Yeah, the Concept Art series is going to be a thing with making Moviefied G1 characters because Hasbro is afraid of giving attention to Revenge of the Fallen's 15th anniversary. Beewun Rumble sucked, and Megatron is super overrated with only one good mode that purists will ejaculate over because of course they would. Sunstreaker came off as baffling since we never saw him in the movie while he was briefly seen in the SS86 movie. Will this be enough to justify making a toy out of a character whose concept art was never even seen until now? Let's find out.
Here we have Sunstreaker in vehicle mode. As expected, the aesthetics are basically another Cybertronic take on the Earth mode he'd usually assume, though it's honestly not too dissimilar to the High Moon aesthetics to the point it could almost fit in with the rest of the characters. The main differences include the windshield design being see-through while they are normally opaque in the games themselves, and the same goes for the wheels embedded within rings to make them look less like tires found on Earth. While the design works quite well, especially if you add the dual-barrel pistols on the back to evoke the exposed engine from G1, this figure could use a bit more color breakup than what is already available with the gray on the sides or the headlights. In fact, a proper color break-up is my biggest issue with G1 Sunstreaker as a whole.
The only real issues I have with the altmode specifically would be the exposed hinges and the Arms Micron-looking ass 5mm port jutting out in the middle and back of the altmode, both of which detract from the rest of the car as a whole. Also, the tires don't spin well since these are on mushroom pegs.
For a vehicle mode size comparison, here he is with B-127, who is making this whole photo-editing shit much harder to tackle so I may need to get a newer phone model ASAP. But I should point out that this version of Bumblebee is from the Buzzworthy line where he has been painted in a duller shade of yellow to match his appearance in the Cybertron scenes much better than he did with the regular retail figure and thus been my de-facto Cybertronian version of B-127. Honestly, Bumblebee looks fine with the current state of his color-break-up while Sunstreaker somehow feels naked without some additional separation from the predominant yellow he's in, and I don't think the orange really helps much out. If he was in a richer shade of yellow' he'd look better than he currently does.
Transformation is similar to the usual Sunstreaker affair of how his design would work when translated into this look, from having the front become the legs to the sides becoming the arms and the windshield going on his head. I also have the guns pegged on the back because this optional display feature matches the back of the original design. Sunstreaker's robot mode looks pretty good from the front. He's not as wide as he is in the package art, aka the sole proof that he initially planned to cameo in the Bumblebee movie, but we now have more orange breaking up the yellow this time with some added gunmetal gray here and there. While appreciative, it makes the altmode even paler than it already was. Sunstreaker's design is thought out well compared to other Beewun characters, simply by not being as fat or having severe thigh gaps; he does, however, suffer from having kibble hanging off of his limbs. While the front vehicle panels don't look out of place on the lower legs, the panels that fold onto the forearms are less than pleasant to look at, and I'm not a fan of how so much remains unchanged with the wheels underneath the shoulders, making them almost look too much like they're either too far back or the elbow is too far forward. This is mostly an issue from the side, though.
His head sculpt is basically a Moviefied version of the G1 face, though I can't say if it's more-or-less similar to what the other characters went with since it's not as detailed though it's still not as poorly thought-out like with Brawn, Ratchet, etc. At least his fins are painted yellow. His articulation consists of ball joints at the neck, swivels for the shoulders (when moving front and back), biceps, waist, and thighs, hinges for the shoulders (when moving in and out), elbows, knees, and the ankles (when hinging up and down), and rockers for the ankle pivot. When moving the arms out, you should hinge the shoulders up so they don't bump into his head. And of course, he can hold his dual-barrel pistols the same way his brother would in Dark of the Moon.
One undocumented mode is the hard-hat mode made up from the shoulder pads so he can protect his head from incoming threats! Biggest issue would have to be how it limits the arm articulation so Sunstreaker needs to use this wisely.
One thing I should mention is that the figure comes with a misassembly near the windshield, with slight gaps being present thanks to the hinges being in the wrong direction while the hood isn't flush with the rest of the toy. However, you can easily fix this by popping the hood halves off while rotating the hinges back into their proper spots. This is at least an easier thing to tackle compared to, say, fixing Superion Maximus torso member Storm Jet.
For a size comparison, Sunstreaker is taller than B-127 and is also a design that I do like equally to the Autobot scout. Once again, I do like how Bumblebee turned out with his shade of yellow being more metallic this time around, and I kind of wish the same could have been done for Sunstreaker if we had the chance to make it more metallic, but not to the same extent as Bumblebee's shade of yellow.
And here he is with Sideswipe from the WFC game! If you really want to, you can easily make him part of your WFC display since he was never in the High Moon games, and you're free to ignore the slight aesthetic differences as much as you like. I wouldn't mind doing that, and I also think Sunstreaker manages to be better than he initially seems to be, even if he isn't 100% perfect.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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