Takara Femme Cons! Just cracked open these ladies last night (courtesy of AmiAmi via EMS) and they're fantastic! Paint decos and retooled parts are just great. I dig Nightbird the most mostly because the whole black-and-silver kunoichi/female ninja motif works for me, though Blackarachnia and Slipstream work well too in bot mode. Nightbird's alt mode is solid as a vehicle (given it's just Arcee's Cybertronian corvette) while I feel the other two's alt modes suffer slightly from fiddliness just due to the molds their based on (Slipstream especially). I gave Nightbird the double kama/sickle and chain (kusari-gama) weapon from FansProject's ninja version of Bombshell, and it works so effen well with her! I do wish Takara had gotten rid of those troublesome bits on the bottom of her hands blocking clearance with holding her weapons completely (same issue that the Arcee mold had). Still, with a bit of fiddling, it's doable to slide the weapon grips all the way through (just be careful not to break/snap off her thumbs doing it as the plastic is very thin at that part of her hands).
taking an existing mold like Arcee I would have never thought the bot mode would look so good as Nightbird..but it really pulls it off well.
Absolutely awesome review, thanks for sharing, and your pics, ah man, so lovely, cant wait to get this and the other 2 femcons.
It's not the screen-correct option, but I like to attach the sai (sais?) to the sides of the legs. They stay in place better than on the arms, and they can even be left in place during transformation to adorn the car sides.
I broke down and ordered the figure. I'm not a huge fan of the mold, but Takara has done some interesting stuff with the mold.
Possibly the prettiest version of Arcee's mold. If only hands were retooled instead of handles on her daggers, but that's a minor nitpick.
Fun little detail is - if you take Sakamoto's pack-in comic as any sort of canon, then Nightbird has a complete female body, hair and face under her armor. ... It just keeps on giving.
Ha, good catch! I missed that little panel where Nightbird is being mass produced off the assembly line. Also, she has underneath the breastplate (pun intended) that stereotypical "ninja mesh" going on around her neck/collar area.
Nightbird in her full murdercar mode. So she can even ram people with her sais. I think I'm gonna call her Christine...
I just receieved my femme Cons from HLJ and of the 2 I ordered (Nightbird and Slipstream), Nightbird is absolutely beautiful. The new headsculpt is great and that combined with the paint helps me forget this is an Arcee remold. The sai hinder articulation if placed on the forearms to match the cartoon, but it looks good either way. If you haven't picked her up, I'd recommend it.
Opened up the three fembots tonight. It's funny, but Nightbird was the one I was most indifferent about heading in, but having the figure in-hand I'm more impressed with it than Blackarachnia by far and almost as impressed as I am with Slipstream. The metallic silver paint and really enjoying the Arcee mold probably helps, but it's definitely a lot more than just a random figure, for sure.
I wasn't crazy about getting this figure, as Nightbird is a kind of a non-entity in terms of characterisation. Then one user posted some twitter pics of her and she became an impulse buy. Now I'm happy I did not skip her, because she's the most elegant-looking version of Arcee's mold. This silver and black color scheme does a lot for her. On top of this her face sculpt is simply better than derpy smiled Arcee and she comes without a slightly creepy looking organic-like tummy. Arcee's still a very nice figure, but now I like Nightbird better.
Yeah, the reason why I didn't pick her is because of her lack of personality in the show...it's been ages since I watched that episode but was she considered 'sentinel' like the rest of the TFs? However, I must admit that I'm impressed by the head sculpt and tge overall proportions of the figure.
Unless Bombshell had a real brain built for her, or her new toy bio changes anything, she's just a programmed drone.
