The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mikeszekely]

From what I've been told the "fixed" green Constructor is box set only, and they've made all the version 1s they're going to. If I were in your shoes I'd seriously consider selling off the three you have, potentially at a loss, and buying the V2 set. It's only $100 more than buying the last three plus the upgrade kits and the only way to guarantee a Burden without the wheel hinge issue.

[mikeszekely]

Alright, as I teased before the break, I snagged a fantastic deal on ToyWorld’s not-Throttlebots (a little over $130 shipped for all six still in sealed boxes).  Even though the board's been back for awhile, I've been lazy with holiday stuff, but the break's over, so here we go with Grindrod, ToyWorld's version of Rollbar.

The Throttlebots are kind of an interesting case.  I don't recall having owned any of the originals except Goldbug, and I recall thinking even at the time that the Throttlebots were kind of lame toys hampered by their gimmick.  I don't recall any except Goldbug appearing in the cartoon.  I do remember them turning up in the old Marvel comic book super briefly before they were captured, their bodies destroyed, and their brains implanted in RC cars.  So, once again I find myself hitting up the TF Wiki to get a feel for the aesthetics of the character... and frankly, I think ToyWorld did a pretty bang-up job here.  An argument could be made, based on the limited animation and comic book appearances, that the gray hips, thighs, hands, and biceps should be green, but I think that the dark grey helps break up the uniformity of color, as do the spots of silver paint on his arms and the painted car details on his feet.  The head is pretty much spot on, he's got the front of his alt mode for feet, the roof for a tummy, and the little hood in the back.  I also like how the side windows wrap around onto his shins.

Size-wise, I have no idea where the Throttlebots fit on the holy Sunbow scale chart, but they were about the same size as Goldbug in the comics (sans Wideload), and since Pretender Bumblebee recalls how he was small before becoming a Pretender I'll take it to mean that he was basically Bumblebee-sized as Goldbug... ergo, the Throttlebots should be similar in size to Bumblebee, and smaller than your average Transformer.  And here, Grindrod is a head taller than MP Bumblebee but significantly shorter than TFM's Wildrider (whom we've already established is basically the same size as either an MP car or a Warbotron-sized combiner limb).  This works fine for me.

Grindrod's lone accessory is this tire, with flip out bits to make it a gun.  The peg is a little shallow, but it does fit into his hand nicely.

His head is on a mushroom peg, of all things, so he can turn his head and that’s it.  His shoulders are on ball joints at the shoulder and hinges in his torso, so in addition to getting well over 90 degrees of lateral movement and 360 degrees of rotation he can also shrug or slump his shoulders.  He’s got a bicep swivel and a single-jointed elbow hinge that’ll do 90 degrees, and his asymmetrical hands do have wrist swivels.  Speaking of swivels, you’ll also find them in his waist and his thighs.  Right above his thigh Grind Rod has universal hip joints that’ll kick forward over 90 degrees, backward until his legs hit his backpack, and laterally just a hair shy of 90 degrees.  Due to his transformation he’s got double jointed knees and can bend until he’s kicking himself in the butt.  One glaring omission, worse than the mushroom peg for his neck, are the lack of any kind of ankle articulation.

Grindrod's alt mode is a Jeep Wrangler, which is a perfectly reasonable choice given that the original Rollbar toy was a clearly a Jeep of some sort; TF Wiki identifies it as a CJ-7, but given the the vagueish details it could easily have been a Wrangler.  Either way, the Wrangler that Grindrod is would be a more modern version of whichever Jeep Rollbar was.  Size-wise, he's out-of-scale with Bee's VW, but it doesn't look horrible.  He's more noticeably out-of-scale with Wildrider, but G1 Transformers was a fiction where space shuttles turned into arms for a robot with a Jeep for a leg, so I'll be upfront about this now; alt mode scale is worthless.  How the bot modes size up is far more important to me than alt modes, and even then when it comes to my shelf my personal head-canon trumps the Sunbow chart.  Oh, and since combiners are kind of my thing, and these guys spend most of their time displayed in combined mode, having my combiners similar-sized will actually take precedence over robot size.

In any case, yes Grindrod's jeep mode is small, and no I don't care, because Grindrod's bot size is fine, and (spoiler) so is combined size.

I've said before and I'll say it again, I like my bot mode guns to hide in alt mode, and Grindrod's does so nicely by transforming into the spare tire on the tailgate.  

I think I should establish out of the gate that Grindrod is unlikely to go on anyone's MP shelf.  Between material quality, the molded 5mm peg hands, and the lack of ankle articulation Grindrod just doesn't seem to meet that ill-defined quality criteria for what constitutes a 3P MP figure.  That being said, is there even a big market for MP Throttlebots (Goldbug aside)?  As a CHUG, I think Grindrod's a pretty competent take on Rollbar and worth picking up, even as a standalone figure, if you have some attachment to the character.

[mikeszekely]

Moving right along, tonight we're doing ToyWorld's Aurora, their version of Searchlight.

The original Throttlebots were almost like Power Rangers in the limited animation/comic book appearances they made during G1... nearly identical, just a different color.  Rollbar was "the green one," and Searchlight was "the white one."  ToyWorld's breaking up that white with the black window dominating his chest, and with the blue and black accents on his shins, and with the blue hips, thighs, biceps, and hands.  ToyWorld also opted to go with a toy-ish solid blue head, instead of the blue head and gold face in his other appearances.  Each deviation takes Aurora a little further from the source material, makes him a little less Searchlight-ish, but with the hood on his back, the vehicle feet, and the mostly-white color scheme I think he's still close enough to Searchlight while being more visually interesting than Searchlight actually was.

The painted lights on his collar and head are a nice touch, too.  Not exactly accurate, yet still a nice homage to the design of Searchlight's character.

Size-wise, he's the same as Grindrod, coming in between Bumblebee and Wildrider here.  He is, in fact, largely identical in engineering to Grindrod; the only major changes are that the doors rotate so the windows fold onto the backs of his legs instead of his shins, and the windshield rotates before collapsing onto his chest because the entire roof is on his back.

Like Grindrod, Aurora just comes with his gun.  It's not a transforming tire this time, just a black gun with painted blue accents.  Fine for what it is, and he holds it just fine.

Sharing so much engineering with Grindrod means that Aurora has very similar articulation.  In fact, all of his joints and articulation are identical except for the following changes:

-Don't know if it's the shape of the shoulders, the molded lights, or something else, but his lateral shoulder movement stops at a still-respectable 90 degrees.
-The windows folded onto the backs of his legs limit his knee bend to 90 degrees.
-The front of the alt mode is connected via a ball join this time, allowing the front of his foot to turn.  This gives him a faux ankle tilt that was sorely missing on Grindrod.

Now, here's where things start to get weird, for Aurora and (as we'll see) the rest of the set.  It might be hard to tell from Searchlight's muddied details but the G1 toy's alt mode was based on a real car, a Ford RS200 in rally gear.  Basically, this:

Aurora, meanwhile, turns into an SUV.

Specifically, Aurora is a Land Rover Range Rover Evoque.  How ToyWorld went from a small Ford mid-engine car designed to be a rally car first and a street legal production car second into a luxury SUV from a totally different brand is beyond me.  I mean, I think it's a good-looking representation of an Evoque, I like it when toys have real-world alt modes, and if we can accept Prowl as a police SUV in the IDW comics now I guess there's no reason Searchlight can't also be an SUV now.  That said, aside from being white, nothing about the alt mode says "Searchlight" to me.

I'm not going to touch on the size; I said my piece about it in Grindrod's review, and that still stands here.

His gun may not turn into a tire, but Aurora does have storage for his weapon underneath, up in the engine area.  That suits me fine.

Objectively, Aurora is basically an improved version of Grindrod.  Subjectively, I think he's a harder sell.  Grindrod looked like an updated Rollbar toy.  Aurora is more of a white SUV that turns into a robot that can pass for Searchlight.  He's not bad, but as an individual figure if you have some attachment to Searchlight in the comics or cartoon then Aurora might not do it for you.

[M'Kyuun]

On 1/2/2017 at 2:58 PM, mikeszekely said:

From what I've been told the "fixed" green Constructor is box set only, and they've made all the version 1s they're going to. If I were in your shoes I'd seriously consider selling off the three you have, potentially at a loss, and buying the V2 set. It's only $100 more than buying the last three plus the upgrade kits and the only way to guarantee a Burden without the wheel hinge issue.

Thanks, Mike. I'll hold onto the three I have, and likely just shell for the box set.  $400 for all 6 with improvements is a good deal. Any idea about when the box set is going to be released?

[mikeszekely]

19 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Thanks, Mike. I'll hold onto the three I have, and likely just shell for the box set.  $400 for all 6 with improvements is a good deal. Any idea about when the box set is going to be released?

Well, $470 (like I said, plus upgrade kits). Preorders are up on TFSource, they have it listed as May.  I haven't heard anything from ToyWorld or anyone who talks to them about a date for the set, but I did hear that the first kit (the heels for Burden and the torso fillers) are just going out now, and that the head and thighs are expected to start shipping in March, so I wouldn't imagine the whole set would go out before then.

Anyway... moving right along, here's ToyWorld's Trace, their version of Chase.

Generally speaking, the Throttlebots’ monochrome colors and basic animation models derived from really simple toys should be the kind of thing that I’m generally cool with a 3P reimagining of.  Trace might be taking it a little far, though.  He’s mostly red with a blue head and a visor, but that’s mostly it.  I guess, if you squint at it, his backpack coming up over his shoulders does sort of look like the hood on his animation model and toy, but the additional blue on his biceps, waist, and thighs, the big tire shoulders, and the silver face don’t exactly scream “Chase!”  Perhaps the biggest departure is that unlike Grind Rod and Aurora he doesn’t retain the front-of-the-car-becomes-feet transformation that’s probably the most memorable thing about the non-Goldbug Throttlebots.

You’ll notice that Trace is slightly larger than the first two, just a head shorter than TFM’s Wildrider and the MP cars.

Trace’s sole accessory is his gun.  It’s blue, and fairly unremarkable.  Trace has some issues holding his gun.  I don’t know if the peg is too fat or the hand hole too small, but the fit is extremely tight.

His head is on a ball joint with good up/down range and minimal tilt.  His shoulders are a hinged in the torso with a ball joint on the other end providing rotation and better than 90 degrees of lateral movement.  He has a bicep swivel and a single-hinged elbow, but no wrist articulation.  His waist can swivel.  He’s got universal hips that can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, with thigh swivels below the hip joint.  His knees bend 90 degrees.  And finally, his feet are kind of weird.  There’s a hinge on the inside of the ankle for his ankle tilt, but due to transformation he’s toes are on a ball joint and his heels are are on a hinged ball joint.  There’s a chunk of plastic holding the ball joints, and if you try to get his feet too flat it’ll sit lower than his toes and heels, making him a tad unstable.

Remember how I said Trace’s bot mode is a pretty big departure from Chase?  Well instead of turning into one of Ferrari’s most iconic supercars Trace turns into an SUV, and a Lamborghini at that.  Specifically, a Lamborghini Urus.  I dig that ToyWorld is using real-world vehicles and it’s not a bad representation of the Urus, but I find it to be a really odd choice.  Like, odder than a Ford Rally car becoming a Range Rover.

Obviously his alt mode is way out of scale with the MP cars, but as I’ve said before, bot-mode size and combiner size are more important to me, so let’s move on, shall we?

Like Aurora, Trace has storage for his gun underneath.  The instructions tell you to point the barrel out, but then it sticks pretty far out the back.  The instructions are also very unclear on how you’re supposed to put the gun there in the first pace, but the idea is that there’s a gap in the bottom of the bumper, and you want to wedge the gun into it.

Speaking of instructions, a running theme with this set is that they suck.  However, this is the only case where the instructions are so bad that I actually broke a toy.  The problem is that the instructions get to the step where you’re supposed to move the hood onto Trace’s torso.  The instructions seem to indicate that you just fold it down, and when I tried I snapped the piece off just behind his neck.  What you actually need to do is rotate the entire assembly 180 degrees, then rotate the hood 180 degrees.  And let me tell you, it’s hard to remain objective about a figure after you break it.  Fortunately where it pegs into his torso in robot mode and between his headlights in alt mode keep it in place, so I haven’t decided if I’ll bother to replace him or not.

In any case, as objectively as I can, Trace is pretty so-so.  I already touched on his gun trouble, his lack of wrists, and his goofy feet.  His legs are a pain, too, because when you work his shins down to expose his thighs his legs don’t lock into place, and if you bend that transformation joint all the way his shins will bend unnaturally out to the sides, and the joint isn’t tight enough to keep his legs from doing just that.  I think those are issues that you probably wouldn’t put up with in this day and age unless you really wanted a Chase for your collection… and if you really want a Chase in your collection, a robot that only kinda sorta looks like him and turns into an SUV probably bugs you more that it does me.  On his own I wouldn’t recommend him, but we’ll see how he fares as an arm later.

[mikeszekely]

Continuing Nottlebot week here, tonight we're looking at ToyWorld's Highway, their version of Freeway.

For starters, we'll note that he's similar in engineering to Trace, and suffers some of the same problems.  He doesn't have the roof torso or the car-front feet.  He's got black aps, hips, and legs with silver and red accents, black and red details on his shins, and gray biceps.  I hate to sound picky, but even the blue is much darker than Freeway.  So he's not a bad robot, per se... I actually dig the way the front of the car collapses on itself to form his chest... but it's more like they stuck Freeway's head onto a totally different mostly-blue body than an actual updated Freeway toy.

The head is pretty spot on, though.

As with Trace, he's a little taller than the first two but still shorter than TFM's Wildrider or a typical MP car, which is what I want in a Throttlebot.

Once again, his gun is his lone accessory.  It's a chunk of unremarkable black plastic, but it gets the job done and he holds it fine.

His head is on a ball joint with slight lateral and forward tilt but a decent upward tilt.  It's a little weird because it's not actually connected to his torso, it's connected to a gray armature that lays over the top of his torso.  There are little flaps on the side, though, and if you squeeze in the sides of the car-chest enough they'll lay over the flaps and hold the armature in position.  His shoulders are also on ball joints.  Due to the shape of the joints and his shoulders he can only get a little over 45 degrees of lateral motion, but they do allow for a very slight forward/backward butterfly.  His biceps have swivels, and he's got single-jointed elbow hinges that bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels.  His waist and thighs do swivel, though, and he's got universal hips that do 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  His knees bend 90 degrees.  His toes and heels are on ball joints that supply an ankle tilt, plus the middle of his foot actually can hinge inward.  Due to his transformation the entire foot assembly can tilt downward a little, too.

Continuing the "WTF are they all SUVs now?!" trend, instead of transforming into a Corvette Highway transforms into a Maserati Kubang concept SUV (the production version, the Levante, isn't as aggressive in appearance).  As with the other Nottlebots it's a nice representation with nicely-painted details, it's just totally baffling how ToyWorld took characters that turn into sports cars and turned them into three SUVs from totally different companies, especially when their Rollbar was so close to a modern version of G1 Rollbar's alt mode.

And yes, it is weird that the side view mirrors are painted red instead of matching the body.

Like Trace, Highway stores his gun in the rear underside of the vehicle.  Unlike Trace, it actually fits quite nicely.

I think for me Trace was easily the worst of the set, and it's worth noting that despite their similarities Highway is a much better toy.  It's true that he's got a lot of the same aesthetic missteps, but the engineering and transformation is much better and at least the head is spot on.

That being said, I still don't think I'd recommend him, at least not as an individual figure.  He's an OK toy, but he just doesn't capture enough of the spirit of the character he's meant to be.

[Tking22]

My god this guy looks absurdly gorgeous! This is the MP Jazz I've been waiting on! And there's a chance I'll get him in hand before my birthday, oh boy!

 

That is perfection, don't even bother Takara!

[sh9000]

Looks good and the engineering is impressive.  They need to get rid of the swirly grey cheap deluxe Transformers plastic though.

[technoblue]

There's a bit of a peak-a-boo head behind the windshield, but that's me looking for nits to pick. I really do like that Jazz.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

Looks good and the engineering is impressive.  They need to get rid of the swirly grey cheap deluxe Transformers plastic though.

I think it's too late for that, MT is trying to get him out the door before Chinese New Year.

And yeah, that's a gripe for me, but I'm honestly more bothered by how flat and matte the white is. I don't expect a pearlescent paint, but some gloss would be nice. 

Oh well, I'm not planning on getting him anyway. My collection has some MPs, but isn't actually MP. I like Autobots with updated alt modes, so I'm content with J4ZZ.

 

[Scyla]

The MakeToys Striker Noir is up for preorder. Apparently it comes with a weapon accessory kit. He looks stunning. I hope they do a repaint of Rioter Despotron as a Dark Megatron to get rid of the gray plastic.

 

[mikeszekely]

I preordered Noir. I like MP10v as Optimus better than Manus, but I do like Maketoys' design a lot and I think the design is perfect for a Nemesis Prime.

The question, then, is whether to keep or sell Manus...

[dizman]

I have Manus already but that Noir sure is nice, the teal accents are perfect! 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I'm normally apprehensive about getting 3rd party goods on their 1st run, but for Downbeat I'm gonna take my chances - it just looks too good.

Striker Noir looks hot.  MT had a winner with Manus so I'll pick Noir up as well.

[mikeszekely]

So we're nearly to the end of ToyWorld's Nottlebots.  Tonight we'll do Sideload, their version of Wideload.

After the last two, I'm happy to say that Sideload does a fairly good Wideload.  No oddly-colored hips or thighs this time; Sideload is almost entirely orange save for his blue torso, and the blue torso is actually Wideload-accurate.  The hands and biceps could be orange, too, and the orange hand across his chest should be blue, but that's about it.  And, like Grindrod and Aurora, Sideload is back to having the front of the vehicle form his feet.  He is a little heavy on the backpack, though- Wideload was the one Throttlebot that didn't really have the hood.  Honestly, though, my biggest aesthetic complaint is probably his head, which would look much more like Wideload's if he ditched the orange goatee and had a red mouth plate instead of silver.

You'll notice that Sideload is much larger than the other guys in the team, standing more than a head taller than Wildrider or an MP car.

Sideload comes with a few more accessories than we're used to, although most of them are just for combined mode.  We have a blue gun for Sideload, then knees and a head-and-shoulders piece for combined mode.  

I'll point out now that Sideload's gun has a sort of squarish handle.  I’m not sure why ToyWorld shaped the handle of his gun the way they did when his hands are basically 5mm peg holes.  On my copy it’ll fall right out of his right hand.  He can kind of hold it loosely in his left.  Either way, it's far from ideal.

Sideload's head is on a ball joint that is, at least on my copy, very loose.  He can’t look very far down, but he’s got excellent range looking up, or when tilting his head in confusion.  His shoulders can rotate outside the blue hinge on a soft ratchet, and the entire hinge moves laterally on a hard ratchet (assuming you don’t have it tabbed to his torso).  In theory, he should have excellent lateral range but in practice the panels on the back of his shoulders catch on all the crap on his back.  His biceps have swivels, and he’s got double-jointed elbows that ratchet at the upper joint but just friction at the lower joint.  Despite the double joint he can really only manage a little more than 90 degrees of bend.  His wrists do swivel.  Unlike most modern 3P figures they slide out instead of folding out, and they have a strong tendency to slide back in unless you turn them.  His waist swivels.  His hips are universal joints, ratcheted for both forward/backward and lateral movement.  He gets about 90 degrees backward or laterally, but a combination of where the ratchet teeth are and pegs on his thighs limit him to a little over 45 degrees.  His thigh swivels are just above his knees, which are ratcheted single joints good for 90 degrees.  As for his feet, his toes are on a ball joint at the end of a rod that’s hinged to the bottom of his shin, and his heel is on a similar assembly (although the way it folds under his shin limits it a bit more).  You can tilt or position his toes to give the appearance of a dynamic foot.

Continuing the trend of taking vehicles that were clearly not SUVs and making them SUVs, Sideload eschews the dump truck alt mode in favor of a Conquest Knight XV, a vehicle that is a mix of luxury SUV, limousine, and enough armor to make SWAT jealous.  While it looks like it'd scale ok with Bee or Wildrider, and it might if it were just a Hummer, an actual Knight XV is significantly larger for rich people who think a Hummer isn't overcompensating enough, so it's still undersized in alt mode.

Unlike the other Nottlebots Sideload doesn't have a place to hide his gun.  Instead, the handle folds up, leaving a little peg that fits into a slot on the roof.  Now, a roof-mounted gun almost seems appropriate for such a heavily-armored vehicle until you remember that the Knight XV is a limited-production luxury SUV for civilians, and I'm unaware of any military or law enforcement agencies that use it (if you see something like it used by the military or law enforcement, it's probably Terradyne's Gurkha F5, not a Knight XV).

As positive as I was talking about Sideload's aesthetics and as hard as I was on Trace, you may be surprised when I tell you that Sideload is actually the worst to of the entire set, and it boils down to the fact that he's incredibly frustrating to transform.  Most of what you see in vehicle mode is like a shell that folds up and plugs into his back, but lining it up right involves lining up tabs that move independently of each other with slots that don't while folding panels in just the right order to get them around the moving tabs.  And even when you've got all that done right, you still have to contend with panels that fold up on his shoulders and the very minimal clearance they have to work around the rear fenders.  While you're struggling with that stuff will pop off, and as I noted in the articulation section all this junk on his back and the backs of his shoulders hampers the range of his articulation.  Bottom line, as an individual figure, I can't recommend him.  He's just not a fun toy on his own.

[David Hingtgen]

Ironically I'm buying more official and less 3P lately.   Many of the Titans Return deluxes are very nice (though QC is atrocious----I've returned more broken/malformed figures this past year than in my entire life before) but I'm generally not liking the direction most 3P is going----they're either going "present MP style" hyper-toon-accurate/blocky, or highly-stylized too-far-from source material.   Before, it tended to be more of a hybrid, like early MP's, which I really liked.  

[mikeszekely]

If you missed getting a preorder in, Planet Steel Express apparently has a few extra Kultur (IDW Tarn) for sale.

[sh9000]

3rd party releases:  80% 3rd party CHUG, 20% 3rd party "MP".

[mikeszekely]

4 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

3rd party releases:  80% 3rd party CHUG, 20% 3rd party "MP".

Are you saying that's how you personally shop 3P, or are you saying that's what you feel like 3P is doing?  If the former, me too, but if the latter I'd have to disagree and say I wish that were the case.  For crying out loud, you can get an MP Repugnus now but good luck finding a Voyager-sized 3P Soundwave.

[M'Kyuun]

A third party Soundwave scaled to fit the CHUG line complete with all the Decepticon cassettes would definitely garner attention. I recently bought TR Blaster, and while he's a really good homage to the G1 toy, the facts that he's a headmaster and that he doesn't have cassette bots considerably lower the enjoyment I get from him.  I haven't bought his Soundwave repaint, but the situation is the same, and my G1 Soundwave remains on my CHUG shelf until a better design comes along.

 

[mikeszekely]

You guys getting tired of Throttlebots yet?  We're down to the last one now, Shinebug.  And since Shinebug is ToyWorld's Goldbug, he's the one that people tend to be the most interested in.

Aesthetically, I think we're off to a good start.  An argument could be made that his blue biceps, pelvis, and thighs should be gold, but I'd point out that, first, in most of his Marvel appearances as Goldbug he had blue thighs and blue hands, and second, Shinebug isn't the first Goldbug toy with blue.  Alternity Goldbug had a lot of Alternity Bumblebee's black parts recast in blue, a 2011 Legends-class "Gold Bumblebee" was released with blue legs, arms, and a blue head, and the 2013 Generations Goldfire a black pelvis and forearms with blue thighs, feet, and biceps.  I think blue on Goldbug in spots besides his head (which is a little extra texture on the face plate away from being perfect) has enough precedence that it still counts as accurate to me.  His hood's a little on the small side, but it's there.  He's got the car-front feet.  And, although his torso isn't simply the roof, the way the the hood (or bonnet for my British friends) folds up and over the windshield works just as well.  It even leaves a little bit of the windshield peaking out in exactly the spot you'd have it on the G1 toy.  The tires in his forearms can look a little awkward from some angles but mostly it's a smart modernization of Goldbug that's recognizable as Goldbug but also distances him from Bumblebee.  I can't speak for you guys, but I prefer my Goldbug to be a separate character from Bumblebee, just like I prefer my Galvatron to be separate from Megatron.

Shinebug's just a head taller than Bumblebee, and that works fine for me.

Like Sideload, Shinebug comes with a ton of accessories and most of them are for the combined mode.  There's the combiner feet, hands, and pelvis armor, a large gun meant for combined mode, and a small gun for Shinebug, which he holds with no problems.

Shinebug's head is on a ball joint with a hinge at the base for transformation.  Looking down isn't really an option, but he can actually look straight up and he's got a lot of lateral tilt so you can have him looking very confused.  His shoulders are similarly on ball joints hinged at the base for full rotation and well over 90 degrees of lateral movement.  He has bicep swivels, and although his elbow is a single hinge good for 90 degrees there's a transformation joint at the top of the bicep that you can use to fake a double-jointed elbow and squeak out a little more bend.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel and thigh swivels just below his universal-jointed hips.  Those hips, by the way, can bend forward or backward just under 90 degrees and 90 degrees laterally.  He's knees can bend 90 degrees, he's got 45 degrees or so of inward ankle tilt and a tiny bit of upward/downward tilt.

By the way, the handle of the combiner gun can fold backward, and there's a 5mm peg in front of it, so Shinebug can wield it like a massive bazooka.

Well, like the other Nottlebots Shinebug ditches his G1 alt mode in favor of a modern car.  Shockingly, he's not an SUV!  Instead, he's a Mini Cooper, and I don't know about you but I think a Mini Cooper is a fantastic choice for a modern alt mode that suits Goldbug but still differentiates him from Bumblebee.  Size-wise, he looks a little small compared to Bumblebee (or maybe just a little squashed) and definitely looks small compared to Wildrider, but again bot-mode sizes are more important to me than alt mode scaling.

Shinebug's robot parts are well-hidden, and his gun pegs into the rear in such a way that it looks like his exhaust.  I should point out that his front wheels roll fine, but his rear wheels don't lock into the shoulders and move enough that they rub up against the wheel wells.

I don't have a lot to complain about with Shinebug.  I do wish he has wrist swivels, but if Bumblebee can get away without them in the MP line I'll forgive Shinebug.  He has heel flip out heel spurs, but they catch on the backs of his legs and push back in when you use his ankle tilts, however, he's quite stable and stands just fine without using them so there's not really a problem there.  I'd say my biggest complaint is the way the chest and backpack work.  For the backpack, the roof and rear window don't lock into place, and neither do the rear fenders, but you can squeeze the fenders so they're hugging the roof and friction keeps everything in place just fine.  The front's sort of the opposite problem.  The windshield locks into place, then the blue armature that the hood is on locks down, but the hood itself is a little loose and, when viewed from the top, a little gappy.  Worse, the sides of the hood split from the middle, and they're on sliding bars so that the hood can collapse inward on itself.  The sliders are a little loose, though, so the chest feels a little floppy.

Ultimately, though, my complaints are pretty minor and I feel comfortable saying that Shinebug is easily the highlight of the set.  I feel quite comfortable recommending him to anyone who wants a Goldbug in their collection, regardless of whether you're looking at the whole team or combined mode.

[Dangard Ace]

Originally I was using TR Blaster as a stand in for MP Blaster but with the recent eBay flash sales I decided to pick up KFC Transistor.  Yup  TR Blaster is officially getting bumped off the MP Shelf.  It looks so good I keep hearing in my head Blasters scene in the movie, "Optimus Prime do you read me?  The decepticons are blitzing Autobot City.  We're REALLY taking a pounding!"

Just need Jazz(Downbeat) and I've got the all the cool bots from the first two seasons.

Not sure what I'm gonna do with TR Blaster.  Soooo chunky...

[mikeszekely]

Well, I wasn't going to write this until tomorrow, but I'm not sleepy, I'm going to be busy tomorrow, and we might as well just get it over with and move on from these Throttlebots.  So here's... well, he doesn't have a name.  And he's technically an original character, since the Throttlebots were never combiners.  I've heard some people suggest that he's an homage to the GoBot combiner Puzzler, but aside from both having six members I fail to see any resemblance.

Aesthetically, as an original character, there's nothing I can really compare him to (aside from saying again that his shape, head sculpt, and colors don't resemble Puzzler any more than Menasor does).  He uses his hips and knees for elbows, and so suffers from having the thigh gap in his arms.  That said, he's not plagued by the skinny waist and hips that a lot of combiners are.  Indeed, he's quite chunky, and that's enhanced by having a bit of a pot belly a thick feet that aren't wider than his legs.  The head sculpt is also really nice, but with the red eyes and horns and the black face plate he looks a little like a villain.

He stands much taller than the Fansproject/Maketoys combiners.

Despite being made of appreciably smaller robots, Esyooveemius Prime is fairly similar in height to guys like Ordin, Feral Rex, TFC's combiners, the Warbotron duo, and Gravity Builder.  In other words, he fits right into my collection (especially since I started collecting TFM's Stunticons to eventually replace M3 and made the decision to pick up Warbotron's Computron to replace Quantron... I just need a better Defensor than TFC's to replace Guardia).

I know a lot of the fandom kind of hates on partsforming, Constructor was one of the most solid and easiest to pose combiners I've handled, and this guy's not far off.  His head is on a hinged swivel with a good up tilt and some downward tilt.  His shoulders are dedicated joints on the partsforming bit at the top, with nice strong ratchets for both rotation and lateral movement.  They do a good job lifting the armbots so that he can get 90 degrees or so of lateral movement without his shoulders really bumping his head.  He has double jointed elbows made from the armbots' hips and knees, as noted earlier, so he can get a little over 90 degrees of elbow bend, and the armbots' waists double as bicep swivels.  My only complaint there is that those joints aren't ratcheted and while they hold up fine when he's empty-handed they do sag under the weight of his gun.  The hands have built-in wrist swivels and individually-articulated fingers.  The thumb is on a ball joint at the base with two hinged knuckles, and the fingers are hinged at the base with two additional hinged knuckles.  His waist swivels, and ratcheted hips give him 90 degrees of lateral movement and nearly 90 degrees forward and backward.  His hip armor has flaps and moves out of the way.  The partsforming knees provide 90 degrees of strong ratcheting knee bend and a swivel just above.  He's got about 45 degrees of inward ratcheted ankle tilts, plus his toes and his heels are on ratchets for moving up and down.  All-in-all, he's pretty well-articulated for a combiner, and the partsforming bits make for pretty solid connections.  Even his arms, which are really just held on by two 5mm pegs on each shoulder, don't come off too easily.

While their guns (mostly) stored hidden away while they're in alt mode, those hiding spots are full of combiner parts in combined mode.  Sideload's gun can't fit anywhere but the same slot it goes in on vehicle mode, and looks stupid dangling off of his tummy.  The rest of the guns can peg into holes on the combined mode gun.  Aside from Grindrod's tire, which actually looks kind of cool there, the guns-on-a-gun thing isn't pretty, but it'll get the job done.

By now you might have looked at the pictures and asked yourself, "Where's Shinebug?"  He's not a legbot or an armbot.  He's not a pelvis like Jallguar or Long Haul, holding everything together.  Despite the gold color, he's not the head and shoulders like Hook, as that's all partsformed.  Nope, poor old Shinebug forms... a backpack.  That's it.

Now if you think of Goldbug as the most-important Throttlebot leader and you want Shinebug to have a more prominent role in the gestalt you can pull the arms off and put them back on backwards, rotate him at the waist 180 degrees, then rotate the head 180 degrees, making Shinebug the front of the torso.  This leaves Sideload showing as the hips and thighs and gives more of a six-member combiner appearance.  The only trade off seems to be a more obviously t-shaped torso and some visible screws.

Alternatively, if you're cool with the idea of the Throttlebots combining but still prefer Goldbug to be a stand-alone character Mr. No-name doesn't need a backpack anymore than you or I need a Jansport just to leave the house.  As an added bonus, you can hide some of the guns that you might otherwise stick on the combiner gun into some of the unused holes on the gestalt's back that aren't being filled by Shinebug.  Honestly, this is how they're going on my shelves.

In the interest of disclosure, there are definitely a few negatives we should talk about that we haven't mentioned yet.  First, the tabs and slots that hold Sideload's backpack together in bot mode don't work as well to hold him together in torso mode.  Things just won't line up right, and you'll have a gap under the partsforming shoulder piece.  The only thing you can do is position it a little higher, then use the front clips on the partsforming piece to hold everything in place.  That said, the partsforming piece is only connected by two pegs on the back and friction on the front, and that's all that's holding the whole torso together.  Yes, I've had it pop off while I was messing with him.  No, it wasn't pretty.  The other big issue I have is also Sideload related, and that's his hips.  The ratchets are strong enough that he's not going to do the splits like Uranos or Hades, but the joints are extremely floppy between teeth.  Beyond that it's mostly little gripes like how the fronts of Sideload's feet can wiggle and turn freely.

I think this guy is sort of an odd case.  As combiners go, he's honestly one of the more solid and articulated combiners in my collection.  He's not perfect, but he's quite good.  On the other hand, he's a combiner with no original G1 counterpart, made of five guys not a lot of people cared about who are different enough from their G1 counterparts that the people who do care might be turned off and one guy more people would be interested in who wouldn't even be necessary if he didn't come with most of the partsforming bits you need to get the other five together.  I think that might make him a hard sell for a lot of people, especially at full retail.  If you're interested in him, though, I say go for it.  Doubly so if you can find a good deal on him like I did, and which seems fairly likely these days.

[treatment]

So now I joined teh Oversized-KO crowd...

http://imgur.com/6j7kVps

[mikeszekely]

On 1/9/2017 at 8:50 PM, treatment said:

So now I joined teh Oversized-KO crowd...

http://imgur.com/6j7kVps

Dunno about the oversized ones, but I really dig the undersized ones.  Just picked up VSS-10V-U, KBB's Voyager-sized MP-10 done up in Ultra Magnus colors.

For those of you familiar with MP10v, there's really nothing new here.  Still a high-quality KO with better joints than my Hasbro original, just done up in G1 toy/Dreamwave/MP-02 colors.  For those of you who aren't familiar, take MP-10, fix his proportions, replace some plastic in the windows, legs, and hips with diecast, swap the translucent pieces in the hips for paint, lose the transformation on the smokestacks and side mirrors, and then shrink him down until they're a head or so taller than an MP carbot in bot mode and about the same size as their G1 toy counterparts in alt mode.

Even the accessories are the same.  Diecast Matrix, diecast sword, diecast Megatron gun, jetpack, rifle, energon axe, and a trio of alternate heads. I might use one of them just to give him a slightly different look than Optimus.  The sword and rifle are exactly the same, the rest are different only in color.  If you're wondering, that usually means blue instead of some other color, but the Megatron gun is done in Black Megatron colors.

A downside to the G1 toy/Dreamwave/MP-02 look is that it's kind of boring.  The gray does little to break up all the white.  The blue on his head and windows helps, but the greenish paint on his wrists and pelvis don't really pop like I'd want.  Classics Ultra Magnus is less true to the source, but stands out a little better for it.

I dig the white cab, but maybe if his lower legs were a darker color?

And here's how he scales with Leader-class Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus.  If only there were some way to use CW Magnus as armor...

Nope.  Doesn't fit.

Maybe because I think of the G1 toy as being kind of small, maybe because I can't get over how tiny it is compared to a real MP-10, but I was actually surprised that he's bigger than CW Magnus' cab.  Still... I wonder...

Ah, so close!  If only Magnus' wheels could have lowered in the transformation.

I know Striker Manus has his fans, and he should, but c'mon, this is clearly the ultimate CHUG Optimus.  It's leaps and bounds better than the original Classics mold because MP-10 was leaps and bounds better than the Classics mold.  These guys are everything you like about MP-10, only better, and in a more playable size.  Best part is they're only around $60 or so shipped from most places that carry them.  At that price, I'd love to buy a whole rainbow of these guys.  Think Nemesis Prime, Evangelion Prime, Shattered Glass Prime, BAPE Green Prime (sorry, the red and black ones seem kind of redundant), Powered Convoy/Delta Magnus blue, Shining Ultra Magnus yellow, an orange Fire Guts Ginrai... dare I even imagine a Pepsi Convoy?

While I'm dead serious about buying all those colors, I really do hope they do Nemesis Prime next.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

On Saturday, January 07, 2017 at 10:05 PM, Dangard Ace said:

Originally I was using TR Blaster as a stand in for MP Blaster but with the recent eBay flash sales I decided to pick up KFC Transistor.  Yup  TR Blaster is officially getting bumped off the MP Shelf.  It looks so good I keep hearing in my head Blasters scene in the movie, "Optimus Prime do you read me?  The decepticons are blitzing Autobot City.  We're REALLY taking a pounding!"

Just need Jazz(Downbeat) and I've got the all the cool bots from the first two seasons.

Not sure what I'm gonna do with TR Blaster.  Soooo chunky...

Transistor is great Blaster substitute.  Once KFC got rid of that flaky metallic red paint and re-released it with unpainted red plastic, I had to get it.  And he will look fantastic with Downbeat.

[technoblue]

23 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Dunno about the oversized ones, but I really dig the undersized ones.  Just picked up VSS-10V-U, KBB's Voyager-sized MP-10 done up in Ultra Magnus colors.

<snip>

For those of you familiar with MP10v, there's really nothing new here.  Still a high-quality KO with better joints than my Hasbro original, just done up in G1 toy/Dreamwave/MP-02 colors.  For those of you who aren't familiar, take MP-10, fix his proportions, replace some plastic in the windows, legs, and hips with diecast, swap the translucent pieces in the hips for paint, lose the transformation on the smokestacks and side mirrors, and then shrink him down until they're a head or so taller than an MP carbot in bot mode and about the same size as their G1 toy counterparts in alt mode.

<snip>

Thanks for the review. That Magnus repaint of fun size MP-10 looks very good, but it reminds me that what I really want is a core Magnus bot with armor--your sixth photo is so on point, even if it was meant in jest. Maketoys Cross Dimension Ultra Magnus has me thinking that a company might finally be willing to try a modern update of that design, and I'm excited to see the prototype. I'm also curious to see if MMC might do Ultra Magnus as part of their Reformatted line.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, technoblue said:

Thanks for the review. That Magnus repaint of fun size MP-10 looks very good, but it reminds me that what I really want is a core Magnus bot with armor--your sixth photo is so on point, even if it was meant in jest. Maketoys Cross Dimension Ultra Magnus has me thinking that a company might finally be willing to try a modern update of that design, and I'm excited to see the prototype. I'm also curious to see if MMC might do Ultra Magnus as part of their Reformatted line.

Me too, buddy, and that picture's only a half jest.  I really did want to see if I could work something out.  I've grown to like IDW's Minimus Ambus version of Ultra Magnus, but as a kid growing up I had an Ultra Magnus but my first Optimus was the Power Master one, so that white Optimus core was huge to me.

[Scyla]

I've got two new toys earlier this week: MMCs Titanika and Ocular Max' Terraegis.

First Titanika. I adore this toy. He is everything I would want out of a toy line for adults with transforming robots. She is chunky, heavy (without any die-cast), solidly build with good articulation and has excellent paint apps. 

There are two major issues (and one small one) with the toy. I agree with most of the criticism that her shoulders/backpack could improve more engineering so that the arms can move freely. However since the shoulders are on big ball joints that act as a butterfly joint and the pauldrons can swivel you can get her in many poses  even if she seems quite limited at first.

The second part is the panel assembly that fold up on her waist and they cover the robot thighs in alt mode. In tandem with the massive backpack and the way they are design they often get in the way for posing her legs in a dynamic way or utilizing her (incredibly tight) waist joint. With a better thought out backpack you could easily fold them away into it.

For all the criticism the backpack gets from me I think it looks fantastic and fits the character well. They remind me of two gigantic turbines/power units that fuel this gigantic engine of destruction.

I also have a minor quibble with her forearms. I wish she had a swivel before the elbow joint similar to the Metal Build Strike Freedom or Destiny Gundam. Because of the massive forearm armor I have trouble using her double jointed elbow to full effect. As a minor nitpick I would wish for another connection to secure the grenade launchers on a second point on the weapons and as a bumper so that they stay aligned. With just one peg connection that can be knocked out of alignment pretty easy. 

As a summary she is leaps and bounds ahead of MMC Jaegertron who was made in a different factory I believe. Looks stunning in both modes (all six wheels are in contact with a flat surface), has the though plastic we came to expect from MMC (no stress marks at all) and on my copy everything locks in place and the joints have the right tolerance with a tendency of being too tight.

I want to bring forward a few points where Titanika excels. The wheels are made of a rubberized plastic. They are not as soft as regular rubber (i.e. the wheels on MP-10) rather they have the a similar texture of the soft plastic Hasbro uses for the small edges on their toys like the spires on the AoE Dinobots. This plastic gives the toy a premium haptic feel and she rolls smoothly. The paint applications are also well done. This includes the number of paint apps as well as the different color tones used. I also think the wrecking bowl hands are a great touch. Not only to they act as melee weapons in bot mode but look also like a weapon on alt mode. Think of mines that can be used Rock & Roll Racing style to shake off pursuers. 

I noticed I've wrote a bunch of stuff about Titanika so I will give Terraegis his own post. I also got a new camera for Christmas so I think I should take some pictures that go along with my ramblings.

[mikeszekely]

I skipped Titanika... I have no interest in Beast Machines characters. I should have Kultur (and some non-MMC stuff) in hand pretty soon thought.

[treatment]

I now want the Oversized-KO EVA-Prime.

I just need another ebay-flash sale discount thingy...

 

[vlenhoff]

2 minutes ago, treatment said:

I now want the Oversized-KO EVA-Prime.

I just need another ebay-flash sale discount thingy...

 

I actually want the battle damaged big KO optimus thing, Weijang thing. They did a great job evolving that evasion prime.

BTW i do have the MPP-10, and it is very good. I am not into KOs, but i could not resist.

Edited January 13, 2017 by vlenhoff

[treatment]

31 minutes ago, vlenhoff said:

I actually want the battle damaged big KO optimus thing, Weijang thing. They did a great job evolving that evasion prime.

BTW i do have the MPP-10, and it is very good. I am not into KOs, but i could not resist.

Did you also get the oversized trailer for it?  I'm not that interested in the regular MPP-10, but I'm rather interested in his trailer for my Nemesis.

I'm not impressed at all with the clear-trailer being marketed for MPP-10B.

And there is yet no damn proper black trailer for it, either! 

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by treatment

[vlenhoff]

1 hour ago, treatment said:

Did you also get the oversized trailer for it?  I'm not that interested in the regular MPP-10, but I'm rather interested in his trailer for my Nemesis.

I'm not impressed at all with the clear-trailer being marketed for MPP-10B.

And there is yet no damn proper black trailer for it, either! 

 

Ha, i forgot about the trailer. Yeah they should have a black one for it. Hmmm, maybe i should get a trailer for my MPP-10.

Edited January 13, 2017 by vlenhoff

[Tking22]

MakeToys Downbeat instructional/transformation video.

That looks phenomenal, so clean, not too complicated, but it still looks fun. It appears the back end wasn't mis-transformed, and it does have that ugly split look in the rear below the bumper. Oh well, not even close to a deal breaker for me, this is MP Jazz, zero doubts. Once again I'll give Takara's a fair look when they announce it, but I'm not expecting much, I don't think they're handling the MP line as well as third party is at this point, their blatant change in aesthetics is odd, and now I'm just waiting for them to start releasing + versions of previous MPs slowly un-Hasui-ing the MP line, gross.