Up in the sky, its a bird, its a dog, it's Superfuzor Silverbolt! Whas just landed for a behind the scenes with Hasbro's Mark Maher @markclonus. The newest Beast Wars character to come through the portal gives up some production insights and details on how he worked with Takara TOMY's Hasui san to dream this guy up for his United debut. Read on to get Mark's report with the images to follow.
So, upon kicking off this character with our amazing Takara Tomy partners, the legendary Hasui san informed me that Silverbolt was one of his favorite Beast Wars characters. Don’t quote me, but I believe he said the OG Silverbolt toy was the first Beast Wars toy he had gotten his magical hands on. It’s always such an honor to work with passionate people of the brand. I mean, after all, it is the 40th celebration, and this character is so unique, a fine addition to anyone’s collection. Hasui-san really made this toy come to life!
As you may know, Silverbolt is a fusion of a wolf and an eagle. All of our beast modes since our Kingdom series have leaned more towards realistic animal sculpts. It still fascinates me today how well the sculpted details translate from sculpt to plastic. So take an extra look at these fine feathers and marvel at the somewhat more werewolf face; the yellow-eyed staredown will give you the willies, I promise!
This character just exudes courageous strength, a ferocity of justice, and a massive will of trying to do the right thing! It’s honorable to be in such a presence, as it’s a rare trait for a character of such knight-like prowess to have a beast mode that strikes fear in Predacons’ black hearts. But as you know, Black Arachnia’s heart warmed up quite a bit with this big-shouldered stud!
I can’t help but sing, “How much is that doggy in the window, the one with the feathered tail?”
There's so much room there in the robot mode biceps to hide either the wolf paws or the robot arms and yet they designed it to do neither. Just a little extra bit could've completed the look for both modes. I couldn't care less about how accurate it is to the animation model when the rest of the BW figures all had liberties taken with their designs for one reason or another. So why stick to just one being 100% accurate? The one with horrible looking kibble to copy too. Sure it's the only real kibble but it could've been mitigated so easily.
Then there's TransArt that's also going 100% accurate too with their version.
Why on this one stupid looking bit are both companies keeping it like that but change other things that didn't need changing?
Can we get tall/lanky Lockdown? Nope, for sure next time though supposedly.
Can we get big bulky Bulkhead? Nope.
Can we get lean Animated Prowl? Nope.
Can we get gorgeous Knockout? Nope.
Can we get Prime Arcee with leg wheels that don't look stupid? Nope.
Can we get BW Silverbolt with dangling doggy legs hanging off the robot arms? Sure, why not.