The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[M'Kyuun]

54 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I'm not.  As Hasbro's been doing a pretty good job of checking my boxes in the last few years I've been losing interesting in expensive 3P figures that take up way too much space, to the point that I've actually thought about selling off a lot of the ones I bought just to try to have a complete Sunbow cast at the MP scale but never actually liked all that much.  I didn't have the Omnibots as a kid, nor were they in any fiction that I recall, so I don't have any attachment to the designs.  I was passingly curious to see what XTB might cook up, but when reviews of Fioravanti started hitting it seemed like the usual XTB "looks nice, is kind of a pain" design and I figured I'd be better off spending my money on other things.

Perfectly fair. The reports of Fioravanti's challenging nature are not exaggerated. I messed with him for the first time since getting him tonight to do my review and managed to break one of his seats (they're on little sliders and my one seat wouldn't budge so I applied a little more force to it and the little plastic loop that let it slide broke). Also, one of the retractable headlights covers came off, so I'm going to have to reglue it back on. Breakages aside, it's not a fun or easy transformation, especially the legs, and handling it, you find yourself wondering why on Earth they made it that way when there are certainly easier ways that accomplish the same thing. Anyway, Yaguchi is quite a bit simpler to transform. I'm hoping their Camshaft will be as well.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

If Hasbro ever gets around to them, though, I'm sure I'd check them out.

Oh, I'm all in for mainline versions. Evan Brooks mentioned wanting to do them in a stream, so I'm hoping he gets his wish. I'm guessing Hasui san would probably want to get in on that too. They're way overdue some official toys and Legacy is the ideal venue. Digits crossed.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

And I've definitely got my eyes on Mecha Invasion's Hook and Long Haul.

I've got my eyes on them purely from a curiosity position. I dig that they're doing something different with such established characters. However, I haven't the space for much of anything anymore, let alone another MP scaled Devastator. I still have ToyWorld's Constructor, and while it's a bit dated, it's fine. I'm wondering where I'm going to put SS86 Devastator, and potentially Superion depending on how the jet modes turn out (little faith, I'm afraid). Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how Mech Invasion's take on Devy pans out and any future combiner projects they feel like putting their stamp on.

[David Hingtgen]

Mech Invasion's Hook and Long Haul are SO good, but making Mixmaster an arm, and a conventional truck instead of a cabover, is a deal-killer.  It's like they're trying so hard to be both G1 and Bayverse at the same time.  Long Haul being clearly a Bayverse dump truck instead of G1 isn't that big a deal IMHO--still forms the lower torso, and it's still a generally similar-looking type of dump truck.  But Mixmaster is so clearly neither the G1 position nor type of truck.  And it doesn't even look good as an arm, it looks terrible.  Maybe if they'd made an awesome-looking arm mode out of that cement mixer, I might possibly be convinced.  

And Scrapper just has a terrible bot mode with shovel-feet.  (and is also now an arm...)

If they redid it with the same torso bots, but made the legs legs and the arms arms, as they should be---I'd be all-in.   

[Tking22]

Yeah I've been eye-balling these new Constructicons, and for the most part they look great, but there's enough I'm not liking to not want to upgrade. Overall, they look good, but still, years later, I'm still happy with my Constructor G1 box set. 

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Sovereign 2.0, my favorite Decepticon from my favorite 3P company:

 

[mikeszekely]

It's got more Sunbow-ish lines, but unlike Tesla and Spindrift there's nothing about it that makes me feel a need to upgrade.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

On 11/13/2024 at 12:42 AM, mikeszekely said:

It's got more Sunbow-ish lines, but unlike Tesla and Spindrift there's nothing about it that makes me feel a need to upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, I love FansToys Sovereign 1.0 but Galvatron and Megatron are like the VF-1 to me. If there's a new improved version I gotta have it.

Sculptwise this Sovereign 2.0 is perfect to me.

[Hikuro]

considering I don't own one, I'd probably be willing to pick one up. Don't really have much in terms of 3rd party MP figures, they're really expensive and with so many variations and options out there I always have a hard time figuring out what I want. I mean I am pretty satisfied with my MMC Mirage but the Cliffjumper version, not so much, I mean it's okay it works well with the Bumeblebee 1.0 I got so I can't really complain. 
Still though those prices are tough. 

[shazam]