I’ve been on a bit of a robot kick lately and I really have my fellow Fwoosh writers Pablolobo and DisThunder to blame. Their reviews of 100TOYS and Toy Notch bots were responsible for my recent robot purchases. Today we are going to take a look at Toy Notch’s Astrobots Argus!
Astrobots, according to the packaging, are a robotic space colonization force. Argus is an AI consciousness that inhabits hundreds of drone bodies. I like that Toynotch is trying to get me to army build right off the bat with the packaging material!
The packaging is nicely designed box, and though you cannot see the figure, the box features nice photography and illustrations of the robot. The Astrobots are in 1/12 scale and scales nicely with Marvel Legends.
The figure comes with two blaster cannons that hook onto the hands and has a slot for two LR44 batteries. When you push down on the head, these batteries light up the neck peg and the light can be seen through the light pipe eyes. It’s fairly weak in natural or direct light, but makes for a nice effect inside with low lighting. Below you can see the eyes off, then on, then on in low light conditions.
The light is a neat gimmick, but the main selling point for me is the design and articulation. The design has a great, ape-like build with some classic ’80s mecha style robot detailing and feels inspired by G1 Transformers and Zoids.
The articulation is top notch and features:
- Ball and socket head, neck, shoulders, and upper torso
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, and hips
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Single hinged lower torso and toes
- Swivel biceps and thighs
- Individually articulated fingers that hinge at the knuckles and hinge outward where they meet the hand.
The finger hinge where the fingers meet the hand allows the fingers to splay out in a nice, natural way and the double ball joints in the neck allow for a great range of motion and expressive posing. I also like the way the shoulder ball and socket joints work. They can kind of push in and pull out a little so they can pivot forward and back.
The figure is well balanced and can easily stand on one hand or one foot.
The articulated hands are really fun and you can remove the hand mounted cannons if you want .
The paint is nice, but fairly minimal. It looks like the figure is mostly cast in dark gray plastic, but it’s a nice, matte plastic. The detail paints are applied cleanly. I think this guy would look fantastic with a black wash.
Overall, this is a fantastic figure and tons of fun. It’s a little pricey (I got mine from BBTS at $69.00), so I probably won’t army build, but I can see this robot showing up in tons of future pictures.
The Astrobots are sold out at most of the online retailers I frequent, but I read on the Astrobots facebook page that they are looking to do more and are talking with distributors.
