General Information: Images:
*Images and text below from the official Transformers web site: Turn the tables on enemy forces when you throw this warrior into the fight! Your TOMAHAWK figure is dedicated to destroying any opponent and his snapping pincer accessories will help you two get the job done. If robot combat turns into a chase, convert your hero into combat helicopter vehicle mode and deploy his launching missile accessories from the "skies"! Battle-ready robot-to-vehicle figure converts from robot mode with snapping pincer accessories to combat helicopter vehicle mode with two launching "missiles" -- and back again! Ages 5 and up.
Vehicle Mode:
Of course, to avoid licensing issues several modifications were made from the real life vehicle to its translation into toy form. In general, Tomahawk's vehicle mode is a lot more angular than the rounded and smooth design of the Tiger. Other differences include:
Real details or no, there are a lot of really nicely sculpted bits on this figure. What draws my eye immediately is the interior of the cockpit. There you'll find a chair sculpted with arm rests and all. The aforementioned air vents on the sides have two large flaps on either side and each wing has a really nasty looking machine gun on the ends. Much of the design is very smooth on the top side of the vehicle, but look on the underside and a lot of the robot mode's legs tuck under there. Normally this "undercarriage" kibble would be seen as a bad thing, but in this case the detailing on them is done so well that I actually like it a lot. There are a lot of mechanical details including pistons, wires and gears visible from the sides and I really like the way that looks. I'm also a big fan of the guns on the ends of the wings, which have nice small barrels at the end and rings wrapping around the front, middle and back. The missiles aren't shabby either, with cool horizontal and vertical fins at the ends. Sometimes vehicle modes get the short end of the stick in terms of detail, but that is most certainly not the case with Tomahawk. Tomahawk's primary plastic colors are black, gold, silver and translucent yellow. Most of the helicopter is made up of black plastic including the nose of the cockpit, the wings, the tail and rotors. The gold parts (which really look more like a metallic beige color) make up the missiles underneath the wings and parts of the undercarriage. Silver plastic makes up more of the undercarriage parts as well as the vents on the sides. The translucent plastic is found on the cockpit. Paint applications are done up in red, silver, black and gold, all colors that work really well against the black plastic that makes up most of the vehicle. The spot of red is found in the front of the cockpit. The small "wings" coming out of the cockpit are silver while the rear rotor and the guns on the ends of the wings are silver as well. The wings have a cool pattern of gold lines and silver Autobot symbols on the sides. Overall it's a tight and solid color scheme that I really like a lot. The black color gives Tomahawk an air of menace befitting an aerial warrior and the contrasting colors are strong but not overwhelming. The rotor on the helicopter can be spun around, but there is no "auto spin" mechanism such as those you'd find on Evac. To me this is no big deal since you do have two missile launchers! Mounted under each wing is a launcher that fires a gold missile. The launchers are interesting in that they can peg underneath the wings or clip onto the rails on the tail section of the vehicle. This feature will also come into play in the robot mode. Transformation to Robot Mode:
Robot Mode: However, the devil is in the details and that is where Tomahawk truly endures. Indeed, seeing such a "standard" type of Transformers design in a movie based line is really welcome in many respects. From the waist up, Tomahawk really does have a more classic Transformers appearance. His head design is rounded with a visor over eyes underneath with a nose and mouth. The helmet section wraps around his chin, with a big chin strap sticking out. Basically Tomahawk's head design looks like a human wearing a helicopter helmet. The smooth design of this head is quite different than most movie designs that usually involve jagged bits here and there and/or insectoid type designs. Many of the helicopter portions wind up on the top of the body, with smooth panels all over the chest, arms and back. This doesn't mean a lack of detail however. His forearms have some nice layers of details sculpted with armor panels seemingly overlapping on top of machinery. The hinge piece that connects to his hands has a strip sculpted into it that leads to the hands from the forearm. His hands are cast in an open palm position, with each finger sculpted in a slightly different position than the one next to it. Where Tomahawk does utilize a lot of influence from the movie universe designs are his legs. The legs have several layers of angled armor panels that overlap with machinery including pistons, wires and hinges. His feet are bird-like with two claw like "toes" sticking out in front and a small heel piece. These designs look great and don't clash with the upper body design but rather complement them. The bird-like feet are especially appropriate considering Tomahawk's alternate mode. As much as I like the upper body design, it's the legs that you can tell a sculptor spent a lot of time on. Tomahawk shows off all the same colors as the vheicle mode, but the silver and gold colors feature much more prominantly here and black shows up again all on his legs. His head is cast in black, translucent blue and translucent yellow. The blue is an interesting choice as the intent was to give him light piping eyes. This sort of works, but the yellow visor in front of his eyes obscures the effect slightly. His hands and waist are also cast in silver, contrasting nicely with the top of the robot which is predominantly black. Copper colored paint joins the colors from the vehicle mode in this form. You'll find this color mostly on his arms located on the shoulders and forearms. Silver and gold are used to offer detailing on his robot head while the legs have black details painted on the sides towards the middle. The vehicle mode color scheme is not a particularly "busy" one so it's nice to see that the robot mode continues that theme. Tomahawk has seventeen points of articulation in this form. This includes ball joints on his hips and shoulders as well as the wings on his back, both mounted on ball joints. A carry over feature from the vehicle mode involves the weapons, which can be attached to the wings or the tubes on the sides of his arms. My preference is having them on the arms where he can aim them at his enemies more accurately but I do enjoy having the option of having them on the wings, arms or both! If Tomahawk has to get close up in battle, he has a built in melee weapon in the form of his helicopter tail on the right forearm. You can swing that piece forward and the ends of the helicopter tail act like claws. I really like that extra little addition as it makes the character seem like a more well rounded warrior (not just someone who blasts people from the sky).
Final Thoughts:
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Redecos have long been the mechanism used in Transformers toy lines to introduce new characters and sometimes the results are really cool such as 
