Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Transformers ROTF Deluxe Class Arcee Part 3

The even weirder story of Arcee's waist

Transforming "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" Deluxe Class Arcee from superbike to robot mode this time. ^^


The passenger compartment needs to be separated first.


The kick stand is retracted as well.


The bike's head is unhooked from the fairings at the front edge.


With the tabs unhooked, the entire left fairing, together with the front and rear wheels is folded downward.


The top half of the bike will form the upper body, while the bottom half will form the lower body. The convoluted engine block right in the middle will become Arcee's waist. ^^;


The front wheel is folded downward for about 90 degrees.


The two wheels are collapsed to the front to form Arcee's "legs".
Chromia has one wheel as her "legs" while Arcee has two. Both of them can't stand without support though. ^^;


They might look like a pair of peg and slot, yet they are unable to connect to each other to secure the two wheels. ^^; This task will have to be fulfilled by the passenger compartment at the end of the entire transformation. ^^;


The right fairing is rotated to the front to form Arcee's left arm.


The super thin "actual" left arm behind the armor (fairing) has multiple ball-type joints incorporated. Yet, their movements are severely restricted because of all the armors fixed on top of it. ^^;


The bottom fairing panel is folded inward.


The bike's head is tilted downward to form Arcee's left shoulder.


From the bike's top view, the left arm is bent to the right hand side of the bike (no directional mistake there XD).


The head is rotated to the front.


The chest panels (top side of the fuel tank) are split for a slight degree before the head is bent downward.


A few gears beneath the neck joint would move together when the head is bent. It's a rather "forceful" display of the "Mech Alive" feature on this figure in my opinion since the gears have no direct effect on the overall transformation at all. ^^;


The seat and tail unit is swung up to the left hand side of the bike to form Arcee's right arm.


A tab behind the right shoulder block secures the component to the body.


The rear panel is folded to the back to form the right hand. The seat is folded backward as well to conceal the hollow spot left by the rear panel.


The seat frame is rotated to the front of the right arm to form Arcee's special weapon.


Done for the right arm.


Time to deal with the whole chuck of engine parts to complete Arcee's lower body. ^^;


A huge ball-type joint connects the chest to the waist.


The official way to transform the lower body: the lower half of the waist block is first swung to the front for 180 degrees.


Secondly, using the large abdominal ball-type joint, the entire lower body is swung to the left hand side of the robot's body.


The left shoulder (the bike's head) can be split to give more room for movement to the upper arm.


The wheels are stored into the passenger compartment to allow Arcee to stand up.


All done for Arcee's transformation. ^^

While they are quite different from one another, there are a few "strange" similarities between Arcee and Chromia in terms of their transformation design. Number one: they are both equally weird. XD Jokes aside, both characters have arms of disproportionate size: it's the left arm for Chromia and the opposite for Arcee. Both those larger arms are transformed from the tail unit of their motorcycle modes as well. Both have really odd-looking waist, which is the pivotal component in the overall transformation. Taking those similarities into consideration, the sister relationship between the two characters is unmistakable. ^^

As compared to Chromia, Arcee's transformation design is a little bit more troublesome in my opinion. ^^; The arms can be a nuisance to bend and tilt in certain steps as the large bike fairings always get in the joints' way. ^^; That problem is mainly from the overall design of the robot itself instead of its transformation I suppose, which is a hint to how well/unwell the articulation design of this figure. ^^

More images of Chromia in robot mode coming up next. ^^

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