The Energon Pub

So, my girlfriend has known for years that I am a lifelong transformer fan and a couple of days ago, she surprised me with the Shredders Apparel' Optimus Prime Christmas sweater as an early Christmas Gift.


It was an incredibly sweet gesture, but upon my first viewing, I couldn't help but think the design was pretty damn fugly....
My GF noticed my less than stellar reaction and asked me what I didn't dig about the sweater. I explained that that the detail was atrocious and Prime's face looked like it had been pounded on by Rumble. (Seriously - dat face tho! )
Anyhow, as I have quite an excellent lady, she took the time to embroider the sweater in an effort to fix up the flaws based upon my Masterpiece MP-10 figure.

(The yellow lines show where she made modifications:
I have to say, I love the result. I have worn the upgraded sweater in public twice now and I have been constantly stopped by strangers asking for pictures of the sweater and giving me general compliments of awesomeness.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the modifications. Here is the final result without all the lines for clarity.


THE REVIEW
Honestly, as a licensed sweater, Shredder's really dropped the ball on this. There are a number of errors in the design. The stomach grill is uneven and missing its top line and the forehead center piece has a blue thread running through the center that has to be a flaw.
There are also just so damn many poor design choices. I understand that every additional color of thread adds to the cost of creation. However, there is no excuse for cheaping out on the yellow cab lights, arm symbols, and hip area, when the sweater costs nearly a hundred dollars with shipping.
Also, since grey and black threads are already party of the design, why skip the leg vents and feet details. Why didn't they fix the train wreck of his ab section with evenly spaced parallel lines?

My other big pet peeve is the huge wasted opportunity in all of the background space in the sweater. Seriously...what’s with all the Tetris pieces? Why not put something Transformers related in the repeating pattern. Really, anything that showed even a modicum of fan service would have been appreciated. For example, how about including as part of the background a simplified repeating Matrix of Leadership pattern. Hell, it already looks like it has a snowflake in the center.

Additionally, they could have taken a page from this design from Redbubble ( http://rdbl.co/1z9kIf8) and included Megatron and Optimus in their Alt forms.

Final Score: 4/10
Score after Modifications: 9/10

Till All Are One.

NecronomiCon