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More of my Grimlock Collection

January 30th, 2019 Comments off

Nearly six years ago, I made posts showing off my Grimlock Collection (alt mode and robot mode). I have acquired more Grimlock figures since then, especially in the past year. It’s high time for an update.

For this update I’m only including new G1 and direct derivatives of the character. That means no Grimlocks from the Movie-verse or Robots in Disguise.

These are the 3 Grimlocks I’m feature here:

  • Fans Toys Grinder – This is a 3rd party MP Grimlock by FT. It’s the large one in the group.
  • Mech Fans Toys Grmlock – A 4th party product, by MFT. This is the figure with the really silver paint job.
  • Power of the Primes Grimlock – The only official Grimlock here. It’s the only one in the group with an Autobot symbol.

Dino Mode

Standard dino pose.

Me Grimlock king.

Doing their best Jurassic World impersonation, looking fearsome from the front.

Robot Mode

Grimlocks standing at attention.

Similar shot, different angle.

“Quick guys, look cool! Get into our synchronized action pose.”

Some quick thoughts about each of these Grimlocks:

Grinder: This is a terrific figure. Possibly the best Grimlock ever made. He is larger than MP-8, the official MP Grimlock. And so he scales better with the rest of the Fans Toys Dinos and the rest of the MP Autobots. MP-8 is simply too small by today’s MP scale (in robot mode MP-8 is about the same height as MP-10 Optimus), and Grinder addresses that problem more than adequately. FT made many mechanical improvements over MP-8. The transformation sequence seems much more intuitive. The figure looks good in both modes. Grinder is super solid, no construction issues whatsoever with clicky joints all over the place. My only gripe is that, in T-rex mode, from some angles he looks too much like Barney. I think it’s the dino head mold. Good thing FT does offer an alternate dino head for Grinder (sold separately). I will get it and hopefully that will make this the perfect Grimlock figure.

Grmlock: I touched on this figure back in this post. This figure is 4th party (read: knock offs of 3rd party products). I’m not sure which 3rd party figure they copied, but Grmlock is quite good. I love that silver paint. His transformation scheme is a bit different from the standard Grimlock paradigm that every TransFan is familiar with by now, but that’s not a bad thing. Grmlock hides the T-rex head into the robot chest as opposed to letting it hang on the back, and the way it’s done is actually pretty cool. This figure is super tight in all its joints – almost too tight. Your hands will hurt when transforming this guy. As for Mech Fans Toys, I have no idea who they are. Even this company’s name is a ripoff of Fans Toys (as far as I know FT and MFT are not related whatsoever).

PotP Grimlock: The only official product here, PotP Grimlock kinda pales in quality next to the other 2. He’s decent for a mass produced retail toy. And I’m glad that Hasbro is finally putting out a CHUG Grimlock in voyager scale that G1-ers would consider true enough to the original. But next to the other 2 here, PotP Grimlock very much indeed feels like a toy, while the other 2 are more collector items. I like the robot mode, but some may complain that the arms are too long. And in T-rex mode he appears a bit off, like his tail is too long. Part of the problem is that he is made to combine with the other PotP dinos in which he forms the body. This requirement puts a limitation on what the robot mode and alt mode could look like. Still, I like PotP Grimlock overall. He’s worth buying if you find one.

Go Grimlocks! Transform and Roll Out.
 

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