Drill Bit is a basic size addition to the Predacon ranks. Whereas a good deal of the Beast Wars line has a lot of hits when they try to do interesting creatures, Drill Bit isn't really one of them. However, he is not without his own redeeming factors. Drill Bit was also repainted and reused as a character in the Beast Wars the Second toy line as an Insectron.
Beast Mode:
In beast mode, Drill Bit is a weevil. His primary colors are purple and brown. The details on Drill Bit make him look like a walking peanut with bumps on his back. Look carefully and you can see that the brown parts are actually translucent brown which has been painted over with a solid brown. He may have looked better without the darker brown paint over the translucent parts.
In this mode, you can flip the drill underneath his body out so he can drill through the ground in beast mode. Drill Bit does not have that much articulation in this mode. With the drill out, there are about three meaningful points of articulation. Quite disappointing.
Transformation to Robot Mode:
Begin by flipping the beast on its back and folding down the robot legs and waist section. Rotate the arm sections out to the sides and swing the main body section downwards, revealing the robot chest and head. Fold back the insect leg sections and Drill Bit is now in robot mode.
Robot Mode:
In robot mode, Drill Bit shows a lot more purple. The translucent brown is used for his lower arms, robot head and chest. Silver details are used on the drill and his chest. The detailing on Drill Bit is made up of robotic looking parts (such as the mid section and upper arms) while organic looking pieces can be seen here and there (such as on the legs). Appearance wise, the robot mode is cool. However, functionally there are problems.
Drill Bit has nine points of articulation, fairly low for a regular Beast Wars figure. Part of the problem are the insect legs on his robot legs. They reach so high that they can get in the way of his robot arms. The nose of the weevil mode is on his right arm and looks okay covering the drill arm, but if you want to fully reveal the drill arm, you need to fold the nose piece up, and that looks awkward as it can cover up parts of the robot head. Turn the wheel on the lower right arm to "spin" the drill.
In a collection of fairly nice and fun figures, Drill Bit is a definite disappointment, C.
Updated Thoughts (January 30, 2022):
Years later, I feel like Drill Bit was probably fantastic on paper. He looks cool for sure. I love the sculpt in both modes for sure. Even the colors are cool and definitely say "Predacon" with all that purple. I also love all the organic bumps and segments in the beast mode and the robot mode looks cool but the actual execution of the figure as a functional action figure leaves much to be desired.
