We are in the middle of a Dinobot gold rush, which is kind of fantastic. It seems nearly every 3rd-party team out there is producing its own take on the Autobots’ heavy artillery, so, considering the cost associated with the average 3rd-party figure, it can be difficult to decide which team’s Dinobots to invest in. For all practical purposes, FansProject is the team that really got the transforming robots 3rd-party renaissance moving, and when they unveiled their own take on the Dinobots, the Internet swooned accordingly. Columpio, based on Transformers Dinobot Sludge and FansProject’s first foray into “Dino-land,” has just been released, so let’s take a look at this figure and see if he meets the seemingly high expectations he’s been saddled with.
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The box is big. Like, really big. Almost Masterpiece big. I was anticipating a voyager-size figure in Columpio, so I was truly taken aback when I saw the box. It’s a fancy window box with a front flap that can be raised to reveal the figure and its accessories contained within. This feature would be more useful if it were something available at the retail level, but seeing as how most people will be ordering this set online, it’s not as useful as it could be. The artwork is awesome, however, and it does a good job of showcasing the figure within.
Well, then again, maybe it doesn’t do that very well at all.
The promo pics are a little too kind in terms of masking the figure’s flaws, which I’m finding to be fairly annoying.
When viewed straight-on, Columpio is gorgeous and looks to be a fantastic modern take on Sludge. When viewed from any other angle, however, that facade crumbles and we see just what a mess this figure actually is. I can live with the stuff hanging off his back because it really isn’t all that obtrusive, but his legs are a cumbersome mess. They’re huge, heavy, and just awkwardly designed in general. There’s no place for his dino-legs to go, so they just sort of stick out from the back of his legs, which is both aesthetically disappointing and functionally obstructive.
Most of his articulation is of the ball-joint variety (excepts his knees, which are ratcheted), which really isn’t good enough considering just how heavy some of his limbs are. His legs are so heavy that this joint system does it no justice and it makes him difficult to pose because he can’t hold any cool poses — he’s something of a floppy mess from the waist down, and the more I move and manipulate his hip joints, the looser they seem to get. Right now I’m lucky to just keep him standing in a vanilla pose. He really needs ratcheted hip joints that can support the weight of his legs. It’s disappointing that FanProject didn’t go this route.
Despite his frustrating functionality, he’s a very pretty figure, mostly. His head sculpt is awesome in the way it captures the stoic indifference the Dinobots are often pictured with. The metallic blue they used is gorgeous and plays well off his red chest and the greys and blacks of the rest of the figure.
He’s just slightly larger than the Fall of Cybertron Grimlock mold, but a good deal larger than the Masterpiece Autobot cars. This makes it convenient and easy to fudge him into just about any display you happen to be building, whether it has a Masterpiece focus or a CHUG focus. I like this about him since my own collection is all over the place in terms of scale and class sizes.
For accessories, he comes with a sword that looks faithful to the G1 Sludge’s sword. His rifle looks to pack some serious firepower, but it’s difficult to get him to hold it securely. This isn’t an issue for the sword, but for the rifle it’s mainly a balancing act that keeps it in place.
His dino mode is mostly successful, and it is faithful to the promo images, so I don’t have any issues here like I did with his ‘bot mode. His neck features a good deal of articulation that provides a great range of motion, but his legs don’t fare as well. They’ve got ball-jointed shoulders, but his feet are static, so he’s really only capable of this one neutral pose. At least it looks good, right?
His tail has no articulation itself, which I guess is fine. In order for the transformation to work the way it does, it would be difficult to saddle it with further articulation.
The only major issue I take with his dino mode is the way his ‘bot feet just sit there. The G1 Sludge had a pair of gold feet that didn’t integrate into the transformation very well, but this is a whole other degree of obtrusive. It’s way too noticeable and ruins the fluid lines of his dino mode. They can be rotated to create a “chair” for Drepan, but even that doesn’t look good or even work all that well.
Speaking of Drepan…
I was stoked to get this little guy based on the promo images I saw, but in hand I learned to not like him quickly. Like Columpio, he looks good when viewed straight-on, but from any other angle… sigh. It’s his axe-handle and the way it just sticks out from his back that just kills it for me. It’s so obnoxious and I can’t believe something more couldn’t have been done to integrate that thing better. It absolutely ruins the figure for me. He’s going to be staying in his axe alt mode if I keep him displayed at all.
The axe is cool, even though it may be clunky and weird. It succeeds in looking huge and imposing, though, so I guess it works. It is heavy, however, so Columpio’s ball-jointed shoulders may weaken over time due to the weight. I guess we’ll see.
This set is such a mixed bag for me that I can’t really recommend it to anyone. I want to like it, I want to be in love with it, but I’m just not — and that sucks considering how expensive the set was. It’s really made me question whether or not I’m going to stick with the FansProject Dinobots or give one of the other teams a try, like maybe ToyWorld.
If you’re interested and would like to see him in hand in order to make up your own mind, then he can be ordered from our kind sponsors Big Bad Toy Store.