Review – Transformers Elita-One Bust

“The golden age of Cybertron was a time of rich resources and innocence. One of the Cybertronians who embodied the spirit of this era is Ariel, the young girlfriend of Orion Pax, the robot who would one day become the great Autobot leader, Optimus Prime.”
— from the back of the box

When I reviewed the Sound Blaster bust last year (review here) I mentioned that I likely wouldn’t be grabbing any other busts unless I found them at a great price. Well, Big Bad Toy Store recently dropped the price from $60 to $13 on this Transformers Elita-One bust so I took advantage of the price reduction and snagged one. And I’m glad I did, because at $13 this bust is a steal!

Packaging

Basically the exact same packaging design as the Sound Blaster bust, this box is nothing spectacular or exciting. It’s functional, and I’ll keep it to protect the statue when I need to move it, but I’d love to see some original paintings on these boxes. The addition of tech specs is nice, but overall what we get here is a package that wasn’t given the same level of attention and artistry as the statue that it was designed to carry. That’s unfortunate, since I love beautiful boxes.

Elita-One?

You can check Teletraan 1 for more info than you’ve ever wanted, or you can just sit down and watch the episodes “War Dawn” and “The Search for Alpha Trion” from Transformers: Season 2*. Basically, this is a female Autobot that made Shockwave (review here) look bad. You know, I don’t know why the writers of the cartoon hated Shockwave but they never did give him the same level of respect that he got in the comics. Can you imagine what the cartoon would have been like with a cold, calculating, powerful Shockwave that confronted and defeated Megatron? Woulda been awesome stuff.

Great Sculpt

As you can see in these pics, Elita-One was designed as a slender, sexy Transformer and the sculptor on the project did a great job of translating the animated version of the character to this three-dimensional bust. The details — especially on the face (see above) — are well-executed and smooth, and the pose gives the character a strength of character that we should expect from an Autobot leader.

The only serious complaint I have with this statue’s sculpt is that the artist created a bust and not an entire statue; with just a little more work this would have been a complete statue and that would have looked a lot better with my Transformers collection than this legless beauty. It’s an unfair complaint, I know, but it still bothers me that Elita-One wasn’t taken all of the way to completion. And I doubt we’ll see another statue of this character; after all, if a limited run of 600 pieces gets knocked from $60 to $13 who is gonna take another chance on the character?

Paint

This is the one place where the statue falls down a little. For the most part the paint is just fine, but the black detail lines aren’t as crisp and strong as I would have liked. Click on the above right picture for the full-size image and you’ll see what I mean; it’s not terrible, but the line work is a little rougher than I like to see in a $60 (original MSRP) statue. I do love the shades of pink on the character, and the face is pretty good, so at $13 I am not complaining at all, but if you find Elita-One for a higher price please keep this detail work in mind before you make a purchase.

Closing Thoughts

It’s not the greatest statue you’ll ever see, and I wouldn’t have even bought one at the original price, but in the end this Elita-One’s sculpt is so strong that it overpowers the weak paint detail and comes together to give me a collectible that I actually would have been happy with at $25 or $30. The fact we even got a bust of such an obscure, minor character is amazing on its own, and just goes to show us how popular Transformers Generation One is 25 years after these episodes were originally broadcast.

You can get the bust from either BBTS for $13 (as I already mentioned), or the same Transformers Elita-One Bust* is at Amazon for the exact same price. (And actually also from BBTS, but the Amazon link benefits battlegrip.com and is easier for those of you who don’t have a BBTS account.) I doubt this bust will hang around long, though, because $13 is just way too good of a price.

Philip Reed is now trying to decide where to place his Elita-One bust. With the Transformers toys or with the statues? Sound Blaster doesn’t have any room near him. The answer is probably going to be to rearrange the toys and statues again. Gina’s gonna love that.