General Information: Images:
*Images and text below from Transformers.com: Roll out for some serious robot action! This heroic warrior features double “harpoon” launchers and feet that convert to “flippers” to take on his opponents by land or by “sea”. When it’s time for combat, convert him into hovercraft vehicle mode so he can chase after other “water-borne” robots! Awesome and highly detailed robot-to-vehicle figure converts from robot to hovercraft vehicle mode — and back again! Ages 5 and up.
Robot Mode:
On top of all this, Sea Spray has some nicely sculpted design elements including hands with each finger set in a slightly different position, each having hinges at key points. His thighs are sculpted with tube, triangle and circular details while his feet are combine angled and curved shapes that look sleek and suited for the sea. The way his legs are designed, you'll notice the lower legs arch back a bit before they connect to the feet. I suspect this is a bit of the influence coming from the movie aesthetic, where the "chicken walker" appearance seems quite popular. The aforementioned funs have three claw like "toes" that stick out with webs in between that have horizontal lines sculpted into them, similar to real life flippers. His weapons also have some nice sculpting. In particular, the "Harpoon" missiles have a nice, layered look to the blades on the edges. In Generation One, Seaspray had a rather bright color scheme consisting of white, blue and yellow. In an effort to create a vehicle with realistic, muted tones this figure uses white, a medium shade of blue, gold, black, translucent blue and light grey as its primary colors. Aside from the white, each of these colors are much more toned down than Sea Spray's bright G1 counterpart. A large portion of the upper body is white, including the chest and shoulder armor. The blue is found on his forearms and legs. Light grey makes up smaller parts like his thighs and parts of his forearms. Gold appears on his forearms, waist panel and the turbines on his back. The translucent blue is used for the windows seen on his chest while the black is used for the head. Overall the colors work very well together. I do wish the gold was a bit lighter or metallic flake, but that is my only real complaint in terms of the plastic colors. The paint scheme uses silver, blue, gold and white to give the figure some extra detail. Silver is the most prominent color. You'll find it on his shoulder armor, the tubes on his head, stripes on his legs and a large Autobot symbol on the right side of his chest. The left side has the letters "SEA-S.P." in silver with the word "RAY" in larger letters underneath, which has the net effect of looking like one of those "Hello my name is..." stickers where you write your name in. Still, it's a fun and clever way to cement the identity of the character and make it look like he's part of some sea based police force. The gold color is found on the edges of his visor, contrasting nicely against the black plastic. The blue paint is found on his head and feet. This blue matches the blue plastic very well in tone. White paint is found on the gold forearm sections and waist piece. The white offers a nice contrast color while offering continuity with the white plastic parts. Sea Spray has an impressive twenty seven points of articulation. This includes six points in each arm, his turbines and his feet having ankle joints in two directions, forward and back and side to side, a very unusual bit of articulation for most Transformers. I actually recounted twice just to make sure I had the right amount of articulation to report in this review! Sea Spray has certainly come a long way from a Mini-Bot with three points of articulation! Functionally Sea Spray has the aforementioned weaponry and flippers. The launchers fire a good distance (about one and a half to two feet over an arc based on some test firings). He can hold his launchers in his hands or they can attach to the hole on the underside of his forearms to free up his hands. Between his weapons, turbines and flippers I can really see kids having fun pretending they're on an underwater adventure with Sea Spray. Excellent work on the robot mode! Transformation to Vehicle Mode:
Vehicle Mode: From a detail perspective, it's the cabin design fascinates me the most. If you look at the arrangement of windws and the tubes coming out from the center to the sides, the cabin looks like a large, exaggerated version of the robot head, complete with thin visor eyes. Nice additional details include rungs on the sides of the cabin and beveled lines for traction in the storage bed in the back. The bed also has a door sculpted into the middle. If you flip out the small ramp from the underside, it has arrow and cross hatch patterns. On a related note, the air cushion sections have fascinating texture worked into the plastic. it's not entirely smooth but rather has a rough texture to it that gives it more of a feel of some type of fabric than a substance like metal or fiberglass. This is a really nice and unexpected touch with this figure. All the robot mode colors are represented here, but the grey color becomes very prominent thanks to it making up most of the bed. We also get a better look at the translucent blue plastic since it's front and center in the cabin section. We get a bit of extra paint detail in this mode as well. On the sides, the "SEA-S.P. RAY" text repeats itself in silver. On the front vent details are painted black and the silver stripes from the robot mode legs now appear in the center of the vehicle's front end. Sea Spray's storage area is not just for show. It is actually designed to hold most Scout Class vehicles and depending on which ones you're talking about, some deluxe vehicles. Of course, you could also toss in a pile of Mini-Cons if you wish! The figure he is intended to partner with is Breacher, a Scout Class APC vehicle (and given the function of both vehicles, it makes perfect sense to have an APC loaded with troops hitting land). The ramp in the back angles down to allow a vehicle to roll off. Depending on who you put back there, the turbines allow you to keep the vehicle contained without rolling off. In terms of weaponry he has his launchers mounted on the sides. An interesting note is that the fans inside the turbines can actually turn but there is no automated mechanism to do so, they just turn manually. This is a cute little feature that he actually shares with his G1 counterpart and it's neat to see a bit of design homage worked into the vehicle.
Final Thoughts:
 |
|||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
Generation One was a series that was fully of colorful characters. Often time, their personalities matched their alternate modes in some way, and G1 Seaspray was a shining example of this. He transformed from a robot into a hovercraft that spent plenty of time in the water. When he spoke, his voice gurgled, which was silly and fun all at the same time. Over twenty years later, Seaspray (now Sea Spray for trademark purposes) has been reborn in a new incarnation, this time set in the movie universe as part of the "Hunt for the Decepticons" sub-line of figures. This time out, Sea Spray has gone from a Mini-bot sized figure to a Voyager Class figure, echoing the upgrade that his fellow Mini-Bot Powerglide went through 
