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M'Kyuun

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  1. M'Kyuun
    Coming as no surprise to anyone but the folks at TFW2005, the ER Datsun mold is getting recolored in shades of Barricade. More specifically, this a recolor of Smokescreen, with the car's unique front end and Smokescreen's ER head sculpt. The Datsun mold is my favorite since ye old G1 days, so I'll be adding this to the overflow. The deco is rather simple, but I think it works. He comes with the police lightbar, a gold rifle (painted or molded?), and two unpainted shoulder cannons cast in what looks like the same light purplish grey as his thighs and upper arms. I wish they'd spared the slightest extra expense to give all the rocket parts of the shoulder rockets a touch of silver paint, as it would look closer to the source, but it's Hasbro, and they didn't. Here lies the major difference in approaches between Takara and Hasbro, but that ship has sadly sailed. judging by the box, it looks like it'll be a Pulse exclusive, which means paying extra for a deluxe just b/c. Again, Hasbro, "where fans come first" Anyway, I thought I'd share the news.
  2. M'Kyuun
    I hadn't heard about that, but it gives hope. Thanks for the info, Seti88.
  3. M'Kyuun
    I just want their YF-21, but I want it's battroid to be a significant improvement over the Yamato's. After that, a VF-5000, a VF-9, a VF-14, or a Variable Glaug would be nice. I'd like to see them take on the more obscure designs that haven't had proper toys.
  4. M'Kyuun
    Nice shots, as always, Kuma.
  5. M'Kyuun
    MY PO is with TFSource at $219. I didn't put it in at the onset b/c I didn't care for their first iteration. The update looks much better, although I still don't like the downward taper of the intake ramps, as it takes away from the Mig-25 look. Too, with all that boxy plane, they couldn't find a way to tuck the arms inside somehow? Oh well, still looks better than it did originally, and arguably better than the contenders. Of them all, I think FT struck the best balance between modes. I hope it's not a nightmare to transform.
  6. M'Kyuun
    Shame about the knee ratchet; hopefully they're not all prone to the issue. I don't think my copy has shipped yet, so my fingers are crossed that it's assembled right. It's a lot of money for such an error. It's also a shame they didn't put some little pop out mains on the shuttle mode, as it would have then assumed the proper nose down attitude on its gear. Overall, though, IMHO, it's the best G1 Astrotrain toy, period. I had high hopes for the Earthrise toy, but it was a serious letdown and I skipped it. I almost wish I'd gotten the Captain for the CHUG shelf, as it's closer to that scale, and a decent representation of the character. looking forward to getting mine. I'm also a fan of that shuttle mode, even with the collar around the nose section. I'm looking even more forward to their Berserk; Blitzwing has always been my favorite triple changer (more by design than character, and I like his alt modes- they seem more apropos to each other relative to most of the other triple changers). Hopefully, he'll be their next release.
  7. M'Kyuun
    My copy of Nicee just arrived, so hopefully that gives some hope to other folks waiting on her. I ordered mine from ShowZ, Beautiful fig- nice tight joints. I hope they release the Arcee head for her at some point. Minor issue with mine; there's a little piece of clear plastic placed between her chest and her abdomen to prevent scratching in package, and it was pinched between the two halves of her upper torso on mine. There are two screws that hold it together, so a little loosening allowed me to get most of it out. I didn't want to take her apart completely, so I used tweezers, but the plastic just ripped. But, I got enough of it that it doesn't show anymore. Just something to be aware of, as they must insert that little protective sheet in there during assembly.
  8. M'Kyuun
    I'm surprised, too, but I still feel it's too much for what's on offer. But, knowing this fandom, plenty of folks will embrace it, and hopefully be selling off their Maketoys figs- I'll be there to scoop those up.
  9. M'Kyuun
    I saw this a couple days ago. The transformation is reminiscent of Bike Robo (Cy-Kill), as she's basically in a tight crouch with knees to chest, but her arms just fold on either side of the fuel tank area. The bike mode looks cool- shades of Cyberpunk mixed with an ounce of Tron. I love the colors they used. The bot mode looks great except for the back wheels hanging off her thighs. Too bad they couldn't have engineered them into the leg design, a la Prime Arcee, fold around to sit at the hip as armor, or attach them to her back somehow and let them function as a jetpack of sorts. They're a bit of an eyesore just hanging out there, and they'll likely hamper any attempts to put her in a sitting pose. There are a number of cool innovative transforming figures coming out of late, several, like this, not tied to any IP. Whether or not that's due to the legal crackdowns in China, IDK, but it's good to see fresh designs.
  10. M'Kyuun
    UGH, that's not sounding good at all. My nearest Wally, a handy 2 mi down the road, has empty pegs more often than not in their tiny Transformers area. Not until this year, and not since Prime and IIRC, the last Bay movie, have they carried anything bigger than deluxe scale. A few months back they started carrying voyager scaled figs when they put up the big aisle cardboard stand with all the Netflix repaints. They still haven't carried any leader or above, which boggles my mind. The Walmart where I used to work, which is 20 minutes away, has always been very good about stocking toys in a timely manner and with good quantities and a full selection. I don't go over there very often, but when I'm in the area, I usually try to make a stop and see what they've got, as it's usually much better than what my local store has. All the Targets in my area are a half hour or more away, in no small part due to all the abysmally poor WA drivers, so I maybe only visit Target once every couple of months. I'm a serious homebody, and prefer not to drive if I don't have to, so online or local is usually my recourse of least inconvenience. Hopefully, with Kingdom set to release soon, my Wally will expand their repertoire to include all size classes, or at least up to leader for a start.
  11. M'Kyuun
    My EDD is between 9-14 of October as of the email I got on Tuesday. I've got Ironhide and Prowl PO'd with Amazon as well, but no shipping notification for them. I wish they'd just sent them all together in one box. Target and Amazon seem to be on the ball with all these WFC releases, but Walmart has yet to have ER Soundwave back in stock. I check it every day, and he's always sold out. I didn't get the Siege version because I expected there'd be an Earth version with a dedicated cassette player alt mode, so I don't want to miss it when he becomes available again.
  12. M'Kyuun
    That is a nice pic, Kuma. As usual. For some reason, I always think MMC made that, but yeah, GCreation did a nice job. Concerning theamazingspino's mechanical alt takes on the BW characters, it's a nice alternative for peeps who've long wondered "what if?" As beasts still, Transmetals worked better for me, and I lament that Transtech, which was moving in this direction and away from animal alts, never got produced, as some of those designs were ahead of their time. I'm glad that the Cheetor Transtech design, which was probably my favorite, was the inspiration behind Animated Blurr. I still love his design.
  13. M'Kyuun
    I've been turning down those cards for decades; why change tradition? I appreciate the info, though. I may have to reconsider one of these days, especially with the ever-increasing exclusivity stuff. Speaking of which, I got my shipping notification for Amazon-exclusive Ratchet & Lifeline. Honestly, I got them to help complete my G1 CHUG shelves, but I'm kinda meh on both of these. I already have Arcee, and I'm not impressed. I do like Siege IH/Ratchet, and this is that with a snap on roof and a different front end, so the basic mold is good, craptastic partsforming notwithstanding. I so wish the ER vanettes had their own dedicated mold sans partsforming. Sigh. All that potential
  14. M'Kyuun
    Just a reminder to anyone interested, BrickCon is this weekend. This year, for the first time, due to Covid, it's being held entirely online. There are going to be, interspersed throughout the Con, some live interaction vids with some of the MOC builders doing Q&As, and just talking about their creations. For the first time, too, BrickCon is allowing renders and digital models (they're generally verboten, but these are unique circumstances). Anyway, as a regular attendee for all but one BrickCon since 2011, I can attest it's definitely a great time in person, but I'm sure the organizers will make it a fun experience this year as well. And as always, lots of great builds will be on display, and mine too. I am a non-compensated non-spokesman with absolutely no affiliation with BrickCon.org. I am a fan who likes to share his LEGO hobby, and this is a really excellent venue for doing so. Mods, if I'm breaking the rules by advocating, feel free to delete the post.
  15. M'Kyuun
    I saw that Waspinator helo on Twitter, and followed the link to theamazingspino's page. He/she does some nice work with putting his own spin on Transformer characters. Waspinator is a good example, and the toy looks cool. The alt mode suits the character, and it looks sharp in Waspinator's deco, especially those black and yellow stripes on the tail boom/legs. AS TF fans, we're spoiled for choice. I'm glad to see stuff like this inspired by what independent artists are doing on sites like Artstation and Deviantart. BFB's Kalavinka follows suit in the same vein.
  16. M'Kyuun
    I appreciate those links, @sh9000. Got a PO with Target. Unfortunately, unlike you, I paid full price plus shipping, making the total $39.25. Bit steep for a deluxe, but given its unique nature, I'm happy to pay it. I'd love to see Airwolf, the '89 Batmobile, the Tumbler, and Firefox all get the Transformer treatment.
  17. M'Kyuun
    Ah, crap; I wanted Gigawatt more for the novelty than the execution- it looks very CW simplistic to me, and I wish they'd found a way to shrink that huge chest, or give it some taper. Anyway, looks like I missed the boat, and since it's already ten bucks over the average cost of a deluxe on Pulse, I'm not willing to shell more for this thing on markups. To those who scored a copy or two, congrats, and I hope you enjoy him. I'll be enjoying him vicariously.
  18. M'Kyuun
    This post got lost in the new 3P Superion shuffle. That's good news, Mike; I've been wanting a good G1 Astrotrain for a long time, and I finally settled on Thomas as being the best option. I watched a vid review of it yesterday; only slightly disappointing that the vertical stab doesn't split to cover the chest (the split chest is a partsforming add-on), but TBH, it's never been a look I cared for and I wasn't going to display mine with it open anyway. I lament having the option more than the feature. The figure itself looks really good; there are a few potential issues, like the leg kibble not pegging in well, but overall, the alt modes look great, from a G1 toy & toon perspective, and the bot mode does everything I need it to do. I PO'd mine with ShowZ, and just paid the balance, so hopefully I'll be getting a shipping notification soon. Blitzwing is my favorite triple changer, and I also PO'd FT's Berserk. I didn't care for their first design, but after they went back and redesigned it, I thought it looked the best of all the 3P offerings. I hope they wait to release it after Christmas, though. Oct-December are expensive months with the holidays. Big Firebird's Windblade is up for PO on ShowZ now, and I'm tempted. I really like the look of Nicee, who I believe is slow boating my way as I type (tracking is nonexistent for her at the moment), and I like the application of the similar style applied to Windblade. I'm curious to see how much, if any, of Nicee is recycled into her design. The J-20 and the Kalavinka are both really interesting designs, especially since they're not tied to a franchise, and both appear to be well-executed jetformers, a delight we generally can only look forward to from the Macross offerings. The Kalavinka is especially tempting at the relatively bargain price of $70. I want to see more pics from more angles, more specifically, the bottom, before I decide whether or not to get it. It may sound hypocritical, given my absolute disdain for the Bayformer aesthetic, but I like the unconventional bot mode with all its pointy bits and hard angles, as opposed to the more Gundam-esque look of the J-20's bot mode. Both are cool, though, and the J-20 is tempting for that lovely alt mode. To buy or not to buy: the agony of my first world existence. As for the new Superion, I'm with Mechpilot77; I think the limb bots look alright (and yeah, there's something off about the F-16- a little too chubby in the nose), but Silverbolt, typically, takes the biggest hit in the design department, and it just doesn't appeal to me. My interest in combiners is lukewarm, anyway, so I'll be skipping this set. Cool for those that dig it, though. Always nice to have a new player on the field, too, as you never know what sort of innovation they'll bring to the table.
  19. M'Kyuun
    Poor Silverbolt; he is forever resigned to be a bot with an airplane on his back. I'd love to see someone do a version of him where he becomes the plane instead of hang gliding under it. The other jets look pretty good. The Harrier looks nice. Their F-15 looks better than a certain recently revealed fig that's garnering a lot of talk in the official TF thread.
  20. M'Kyuun
    Takara's MP design philosophy for about the last five years in a very concise nutshell. Part of me can't wait for the whole hyper-toon accuracy approach to fade away, but the other part of me fears what may follow will be worse. Or they may just quit the line altogether, which I don't want either. That said, I haven't bought an official MP since Sunstreaker, and I don't intend to invest in the new Seeker either. So the line is rapidly losing its appeal for me.
  21. M'Kyuun
    I agree- it was the same base toy with some retooling to make it look like a C model rather than an E. It failed to fix the most egregious issue with that mold- the fuselage and head sitting above the shoulders. God I hated that more than anything else. But Greenscream did have a really nice looking alt mode.
  22. M'Kyuun
    The last three posts by @danth, @Chronocidal, and @JB0 all echo my sentiments concerning TT's approach to aerial alt modes. It's a little more forgivable in a retail toy, but in a toy that purports to be their high end, and priced thusly, Screamer 2 reflects an egregious paucity of effort. The canopy within a canopy is such an unnecessary compromise that could have been accomplished sans cheat with a little better engineering. Maketoys managed it, as did the first two MP Seekers. The whole exhaust section is just an unsightly mess. The real tragedy here is that I know TT can do better, because they have proven it with other figures down through the years. They've employed some amazing engineering and innovative solutions to any number of challenges across all their lines of Transformers. JBO's statement about TT's antipathy toward aerial alt modes is both poignant and proven repeatedly; the ratio of good to excellent aerial alts to not so good to downright terrible ones is abysmally low. It seems to be a systemic philosophy towards those designs, as we so rarely get a gem amongst the myriad turds they produce. Screamer2 is just the latest victim.
  23. M'Kyuun
    @mikeszekely Yep, I believe you're right- the actual cockpit sits behind a faux canopy in bot mode. Good eye. I think they could have found a better solution without resorting to the fake canopy, but they didn't. I agree with you on the minibots; for the sake of G1 accuracy, give them their chibi car modes (I didn't know Cliffy was a Porsche until adulthood, either. I probably learned it here). I was pretty pleased when they showed MP Bee 2.0 until they showed his less than appealing bot mode. Most disappointing. The car mode looked great though. @JB0 Considering how many F-15 toys and models have been made since the 70's, with varying degrees of accuracy, I don't think they really care what the toymakers do. If it's intended to represent the F-15, they want a license fee and I think that's where their care factor stops. Just my opinion. They don't seem too insistent about accuracy like the car makers are. If they did, Starscream 2 wouldn't look like that. Edit: Putting it in perspective, Micky-D makes millions to billions in govt contracts to the DOD and other govt agencies. I'm making the assumption that their licensing fees, by comparison, are a drop in the bucket, and serve as a very basic IP protection. If anyone here works for a large corporation that licenses their products/likenesses, I'd be interested to know how involved they actually are in how those licenses are applied. In a way, I'm glad the YF-23 was spared the butchery of Takara; I see what they do to the F-22 by way of Bay's Starscream design- every toy of him betrays its nature from any angle but above, and the 22 is a big boxy jet that's far friendlier to translation. The 23, by contrast is sleek and curvy and would have been absolutely ruined in any translation they might have attempted. Thank goodness for the YF-21 and the YF/VF-19, both of which took their inspiration from the YF-23.
  24. M'Kyuun
    Further viewing these pics of 2.0, I'm once again struck by the differences between alt mode accuracy requirements by the licensees. Sunstreaker was required by Lamborghini to have a standard looking Countach mode, which lead to the large backpack compromise in bot mode. But the car could sit on your shelf as an ideal replica. Likewise, Jeep wouldn't allow for a head-hole, necessitating yet another compromise to the bot mode by requiring the head be attached via an armature that floats over the intact hood. Again, in Jeep mode, it's accurate enough to sit on a shelf as a replica. It's only by up close handling that you'd realize it transforms. Then we come to Starscream, where all compromises were to the benefit of the bot mode, and to the extreme detriment of the fighter mode. Apparently, unlike the automakers, McDonnell-Douglas aren't as finnicky about how the F-15 looks in toy form. As I and others have pointed out, it's one good viewing angle is from above. This is how it should look from below, minus the external fuel tanks, of course. Look at all that flat- F'n beautiful. The forward fuselage melds seamlessly on the same level as the rest of the fuselage all the way back until it tapers slightly to the exhaust nozzles. I wish Micky-D had insisted on the same levels of accuracy as the car makers. I think Takara needs that discipline, as they've not been taken to task with their aircraft figures. The Bayformers, much as I dislike the aesthetic, took them to task to really expand their design philosophy beyond the boxy designs they'd been producing up until that time. They also stretched their wings to come up with much more complex and innovative engineering, for better or worse. Mostly better, IMHO. Now they've taken the lessons they've learned to turn a realistic looking vehicle (that doesn't fly) and turn it into a Sunbow animated robot, which introduces a whole new set of compromises into the mix. I will concede, however, that their move towards imparting very high levels of articulation into the MP line (and to a lesser degree, the mainline) is long, long overdue and greatly laudable. Thank you, Takara. One of my long time wishes granted. I'm getting off-point. Essentially, I wish they held the same standard for alt mode accuracy in the MP line, be it air land, or sea. The new Starscream has far too many compromises to its fighter mode. I have the New Age Seekers, and at legends scale, they present a more accurate F-15 mode. Not perfect, mind you- part of the forearms, the knees, and the feet all extend below the natural fuselage level, but it's done more cleanly, IMHO, than 2.0. It also doesn't need a fake chest. Sorry to disagree with you @mikeszekely, but looking at the chest shape in bot mode compared to that in fighter, I'm certain those are two different canopies. As for gear, to me it looks like the mains will be housed in the bottom of the feet rather than the traditional knees, which places them quite a bit aft of where they should be (about aircraft center). I, too, wonder what kind of ground clearance there'll be, as the chest already hangs lower than the bottom of the intake, with the chest cover extending lower still. It's going to have Legioss syndrome, Sentinel's Legioss notwithstanding. MP-03 had a number of deign ideas I liked, and wish they'd carried over. One of those is rotating the chest intakes to form the fighter's intakes- great double use of a bot part integrated into the alt mode. It also allowed for the chest to be flatter in alt mode. Kawamori streamlined the fighter mode, too, by giving it E- model conformal tanks, and shaping the feet to form a more natural taper to the exhausts. It wasn't G1 accurate, but I thought it a good compromise to make for a better looking fighter. I'm not saying I don't like the Sunbow bot design; I do, and I think Takara did a good job in that area, but there's a tangible lack of balance between Screamer 2.0's alt and bot modes when compared to the majority of the other G1 bots in the line. With all their experience designing these things, at this point in the line's history, there should be no design dichotomy based on whether or not the vehicle flies, and yet there clearly is.
  25. M'Kyuun
    Thanks, Zinjo. Already got it PO'd...with Amazon JP.
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