode his proportions are way off in nearly every aspect, with even his head looking weird. The colors are also a bit inaccurate, as well. Not recommended except for Steeljaw completists.
 

Review by Beastbot

Back to Robots in Disguise (2015) Index