The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Kuma Style]

 

 

[M'Kyuun]

Pretty sweet little Skyfire. Thanks, Kuma.

Part of me wants this as a nice Mini-me for Phoenix.

[Kuma Style]

Haha. That's what's up. I got in the Visualizers and I really want to pull out the old Perfect Effect ones to display with it so I get it completely.

[mikeszekely]

3 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

Haha. That's what's up. I got in the Visualizers and I really want to pull out the old Perfect Effect ones to display with it so I get it completely.

Better QC this time?

[M'Kyuun]

The PE Reflector guys are adorable (very reminiscent of what Iron Factory are doing presently), but Maketoys rocked the G1 homage. Expensive set, though- even more than their Meteor F-15 figures.

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

39 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Expensive set, though- even more than their Meteor F-15 figures.

Actually, you can buy them for $79.99 (+shipping, I think maybe $14) directly from the Maketoys shop.  They were always a recommend from me- I never liked the FT Reflector, so only the KFC ones were even in the running, but at that price they're a steal.

[Kuma Style]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Better QC this time?

No idea. Took that quick shot, shelved them, and got onto starting the reviews I'm (seemingly always) behind on.

11 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

The PE Reflector guys are adorable (very reminiscent of what Iron Factory are doing presently), but Maketoys rocked the G1 homage. Expensive set, though- even more than their Meteor F-15 figures.

 

Honestly the PW guys are fantastic for what they are and an amazing, classics-scaled set. If you look at the price even at full retail it's really not bad considering it's three legitimate figures in their own right.

[Kuma Style]

 

 

[M'Kyuun]

Quite a collection- love their take on Windblade. I'd like their Arcee more if she turned into her G1 car, or a close facsimile thereof. But on the whole, considering the vast majority of these guys are legends scale, they're cool little figures. 'Tots adorbs' I believe is the current vernacular.

[Kuma Style]

The thing of it is that they're actually "impressive" as figures and continually making strides for pieces at that scale. Outside of moving fingers, Cygnus (Jetfire) literally has all of the articulation of the MakeToys Cross Dimension figures from double joints to ab crunch. They produce as much or more than any other company and have shown double the improvement of any other while continuing to do so. They don't make my absolute favorite products but I really think that they've become the "kings" and the standard bearers of that Legends-scaled niche for sure. 

[M'Kyuun]

At this point, in my mind, they're synonymous with these legends sized figures. If they produce something that's not, I'm not aware of it. Moreover, when other companies produce a legends scale figure, Iron Factory's my first thought, even if they didn't make it. They absolutely have carved a niche for themselves, and just looking at galleries and vids for these figures, I definitely appreciate everything that goes into them from engineering, to paint, to articulation, and quality of alt modes. Great toys. Little pricey for their size, and I'm pretty much tapped financially by other hobbies and just life stuff, so I enjoy them vicariously. That said, keep on posting them, Kuma. Cheers!

Edited May 10, 2018 by M'Kyuun

[Scyla]

Personally I like the DX9 Legends more than the Iron Factory ones. Reason being that I like transforming toys because of the engineering involved. The DX9 ones provide a more innovative and in depth transformation compared to the Iron Factory Legends. 

For example the IF Seeker mold is pretty similar to the Hasbro Legend version with the legs collapsing and the arms tucking to the side. The DX9 is much more innovative in comparison with the arms tucked away along the spine of the plane.

I also love the spin DX9 gave to their legends Dinobots. One main criticism of FTs Grinder was that he is basically a re-shelled MP Grimlock whereas the DX9 Dinobots are all a derivation on how the Dinobots should transform but still end up looking similar to them in both modes.

[Mechapilot77]

typically i can't get excited for these legends scale stuff.  they usaully make great sacrficies (in alt mode usually) to have a decent bot mode with decent articulation.  that new skyfire is pretty sweet looking though.  its alt mode is....like all this stuff (mostly anyway)...forgiveable.

[Kuma Style]

5 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

At this point, in my mind, they're synonymous with these legends sized figures. If they produce something that's not, I'm not aware of it. Moreover, when other companies produce a legends scale figure, Iron Factory's my first thought, even if they didn't make it. They absolutely have carved a niche for themselves, and just looking at galleries and vids for these figures, I definitely appreciate everything that goes into them from engineering, to paint, to articulation, and quality of alt modes. Great toys. Little pricey for their size, and I'm pretty much tapped financially by other hobbies and just life stuff, so I enjoy them vicariously. That said, keep on posting them, Kuma. Cheers!

Completely agreed. When I think Legends, my brain definitely goes to Iron Factory offerings.

[kanedaestes]

Apparently BadCube is ramping up and going for that toon accuracy for their Lambo twins

 

http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/05/11/badcube-ots-14-warrior-steamroller-ots-15-security-director-recon-masterpiece-scaled-g1-sideswipe-red-alert-363669

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, kanedaestes said:

Apparently BadCube is ramping up and going for that toon accuracy for their Lambo twins

 

http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/05/11/badcube-ots-14-warrior-steamroller-ots-15-security-director-recon-masterpiece-scaled-g1-sideswipe-red-alert-363669

Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I kind of dig their Sideswipe, but ironically I opted not to pick up MP Sunstreaker because I thought BadCube's Sunsurge looked better with MP Sideswipe.  With the blue windows and cartoony proportions on BC's Sideswipe I'm worried that he won't look good with Sunsurge.

As for Red Alert, I think that BadCube's looks so much better than the official, but A.) I only recently ordered MP-14+, and B.) it took me that long to do it because Red Alert is possibly my least favorite of all the Autobot cars.  I guess we'll see how the reviews go.

If BadCube does a Deep Cover repaint of their Red Alert, though, I'm there.  I'm that much a sucker for police cars.

[technoblue]

BadCube's gimmicks are winning me over on these two: the alternate faces, the jetpack, working doors and headlamps. All of it looks fun. Also, the alt mode looks really sleek and I hope that's indicative of the final retail version. TT's original Lambor and Alert releases were good in bot mode but could be gappy in alt mode. 

For that reason, I've been skipping the official "plus" carbots. If a third party like BadCube wants to improve on the official toon accurate carbots, I'm in. 

[mikeszekely]

5 minutes ago, technoblue said:

For that reason, I've been skipping the official "plus" carbots.

For me and Red Alert it's not so much that I'm buying the + version to replace the first MP-14, it's that I wanted Clamp Down for the police deco, realized that I still hadn't picked up Red Alert, and the + version was the only version available.

Too bad I didn't wait a few more days.  I'd have bought Blue Bluestreak instead of Red Alert and just picked up BadCube's.

[technoblue]

5 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

For me and Red Alert it's not so much that I'm buying the + version to replace the first MP-14, it's that I wanted Clamp Down for the police deco, realized that I still hadn't picked up Red Alert, and the + version was the only version available.

Too bad I didn't wait a few more days.  I'd have bought Blue Bluestreak instead of Red Alert and just picked up BadCube's.

Yeah, I understand.  Although I don't buy the "plus" versions, I do pick up the Diaclone repaints, and I'm always tempted to get something I missed when filling in those gaps. I ended up getting Grapple that way. Originally, I just wanted Inferno and Art Fire, but when I went to buy Art Fire I ended up getting Grapple too. 

On a completely different note, I received my metallic version of GP's Graviter (Sludge) this week. Woot! It's such a unique and pleasing interpretation of the big brute. GP's Graviter is slightly bigger/taller than FT's Stomp, which is already big compared to the other FT dinos. The thing is, I'm really enjoying both implementations—how GP goes overboard on the gimmicks and how FT is chasing the toon look. I'm looking forward to adding GP's Swoop later. Sludge and Swoop were the only two G1 Dinobots I had as a kid.

[M'Kyuun]

Bad Cube's Sideswipe looks pretty good- definitely a nice upgrade to the original. I like the chest shrinking mechanism; looks like they did it mechanically rather than using a second chest cheat-engineering is cool. Still, there's something about it, even with all the vast improvements over the original, that just doesn't look or feel right, but I can't put my finger on it.

As for all the MP recolors ('Plus' seems like a hopeful nicety), I'm pretty much skipping them. Prowl Plus doesn't look as good as the original release to me, and he's pretty much my Holy Grail Transformer toy among Transformers. The Megatron with toy accurate colors irks me a little, as I wish that'd been the first release (hopefully the head can swap with a more toon accurate one- I like a nice amalgam between toy and toon, capturing the best points of each). However, at MP Megs' pricepoint, I'll stick with the toon accurate one I have now. As for the Diaclone repaints, Blue Bluestreak was too good to pass up, and I love him- a gorgeous figure, who just happens to be standing guard on my printer watching me type this. I must confess some slight interest in the police redeco of Sunstreaker- that's an exceptional figure, and I like emergency vehicle livery, so he's a little tempting. Alas, too much other stuff coming that I want more, so, restraint.

[Kuma Style]

ModFans upgrades for MP-26

[M'Kyuun]

"Peace through tyranny."

Despite the upper torso being off (lots of sandwiched origami rather than just his gun slide as a single chunk), Takara did so much good with this figure that I can forgive it. Looking poised for planetary overthrow, Kuma. Nice.

[Kuma Style]

I honestly love MP-36. It's aesthetically one of my favorite MPs first or third party to-date.
 

 

[Kuma Style]

The full review for Iron Factory's IF EX-30 is up! http://kumastyledesigns.com/iron-factory-cygnus-review/

Overall it's one of the finest Legends-scaled figures I've ever laid eyes or hands on. Fantastic build, sculpt, and articulation that honestly puts it on par with pieces like those in the MakeToys Cross-Dimension line.  The review breaks it down, but here are a few pics from the gallery:

A size comparison mockup as well:

[mikeszekely]

Sorry, my package didn't come on the weekend like I expected... TFSource must have found a new, even slower method to use for their free-over-$150 shipping.  But my package came today, and I wanted to get this up because people are already forming some pretty strong opinions.  This is FansToys Rouge, their version of a Masterpiece Arcee.

At first blush, I'll give credit where credit is due and say that Rouge is definitely a good-looking Arcee.  The colors are good, the proportions are good, and they even captured little details like the red and pink patch above her (accurate) belly button and the elbow pads with the octagonal holes.  And considering that her character model was basically a woman with a little bit of car on her shoulders I think that's quite a feet.  I think the size is good, too, standing a smidge taller than Hot Rod and roughly chest-high to Big Spring.

Things do start to become a little troubling on closer examination.  The front of her torso doesn't tab in securely, and even when it does there's a visible gab through her torso.  Another gap can be seen under her collar.  But the most irritating thing about her bot mode for me is her backpack.  Sure, everything does fold up in there pretty compactly, leaving her back fairly clean and almost entirely free of kibble that isn't supposed to be there, but the hinges in the arms connecting her backpack to her torso are a little weak.  Worse, you can see there are flaps on the front that fold over and hide some of the folded-up car inside.  Those flaps have slots in them that are supposed to fit over white tabs, but they just don't.  And since the hinges those flaps are on are the loosest joints on the figure manipulating her at all will have them flopping all over the place.

OK, I'd also argue that the default chest plate that Rouge comes with is a tad buxom for a robot.  Fortunately, a second, less busty chest is included, along with a second pair of hands (whose only difference are the lack of tabs for holding the weapons), a gun I'm not super familiar with that has a removable stock, and a pistol that I think she used to shoot the tentacles inside Unicron.  I'm not exactly a fan of the one gun being pink.

Rouge also comes with several alternate faces.  You've one one that almost looks like the default face, except that closer inspection will reveal that it has a subtle smile.  You've got your "but Hot Rod and Kup are still outside the city" visor, you've got a yelling face, you've got a big-eyes-small-mouth anime face, and you've got what can only be described as a "Sweet Primus, what was FansToys thinking?!" face.  I have to say that from early photos I thought I'd prefer the anime face, but in hand the default face is pretty spot-on.

Arcee is pretty poseable, but her small feet and large backpack due create some challenges getting her to stand.  Her head is on a ball joint and can look up and down a good deal in addition to swiveling, but her Leia buns and collar prevent her from getting much lateral tilt.  Her shoulders are also ball joints, and can maybe 75-80 degrees laterally in addtion to rotating.  Her biceps can swivel.  She has double-jointed elbows that can basically bend 180 degrees.  He technically has a wrist swivel, but it's really at the middle of her forearm.  There's at transformation hinge at her actual wrist that lets her bend it up and down, plus an additional hinge at the base knuckles of her fingers that let her open and close her hands.  She doesn't have a waist swivel, but she can bend sideways at the waist a little.  Her hips are friction universal joints that can kick forward almost 90 degrees, backward a little less than 45, and laterally 90 degrees.  She has thigh swivels, although her thighs are about 25% larger front-to-back than they are left-to-right so using them too much will ruin the sculpt.  Her knees are a single hinge but they still bend 140-150 degrees.  Her feet can tilt up slightly, down nearly 90 degrees, and her toes can bend up about 90 degrees.  A hinge gives her an ankle pivot that's a little under 45 degrees.

She holds her weapons OK using a method that's a little backward from the usual MP fare.  Instead of having tabs on the gun, the tabs are on the inside of Rouge's fingers  As you curl them around the handle of either gun they slide into a slot on the front on the handle.  On the pistol, it seems that pushing the tab in actually causes the handle to split at the seam, which is a bit unfortunate.  Swapping her faces is as easy as pulling the old one off and pushing a new one on.  Swapping the hands means pushing out the mushroom pegs they're attached on, which feels like something you probably don't want to do often with such thin parts.  And swapping the chest requires you to undo two screws, pull off the chest, undo two more screws to remove the folded white part inside, putting the white part onto the other chest, then screwing the other chest back onto the figure.

Rouge folds up into a fairly neat,reasonably compact space car.  She's even got little seats, some painted dashboard/center console details, and a steering wheel.  I suppose she could be been a little curvier, but that's pretty subjective.  The biggest objective issue, aesthetically, is the gap in the middle of the hood.  I've been told that it's possible to push the parts around to minimize the gap, but honestly, it's not worth the effort.  Transforming Rouge is a nightmare.  Seriously, making enemies transform Rouge could be an enhanced interrogation technique.  In all of the transforming toys I've bought over the years she is only the second that I'll never transform again after the first time (the first being MP-05 Megatron).  People give BadCube a hard time but I'll happily transform Sunsurge every day for a month before I'd transform Rouge again.  From the waist down she's pretty easy, but from the waist up she just explodes into panels connected by thin armatures, and her backpack unfurls to make up the front fenders (but not the headlights), the sides, and the entire rear of the car.  That might not be so bad except there are serious clearance issues that force you to bend panels on hinges around other parts.

Rouge doesn't roll particularly well.  He rear wheels, due largely to the tension in her knee joints, plus she doesn't have much clearance.  Her head actually splits like MP Sideswipe's, and her forehead is still basically dragging on the ground.  You can actually see her peeking out from under the front.  Still, as I said, it's a pretty accurate alt mode with translucent lights and the windshield on the front and painted taillights in the back.  (I'm also kind of noticing how similar Blurr and Arcee's alt modes are... hmm...).  There isn't any way to store her weapons in alt mode, which is kind of lame because she's got slots in her fenders.  How hard would it have been to mold tabs on her guns that fit those slots?

I'm going to come out and say it- I think that Rouge is probably the worst figure that FansToys has put out.  For all the grief people give BadCube I think overly-complicated transformations are starting to become more of a FansToys thing (this, Sovereign, Koot, Apache... heck, even Spindrift, while not particularly difficult, was over-engineered in a way that made me think transforming him was harder than it actually needed to be).  But, even though Rouge's transformation is easily the worst I've suffered through in a very long time, it's not just the transformation.  It's the lack of polish; some joints too loose, others too tight, gaps in the torso, gaps in the alt mode, tabs that don't stay in well, and tabs that don't stay in at all.  Frankly, I don't recommend her.  If you're the type of person who just wants a good-looking robot mode you might find some joy in Rouge, as I've yet to see anyone do a robot as accurate as she is, and she's definitely better than ToyWorld's Arcee.  But I'm so thoroughly displeased with her that just looking at her is making me angry.  She's going on the shelf and I'm not touching her again, which is not how I usually operate.  And I'm keeping her box handy so I can sell her later if MMC's turns out to be better... and I'm really hoping MMC's turns out to be better.

[technoblue]

Great review, Mike. 

To minimize the gap in the hood, you want to take the tiny tabs that are resting on the diecast chest and fold them into the slot that’s underneath them. It’s best not to force those two pieces flush or you will scrape the pink paint off those pieces (I did that, myself, before figuring it out).

I also had a sticky rear wheel that bound up my copy of Rouge in alt mode, keeping her from rolling. There are just so many tolerance issues with this...it’s abysmal. Anyway, the rear wheel was binding due to a messy application of white paint or flash (not sure which). I had to cut down the “bump” to smooth things and fix the wheel to get it to roll freely again. Ugh. That said, I’m not happy with how the head and arms just lay flat in alt mode and don’t tab in place.

I’ve already noted how the diecast chest peices are a pain and don’t work right on my copy too. The backpack parts were okay for me out of the box, but have been getting loose very quickly as I’ve continued to handle the toy. There are some clever alternate backpack transformations out there, but if just touching this ruins it I don’t know if I’ll be picking mine up again to try them out. 

I was really surprised by this release. I like FT’s Quakewave and Dibots. Rouge may look good but does not hold up compared the their earlier releases IMO.

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by technoblue

[Tking22]

Anyone else buying in on the new Badcube lambos? I was in for Red Alert the moment I saw him, massive upgrade from official Takara MP, but I was on the fence with Sideswipe. Now? I am honestly in for both. I, begrudgingly, made official MP Sunstreaker my main SS, I love Sunsurge but the official just ticked a few more boxes. And official Sideswipe looks utterly ridiculous next to MP Sunny, so I am all in for both Badcube lambos. Red Alert is miles ahead of the official, and while I'm not too hot on the face, that smaller chest and the proportions on Badcube Sideswipe have won me over, I need both.

[Kuma Style]

1 minute ago, Tking22 said:

Anyone else buying in on the new Badcube lambos? I was in for Red Alert the moment I saw him, massive upgrade from official Takara MP, but I was on the fence with Sideswipe. Now? I am honestly in for both. I, begrudgingly, made official MP Sunstreaker my main SS, I love Sunsurge but the official just ticked a few more boxes. And official Sideswipe looks utterly ridiculous next to MP Sunny, so I am all in for both Badcube lambos. Red Alert is miles ahead of the official, and while I'm not too hot on the face, that smaller chest and the proportions on Badcube Sideswipe have won me over, I need both.

I'm at least going to get the Sideswipe. To me they've improved on a lot of the aesthetic gripes that I have with MP-12 (and why I never repurchased it after getting back into MPs,) albeit the face not being as nice. I think it's going to be a good alternative even though I've been reading a lot of bitching thus far from the fandom.

----------------------------------------------------------

**Finally** re-bought a Downbeat as well. It should be here before week's end. Really excited to have that one back.

[tekering]

Yeah, Downbeat is definitely the best Masterpiece TakaraTomy never made.  

[technoblue]

1 hour ago, Tking22 said:

Anyone else buying in on the new Badcube lambos? I was in for Red Alert the moment I saw him, massive upgrade from official Takara MP, but I was on the fence with Sideswipe. Now? I am honestly in for both. I, begrudgingly, made official MP Sunstreaker my main SS, I love Sunsurge but the official just ticked a few more boxes. And official Sideswipe looks utterly ridiculous next to MP Sunny, so I am all in for both Badcube lambos. Red Alert is miles ahead of the official, and while I'm not too hot on the face, that smaller chest and the proportions on Badcube Sideswipe have won me over, I need both.

Yeah, I'm in for both. Alt mode won me over initially, as I was chatting about with Mike above, but I've quickly warmed up to bot mode too after looking more at the prototype pictures. These will be my + releases. Having more options is good, so I don't mind having these as + duplicates. MP-12 and MP-14 will go with Badcube's Sunsurge, and MP-39 will go with Badcube's new Lambos.

Downbeat is fantastic. Thanks for the pic @tekering. The Re:Master and Cross Dimension lines are right up there in my top ten.

[Kuma Style]

I honestly think I may go with the official Red Alert just to give them mold differences.

Re; Downbeat -  it's going to be GREAT to have him back:

 

[Scyla]

6 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Anyone else buying in on the new Badcube lambos? I was in for Red Alert the moment I saw him, massive upgrade from official Takara MP, but I was on the fence with Sideswipe. Now? I am honestly in for both. I, begrudgingly, made official MP Sunstreaker my main SS, I love Sunsurge but the official just ticked a few more boxes. And official Sideswipe looks utterly ridiculous next to MP Sunny, so I am all in for both Badcube lambos. Red Alert is miles ahead of the official, and while I'm not too hot on the face, that smaller chest and the proportions on Badcube Sideswipe have won me over, I need both.

I think I will go for Red Alert with BadCubes offering. I don't have the TT Alert so for me it is nice two have two different molds for a character that was just a repaint of another one. This is one thing I really enjoyed having the official MP Grapple and MMCs Backdraft.

Regarding Downbeat I think the big detriment of the toy is that MakeToys opted for not painting the feet, shins and weapons silver. This really brings the toy down a notch. It is a double shame because they painted the pieces on their TFCon release of Stepper..

I haven't had a chance to check out my FT Rouge but I can someone tell if it would have been possible to have an extending ball-joint for the waist to allow for a rotation there? FT is really frustrating. I like some releases that much that I'm in the mood of preordering all their releases. Than there are toys like Tesla, Forager and Rouge that make me think I don't want any more of their releases.

[M'Kyuun]

Seems the concensus regarding Rouge all echo Mike's sentiments; not the polished , nigh-perfect not-Arcee many of us were hoping for, that I was really hoping for. The bit about using it as a torture device particularly struck a chord (kinda reminds me of my feelings towards X-Transbots' Eligos- I love the bot and alt modes , but I vehemently dislike transforming him due to all the tolerances). So, like others have mentioned, I'm going to wait for MMC's offering. Hopefully the MMC folks are carefully watching all these Rouge reviews and taking notes while developing theirs. 

BC's Sideswipe does impress- quite a step up from the official, although, I'll give TT a little slide room since it was their first MP car, and at the time, it set the standard. Can't really blame TT for inevitable improvements. Putting MP Sunstreaker next to Sideswipe is a nice gauge for seeing how far the engineering and philosophy behind these toys has come, at the official level. TT still got game, IMHO.  As for BC, I think they make nice stuff, despite not owning any of their figures (was tempted by their Warpath), and I'm aware of their reputation for complex, or over-complex, transformations. Still, there's enough of an advancement here that it'd be nice to have a Sideswipe that matches MP Sunstreaker more closely in proportion and articulation. It'd be great if TT clued us in as to what MP cars they intended to make, or remake, but they don't, and right now BC's version is looking promising. So I wonder how many other 3Ps are going to announce new improved Sidewipes.   That seems to be the third party way. In the case of Rouge and Toy World's even worse take, options are nice.

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by M'Kyuun

[Kuma Style]

 

[M'Kyuun]

Pulls off a decent GERWALK- shame those knees don't offer more reverse-joint ability, as you could really get some dynamic poses with this little guy. Pretty neat as he is, though.

Apparently, Phoenix can pull it off, too. Not as refined as Cygnus, esp with those large gaps where his arms go in starship mode. Just the same, I absolutely love how FT integrated the arms into his alt- it's one of my top favorite among a litany of favorite things I love about this figure. Note that his legs are rotated 180 to orient his knees accordingly. I've not tried this, but I have to wonder how tough it was to balance him without a stand- likely required more patience than I possess.

Edited May 16, 2018 by M'Kyuun