I am glad i did not give up on him...

 

Beautiful. This is exactly what I plan to do to mine when I get him.

 

This guy does not photograph well, but he's actually pretty fun in hand. He looks proportionally different to DOTM Soundwave but is able to maintain that gorilla-esque feeling to him and get kind of down and dirty. He absolutely needs a better paint job, and the "space dust" or whatever is a baffling design choice. The headsculpt is amazing, and I like the details in his neck / upper torso area. In satellite mode I think he definitely benefits from angling the ankles in on the ankle joint and rotating the panels back a bit.

 

When you realize RotF Soundwave was probably skimped out on because they were focusing on 86 Studio Series

 

RotF Soundwave was skimped on because the character was an incomplete design at that point. Just the satellite mode to work with. The robot designs they did up to go along with it didn't match to that final movie model. Otherwise, we already have a toy that fairly perfectly matched the concept art.

 

The G1 comment was a joke, but he did have an official robot mode in the RotF game, which is based off of his deluxe toy. I guess it depends on if you count it or not, so I can understand and excuse them creating a new robot mode. But that doesn’t excuse the pisspoor execution. His paint has that speckled pubic hair look and the sculpt isn’t that good.

In the past, HasTak has cleverly made retools where it made sense and where it worked well (Heli Dropkick to Heli Drift, Megatron to Shockwave, etc.). This was one of those times where making Satellite Soundwave a retool of SLS Soundwave should work in theory since they are the same character... except it doesn’t.

Since the retool is designed for Soundwave to turn into the car, it ends up being detrimental to the figure as a whole, especially when he supposed to turn into an elaborate satellite. The transformation is literally just turning his waist around, flipping his legs up behind his back, and then fidgeting with smaller panels, showing that they couldn’t do anything else. They really should have just gone for a new mold so the figure didn’t have to be bogged down by engineering clearly made so it can turn into a car. They couldn’t even be fucked to change the Mercedes thigh pieces.

It is kind of ridiculous that the boxart for the figure seems to resemble the 2009 deluxe design much more. You can see that it’s got that Josh Nizzi head design. Also it has a nice deep space blue color to it. What happened? Why didn’t we get that color scheme? Why didn’t we get that figure?

 

I think if someone did a really accurate non-transforming one I'd get that for this character. I like the concept way more than the mercedes, which is a cool design (and a SEXY car) but just sort of ends up making him look generic.

 

Had this guy for a couple days and while yes, his transformation is simple and the paint could have been a little more exciting, I actually like this guy, He isn't the best Studio Series figure by any stretch, but he's fun to fiddle with. I enjoy pushing he head back into the torso when in satellite mode as it fits so perfectly, it feels like it is intentional. It doesn't hide his face but it does make the top of the satellite flat. You can also flip it around and hide his face but it doesn't fit in as well so the back of the head sticks out (which isn't a bad look either).

Like I said, isn't amazing and I can see why some people might not like it, but he's fine for me. I'm more than happy to put my old ROTF figure in storage. He was always a floppy mess and I didn't like how flat the satellite mode was,

 

You mentioning this made me think how cool it'd be if Studio Series branched out into the concept art. I'd love a ROTF Soundwave that turned into a Silverado!

 

For all his faults, I can't help but favor this version over the old Deluxe. Bot mode is less fiddly and much better sculpted, especially that head. Satellite mode is definitely a phoned-in effort and you lose the fun versatility of the RotF mold, but I still find something charming to it. I followed optibotimus's configuration for alt-mode by angling the feet inward to make it look less doofy. Otherwise, I enjoy it as is, but giving him larger accurate solar panels would fix a lot of the issues I personally have with the satellite. If he had to be a voyager to get those big ass panels and maybe even a Ravage figurine like in the film, I would've said go for it.

Just a scrapped together proof-of-concept for a quick project to show what I mean:


So yeah, the old Deluxe is a better, more versatile toy, but I still find myself enjoying the Studio Series version. He's a fine desk buddy.

 

I’ve had this figure for less than two hours and I’ve already painted him up   looks sooo much better than he did out of the box! I do really like the figure so far though. Just silver spray paint (uneven coat on purpose for some weathering) and some light metallic blue and gunmetal gundam markers plus some panel lining. Gonna add some more details later like some red and gold for the wires but I had to leave for a wedding so here’s what I have so far:

 

Some more Soundwave. Funny that I enjoy the robot mode a lot more than I thought I would. Satellite mode is about as fun as I expected. So easy to transform. I wish they had put more effort into the arms if anything, and the solar panels should have been twice the size (maybe the could have folded in half?). Still having fun with this thing and I’m really glad I painted him immediately.

 

I remember the ROTF version had a third alt mode (jet).. does this version come close to an air vehicle?

 

I've seen some cool fan modes of Soundwave in an alien "jet" mode, but not officially, no.

 

I made my own. Someone said it looks like a TIE fighter which made me happy.

 

Not only am I fully impressed by your paint update, I'm even convinced I could pull this off, but I absolutely love the TIE fighter mode!

I hope to find one soon, I was already sold on him, but your updates make it even more so!

 

Thank you! Yes this figure is easy to paint. It's actually even a good figure for a beginner to experiment on, since it's hard to make it "inaccurate" since he's always in shadows and never showed a bot mode. I literally sprayed the whole thing silver the minute I took him out of the box, then I added the light metallic blue on top and did some gold and gunmetal highlights based on my own preference. I did have to pry the head open to repaint the eyes red, but it came apart easily and went back together very firmly.

 

Thank you so much for the pointers! And you used gundam markers?!