Rocking two more of the Legends Transformers this week. I don’t care what the haters say, I like the quirky Legends line, and these Transformers definitely up the game on complexity for the line. Starscream is rocking some big guns and wings, while Soundwave is kicking it with a giant cannon on one shoulder and… a something on the other. Plus some funky headgear.

Okay, so… yeah, you’ve probably figured out that I don’t actually know that much about the Transformers series, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate them. The idea of transforming robots is pretty awesome, I just never got into the show when I was a kid. I liked the toys, but for some reason, not really sure, I just never watched any of the shows. As an adult, I’ve watched the movie franchise, though mostly for laughs after the first one or two.

As I’ve said before, I really think the Legends line was coming into it’s own with the Transformers and Loony Tunes line, and these two definitely make that argument well. Much more diversity of shape and building style. Of course, there are the staples, with most of the legs of the transformers being built the same, but with various attachments to make them differ some. But the arms and heads really seem to shake things up a lot. And then there’s Starscream’s torso / shoulder, which is massively different than any other Legends build I can remember.

Of course, what with these being Legends models, they aren’t that challenging. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are a couple of parts that are challenging, but on the whole, they are fairly straight forward. For instance, getting the tabs folded on the inside of the elbow was rather tricky on both of these models, as there is not much space to get anything in there to fold them. There’s not enough room to fold them inwards, so the only option is to fold them outwards (or twist the tabs, which I refuse to do because I’m stubborn).

In addition, shaping and mounting the cannon on Soundwave was a little challenging. In fact, I seem to have folded the mount of that cannon incorrectly, because it feels like it’s pointing in the wrong direction. Most of the rest of Soundwave was pretty easy, even the extra features on top of the head – I was worried that reaching the tabs might get interesting, but there was plenty of room for that.

On Starscream, the biggest challenge was the wings. Much like the “wings” on Bumblebee, the way they attach is kinda weird and hard to figure out the right angle to fold the tabs. What’s worse, though, is I missed the thin fold at the end of the longer half of the first wing, and managed to attach it anyways. Only then did I notice the perforations… so I had to take it back off (partly) and fold that section and reattach it. Luckily, none of the tabs broke. After that bit, the next interesting challenge was getting the head in place at the end – you have to tilt it in. I tilted the head back, and then brought the front down. Then you have to finagle the flaps around the head and meet up with the other flaps on the sides… it’s an interesting operation. But I really like how distinct it makes him look.

Each of these builds took me roughly an hour and a half, which I really enjoyed. Sometimes it’s nice to have a build go quickly. Especially when you’ve been building some complicated and/or long builds a lot. You can watch each of the build videos, for potential reference, below. I’m sorry the contrast is so weird in my videos, I’ll try to improve that in the future, if I can figure out how.