Very nice! Except the man behind the camera has NO IDEA how to pose his legs. He looks like he can barely stand, that way. I like that Starscream finally has ball jointed wrists. With a hinge looks like.  

The mask less one would be cool if painted correctly. It almost looks like whoever designed the deco had no idea it's not his faceplate. I mean come on Hasbro & Takara *cough* i mean, Hasbro! *cough*! Get it together

 

Yeah I've had to paint every single figure I've gotten from hasbro for years now because there's just less and less. TLK voyager Prime took me months to make into a proper representation of him! It was a fun project though. Looks like this prime is gonna need some love too.

 

The studio series voyagers are out at mass retail here in Michigan at all the Meijer’s stores. Prime is already looking like the shelf warmer. Probably because he’s a lot smaller than Starscream which makes shelling out 30 bucks tougher to swallow. Truck mode feels deluxe size. I do think Prime’s transformation is more fun. It borrows a lot from prior Primes but is not a direct copy. He is colored too dark. More maroon than red and the silver is dark grey.

Starscream may look unpainted in jet mode but he is quite detailed in light colors. The paint scheme is the correct camo’d military F22 colors. I like this look better than the tatoo’d versions.

 

Never noticed Prime's reading glasses before.

 

Didn’t the same thing happen with TLK Optimus, a few got out there without the faceplate.

Could be a factory error, given how it doesn’t seem painted properly. I wouldn’t be surprised if this head is intended for a future DOTM Optimus.

 

In all reality, this Prime is so small in hand and the paint/plastic is so dark that none of this makes a difference. The blue, grey and red blend together so much that it’s hard to discern any detail. The weird thing is that the smokestacks are painted in bright silver and nothing else.
I was suprised at how dark he was when I first saw him. Even in the brightly lit store.

 

Here he is with some of the recent Primes from my 'library'. My room is well lit. He looks darker in person.

 

Looking at the bottom of the face, it looks like a factory error as opposed to a variant.

 

I created an account just so I could give props to this.

 

How would molding a complete face be a “factory error”?

 

Both heads are in the mold's tooling. During manufacturing, they cut the mouth head off the plastic parts tree instead of the faceplate head, and accidentally paint the mouth head with the faceplate head's paint mask (that's why the silver paint is not fully covering the mouth) and then assemble it onto the figure.

 

Oooohh, ok. Strange to just look at it as an “error” as this head was meant for something apparently. I saw someone mention perhaps it was meant for a DOTM retool. I hope that’s it.

 

Didnt know Prime was THAT tiny.

 

The alternate heads are pre-planned before the molds are tooled, but they may never be used. They are done just in case Hasbro wants to sell the figure with a different head(or other parts) as a repaint or store exlcusive(like how ToysRus Exclusive Studio Series voyager Thundercracker has a head different from TLK voyager Nitro Zeus, the figure mold 95% of his body is from).

 

I know about that stuff, same reason we never got a CW Demolishor from Onslaught, or BW Megatron from FOC Grimlock. Just saying it’s an error just seems weird to me. The way everyone who said that said it, it sounded like they were suggesting that molding a whole new face was an accident. At least to me.

 

Now we know what Optimus looks like with make up on XD 

 

No faceplate....ewwww

 

The error is putting the wrong paint mask on the wrong head. Or more precisely, using the wrong head for whatever reason, but still using the intended head’s paint mask.

It’s quite hilarious though, that Hasbro have posted a pic of it.

 

The darker plastic color scheme kinda reminds me of Takara DA28 Striker Prime. Not necessarily a bad thing as I like Striker Prime. SS OP definitely needs more paint though.

 

Oh, it was no mistake. They meant to do that.