Friday, April 8, 2016

Generation Toy Bulldozer - Bonecrusher

Generation Toy Bulldozer is exactly what it says on the tin - a bulldozer. He rolls on tiny plastic wheels on the underside of the fake treads. Aesthetically, the vehicle looks great. He is finished in the same green as the previous figures, with the same style of painted highlights and line work. Bulldozer has less play value as a construction vehicle than his teammates. The blade doesn't articulate very much or very well. Having no familiarity with real bulldozers, I can't say how true to life this is. The blade itself holds together decently, but the surrounding armature does not. The lower pistons don't even peg in, but they do slide along rails. The upper pistons look functional, but really aren't.

Transformation is simple and straight forward. The leg transformation is pretty much identical to Navvy. His wrists don't lock into place, giving him hinged wrists that break the sculpt. The halves of his hips interconnect together, but don't stay together very well. The outer parts of the blade fell off while I was transforming him, but they peg back on two tiny nubs each. I wish more thought had been put into hiding away the blade and the cab of the vehicle. Honestly, I would rather have had the blade just come off entirely.

The default head sculpt has a mouth plate and is decent if somewhat generic. He has red light-piping, but the helmet blocks the light. His aesthetic matches his teammates very well. The paint application and line work is also of the same high quality. If Mixer's shoulder kibble bothered you, you're probably not going to like this figure. More aggravating is how much that kibble gets in the way of his articulation. You can't manipulate his arms without also having to also move those blades and armatures. The half bucket head bothers me too.

His head is on a ball joint. His shoulders are on hinged swivels, with reverse butterflies if you unpeg them. He swivels at the biceps, but the kibble gets in the way, and at the wrists. His thumbs are fixed and his fingers are single pinned. He has double jointed elbows, but the kibble gets in the way. He swivels at the upper torso and waist. His hips are on ball joints. He swivels at the thighs, but the missile pods gets in the way. His knees are single jointed. His toes and heel spurs are on swivels. He can rock his toes up, but not down. He also has an ab crunch because of transformation.

His accessories include a pistol, the combiner arm, and an alternate head. The pistol plugs into his fists perfectly fine. In vehicle mode, the pistol can peg into the undercarriage for storage. The alternate head is probably a little more G1 accurate, but I'll just stick with the default head in keeping with the style of this set. The combiner arm turns into a trailer for vehicle mode. In robot mode, it serves as a winged backpack, but causes him to be really back heavy.

This line is not going for G1 accuracy. They have a style entirely their own; one that I really enjoy and appreciate. I'll be displaying them on my CHUG shelf, where I collect figures from disparate lines. I really liked Scraper, Mixer, and Navvy so am a little disappointed with how Bulldozer turned out. If the shoulder kibble had pegged into a couple of more places and the "hydraulics" had been designed better such as working when you bend his elbows, then all would have been forgiven. I love the rest of the figure. In the end, this set will probably be displayed in combined mode anyhow.








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