Shovel

Shovel is Toyworlds version of Scrapper, the leader of the Constructicons. Shovel comes packaged in a heavy duty cardboard box with custom cut foam insert. Included in the box is Shovel, combined mode chest shield, laser rifle, instructions, shovel sticker, and a complete set (6) of corrected stat cards.

Shovel stands roughly 8 1/2 inches tall, which makes him just a touch taller than the rest of the Toyworld Constructicons, which I think is fitting, being that he is the leader. He appears much larger though, thanks to his broad shoulders and shovel backpack.

Shovel is a great scale for other MP sized transformers.

Paint is on par with the rest of the Toyworld bots. Everything is well applied and sharp. Shovel has large areas of grey painted on his legs which does an excellent job of breaking up all of that green plastic.

Shovels articulation is deceptively dynamic. His shoulders are on a butterfly joint which allows a very wide range of motion and his ankles are on a system of joints that can be pulled down, and adjusted. He also has a side to side tilt in his torso. His lower legs are very bulky, and can sometimes get in the way of each other, but Shovel can still pull off some very dynamic poses. I wish he had more forward and backward range in his neck, but I’ve said the same thing about every other transformer I have ever owned.

Shovel has the same articulated fingers as the rest of the Toyworld bots. They look great, but can sometimes get hung up when flipping the hands in, or out of the forearms if they aren’t carefully positioned. Shovels gun pegs into his hand, and is held very securely.

Transformation from robot to alt mode is very easy and takes less than a minute after you have done it a few times. The alt mode is a little awkward looking, but remains faithful to the G1, cab-less design. I really like that the combined mode chest shield can be attached in alt mode for a kind of armored look.

Everything pegs together very nicely in alt mode, and all four over-sized rubber wheels roll freely. I really like the way Toyworld designed Shovels tires. They are hollow inside, which gives them a bouncy, “real tire” feel.

I’m glad that Toyworld went with a (kind of) classic, G1 look for Shovels alt mode being that Generation toy is doing the updated look. Both toys look great next to each other.

Transformation to “foot” mode is as easy as lifting the shovel up, rotating the arms down and locking them, and flipping up some tabs in the back. The foot itself stands 9 inches tall and is massive. Everything is nice and solid, and while it’s impossible to say right now how solid combined mode will be, there is nothing here that jumps out at me as a potential problem.

Aside from a few small nitpicks, I really don’t have anything bad to say about Shovel. Hes a big chunky robot with lots of pose-ability and a fun, quirky looking alt mode.