Today, I’m rolling out a blast from the past! I embarked on collecting Fansproject’s Lost Exo-Realm Not-Dinobots back in 2014 with the first release, Columpio. I’ve been grabbing them up and reviewing them as each one released up until the fourth figure, Severo (aka Not-Grimlock) and he kind of got lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t that I forgot about reviewing him, but rather I could never find the time needed to transform all his brothers for the group and comparison shots that I would inevitably need to do. And so, he kept getting pushed back and pushed back. But with the final quarter of the year looming, I’m trying to wrap up any loose ends and happily Severo is now going to be one of them. As with the past LER figures, I’m going to break this up into two parts, which works out fine since I didn’t have anything new for DC Friday tomorrow anyhow. Today I’m going to look at the packaging, the T-Rex mode, and his little robot Weapon Masters, and tomorrow I’ll come back with his robot mode, throne, and other accessories!

So, I should point out that I’m looking at the Deluxe Edition of the figure, which means he comes with some extra stuff and requires a much bigger box than the regular release and his dino-brothers. The artwork is still very similar to previous releases, but instead of a landscape box, this one is closer to being a cube. The front flap is secured with velcro and opens to reveal the figure in his robot mode, and sitting on his massive throne. The back panel shows photos of the contents, including Severo in both his modes. Inside the box, you get the figure, an instruction booklet, the throne, a bunch of weapons, and his Weapon Master twins, Pottad and Kottav. The exclusive items here are the throne, and the on extra Weapon Master. Most of the weapons are intended for his robot mode, but we will get to take a look at a couple today.

And here is Severo in his T-Rex mode. There’s a lot for me to love here and some things for me to gripe about. For starters, his design matches his brothers perfectly. From the concave VTOL-style shoulders in the legs, to the various cut lines and panels, there’s no denying that these fellas are all intended to be a matched set. The coloring is also as great as ever. The gray plastic is rich and mimics a steel finish pretty well. There’s some red and green panels painted in, as well as some translucent red parts covering exposed areas. One deviation in the deco can be found in the use of metallic gold. The previous releases used metallic gold for the exclusives and a satin gold finish for the regular retail releases. Severo marries the two together by using the satin gold for the claws, but the metallic gold for his neck and back plates. I think it works pretty well. You also get some metallic silver for the arms. The paint quality on this line has been top notch from the beginning and after four figures, it has yet to disappoint.

Severo looks like a powerhouse when viewed from certain angles, but from the sides he looks like his body and tail are somewhat atrophied. It almost makes him look like a T-Rex/Raptor Hybrid. It’s kind of the reverse of what we got with MP Grimlock  In fact, let’s have a quick look…

The Lost Exo-Realm dinos are scaled for the Generations line, so Severo isn’t quite as tall as Grimlock, but he comes closer than I originally imagined. But where MP Grimlock has a powerful, beefy body, and rather understated legs, Severo has the reverse. His legs look big and powerful, and his body a little puny. Note that I have his mini-guns attached in the picture above, which bulks him out a little more, and I’ll come back to those in a bit. The legs feature articulation in the shoulders, knees, and ankles and he can balance quite well, which is a good thing, because his tail tends to be off the ground. As always, the LER figures are meant to be Fansproject’s interpretations of the Dinobots, not direct copies, like some of the other 3P efforts, and while I would have preferred a bulkier body, I still really like the direction they took this T-Rex mode.

The dino head looks great and can angle from side to side. The jaws open and he’s got a flame nozzle inside his mouth. It’s pretty rad and makes me wish he came with a flame effect part to plug in there. I won’t hold that against him, though, because in fairness, there’s a hell of a lot of other stuff in this box. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and the fingers are molded together and hinged. And speaking of other stuff in the box…

The mini-guns tab together and peg into Severo’s back. Chances are Severo will spend most of his time displayed in robot mode, but if I ever do choose to display him in T-Rex mode, you can bet he’s going to have these babies on him. Not only do they fill him out better, but why would you not want twin gatling guns on your robot dino? Of course, these are only the official placement.

They can also be pegged in further up where they can independently swivel. While not as compact, I like this look a lot. Not only can they aim independently, but they also have a lot more clearance. Want more?

Well, you can also plug them into the sides of his legs. This looks like it would be pretty effective too, but he’s already wide in the hips, and this just adds to that even more, so it’s not one of my favorite looks for him. What’s that? You like your giant robot T-Rex’s to be more hands on?

Yes, Severo can actually wield his giant miniguns in his adorable little T-Rex hands. My friends, this is almost everything I’ve ever wanted in a Dinobot. I can’t even calculate how much this raises the coolness factor of this toy for me. Well done, Fansproject. Well done. Let’s move on to Severo’s Twin Weapon Masters…

Pottad and Kottav are identical twins and they’re quite sturdy and well made for these types of figures. They’re squat and stocky designs gives them a bit of a primitive look that works well with the Dinobot theme. They’re comprised of black, gray, and red plastic, with some gold and red paint hits to spruce things up. The articulation is pretty good too, with plenty of hinges and ball joints in all the right places. These fellas can transform and combine to form a pretty big war hammer for Severo, but we’ll look at that tomorrow. The Weapon Masters have never been a big draw for me about this line, but after four releases, they have grown on me quite a bit. It’s just a neat little extra that Fansproject threw in and it definitely makes the LER series stand more distinctive in sea of 3P Not-Dinobots. OK, let’s wrap up today with some group shots of all four of the LER figures in their dino modes.

Hell, yeah! I think these guys look amazing together and I’m really happy I took this plunge way back when. The decos and styles match beautifully and they scale pretty well with my Generations figures. As for Severo, I think the T-Rex mode is overall very good, but the smaller body holds him back from being great. From certain angles he looks fine, but from others I think his alt mode falls behind those of the other LER Dinobots. On the other hand, he more than makes up for it with play value as well as all the work Fansproject put into his sculpting and deco. And as we’ll see tomorrow, his robot mode rises to the occasion to make up for any deficiencies in this mode. Come on back tomorrow and we’ll wrap this up. There’s still plenty to talk about!

I’m back to wrap up my look at Fansproject’s Cubrar, Not-Slag, and it’s time to get to the transforming. Going from dinosaur to robot involves some clever engineering, although there are also some subtle double-hinged plates that need to be positioned just right to make some things work. I know, that’s the case for most changeable robots, but it the margin for error feels particularly small here. For example, if you miss a minor double-fold on the plate holding the dino legs, then getting them packed into the robot legs is an impossibility. It took me a little patience the first time, but after that it was easy-peasy. Changing him back into the dinosaur mode has its own challenges, particularly getting everything to pack in and close up just right. That’s where that extra sheet of instructions came in real handy. In the end, Cubrar’s transformation feels a lot more complex and fidgety than Columpio’s, but the tolerances and clearance all feel good and not at all scary.

Like Columpio, Cubrar’s robot mode walks a fine line between G1 Dinobot and original design. It’s easy to see a lot of the stuff borrowed from Slag, the most obvious being the way the dino’s bottom jaw drops down to form the center of his chest and the top of the dino head forms a hood behind the robot head, complete with horns and all. On the flip side, Fansproject put enough of their own marks on this design to make it feel fresh. Probably my favorite departure from the G1 look is the way Cubrar wears the dinosaur’s neck crest as shoulder armor. It’s a beautiful touch and pretty damn clever the way it works. Also, rather than wear his bulky dino legs on the outside of his robot legs, they pack neatly inside, similar to what Columpio’s design did with his tail. This wonderful mix of old and new results in an absolutely fantastic robot mode. The proportions on this guy are just amazing and he follows he whole G1-but-not-G1 aesthetic that I love so much about most of Hasbro’s Classics and Generations lines.

Cubrar also improves on a couple of issues I had with Columpio, particularly in the way the back kibble is handled. Cubrar wears the dino’s tail on his back in a similar fashion to the way Columpio wore his dino’s neck and head. But while Columpio’s was left to flop in the breeze, Cubrar’s actually pegs in securely, making for a more solid robot mode. Of course, the downside of this is that it locks up his waist pivot. It’s a shame the hinge for the tail couldn’t have been mounted higher to avoid this. The biggest issue I had with Columpio was how loose his hip joints were, although I was able to fix them with a little nail polish. You get none of that with Cubrar. Every joint on this guy is tight and solid and he holds a pose beautifully.

Cubrar’s noggin is a bit beefier than Columpio’s, partly because his face is broader and partly because his “helmet” is larger. His face has plenty of character with large blue visor and an extra helping of lips and the silver paint is immaculate. And for those of you who are fans of Lockdown from Age of Extinction (Shame on you!!!), you can transform Cubrar’s face into a gun, or in this case, I guess it’s a flame-thrower. Yeah, it’s just a byproduct of the transformation, but a fun option nonetheless.

The deco in Cubrar’s robot mode closely matches what we saw in dino mode. You get the same great gray and red plastics with some metallic blue and silver detail work and more of that satiny smooth gold. The colors on this guy really pop and they match Columpio perfectly. I’m hoping this is the coloring that we’re going to get all the way through to the end of the line.

Accessories? Cubrar comes with two guns and a sword. The guns are a matched pair of short and stocky weapons, not quite pistols and not quite rifles. Individually they aren’t as cool as Columpio’s rifle with folding bayonet, but Cubrar sure looks great dual wielding them. The sword has a translucent red energon blade and is a very nice piece. Chances are I’ll wind up displaying him with the sword and one gun.

As with Columpio, Cubrar can store two of his weapons by pegging them into his back flaps. I think the sword looks great positioned diagonally across his back. The guns can also peg in side by side, or you can go one gun and one sword. I think this storage gimmick works a little better than Columpio’s. The stored weapons don’t look as awkward this time around.

And last but not least we have Tekour’s axe mode. I thought Drepan’s weapon mode was pretty good, but I think Tekour’s outshines it. Drepan was kind of a war pick, whereaas Tekour is just a bitchin double-bladed axe. It’s a damn solid weapon mode and the pommel of the handle is sculpted with a triceratops head, because Cubrar likes to accessorize, dammit!

Tekour can also double as a rifle and while it’s basically just the axe held differently, I think it works really well. The stock does get in the way, as it doesn’t fit into the crook of Cubrar’s elbow, but he can hold it out in a pretty sweet firing position.

With two Lost Exo-Realm figures on my shelf, I’m loving this line more and more and I’m getting really excited to see the team together, even though that’s going to be a long road to travel. The quality and engineering on Cubrar is up to FP’s usual impeccable standards and I’ve totally fallen in love with this aesthetic. The only hard choice will be deciding whether to display them in robot or dino modes because I really dig them both. Fansproject has been a little quiet on the Lost Exo-Realm front lately, but if things progress as they seem to be, their Not-Swoop may very well be next, but there are no pre-orders up yet, so at this point anything could happen. All I have to say is keep them coming, and I’ll keep buying them!

As promised, I’m back to wrap up my look at Fansproject’s first foray into the world of dinosaur change-a-bots. Columpio does indeed bear a purely coincidental resemblance to a certain Transformer named Sludge. Yesterday I took a look at his alt mode and his little buddy Derpan. Now it’s time to transform this beast and see what his robot mode is all about.

Damn, he looks so sweeeeet! But before I get into how beautiful he looks, let’s talk about the conversion process. Transforming Columpio feels vaguely similar to the original G1 toy with the complexity beefed up to account for better proportions and articulation. Really, the biggest change is the way his tail packs away into his legs. Some other cool things are at work like the way his shoulders pull outward and upward and his torso pulls up a bit allowing the chest panel to drop forward and the head to fold out. He even has articulated knee flaps to help with his range of leg movement. The dino legs on his robot legs peg into place nicely and while the dino head just hangs loose down his back it stays put quite well. The plastic and tolerances on the toy feel fine, although it was a bit scary “cracking” open his dinosaur shell to start the process along, but it helps to split the tail first. Yeah, the instructions were helpful when I had to consult them, but after just one change forward and back I think I’ve got this guy down pat. It’s not terribly fiddly and it goes pretty quick.

As for aesthetics, I find Columpio to be a delightful mix of G1 homage and originality. He’s a damn powerful looking figure and I think he scales quite well with the Classics Voyager Prime and the Deluxe Autobots, particularly if you like your Dinobots to be giants. They were pretty big boys in the Sunbow cartoon. And yeah, I suppose he can hang with War For Cybertron Grimlock, at least until Fansproject’s own version of Grimmy comes along. I think the biggest departure in Columpio’s design is found in his chest configuration. It’s still got the black panel running down the middle and jutting out, which flipped out on the original toy to seat the pilot. The upper chest has been rebuilt to give him a more stylized look by adding blue vents and neck guards running on either side of his head. It almost looks like the front end of some kind of vehicle. Maybe? I have to say I really like those two blue discs midway down his chest. I like to imagine that they can serve as chest headlights. Why? I don’t know. I just think that would be cool.

Columpio’s arms and legs feel right in line with what I wanted in an updated Sludge. The big difference with his legs is that the split tail stores inside the leg and not on the outside. That was a wise move because not only does it fill in his leg cavities, but it allows for the room necessary to store those big dino legs on his robot legs. Columpio still features the “wings” that the G1 toy had, but they are much more compact and they don’t stick out past his arms, unless you want them to and you can achieve that effect by not folding in the side panels.

The head sculpt is pure money. It’s a sharp sculpt with a silver painted face and a somewhat original “helmet” design. Fansproject went with blue eyes, which favor the Sunbow character over the original toy, and added some nice blue paint hits to the “helmet.” Fansproject has always turned out some of my favorite third-party head sculpts and Columpio here does nothing to buck that trend.

Articulation? Columpio has it in spades. The arms feature rotating hinges with a generous range of motion, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. His wrists do not swivel, but they are hinged as part of the transformation and his fingers are all set on one hinge to allow him to grasp his weapons. The legs have ball joints in the hips, powerful ratchets in the knees, with secondary knee hinges below as part of the transformation. The front of his feet are ball jointed to mimic lateral rockers and allowing him to look more natural in wider stances. He can swivel at the waist and he has a ball joint in his neck. The hip joints could be a little tighter, but they are certainly capable of holding him just fine and they’re actually much better than the loosey-goosey hips on my Hasbro Masterpiece Grimlock.

As for weapons, Columpio comes with a rifle and a sword. The rifle is a satisfyingly large piece that can be held in either hand and features a folding bayonet that I absolutely love. The handle can also fold in for when it’s being stored on Columpio’s back or on his dino mode.

The energon sword has a broad angular blade cast in transparent red plastic with lots of panels sculpted into it. The hilt is pretty beefy and has a cable running from top to bottom making it look a bit like a knucklebow on a traditional sword. Like the rifle, he can hold the sword in either hand and he looks great doing it.

Both weapons can peg into the inside of Columpio’s wings for storage. It looks a bit clunky from the back, but not so bad from the front. I actually think it works best when you’re just storing a single weapon, so if he wants to get medieval with his sword, he can stow his rifle back there until it’s needed. I always love the ability to store weapons on the figure like this. I wasn’t expecting it so it was a very welcome surprise!

The last thing to talk about is Derpan’s weapon mode. He transforms into an axe with a few possible configurations for the blade. A couple of cool things worth noting are the way his own weapons store on him when he’s a weapon and the fact that the pommel of the axe handle is a tiny sculpted dinosaur head. Well, isn’t that just precious!

The standard double axe configuration looks pretty badass, but there’s also a cool battle pick that involves folding up one blade and leaving the other out. Either way, I think Derpan’s weapon mode is a win. It’s well executed and Columpio looks great wielding him. Still, it must really suck to transform into an implement that other robots use to hit things.

In a way, I expected Columpio to give off a strong War For Cybertron vibe, but in hand, I have no problem regarding him as my regular G1 Sludge. It’s true, he may stray a little too far from the conventional Sludge design for some, but I think he works beautifully for a general modern update to the character. It’s the kind of design I could see appearing in Generations, if Generations were a whole lot better and more expensive. Speaking of expensive, Columpio set me back $115, which feels about right for a Voyager sized third-party figure, and a bit better when you toss in Derpan as an extra. The quality and engineering is definitely here, but then I would have expected nothing less from Fansproject. I think Columpio is a fantastic first step for the Lost Exo-Realm line and I am super excited to get my hands on the next figure as well as see the rest of the reveals.

Not-Dinobots… everybody is doing them!!! Yes, folks, these days if you’re in the market for pricey third-party versions of the Dinobots you have a lot of choices. And unless you have all the monies and display space in the world, you’re going to have to do some serious research and make some serious choices. Some are Masterpiece sized, some are Voyager sized, some are even combiners! In the end, I went with Fansproject’s Lost Exo-Realm series, mainly because… hey, it’s Fansproject! I’ve got a couple of shelves full of their toys and these guys have never disappointed me. The other reason I went with the LER Dinos is because they are doing their own Not-Grimlock and it’s really important to me to get a matched set of all of them in the same size and style. Their first release is Columpio, aka Not-Sludge. I’m featuring this guy in two parts, because there’s a lot to talk about and it’s too much for me to accomplish in just one day. Today, we’ll look at the packaging, the dino mode, and his little buddy Drepan, and tomorrow we’ll look at his robot mode and get more into his weapons. Let’s go!

Ahh, this is some amazing packaging! Columpio comes in a rather large, landscape orientated box with a front flap that opens upward and is secured with velcro. The entire box has a nice matte finish and is loaded with artwork. The front panel features a bitchin piece of character art with Columpio in robot mode wielding Drepan in his weapon mode. The back of the box shows photos of the toy in both modes.

Open the flap and you get a die-cut window that looks like you’re viewing the figure inside through a cave entrance. The inside of the flap has more shots of what you’re getting inside the box. Columpio comes packaged between two clear plastic trays in his dino mode with Drepan in his robot mode and all the weapons laid out around them. While I frequently toss the boxes to many of my “over-the-counter” toys, I always save the packages for my third-party convert-o-bots, and while it tends to take up a lot of room, it’s presentation like this that makes it worthwhile.

On the other hand, Fansproject seems to have poured all their efforts into the box and not much into the ephemera. There’s no profile card or comic book. You only get a three page color instruction “booklet” and the middle page isn’t even stapled inside. I’m not really complaining, but some folks who look forward to those little extras may be disappointed. Let’s start off with his dino mode.

And here is Columpio in all his Dino Mode glory. When I was a kid, this dino mode was known as a Brontosaurus, but I guess that’s not considered scientifically accurate anymore and Apatosaurus seems to be the accepted name these days. Why? Because science! Either way, Columpio is a four-legged cybernetic behemoth with a long snake-like neck. I don’t usually start with the deco, but in this case it’s worth pointing out that the initial con exclusive release had vac metal gold, whereas this regular retail release gets by with just gold paint. I say “gets by” but in person the regular gold paint on display here is pretty damn sumptuous looking. It’s got a sexy satin finish and it is beautifully applied. I think in the end the question of which deco is superior will come down to a matter of personal taste, although the exclusive con version will always have that special level to gravitas to it. Personally, I like what we got here and he still manages to sport some bling via the metallic silver paint on the plates behind his neck, just like on the original G1 toy. The rest of Columpio is comprised of a nice gray plastic with some black, red, and a little blue showing here and there. The coloring definitely delivers on the G1 vibe that I was looking for. I couldn’t be happier with the way this deco turned out.

As for the sculpt, there are some great panel lines and vents and whatnot to accentuate his cybernetic form. The gold vent pieces on his back are more prominent than the original G1 toy, but they serve a purpose that we’ll get to in a bit. The legs on this guy are wonderfully proportioned and feature excellent articulation, which includes some lateral movement in the “shoulders” and hinges in the “knees.”

The head sculpt features some nice personality to it, at least for a robot dinosaur. The eyes are red and there are matching discs embedded in his jaw hinges. The mouth does open revealing not a whole lot inside other than his sharp teeth. Of course, one of my favorite things about this guy is the design of the neck. It’s segmented with joints between each, allowing for a beautiful degree of poseability.

Moving on to Drepan, Columpio’s little buddy and homage to the old Diaclone pilots that came with the original releases of these molds. Fansproject went the extra step and they’re making these little robots transform into weapons for their Dino-formers. He’s a bit bigger than I expected and a very nice sculpt. He’s also very nicely articulated with ball joints in the shoulders and hips and double hinges in the knees and elbows. His head can even rotate. On the downside, Drepan has a huge handle coming off his back. I did not expect that and it’s rather disappointing. Of course, let me qualify that by saying that these partner robots were not a big selling point for me and the LER line, so when I say that huge protuberance disappoints me, it’s not really putting me off my purchase and I still kind of dig Drepan for what he is.

And hey, this little guy even comes with his own little axe and shield. The axe fits into the hole in either of his hands and the shield can peg right onto his arm. All in all, Drepan is well thought and a lot of fun and as we’ll see tomorrow he can transform into a pretty cool weapon.

Drepan can also ride on Columpio’s back and that’s where those vents come into play. They can rotate around to make a pilot seat for the little guy. It works OK, but if I ever display Columpio in dinosaur mode, Drepan will probably be chilling out back in the box.

While I’ll be dealing with his weapons more tomorrow, I did want to just point out that Columpio’s gun and sword will attach to his dinosaur mode very much in the way Hasbro’s Generations Grimlock’s accessories attached to him. I’m not a big fan of this as a display option, but it’s a nice option to have nonetheless.

And that’s where I’m going to call it quits for today. So far Columpio is hitting all the right points. His Dino Mode looks great and is lots of fun to play with. Tomorrow we’ll get Columpio transformed and check out his robot mode and other goodies!