And on that legends note, a more original toy based Cosmos would be the icing on the cake.

 

Hopefully one with actual red plastic for a head. I love the scout "Targetmaster" version from Generations that came with Payload but I've not transformed him in years since you have to use a thumbnail to pop the head back up and I've seen the pictures of damaged Cosmos heads where the red paint is scratched.

 

Eh. Not like there haven't been some really boxy vehicles in the modern era, like the Qube. Or while we're on the Skids topic, the Scion xB.

 

And coming full circle to my hot take, Binaltech/Alternators Skids (who was a Scion xB) looked better than this ... angular voidfest.

 

Meh. Alt Skids was good for the era, but looking back at him now, his proportions look really off to me. Huge, broad shoulders, tiny head. Blech. Robot design is way more charismatic on any modern toy compared to what we were getting back in the Alternators days.

 

And as much as I tire.. truly truly heavily tire of having to say this.
I'm sure the reprolabels will help the appearance a lot. It's sadly like they've became a mandatory accessory if you want the best out of your Transformers these days.

 

I don't see anything that's particularly missing, deco-wise. Other than painted hubcaps, which Reprolabels wouldn't be able to adequately fix, anyways. Gotta bust out the paint for that.

 

Yeah, I mean, while I do agree that he is more square-ish and less accurate (obviously) than a licensed version of him, I don't know that I can agree personally with the notion that (as with the hollow inner thighs/knees critique) Skids being on the boxy and/or less accurate side of the spectrum in terms of his alt mode is in any way an aberration or departure from the WFC lines. I mean...



... among many other examples over the years. Not a lot of subtle, non-angular curves or hyper-accuracy in any of those compared to their original inspirations. CHUG has always been inaccurate to both toon and license to varying degrees, and every line has had some figures that land incredibly close to the mark (what we sometimes tongue-in-cheek label "mini-masterpieces") and some that miss it by more than others. (And to what extent that's true or bothers people varies from collector to collector and figure to figure, of course, which is understandable.) I don't personally view this as being less evocative of its inspiration than any of the other inaccurate examples above (in fact - and again, this is why I say to what extent this is true varies subjectively from collector to collector - Hound bugs me a lot more than Skids here.)

 

If you're talking straight up show wise, but I do prefer the toy style details which basically includes all of the red shoulder deco, hip details, shin details, knee details. And of course with this release the modern standards of no tail lights or alt mode rear end details at all apply. I'm sure RL will make a nice rear window sticker for it probably a black bumper.

 

That's a valid opinion to be sure, but falls under what I said re: how subjective it is from figure to figure and collector to collector. What bugs one person more bothers someone else less. It's dependent upon the individual, not the product. My point was that CHUG has always been inaccurate to source/inspiration, to varying degrees, and how people value one particular facet of a given character or design vs others will determine their personal level of tolerance for those differences. I consider the two examples comparable in that regard, whereas you don't, for example. Which is fine.

 

I don't think you're getting the issue. It's not the fact that he's a boxy vehicle, it's that his alt mode literally lacks beveling common to real world cars. When people say he's too square it's because he's literally squared off, with actual corners and totally flat surfaces like a low-poly rendition of the G1 alt mode.

Alts also prioritized highly detailed and realistic alt modes over the robot modes as well. I feel like the fact that the Alt figure is even comparable to a modern figure without any concessions made for the alt mode is kind of sad.

And that's kind of the big kicker for me. The alt mode looks like a simplistic 3D model of a car and it's not even at the expense of a good robot mode. He goes from ugly car to ugly robot, neither form benefiting from the drawbacks of the other such that I could at least accept the intent even if I didn't necessarily agree.

I think it's a bit of skewed perspective to compare a utility vehicle and Cybertronian army jeep to what is meant to be a consumer-level hatchback. It's not that square vehicles don't exist, it's that it's clearly not what Skids' alt mode is meant to be. Legacy Skids is positively geometric compared to Hoist and Hound, and looks unrealistic as well as just ugly.

 

If you say so. I'm looking at the image a couple of posts up, and he's not so squared off as to look completely unrealistic, in my eyes. The Marvel art was even sharper.

 

Well, that's the thing. That was my point. We all have "skewed perspectives." There is no such things as perfect objectivity when it comes to our particular tolerances and thresholds for these products, because as Generations line figures they all take creative license to varying degrees with (and are being compared in different ways relative to) their particular inspirations.

To me, for example, Hoist's most recent CHUG outing looks much more square than, lacks specific details which for me are iconic to, and diverges enough to be notable from, what he's based on. And even more so for Hound. What class of vehicle they are is, for me, irrelevant to my point and my critique of those figures. They are comparably, and in Hoist's case, for me, equally, divergent from my ideal incarnations of those alt modes, next to Legacy Skids'. And in the case of Hoist, for the same reasons.

To someone more tolerant of those divergences because they're military and utility vehicles, that's not as big a deal. To someone like me, who sees and finds notable the slight curves and contours present in the '82 Toyota 4x4 Hilux that Hoist is based on, and which his G1 toy has, they are. (Though, in all of these cases, they're not deal breakers to me regardless, because I have come to expect this with CHUG, which was my other point. So not a huge deal to me, but just enough of one to render them equally or similarly inaccurate to Skids. For me. Which is the point: for me. We all weight particular facets of these designs differently from individual to individual, for different reasons.)

 

Fair enough, but by the same yardstick, this Skids is (arguably) not that great in an era that has produced better sculpted and better engineered figures, especially recently.

That said, let me be clear and say, this is just my opinion, and I don't begrudge you or anyone if you dig this figure. Different strokes and all that.

 

I don't think Hasbro brought their A-Game on this toy, but It is likely fair to point out that he's not really significantly "worse" than Hound or Hoist. Sure he's a bit gappy, and has weird knees. & His Vehicle mode was hit will an ugly stick.

But it's not Like I can't say I have seen worse - I have seen a lot worse. I like him more than Arcee, and Kickback to be honest.
Arcee I am not so keen on as I don't see her as an improvement over the Prime-RID one & she has some weird kibble - but I may like the remould/repaint as a Lasercycle - it may suit that use much more.

Kickback I'd be fine with if he had Mechanical wings. I don't look the organic wings - they creep me out. Skids is just a little gappy and a bit boxy - but like I said - not really "Worse" than Hoist and I can tolerate Hoist for the most part. Dragstrip I am mostly indifferent too. I look at him and my first thought is "I wish Takara still did their own stuff - as I bet they would paint him better".

I am wondering if it might be an idea to wait for a Stunticons gift set ? We have had "minor issues" before in the designs - so I guess I could roll with it and say Legacy is just suffering from design quirks.... but I don't know there is just something about Legacy that fails to get me excited much so far... maybe I need some new Cassettes or something "cool" like some new mould Autobot Targetmasters or something like that.

 

I feel this too, honestly, to some degree. While I actually like all the designs shown off so far (especially Skids, as a G1 head,) I think the initial wave of character reveals might just be part of the problem (though I also know there are people who love these characters, as with all characters, and I'm sure for those people provided they like these designed, they're over the moon right now which is great.) I think that as much as people sometimes rail against the repetition of the same G1 characters again and again, whether we like it or not, certain characters are just less popular than others.

Dragstrip seems fairly well received in comments, but I think excitement for him would be higher if we saw how combining worked and what combined mode as a whole looked like (even just as a silhouette.) Laser Prime tends to actually a very popular character and toy (seriously, look it up) and apart from the shoulder articulation he seems to be as well received as ever. But apart from those two, we have Skids (never a particularly prominent character,) Prime Arcee and Animated Bulkhead (both of which have new G1-ified takes on their designs, which seem to have divided opinion a lot,) and Kickback (Insecticons tend to be pretty popular but people seem divided on the transparent purple wings and I expect a future redecco with opaque silver paint on them honestly Note: nevermind, I see that the purple transparent bits are removable, so that's not a thing.  )

Leaving Blaster as, seemingly, the standout that ticks more of the boxes people seem to have wanted. (And I feel similarly myself, despite my advocacy up thread for Skids lol.) So yeah I kind of think we just need to see more of the line revealed, and more detail on what's already been shown (especially combined mode Menasor.) I think this particular combination of offerings just feels a little light to some. (Which is not to say I'm not jazzed about them personally, but it's understandable IMO.)

 

Before he was revealed I'd been wondering if it'd be possible to reshell him into a better Mirage. Seeing how he's engineered, I don't think that'd be possible unfortunately, but if they made a Tyrrell P34-inspired repaint of Dragstrip I'd gladly customize that into my Mirage:

 

I hope they do just that and make a Mirage from this guy with just a new head, maybe the puppet face toy head. Masquerade style!

 

I am so getting this guu even though he only appear briefly in the cartoon,i need him to complete my 84/85 Autobots

 

Looks like Skids is on sale too
Transformers War for Cybertron Legacy Deluxe Autobot Skids | eBay