Picked this guy up on a whim and I’m blown away by how good it is. Fantastic figure, one my favorite I’ve picked up this year I think

 

As continuation:

I can guess that maybe after the renders were done, they caught the fin mistake. As you can see in the instructions, these fin pieces are impossible with what we got:


The fins should've been oriented the other way:


So, although they fixed the fins, they must've forgotten to update the factory workers' assembly instructions. We can now call this the Oku fix.

 

I picked up Notscream today. Excellent bot mode, iffy jet mode. Kind of an F-15 Tomcat Harrier Phantom. The dual vertical stabilizers are just stupid. It would have been easy for them to be two halves that go together. It is almost like they designers chose to have two, because the F-15 has two. The Phantom only has one.

I put Blitzwing next to Earthrise Starscream in jet mode, and Starscream makes the jet mode of Blitzwing look like a cartoon. All well.

I find it funny that you can mount the arm cannon under the jet, which is just about the only nod to Blitzwing that this character has.

Ankle tilt is nice, but forward and back tilt would have really helped. There is waist rotation, but the codpiece blocks it. The neck joint is weird. The head can either be partially hidden or stick out above the small cockpit section. It looks strange either way.

The legs could have used some paint, but otherwise the execution is good. Other than the fadeout gray on the nose and rear cockpit section. I wish they wouldn't have painted that part at all. Again, I think it was an attempt as a nod to Blitzwing.

I tossed some Decepticon logos on the wings, the correct Starscream way, and it looks great. I recommend that for anyone.

 

Just got mine. Jet mode didn’t get emphasized and it shows, even if Hasbro didn’t explain to a fan how the jet mode was compromised to enable transformation a fairly accurate robot mode(this happened a few months ago), you can just tell that licensing wasn’t the issue, robot mode was emphasized at the cost of the jet mode. You can see some areas where the designer did try to actually minimize the kibble. At the very least I wish the vertical stabilizers were on a sliding rail to shift back further in jet mode, it would make the jet look better, even better if they were larger.

Transformation is fluidly intuitive save for aligning the arm flaps to the wings in jet mode.

The robot mode is where this shines. Generous ankle tilt, the intake thighs can split at the sides a bit and that frees up some of the thigh swivel range. The sculpt of robot mode is very detailed, a subtle ink wash would work wonders in popping out the scribed detail(which is lost on the bare plastic).

If seeing the jet mode from all angles hasn’t led you to like the design, it probably won’t win you over in person. It seems like a Soviet copy of the F-16 from the late 70’s after a spy watched it perform in an air show in Paris and gave photos to MiG or Sukhoi. Add in some elements of the Boeing TX/Red Hawk. If the jet mode grew on you in pics, you’ll probably like the figure since the robot mode wasn’t compromised anywhere near as much.

 

Just got mine in hand and he is fantastic. Took some time to get used to how the chest moves but I love him. Vehicle mode is a bit of a let down but I am enamored with bot mode. Has anyone found a spot to store his normal hand if you swap it for his spike thing?

 

I was fiddling with Blitzwing more this morning. Noticed the gun has a horizontal slot here:



Meanwhile, a horizontal tab on the dark bluish grey bar here:



The gun can actually attach to the underside pointing forward at an angle and still manage to have enough clearance for the landing gear. This is an alternative to sticking out at the ass end of the jet. Advantageous for a close air support(CAS) attack jet and makes more sense than having the gunpod aiming behind.

 

Got back to robot mode. Transformation going to robot mode is excellent. It just flows naturally.

Found that if the dark grey sides of the thighs are split open a bit, it enables the full range of the thigh swivel(able to swivel unhindered), just don’t open the thigh flaps all the way.

The vertical stabilizers actually could’ve been substantially larger without affecting the lower leg transformation. They would’ve just stuck out more visually but I don’t think that would’ve bothered anyone and I’m surprised it wasn’t done. An enterprising 3rd party will probably come up with a solution as the vertical stabilizers don’t look pinned.

Bigger vertical stabilizers would’ve been a small change with a big visual difference.

In robot mode you can plug it into 1 of the 2 5mm ports on the back of the wings. Or put it into the cockpit.

 

Tried using the GX Studio / Go Happy Studio Siege Starscream null rays:

The pegs are slightly oversized on purpose as the Siege ports are a little oversized. That actually works well for open hands. In Blitzwing's right hand, you can better see the rectangular fin peg, which I used for...


This. I just about gave up trying to find a feasible way to get the null rays to stick on alt mode. The 5mm ports on the wings are blocked by the arms. The fin peg is too wide for the drop tank ports. Even if I sand them down, the fin peg is still too thin. I then noticed that one of the vents in the area had about the right width (little tight but works).


Another view.

 

I wasn't gonna get Blitzwing at first because I already own the 3Zero version. However, I saw this guy at Target while out of town, and seeing that it's a rare find as far as my own town is concerned, I bought him on sight.
Gotta say, glad I bought it because he's pretty great and is scaled with my other Bumblebee characters.

 

Found this guy at Walmart, and he is stunning!



I went ahead and used a dremel a bit on the balljoint socket for the head to lessen the whole "head tilts when you turn it" thing that always bothers me, but besides that my only real complaint is that I pretty much have to hold the torso in place while turning the shoulders due to how tight those joints are. Sure the jet mode isn't accurate at all, but that kind of thing doesn't tend to bug me and even if it did the robot mode more than makes up for it.

 

That's literally in the instructions.

I got him from Amazon the other day, I didn't cancel his pre-order due to the price drops so he was below retail for me. I'm glad he didn't, other than having to hold the shoulders when moving his very tight shoulders (in particular the right shoulder on mine is super tight), I don't have a complaint about robot mode at all. Alt mode is fine; TBH I don't care that he's not the jet he was in the film, but he's a passable jet as far as far too many jetformers go. The transformation isn't too bad, it's not fantastic, but it does hold together and it is a unique jet transformation.

Overall, a pretty good transformer, though he'll almost undoubtedly be repurposed as someone else.

 

Didn’t know, I threw out the instructions after transforming without them after realizing how intuitive the transformation was.

 

Combing through the thread, glad others noticed the shoulder fins are misassembled. Was about to post about it.

However, on mine the shoulders are so tight that if you so much as move an arm the backpack with wings just disassembles and the whole cockpit tries to move up. I don't see enough posts about this, do people have the back dislodging due to poor connection AND shoulder joint tolerances too tight? I can not budge the arms forward a milimeter without the back coming off. I need a replacement anyway since one shoulder fin missing from my Amazon order. Swapped the fin from one shoulder to the other since it was wrong.

 

There are screws on the back of the red shoulder assembly if you loosen those up a tad it will help. Also if you thicken the wing tabs slightly with super glue or an epoxy that will also help. Additionally you can add some floor polish to that main hinge for the shoulder assembly that swings down over the head. One or all of those should help

 

Amazing figure.

 

Amazing work!! Don't forget to swap the shoulder wings between left to right as they're backwards due to misassembly

 

Thanks! Im glad to know this is possible!

 

Mine is like this too