Fantastic job!

I've been tempted to repaint mine (still might depending on how long this lockdown lasts), but repainting figures always takes away the fiddle-factor for me, since I'm scared of cocking up the finish through posing/transforming.

Here are a few quick & dirty shots of how Bee's chest works, Snake.

Hopefully you can see how the translucent jeep headlights are those chest pieces that you want to paint over:

 

Thanks! You should paint him, he is super easy to paint. What I was trying to highlight is you have to paint the back of the lights white or silver, then hit it with the darker color. That is how you get those silver headlights while having the other side in a darker color. It worked out very well as i knew i did not want dark looking headlights in jeep mode.

 

That's why I rarely do full-on paint jobs. I prefer to do what's minimally necessary to make them look decent so that I can still handle them without destroying them. Also I'm cautious to do minimal paint and do it well since sometimes it makes them harder to resell.

Dude you're a genius.

 

That is a hell of a solution to the headlight situation!  

Don't tempt me though! I always start by just adding bits of detail on the head....then his shoulders will need some extra silver so the head doesn't look out of place....then I might as well do the torso....then if I've done all of that, gotta do the legs to match! Oh look, now his alt mode needs that fine detail!

It's a slippery slope!  

 

Sometimes I look at a figure and really want it to paint it..I can see detail in pics..etc. This is one I want to paint really bad. Itll look alot like NemesisJazz's.. It looks good with a uniform skeleton

 

Thank you @Shmoptimus Prime and @Goldlock! As for painting him, he really just requires 3 colors:, black, brown and silver. I would say the head is the delicate part due to having very tight spaces (make sure your brush tip is tip top). Of all the studio figures that i have painted, he is the most straight forward of them all. For vehicle mode, there are small cool details that you guys can paint but i rarely paint the car mode anyway.

 

I added some yellow (with a white base coat) to the hands and blaster and I'm really happy with that. Here's a pic to see if you're inspired to break out your yellow  

 

Shnap, good call!

 

So I'm getting closer and closer to breaking out the paints on Bee...

I'm thinking that even though black looks fantastic on the stomach section, it might be slightly more accurate to go with yellow over the translucent plastic:



I imagine there is another attempt with this mould coming, maybe with basic "battle damage" and a new facesculpt.

The way that the head is assembled looks perfect for replacing the front with an accurate battle mask.

 

Sorry if I missed this somewhere, but does anyone know where the blaster goes in Vehicle mode?

 

Cool, get on it man. Id love to see the midsection in yellow!

 

It pegs between his shins hidden on the underside of the Jeep.

Well you've done it now!   Only the head details so far, and added the fiddly bits of yellow to his cheeks & nose.

 

Mine doesn't peg in at all, BTW. I feel like maybe I'm doing something wrong.

 

Any chance someone got this guy with two right arms? Not just the forearm; the whole arm. Mine arrived today from Pulse and I was disheartened to see that he has two left arms. I'd love to trade if I could.

The arm aside, he's a great little figure with tremendous presence and personality packed into that neat little design. I'm a big fan of his ball-jointed feet in particular. Both modes are compact and look quite sharp. This is definitely the Bumblebee figure that the movie deserved. Makes me wish Hasbro would take another swing at VW Bee.

 

Wow that's annoying! Honestly I'd reach out to pulse. They'll ship you a replacement for sure (you might have to ship back the one you have now).

 

I've had this guy for a couple of weeks now, and I think he captures what makes studio series the most interesting line Hasbro is putting out, to me at least. He's made with hindsight (mostly, we'll get onto that), and he's good with enough jank to keep him from being great 9some tabbing, generally loose hips, the neck rotation being just too far backwards on his skull, ect). However, the movie designs demand that new things be done to get the desired result (something Generations and it's Warden era G1 with knees philosophy often lacks).

The latest Camaro Bee (SS49, IIRC) is the better figure, but that doesn't mean that I'm not glad that Bumblejeep got a figure as good as this, since this is likely the only shot we'll get at this design. So I'm looking forward to Cliffjumper (And the cybertronian Bee he'll become), even though adding a roof to this basic skeleton will result in a messier back.

About that mostly: There's no reason that this release shouldn't have the masked head, and that the inevitable cybertronian one shouldn't have the unmasked head- most of the cybertronian body shots were unmasked, while this body was primarily animated with the mask on. Hasbro knows this. So if the Cybertronian Bumblebee isn't revealed to come with the wrong, masked head, I'll be very surprised. And when it is revealed to have the mask this one should have, I'll buy that one, switch the heads and have both be correct relative to the majority of their screentime.

For any Beetlebee V2, and a Bumblebee movie Camaro Bumblebee, I hope they reinvent the wheel instead of trying to repurpose this transformation. This design isn't flat or long enough for the Camaro, and a fresh design for a Bettlebee will probably result in less kibble than repurposing what works for a jeep.

 

This guy is a delight. Just very fun to handle. An involved but very non-frustrating transformation, great articulation, great molded detail and above-average paint apps.

Very glad to have him.

My one concern is - the area in the undercarriage / legs where his gun stores in alt mode - after the first time I tabbed it in, those two "hook" pieces on the legs had very noticeable stress marks. Hope those hold up.

 

Just unboxed this guy from Kapow Toys here in the UK. Overall I think he looks great! Certainly better proportioned than the VW bee.

Unfortunately it looks like mine had some breakage right out of the box, this little arm looks to have snapped clean off when the windscreen got folded up. I've tried to pop it back round but it's wedged right in there. Doesn't seem to affect the transformation at all but I guess be careful with this bit.

Or don't chuck all the packaging away immediately like I did!

 

Pros:

• GREAT looking bot and Jeep modes with very little obtrusive kibble in either mode.
• Articulation in bot mode is really good. Very fun figure to pose and mess around with.
• Pretty impressive engineering on a small scale, the transformation back and forth is really smooth and enjoyable. I especially love how the side panels in Jeep mode form the legs in bot mode.

Cons:

• Head articulation is weird.
• Should’ve included his arm blade along with the stinger gun, and an interchangeable battle mask feature like SS18.
• Minor complaint, but I wish the Jeep mode could’ve been engineered in a way where the grey parts of the forearms faced outwards instead of the yellow parts.

Overall he’s a definite recommend from me.

 

Does anyone else find transforming this guy terrifying? The tabs are so small and mostly go in at right angles... I'm so scared I'll break it.