Horrorcons Part II - Snapdragon

www.botchthecrab.com

Back when I was a younger guy and played guitar (badly), I had dreams of starting a band.  I had always wanted to name my band Horrorcon, because the name always sounded so metal.  Thankfully for my ego and the metal community, I realized how horrible a guitar player I was and put that dream away.  Still, I think that someone should still start a band with that name.  Anyway, where was I?  Yes, Snapdragon.  Snapdragon originally appeared on my initial list of figures to buy when I was trying to get to 400, but I just never got around to getting him.  I was just never that enamored with him.  Whereas Apeface is a giant ape, Snapdragon was just some sort of dragon; he was just never that an impressive a figure to me.  But as I was commenting on Heroic Decepticon's post about his Japanese Apeface and Snapdragon, flywheels made a comment about how Snapdragon was better and that got the wheels in my head spinning.  Maybe I'm just susceptible to persuasion, perhaps I was just looking for an excuse, but whatever the reason, I soon bought Snapdragon.

Like Apeface, Snapdragon transforms into a Cybetronic jet and I actually like this one a bit more than Apeface's.  There isn't any obvious kibble popping out anywhere, that's for sure.  There is a canopy that flips open for Krunk to sit in.

Things get interesting when Snapdragon transforms from jet to dragon.

Ok, that's not a great position.  I'll try again.

That's better.  I like the fact that Snapdragon's rifles are able to attach to this mode.  There's nothing I hate more than having to dig in the parts boxes to find a weapon when I'm changing out the displays.  I really like this mode; it's long, and proportioned well.  The tiny arms are a bonus.  As I mentioned in my review of Apeface, there are people out there that have made parts so the necks can have better articulation.  And no, I haven't gotten them yet, but I most likely will.

Snapdragon's robot mode is awesome.  He doesn't look as odd as Apeface does as far as the torso goes.  As an added bonus, Snapdragon features some nice leg articulation thanks to his transformation scheme.

He actually looks like he's walking!  The ability to turn his head and some elbow articulation would be great for some action shots, but for a G1 figure, this is amazing. 

I am so glad to have finally purchased Snapdragon.  When compared to Apeface, Snapdragon stands heads and shoulders above his fellow Horrorcon.  If you don't currently own this guy, I highly suggest that you go out right now and get him.  Quit reading this, and go get him.  He's waiting for you, with open arms and on bended knee.  After you order him, wait for him to arrive, and play with him, my next review will be up and waiting for your reading pleasure.

Horrocons Part I - Apeface

www.botchthecrab.com

Here we are at yet another purchase made thanks to the influence of a fellow collector!  A few months ago, Heroic_Decepticon did a post about his MIB Japanese Apeface and Snapdragon.  I've been dreaming about getting Apeface since I was in the fifth grade, but I never got around to pulling the trigger.  I'm sad like that.  After looking at HD's pics, I felt motivated enough to finally pull the trigger.

My desire for Apeface started waaaay back in the 5th grade when I was living in Niagara Falls, New York.  The Headmasters had just been released, but I only owned Scorponok and later Fortress Maximus.  Yeah, poor, pitiful me.  At any rate, it was well known among my classmates that I was still into Transformers...and I was the only one. The rest of them were busy talking about Debbie Gibson or Tiffany or whatever else was popular back then, but I was still buying Transformers.  Just so it's clear, I had already discovered Guns N' Roses and Iron Maiden by this point, so musically, I was fine.  At any rate, it turned out that there was one fellow Transformer fan in my class - a girl named Mary (I actually want to say that her name was Hillary, but that was a long time ago.).  I don't know if any of you have actually been to Niagara Falls, but it's mostly farm land.  And Mary would constantly invite me over to her house so I could help her slaughter chickens.  Seriously.  Anyway, one day Mary had a present for me - Spasma, Apeface's head!  Mary told me that she wanted me to have him.  I kept Spasma all the way until 2012 when I finally sold him at a nice price to purchase another figure.  So for 26 years, I only had Apeface's head.  Besides, I've had this image floating in my head for far too long:

Seriously, I love Andy Wildman

 Needing a break from eBay, I decided to check out alternate sources for Apeface.  I decided to go with Transformerland, a company I had dealt with before, albeit a number of years ago.  What I like about Transformerland is that they will negotiate, even if they don't budge as much as I like.  Still, a negotiation is a negotiation.  At any rate, I negotiated a bit and got what I felt was a fair price for a complete Apeface with paperwork.  I'll get to the paperwork later.

Apeface transforms into a Cybertronic jet.  The body of the jet is fairly wide-bodied.  Holding the jet, it's a lot heavier than I imagined it would be.  The canopy of the jet opens so Spasma can sit inside.

Jet mode is serviceable enough, but as you can tell looking at the pictures, there is a lot of kibble.  His robot mode arms and fists are plainly visible.  As are the ape mode's feet.  Still, it does look like a jet.

I know I dropped my contact around here...

It was pretty difficult for me to get decent shots of ol' Apeface in his gorilla mode.  Here he is on all fours.  Regardless of the difficulty getting a good shot, this is my favorite mode, by far.  Everyone loves monkeys.  And gorillas.

Here's El gorila invencible standing on his rear haunches, striking at a foe.  My understanding that there are people that make an extension just for the likes of Apeface that will allow for a better overall look of the figure when attaching the head.  I'll have to look into that.

And finally, we have a profile view of Apeface's gorilla mode.  As you can see, there is some kibble hanging off the back there.  Again, the robot mode arms are quite visible.

For those of you that didn't know, Apeface is a triple changer.  So now that I've covered jet and ape mode, we now go into robot mode.  I'm not too fond of this mode, truth be told and it come down to the torso.  The hollowness of the outer-most midsection is just off-putting.  The colors are pretty great, however.  I do have a question that I'm hoping someone would answer for me: should the back kibble look like this?

I feel as though it should stay up better.  The only reason mine looks like this right now is because I repositioned the treads a bit.  Should it be that loose?

As I mentioned earlier, this particular figure came with his paperwork.

In the above picture, we have the catalog, the S.T.A.R.S pack-in flyer, his instructions, tech spec decoder, and what's that?  A sheet of decals that haven't been applied?  But my Apeface has his decals applied already!  That means that I could completely re-do the decals currently on Apeface since I don't really like their placement, or I could part with them.  I have no idea what the value of unapplied decals are, but I know that there are people out there that look for them.  Most likely, I'll just keep them, hoarder that I am.

So 26 years of procrastination have finally borne fruit.  Am I pleased with myself?  You bet.  Is Apeface pretty freaking awesome?  You know it.  Up next, another entry in my ever-expanding collection!