Takara gave him carte blanche - plus agreed that no additional changes would be made after he had finished. In an interview Kawamori stated that he wanted to take the realism of the F-15 even further but when he reviewed it realised that the design no longer looked enough like Starscream so he reworked it again. The arms were also changed because of the inclusion of the conformal tanks, they have that kinda weird Popeye look to them. Origionally the nulla-rays were attached to the arms by a swing-bar that expanded to position them under the wings in alt mode.
The Animation color version of SS looks like SS. It's the weird green color scheme that throws people off. Inside the instruction booklet Kawamori stated that he chose that color because it is more realistic - but there are NO green F-15s, not even Japanese naval F-15 are green. Apparently the green tone was chosen to blend the colors of the blue arms into the main body. :rolleyes: