The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Kuma Style]

Ordered Generation Toy T-Beasts Primal yesterday and should be here Monday... it's REALLY nice to see these getting a real run from good companies. 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Kuma Style said:

Ordered Generation Toy T-Beasts Primal yesterday and should be here Monday... it's REALLY nice to see these getting a real run from good companies. 

I can't make my mind up on that one.  I was in high school or college when Beast Wars was on, and although I watched it (later, as an adult) and thought it was pretty good I generally don't have much attachment to any of the characters.  If I were to get one, though, Primal would be the guy to get, and I definitely prefer the T-Beasts style of mecha-animals to the organic alt modes of the show.  Plus, I have most of GT's releases (so far I'm only missing the Legends-class Optimus and Megatron pack), and I've generally been very pleased with them.

I think Gabriel is the what's really holding me back.  If my retailer hasn't stocked him closer to the end of the month, I'll probably spend on Primal.

[sh9000]

I wonder if more 3rd party Transformers companies will also produce Macross items.

[JB0]

3 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

I wonder if more 3rd party Transformers companies will also produce Macross items.

As I understand things, Bandai is much more aggressive about policing the knookoffs, making it an uncomfortable market to enter.

On the other hand, the Not-Gundam manufacturers spend very little effort making their offerings legally-distinct, which might be part of their problem.

[sh9000]

I was wondering more about accessories and possibly figures that haven’t been officially produced much like what Fext Hobby (Fans Hobby) is currently doing.

[Kuma Style]

[mikeszekely]

Is that an ab crunch I see, @Kuma Style?

[Kuma Style]

Yes sir! It actually folds to 90 degrees, so pretty impressive.  The only problemI have so far is that the shell on the back of the thighs restricts thigh rotation to literally nothing when the legs are straight down or in A stance. it's unacceptable. 

[M'Kyuun]

Thigh restriction notwithstanding, that's a neat looking mecha-Primal. Reminds me of the Trans-metal versions of the characters, which I favored over the organic alts, from a more practical standpoint  (that alt modes should be mechanical regardless of the forms they assume), much like the Dinobots. Alas, I still love Beast Wars, and they conjured up a decent excuse for the organic forms, impractical as they were. I wonder how BW would have played out had they gone totally mecha throughout, just making the beast forms look as close to their organic counterparts as possible while still retaining hints of their mechanical natures. 

[Kuma Style]

If you're not familiar with this and the rest of the designs you should really look up "T-Beasts" which it comes from. They're actually doing the sideswipe from it and DX9 is doing Rodimus. Glad to see this getting more love as I much prefer cybertronian beasts over organic.

 

 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Kuma Style said:

I much prefer cybertronian beasts over organic.

Me too.  That said, as neat as some of the T-Beasts designs are, I'm don't think I have room for a collection of G1 characters, their IDW counterparts, and their T-Beasts versions.  I'm interested in Primal as a one-off, but I'll probably stop there.

[M'Kyuun]

I wasn't even aware of those T-Beast designs; pretty neat.  Thanks, Kuma.

I could totally get behind a reimagined Beast Wars, or a mashup of G1 and BW like they seem to be doing, as an animated show. Bumblebee's alt mode should be obvious, rather than the Zoids Liger-like design they did. After all, he is a mini-bot and a spy in G1, so that's an alt that would be really fitting.

[mikeszekely]

9 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I wasn't even aware of those T-Beast designs; pretty neat.  Thanks, Kuma.

I could totally get behind a reimagined Beast Wars, or a mashup of G1 and BW like they seem to be doing, as an animated show. Bumblebee's alt mode should be obvious, rather than the Zoids Liger-like design they did. After all, he is a mini-bot and a spy in G1, so that's an alt that would be really fitting.

His name is Bumblebee. He should turn into a bumblebee.

[M'Kyuun]

My point exactly. He and Waspinator would make good counterpoints, esp if they changed Waspinator's personality to be more cunning, fierce, aggressive, defensive, and single-mindedly loyal to his 'queen'. If they included the rest of the Insecticons, Tarantulas, Scorponok, Inferno ("For the Royalty!"), and any other arthropods I'm forgetting, all in their natural scales, they'd make an interesting faction of mini-spies. Moreover, it'd be a fresh take, especially if all mass-shifting was eschewed.

[Kuma Style]

 

[Scyla]

On 4/10/2018 at 7:01 PM, Kuma Style said:

If you're not familiar with this and the rest of the designs you should really look up "T-Beasts" which it comes from. They're actually doing the sideswipe from it and DX9 is doing Rodimus. Glad to see this getting more love as I much prefer cybertronian beasts over organic.
*snip*

I just watched your video review of the Generation Toys Gorilla and I must say he is pretty spectacular. When I saw an image of the gorilla mode I was thinking that this is probably just a re-shell of the MP Optimus Primal.

It is really impressive with what Generation Toys came up compared to MP Primal. Primal seems like a refinement of his old toy from the 90s while Generation Toys came up with something different which I like about transforming toys. Something can have similar modes but the way to get their might be totally different which intrigues me (this is also the reason why I have a collection of black Prime repaints). I just like to see what a designer can come up with.

Thank you for all the entertaining videos Kuma.  

[Kuma Style]

Thank you very much for taking a look and of course the kind words and yea man it's such an incredible sculpt that I just can't even.

So in the video review for Generation Toy Gorilla I went on about how I couldn't stand the limited leg articulation. Well'p; modded that a voila' ~ like a completely different figure posing-wise.

 

[mikeszekely]

12 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

So in the video review for Generation Toy Gorilla I went on about how I couldn't stand the limited leg articulation. Well'p; modded that a voila' ~ like a completely different figure posing-wise.

What was the mod?  Does it affect anything in gorilla mode?

[Kuma Style]

Responded to the post you liked on TFW.

[mikeszekely]

53 minutes ago, Kuma Style said:

Responded to the post you liked on TFW.

Ah, ok, I saw.  Sounds like an easy fix.

[Kuma Style]

Full written review and gallery for GT Gorilla up later today! Pretty stoked to have gotten this one done. Between modifications on the product and indecisiveness of backgrounds, I restarted this gallery four times which I think is an actual record.

[Tking22]

Oh man, I didn't even see when these were announced, but I'm in love. MakeToys Skywarp and Thundercracker are officially up for PO, nabbed mine at BBTS, and they look phenomenal, everyone was hoping after Meteor/Starscream they would release these guys too, and happy days here they are.

 I am ALL over these, I love my Meteor to death, a bit too toon accurate for its own good sometimes, but head and shoulders above the quite awful official MP-11 seekers.

[Mechapilot77]

1 hour ago, Tking22 said:

Oh man, I didn't even see when these were announced, but I'm in love. MakeToys Skywarp and Thundercracker are officially up for PO, nabbed mine at BBTS, and they look phenomenal, everyone was hoping after Meteor/Starscream they would release these guys too, and happy days here they are.

 I am ALL over these, I love my Meteor to death, a bit too toon accurate for its own good sometimes, but head and shoulders above the quite awful official MP-11 seekers.

i have meteor and love it even though its a love/hate  thing.  maketoys got so much right with it but let me down in a few ways...much like most of their releases.  also why black hands for skywarp...thats not OK.  meanwhile i actually like the mp-11 seekers.  my biggest issue with them is the cockpit top line is above the shoulder/chest/torso (well aside from the shoulder towers seekers have).  on the fence on whether to have starscream different as the lone maektoys seeker or to buy all the seekers....again.  unfortunately all i see when i see mp-11 seekers (which i just finished collecting all 6 of this year) now is the too high cockpit center area thats been there since mp-3.  that being said i dont' know if i want to trouble selling all my old mp-11 based seekers or keeping them for their officalness and better jet mode.

[mikeszekely]

I guess they're not the "cool" choice, but I do most of my business with TFSource.  They don't have preorders for Lightning and Skycrow yet, but as so as they do they're going in my stack.  Which is getting kind of large.  I know Bobby Skullface did a video recently about 3P kind of slowing down, but I wonder if the downturn wasn't just because of Chinese New Year?

Well, until those preorders start turning into "in stock," I picked up another previously-released figure that I didn't get around to earlier.  This would be X-Transbots Paean, their version of an MP Hoist (and the third one on the market).

Now, I usually like to open these by talking about the aesthetics, but this time I want to show you something first.  These are MMC and BadCube's Hoists, respectively:

And this is Hoist's animation model:

Looking at MMC's and BadCube's, it's super obvious that they made a Trailbreaker toy, then retooled him a bit to make their Hoist.  To be fair, that's mostly true for the G1 toys as well, but the fact remains that a lot of collectors want MP-style toys that more closely resemble the animation models than the G1 toys did, and Hoist wound up having a very different animation model than Trailbreaker did.  MMC clearly took their Trailbreaker, painted him green, gave him rounder forearms, then called it a day.  BadCube looks like they put a little more effort into it, and from the knees up mostly works.  But I'd argue that only Paean really captures the awkward pelvis, bizarre knees that jut out on the sides, the tube-shaped thighs and shins, and the wheeled booties of Hoist's animation model.  Regardless of the merits of the MMC and BadCube's figures, I'd say the fact that Paean is more animation-accurate would be the primary draw of the figure.

For scale, I've placed him with Maketoys' version of his buddy Grapple.  While I think the size is fine, it does mean that he can't fit inside BadCube's version of Gears (or any version of Gears, as of this writing).

Paean comes with a ton of accessories.  You've got two single-barrel wrist guns, one of which I'd say is necessary for a proper Hoist.  You've got a hammer, as seen in the episode where he was working on the solar tower with Grapple.  You've got some kind of double-barreled wrist cannon from an episode I'm sure I don't remember.  There's a pair of wrist connectors that are apprently for attaching MP Ratchet's accessories to Hoist's wrists.  There's the requisite toy-styel head.  You've got not one, but two alien masks from "Hoist Goes to Hollywood."  You've got a model of the solar tower he built with grapple.  And you've got two attachments for alt mode, one with three ratcheted joints and a claw at the end, and the other tentacles made from segments linked by ball joints, with clamps at the end.

Paean has some articulation issues, but some bright spots as well.  His head is on a hinged swivel, and if you use the transformation joint he can look down a taste but straight up.  His shoulders have ratcheted joints inside his chest for transformation that let him slump his shoulders down, and a softer ratchet in the shoulder that lets him extend his shoudlers laterally 90 degrees.  You can cheat a little more using a transformation joint to rotate out the front of the bicep as well as everything from the elbow down.  Rotation is just friction, and his shoulders have a tendency to get caught on his backpack.  You have to squeeze the backpack and basically grind the shoulder around it, and unless you rotate his arm enough that you totally clear it the lateral motion is blocked.  He does have bicep swivels, and elbos that bend just shy of 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  And his hands are a shining example of why KFC's articluated hands suck (I'm honstly not a fan of articulated hands at this scale beyond the carbot-style single-pin at the base, maybe with a separate index finger that has one extra joint for pointing).  All five digits are ball joints at the palm.  For the finger the ball all joint is part of the first section of finger, with hinges at the middle and top knuckles.  There's no pins in those hinges, though.  The thumb is worse; the ball joint has a weedy, thin stem that the next segment of thumb sits over, with one more hinged segment, and there are again no pins.  So you have fingers spinning around in their ball sockets and parts of fingers and thumbs that pop off super easily.  I was tempted to take a photo showing that when I transformed Paean from truck to robot I had the thumb and the first three fingers come off trying to get the hand to rotate out, but ultimately didn't.

Moving along, the waist swivels fine.  His hip skirts move out of the way so he can kick about 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  His thighs can swivel.  His ratcheted knees are single-jointed but get a little more than 90 degrees.  His feet can bend up, with the toes being able to bend up more if you need it, and down slightly, although if you fold down the back of his foot then you can bend the foot down 90 degrees.  And he's got great ankle pivots that actually bend over 90 degrees.  So while posing the arms can be tricky, the legs have enough range and are easy enough to manipulate that you can still get him into some pretty dynamic poses.

His signature wrist gun can be attached by popping a hand off of the mushroom peg, then slotting the gun in its place.

Something I really like that XTB did here is that the barrel of the gun splits, so the entire thing can fold into his arm for transformation and you don't have to remove it.

The hammer also slots onto the mushroom peg.  Meanwhile, the double-barreled gun and the wrist connectors for using MP Ratchet's accessories have little pegs on them.  Folding in either of Paeans wrists reveals a hole on one side that those accesories plug into.  Given that most of us probably consider the wrist gun a sort of permanent Hoist thing and the hammer a temporary one I do wish the hammer used the plug that the other accessories do instead of fitting onto the mushroom peg, especially because Paean can't transform without removing the hammer.

It looks like swapping the heads involves sliding the default cartoon head off of a mushroom peg as well, but it was pretty tight.  Since it's my preferred head, I decided not to risk damaging the figure just to show off the toy head.  As for the mask, there are tabs on the sides that just grap onto Paean's head with friction.  The smaller mask is apparently for MP Tracks, whom I bought but hasn't arrived yet.

Paean turns into a Toyota Hilux (SR5 Pickup in North America) with towing gear in the bed.  The caution stripes draw more from the toy than the cartoon, although it lacks the white outline.  The grill is also more accurate to the real truck than either the cartoon or the toy, which is fine with me.  The towing gear isn't as simplified as the cartoon, which is fine by be.  Instead there's molded tool boxes with painted silver clasps, but the sirens are still there and his wings are still folded over the top.  His back-mounted weapon also stays attached, folding down just under the wings.  The tires roll fine, and they do seem to be made of a hard rubber.

The transformation itself isn't particularly difficult, especially given XTB's reputation, but it can be a little finnicky to get everything tabbed in place.

The towing part can fold down, and there's even a little wroking wheel on it.  Sliders let you move the sides out to the width of the car you want to tow.  However, cars wtih wider wheelbases like MPM Bumblebee were stretching the limits, and vehicles with long front ends may not fit.

If you move the wings out of the way first, you can fold up the back-mounted weapon and deploy it in truck mode.  And tabs slots on the back of let you tab in the claw arm.  The claws have springs that push them back into a closed position after you open them, and the tension is enough that he can at least carry the model of his solar tower.

The same clips slots work wtih the tentacles.  With all the ball joints the tentacles are obviously very articluated, but they're not particularly strong.  I found that the tentacles have trouble with their own weight, let alone trying to hold something with them.

The only issue I have with Paean that I haven't brought up is a small one.  Basically, there's a transformation hinge at the top of the tailgate that folds the towing gear up over the top of the the rest of the junk in his bed to form the backpack in robot mode.  The hinge is friction, and a little loose, and there are not tabs or pegs that keep the towing gear in place.  As a result, I find that the tailgate frequently drops down over his butt with the towing gear pointed straight out the back.  It's a minor incovenienve, but it would have been nice if there'd been a way to lock it in place for robot mode.

On the other hand, while I'm always hearing horror stories about KFC/XTB quality, Paean strikes me as a solid if imperfect figure, whose aesthetics and accessories generally outweigh a few tolerance issues and some articulation difficulties in the shoulders.  Now, FansToys announced awhile back that they were doing a Trailbreaker, but we haven't heard anything in years on that let alone a Hoist remold.  Likewise, Takara is rumored to have Hoist and Trailbreaker in the works, but whether there's anything to those rumors remains to be seen.  For now, Paean's a pretty good figure, and I think he's the Hoist to beat.  Unless you're really set on waiting (indefinitely) for a FansToys or Takara version, I'd give him a recommend.

[Kuma Style]

8 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Oh man, I didn't even see when these were announced, but I'm in love. MakeToys Skywarp and Thundercracker are officially up for PO, nabbed mine at BBTS, and they look phenomenal, everyone was hoping after Meteor/Starscream they would release these guys too, and happy days here they are.

 I am ALL over these, I love my Meteor to death, a bit too toon accurate for its own good sometimes, but head and shoulders above the quite awful official MP-11 seekers.

I want these so much more than regular Meteor. I wish I had MP-11 just to have him flanked by these two because the design distinction would be awesome.

[nhyone]

At least the faces are now gray color. 

[mikeszekely]

36 minutes ago, nhyone said:

At least the faces are now gray color. 

You could make the case that Meteor's face was too dark (personally, I thought it was fine in hand), but Starscream's face was darker than Skywarp and Thundercracker's in the G1 cartoon.

Two things I do find curious, though:

One, why are Skywarp's hands black?  I mean, the parts that are blue on Starscream are unpainted on Meteor.  Those parts are the same parts that are black on Thundercracker and purple on Skywarp, so if Maketoys just used the exact same mold they used for Meteor's blue parts with purple plastic instead Skywarp would have purple hands.  Making them black would actually require Maketoys to use a slightly different mold just to get the colors wrong anyway.

Two: This matters a lot less, but why do Skywarp's chest, pelvis, intakes, and face appear to be painted silver, but the same parts on Thundercracker appear to be a glossy light gray?  I feel like they should be the same color.

[M'Kyuun]

I'm thinking the black hands are just a matter of cheap recycling, since they already cast them in black for Thundercracker. Moreover, as well as being a time expedient, the cost of purple plastic may be higher than black (I know this is the case with LEGO-black is the cheapest color for them to produce). As for the chest, intake, and pelvic areas, at first I thought it might be a trick of light due to the angle, but upon closer inspection, I think you're right, which is odd, as they should both be silver.

Gotta agree with the general sentiment that the overall design is brilliant for Meteor- in just about every way, an improvement over the official MP (the hollow wing undersides stand out as a negative).

[Mechapilot77]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

You could make the case that Meteor's face was too dark (personally, I thought it was fine in hand), but Starscream's face was darker than Skywarp and Thundercracker's in the G1 cartoon.

Two things I do find curious, though:

One, why are Skywarp's hands black?  I mean, the parts that are blue on Starscream are unpainted on Meteor.  Those parts are the same parts that are black on Thundercracker and purple on Skywarp, so if Maketoys just used the exact same mold they used for Meteor's blue parts with purple plastic instead Skywarp would have purple hands.  Making them black would actually require Maketoys to use a slightly different mold just to get the colors wrong anyway.

Two: This matters a lot less, but why do Skywarp's chest, pelvis, intakes, and face appear to be painted silver, but the same parts on Thundercracker appear to be a glossy light gray?  I feel like they should be the same color.

with all the color issues (skywarp's hands, thundercracker's mismatched interior boob color, mismatching silvers of the main torso) in these two shots i wonder if they just photoshopped some pics of meteor before getting samples of these two and just did a sloppy job of it. 

 

i'm still waiting for someone....anyone to release a better headsculpt...face to helmet ratio is way off.  hopefully somebody will get around to it.

[Scyla]

12 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

You could make the case that Meteor's face was too dark (personally, I thought it was fine in hand), but Starscream's face was darker than Skywarp and Thundercracker's in the G1 cartoon.

Two things I do find curious, though:

One, why are Skywarp's hands black?  I mean, the parts that are blue on Starscream are unpainted on Meteor.  Those parts are the same parts that are black on Thundercracker and purple on Skywarp, so if Maketoys just used the exact same mold they used for Meteor's blue parts with purple plastic instead Skywarp would have purple hands.  Making them black would actually require Maketoys to use a slightly different mold just to get the colors wrong anyway.

Two: This matters a lot less, but why do Skywarp's chest, pelvis, intakes, and face appear to be painted silver, but the same parts on Thundercracker appear to be a glossy light gray?  I feel like they should be the same color.

Maybe they are testing what color the chest should be and what looks best. Or are these already production units? The black hands are weird but maybe they just had a second pair of Thundercracker hands lying around and used those. 

I hope this will change in the final version. Ugly wrist gaps are still ugly! 

[Kuma Style]

[Kuma Style]

The full review for Generation Toy GT-10 Gorilla went up yesterday; http://kumastyledesigns.com/generation-gorilla-review/

Really went in on this one on site, particularly with the negatives but for a summary's sake it's a fantastic sculpt with some really crappy decisions made in the engineering area. Here are some pics from the gallery:

 

 

 

[sh9000]

The add-on kit looks good.

[JB0]

Hot damn. If Volcanicus looked like that out of box, I might would've bought Grimlock.

[Kuma Style]

I agree. The PerfectEffect upgrades are "ok" but this here is a game changer.