The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Ignacio Ocamica]

I still enjoy Sovereign as much as the first day when I received it. It's THE Galvatron in robot mode.

[Kuma Style]

The full review and gallery for PerfectEffect's PE-DX09 Mega Doragon is up! http://kumastyledesigns.com/perfecteffect-mega-doragon-review/

I tried to break it down as best I could in terms of detailing with the written and video review portions of the article but overall it's a very "all sizzle, no steak" piece for me in terms of design and presentation vs. playability. Here are a few pics from the gallery portion:

 

 

 

[Ignacio Ocamica]

The quality of your pics never ceases to amaze me Kuma!! Great review as usual.

[Kuma Style]

2 minutes ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

The quality of your pics never ceases to amaze me Kuma!! Great review as usual.

Well thank you, man and I'm glad that you're still digging Sovereign. Honestly I think it's one of the best MP-scaled TFs I've owned.

[GabrielV]

On 10/24/2018 at 7:01 PM, Kuma Style said:

The full review and gallery for PerfectEffect's PE-DX09 Mega Doragon is up! http://kumastyledesigns.com/perfecteffect-mega-doragon-review/

I've had mine for a few days, and I have to say that I'm shocked at the generally negative reviews the figure is getting.  I'm incredibly happy with mine.  The biggest problem is the two transformation steps regarding the arms forming the chest and neck when going from robot to dragon.  It's not as awful as trying to get a VF-19 Advance back into jet mode from robot, but it's still pretty bad.

Fantastic pictures, though.

It's hard to tell, but in the one image on the review site where you show the dragon standing up with its breastplate showing, did you have a gap between the breastplate and abdomen plate too?  I've transformed mine a few times, but I always end up with a slight gap between those two plates, as the peg there doesn't snap them together and merely serves as a guidepiece. 

[mikeszekely]

Feels like this year we had a small glut early, as companies either tried to get their stuff out before CNY or released their stuff immediately upon return, then things slowed to a trickle.  I know I wrote about some new figures I'd got, but I feel like I wrote more about older figures I'd just gotten around to picking up.  Then all the sudden I've had six preorders arrive (not looking forward to that credit card bill).  If I'm lucky the first batch should be arriving Monday.

[Tking22]

Ugh, I have to get X-Transbots Skids don't I? I never planned to, but he looks really, really good, X-Transbots has been on a roll lately, they've climbed WAY up on my list of quality third party TF companies. The face looks a bit meh, but it also looks quite easy to touch up, I mean the face itself looks good, it's just the mouth isn't very cleanly defined.

[mikeszekely]

5 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Ugh, I have to get X-Transbots Skids don't I? I never planned to, but he looks really, really good, X-Transbots has been on a roll lately, they've climbed WAY up on my list of quality third party TF companies. The face looks a bit meh, but it also looks quite easy to touch up, I mean the face itself looks good, it's just the mouth isn't very cleanly defined.

If you want me to, I'll review that one first.  He should be here Monday. 

[Kuma Style]

9 hours ago, GabrielV said:

**SNAP**

I'm glad that you're happy with yours... and yea I don't know what that piece on the breast plate is supposed to ab into but FML it doesn't at all. Haven't seen anyone who's has either.

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

[sh9000]

X-Transbots Flipout went into my pile of loot yesterday.  Can’t wait for the rest of the Stunticons to come out.

[Kuma Style]

[mikeszekely]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

If you want me to, I'll review that one first.  He should be here Monday. 

Scratch that, he showed up today.  So this is X-Transbots' Savant, aka MP Skids.

Savant is, on first impression, a pretty good fit with the MP carbots (and on that note, I might have preferred a silver face).  His head, the different blue tones, the shape of his biceps, and the design of his pelvis are all pretty cartoony.  He's even got cartoon-style little red struts holding up his windshield hood.  But the details on his knees are G1 sticker-style, his robot parts have a little more detail than the rounded look of the cartoon, and his car parts look more like actual car parts (despite the grill not being totally accurate to a Honda City).  Weirdly, the thing a lot of people seem to be getting hung up on with regards to Savant is that his shoulders connect where shoulders should, and not just above the waist like the cartoon did.  Well, that and the super soft face, but if the face is your main issue I have it on word that XTB is planning to do a replacement face or head, and that it will most likely come with XTB's Deathwish (Dead End).

Some other things worth noting are that the darkest blue, the blue that's on all the car parts, is a nice metallic paint.  And, he's got diecast feet and thighs, which give him a nice heft.  In both cases I don't think you're going to mistake Savant for the sort of paint-covered diecast chunk that Fans Toys might release, but he could almost be an official product.

Almost.

Anyway, Savant comes with three accessories.  He's got a little pistol, a double-barreled gun with no handle, and a small Honda Motocompo scooter.  All of the accessories have some paint applied, and the front wheel of the scooter can swivel a little.

Savant's head is on a ball joint so he can look up a little (more if you also use a transformation hinge) down a little, or tilt his head sideways a little in addition to rotation.  His shoulders are a little awkward.  There's a hinge up where the shoulder looks like it should be connected, but that hinge is actually at the end of a stem that connects a bit lower.  He can move his shoulder a little less 90 degrees due to small lack of clearance, as well as rotate on a soft ratchet.  However, the hinge and ratcheted swivel are position so that you can't rotate his arm then swing it out.  He has a bicep swivel just above his elbow.  However, for transformation there's another swivel above it that moves the bit on the outside of his shoulder.  Because that bit just grabs the top of his shoulders on little nubs and the tolerance for the actual bicep swivel is a little tighter, the transformation joint wants to turn and undo his shoulder.  Single-jointed elbow hinges get just over 90 degrees.  His wrists can swivel, and they're designed like the official carbots with a fixed thumb and all four fingers molded together on a pinned hinge at the base knuckle.  His waist can swivel, and he's got about 90 degrees of ab crunch.  His hips can move 90 degrees laterally, forward, or backwards, all on friction joints that seem fairly adequate.  I like that his hip armor rotates with the hip.  His thighs swivel just below the hip.  His knees are double jointed, both of them ratcheted, and good for a little over 90 degrees.  His feet have a little up/down tilt, but where things get interesting is that his ankles actually have a pair of hinges.  The lower one is for pivoting his ankle inward, but the upper one moves his whole foot down and out to give the lower one more clearance.  As a result you can put him in some wide stances with some pretty extreme ankle tilt.

As far as accessories go, he can use either weapon on either arm.  Both have tabs that plug into his forearm, and the pistol has  handle that slides down into his palm.  There's really nothing for the Motocompo to do in this mode, though.

Savant turns into a Honda City.  My initial impression was that he's pretty small, smaller than I expected... but my impression was also sort of colored by his portrayal as something more like a minivan in Western media.  Given that the Honda City is actually a subcompact this is probably fine, or perhaps even too big.

The vehicle mode does look pretty great, though.  Pretty much everything but the windows, rubber tires, and rubber sideview mirrors is covered with paint.  And the details seem to be trying to walk a line between the cartoon and an actual Honda City.  It's not perfect- I'd have preferred they'd either done the grill and the vents in the bumper symmetrically.  The Honda City did have an asymmetric grill, but not on the bumper.  Some people have complained that XTB didn't include the bump on the hood that the Turbo model and the G1 toy had, but I personally think excluding it is fine since it wasn't in the cartoon and probably makes for a better bot mode.  Another minor complaint would be that the slots the clear transparent headlights plug into give them a sort of cat's eye appearance.  A more opaque translucent yellow would have hid that and been more cartoon accurate, I think.

The tab on the double-barreled gun allows you to store it on Savant's roof.  And Savant's doors open, revealing seats and a right-hand drive steering wheel inside.  There doesn't seem to be a place to store the pistol on the outside of the vehicle, but you could always toss it in the passenger seat.

I guess, theoretically, you could park Savant and pretend someone (Charlene?) is taking the Motocompo out for a spin.  (It's a bummer they XTB didn't include a Charlene figure, but maybe the old Marvel comics aren't as popular in China.)

Savant's hatchback opens, too, and there's enough room inside to store both of his guns.  If you'd rather store one in the front  seat and one on the roof (both don't fit in the cabin; I tried), you can fold up the little Motocompo and store it in the back.  Which I guess is a thing you could do with the real Motocompos that were sold with real Honda Cities.  So, I guess it's a neat little thing you can do, but given how useless the scooter actually is I'd rather leave it in the box and store the guns back there.

All-in-all, I think Savant's a pretty good figure.  Aside from the minor complaints I've already mentioned, my only other very minor complaint would be that the transformation for his arms is a bit inelegant.  You just know if Takara ever does an MP Skids that they'll engineer something better, which is a shame because from the waist down he's intuitive and fun to transform.  The materials feel good, and tolerances on my copy are mostly good (if a little tight in spots).  The paint on him looks great, and even the super soft face is going to get a replacement in the future.  And let's be honest, Skids appeared in all of two episodes of the cartoon.  If it weren't for him having a small arc in the old Marvel comics and being a major character in IDW's More Than Meets the Eye I'd have been totally content to never have an MP Skids.  Savant might not be perfect, but he's a far better figure than G1 Skids deserves, and I'd give him a solid recommend.

[Kuma Style]

[JB0]

mikeszekely: Savant has a working cabin and trunk?

THAT impresses me more than anything else they could have done, engineering-wise.

[anime52k8]

He needs more racially insensitive facial features IMO.

[mikeszekely]

15 hours ago, anime52k8 said:

He needs more racially insensitive facial features IMO.

Maybe wait and see if Unique Toys does that Skids.  This is Challenger, and it's how they did when they tackled the knight Optimus from Age of Extinction/The Last Knight, if it gives you an idea of you might expect.

Well now... that's a pretty good-looking robot.  Aside from his fingers, the joints in his elbows and wrists, and some of the inside of collar, all the silver you see is paint, as is the metallic red near his shoulders, the bottoms of his shins, and the tops of his feet.  UT also used copper and gold paint for some of the accents and mechanical details on his chest, hips, and shins.  That just leaves the blue plastic on most of his body and the red of his pecs unpainted, but even then they've got red or blue flames with some pale blue pinstriping.  It gives Challenger some presence.  I've gotta tell you, too, when I custom-painted my Voyager-class TLK Optimus I spent a lot of time looking at movie stills and the non-transformable Three A figure, and Challenger is very accurate to the design. 

In fact, I think one of the most impressive things about this figure is how well he cleans up from the back.  Even the general shape of the back, with the two blue parts over the stacks, his butt, and the red on the backs of his thighs is all very screen-accurate.  One of my biggest complains about this version of Optimus was that it seemed the animators had given up any pretense of trying to make robots that looked like they actually transformed, but UT has clearly done an amazing job of taking that design and figuring out a way to transform it anyway.  Even some of the concessions that UT has made, like the fenders on his calves, still loosely follow the shape of the CGI model's (in this case, giving the calves a more rounded shape.  I think I'm especially impressed because, as much as I did like MPM-04, his back is kind of a mess.  I think UT could have made a toy that looked amazing from the front but given him a little clutter on the back (not at all unlike what Alien Attack did with El Cid, their version of this Optimus) and people would have totally let that slide, but UT really went that extra mile.

He's not totally free from aesthetic criticism, though.  The unpainted plastic in his fingers and joints stands out like a sore thumb.  The wrist joint is especially egregious for the way it just cuts into the "gauntlet" on his forearm.  As cheap as stickers can look on a premium figure like this, I find myself wanting someone like Toyhax to make little stickers to cover over the spots on the wrist.  And while I'm complaining I might as well say that the blue plastic is too dark; something closer to what was used for MPM-04 would have been better (and, ironically, the darker blue on Challenger would have been better on MPM-04).  I also think the red flames look a little dull.  Maybe it still would have been too dark, but I kind of wish they'd used the same metallic red they used on his feet.  Finally, his eyes are supposed to have a light-up gimmick, and I don't have any batteries that fit.  Without any light they look pretty dead, so I wish they'd have skipped the electronics and just painted the eyes.

For accessories, you've got a few in the box.  There's an alternate Nemesis Prime head without the mouth plate.  It too is supposed to have a light up feature.  There's alternate faces for both heads (mouth plate for the Nemesis head, no mouth plate for the regular head).  It's not too hard to swap out the faces, but I can't help but feel that if they'd left out the electronics for the light up eyes they could have had a switching gimmick like MPM-04 that doesn't require to you to store the extra face and swap parts.  Aside from heads we've also got Prime's sword and shield, both mostly covered in silver paint with blue and metallic red accents (and a little gold on the shield).  The shield could have used more red and more gold.  The sword maybe could have used some gold near the handle, but it's pretty close to spot-on.  There's also a dagger-ish thing.  I guess it's accurate?  I don't really remember it.

I also got, in a separate bag outside of Challenger's box, a robot-sized silver-painted staff, a human figure-sized diecast staff, and a gunmetal dagger meant for UT's previous movie figure, Peru Kill (Lockdown).  These items are apparently a preorder bonus and may or may not be included with later runs of Challenger.

Challenger's articulation is ok, but there are some challenges.  His head is on a hinged swivel with a pretty good up/down range, but manipulating it can cause his collar to come undone.  His shoulders rotate, but there's some resistance that makes me wonder if there was supposed to be some kind of ratchet.  His shoulders can also extend about 90 degrees laterally.  You may find his shoulder armor gets wants to get in the way, but the outer part is on a tight ball joint, and the inner blue part is hinged near the base of the shoulder to help get things out of the way.  On my copy, his shoulders have a tendency to come untabbed from the torso, but you might find that gives him a butterfly joint for some poses (like the two hands holding the downward-pointed sword in front of him pose everyone else is doing).  His biceps can swivel.  His elbows are double jointed and can bend 120-ish degrees.  His elbow pad is hinged onto the back of the upper joint.  I think it would have looked better and covered the joint if it were on the bottom, but I guess it would have interfered with his transformation there.  His wrists and swivel, and due to transformation they can bend up.  I do wish, for a sword-wielding character, that he could have bent his wrist down, but that's not a common joint for most of these figures.  His thumb is hinged at hand so it can fold over the palm, with two additional hinged joints.  His fingers are hinged at the base with one additional hinge at the mid knuckle.  His index finger is separate, the other three are molded together.  He has a waist swivel that can't turn a full 360 degrees, but I think the range he has is enough for normal poses.  He also has a bit of an ab crunch.  His front hip skirt is on a hinge and can move up as a single piece.  Each side of it can also scissor in or out.  The hips can swing forward about 90 degrees and backward about 45 degrees (which I think is enough).  That joint is a friction joint, and fairly loose, which I'll tell you now is my biggest complaint with this figure.  Lateral movement is a little under 90 degrees, and it is ratcheted.  The skirts on the sides of his hips can be moved to help give clearance to his hips and waist rotation, and they're kind of interesting.  There's a hinge at the top of the skirt, but that hinge is on a little arm that's connected to another hinge a little lower on his hip that lets you pull the whole skirt out and away.  What's interesting is that the lower hinge is on a spring, so when you pull it out and position the hip how you want it to go it'll try to snap back and keep the skirt as close to the thigh as it can get.  Another thing that helps with posing is that, similar to MPM-4, the hip joints can shift up and down in his pelvis.  He does have a thigh swivel by shifting the thigh around the joint.  Again, you don't get a full 360 swivel, but I've found that you do get a pretty natural range.  His knees are single-jointed ratchets good for 90 degrees.  There's a hinge for the front part of his foot that's mainly for transformation, but you can use it to bend the front of his foot upward.  It's not really strong enough to support a lot of weight, though.  No downward tilt.  A separate hinge gives you a ridiculous 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

His sword fits snuggly in his hand, with tabs on the handle that fit into his palms.  The shield uses a peg to fit into peg holes on either arm.  Be advised that some people are reporting that the peg is too tight and may shear off when you try to remove the shield.  To be on the safe side I sanded down the peg a bit.

The daggerish thing fits (tightly) into a slot on the back of either of Challenger's hands.  And the shield has scissoring parts that open up to reveal a triple-barreled gun inside.  The gun inside is movie accurate, but the way the shield opens and looks isn't so much, so I'm not a fan of this look.  As for the bonus accessories, Challenger can hold the big staff or the dagger, but just with friction.  There's no tabs on either handle, although there is a little peg on the dagger But it's smaller than any of Challenger's peg holes; presumably it could have some function with Peru Kill, but I don't have that figure (something I may have to rectify).  As for the little diecast staff, you can pull open one of Challenger's pecs and toss it into his chest cavity.  It'll rattle around in there, but I think that's maybe something they did in the movie.

For storage, I guess you'll have to put the extra head and faces, along with the bonus accessories, back into the box or into a drawer somewhere.  But his weapons can all be stored.  With the shield open to show the gun, you'll find an unpainted part on a hinge.  Pull that out, close the shield back up around it, and you can slide the sword down into it.  As for the fist dagger, it pegs into the underside of the shield, near the bottom.  This entire collection can peg into a hole on Challenger's back, although I do kind of wish there were a way to store the sword alone back there.

As I previously alluded to, Challenger does indeed transform.  Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that it's not particularly difficult to transform.  His torso turns inside out, covering up his head and upper arms and turning out most of the cab's sides and roof (although his forearms doe make some of the nose).  His legs swing back into position, then similarly turn inside out and unfurl to form the back, bottom, and front fenders of the truck.  Some of his his chest turns into the hitch and rear bumper.  And despite being slightly larger than MPM-04 in robot mode (which I do believe is movie-accurate), the truck is surprisingly compact and seems to scale fairly well with MPM-04's truck mode.

Just as the robot mode does a good job of hiding the truck, the truck doesn't really leave much showing in the way of robot.  Molded details on the truck are pretty accurate, including the painted door handle, the hand rail, vents on the cab, etc.  I'm not an expert, but it seems to have pretty good proportions, too.  UT chose to use chrome for the wheels and the front grill, which is actually an unfortunate choice.  The chrome doesn't match the silver paint on the sides of the bumper, and it omits the blue on the bottom of the bumper and in the middle of the grill.  The dull and sometimes sloppy red paint on the flames is more noticeably dull and sloppy in this mode, and on pretty much every copy the bottom-most flame running back on the cab is missing the red on either side.  The lights on the roof are left blue when they should be silver.  There's another of those unpainted gray hinges in the middle of the back of the cab (help us, Toyhax, you're our only hope!).  Plus a lot more of the unpainted, too-dark blue plastic shows in the mode.  In truck mode, he looks a lot more like a toy than a premium collectible, and loses a lot of the presence his robot mode has, which is a shame.

Challenger does have rubber tires, but doesn't roll very well.  At least on my copy, the front tires really don't have any clearance to turn against the front bumper/fender.  Both of his doors can open, although there's really nothing to see inside.  His hitch section isn't compatible with MP-10's trailer the way MPM-04 is, unfortunately.  It does provide storage for his weapons, though.  Put them all together the way you would to put them on his back, then plug it into the fifth wheel.  There's even notches in the back of the cab that the pommel of the sword can snuggle into.  It looks a little ridiculous, though, at least in my opinion.  The whole kit just sticks too far off the back of the truck.

My G1 MP collection is already taking up a ton of space, so I'm not super inclined to go in on a bunch of Bayverse MPs.  I did decide I wanted Challenger (and MPM-04) to go in a display of just Optimus Primes I have, though.  And I have to say, I came away very impressed with Challenger.  Unique Toys has some clever engineering going on here.  So clever, in fact, that despite not really wanting a collection of Bayverse MPs that I'm suddenly interested in going back and picking up their Peru Kill.  And while I do think there are areas that could be improved on Challenger, on the whole he feels like a quality product while a good shelf presence (in robot mode, at least).  Of the Primes in my collection, Challenger has become a quick favorite, and I don't even particularly care for this Optimus design.  Now, if you're pretty much just into G1 and don't really have any interest in the Bayverse I don't think Challenger's going to change your mind.  But if you think you have room in your collection for this version of Optimus Prime then Challenger is a figure that's sure not to disappoint.

[anime52k8]

Speaking of fancy bayverse toys, has anybody done a really good movie grimlock?

[mikeszekely]

5 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

Speaking of fancy bayverse toys, has anybody done a really good movie grimlock?

Not yet, but GCreation supposedly has one in the works.  There's some rumblings that people think it's going to be too small, though.  Wei Jiang and Black Mamba are both supposed to be doing improved, oversized KOs of the Studio Series version.

[David Hingtgen]

Don't know why 3P companies use "Hasbro awful milky-grey-plastic", when "deeper metallic silver" plastic is very much a thing.  Airfix and Revell model kits have had nice metallic silver for decades, and Lego pumps out "metallic pearl silver" parts every day.  No, they're not as good as actual silver paint, but they are 10x "deeper" and more metallic-looking than the awful stuff Hasbro (and UT apparently) use.   There is NO reason to ever use that awful stuff unless you're either trying to save money, or you don't know "the magic formula" to actually make sturdy, injection-molded silver plastic.  

[Kuma Style]

[Kuma Style]

[mikeszekely]

Hey Kuma, how you digging Azalea?  I'm not going to try to hunt down the Stealth version, but I really want to ditch Rouge for the regular release.

[Kuma Style]

46 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Hey Kuma, how you digging Azalea?  I'm not going to try to hunt down the Stealth version, but I really want to ditch Rouge for the regular release.

Honestly, it's very good; solid build, stupid articulated, and the transformation only took me a few minutes not even looking at the instructions out of the box. I don't even collect MP crap anymore but I'll buy the pink of this to support the cause. It's that good.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Kuma Style said:

the transformation only took me a few minutes not even looking at the instructions out of the box.

Yep, I'm sold. Rouge is pretty, but such a PITA to handle that I get angry just thinking about it. She's out, Azalea's in.

[slaginpit]

Nice Review Mike

 

Its amazing how they were able to hide a lot of the truck parts into that robot. Bay designs can be nice looking but almost impossible to make a toy out of. Most of the time its just molded detail parts under an exterior shell. Unlike the older styles where much of the alternate mode made up the robots details. Even with the Transforming gundams the detail of tubes, gears, sprockets, shocks are not exposed but remain internal surrounded by armor. I never understood how a bay former although they established these are metal based lifeforms but somehow lack a sort of SKIN to protect their internals. They are running kicking, blasting, hacking at other robot beings and you see everything fly off. Arnt they missing the "guts" to remain functional. Weird.

[M'Kyuun]

6 hours ago, slaginpit said:

Nice Review Mike

 

Its amazing how they were able to hide a lot of the truck parts into that robot. Bay designs can be nice looking but almost impossible to make a toy out of. Most of the time its just molded detail parts under an exterior shell. Unlike the older styles where much of the alternate mode made up the robots details. Even with the Transforming gundams the detail of tubes, gears, sprockets, shocks are not exposed but remain internal surrounded by armor. I never understood how a bay former although they established these are metal based lifeforms but somehow lack a sort of SKIN to protect their internals. They are running kicking, blasting, hacking at other robot beings and you see everything fly off. Arnt they missing the "guts" to remain functional. Weird.

They would have to be logical mechanical designs, which they are not; they were designed purely from an artistic POV, slicing and dicing the alt mode and attaching the parts willy-nilly without any thought as to how these bits would all actually move into their positions on the bot's frame. They never transform the same way twice, as each transformation generally occurs from different angles, and since there is no established mechanical method for transformation, the artists simply arranged the various bits in ways that looked cool to them. Moreover, I doubt any thought was given as to these things having 'internals' necessary for life, or functionality, except where it mattered to the story. As a former aircraft mechanic, I've never liked the Bay designs, as they were completely divorced from any mechanical reality, the sci-fi aspect of their transformation aside. Granted the G1 designs made little sense where mass shifting, having full interiors, and other such reality conflicts occurred, although there are any number of TF toys that have managed to incorporate at least partial interiors, which is always an impressive feat. In short, don't go looking for logic where it doesn't exist; Bayformers are pure CG magic.

Nice to see Azalea getting some exposure. I was very much intrigued by Rouge until the horror stories of her difficult transformation, and MMC's take was number two on my radar for a MP scaled Arcee. For some reason in my gut, I doubt that Takara will produce an official version. Hope I'm wrong, but she'd be an easier figure to produce from a non-licensing perspective. From an engineering perspective, she obviously poses some challenges if one wants to accurately portray both of her modes while avoiding making her a shellformer. While FT and MMC both achieved that goal, and I think Rouge takes the prize aesthetically, Azalea is close enough for my tastes if she's not as fiddly.

[mikeszekely]

I'm going to keep things rolling with another review.  Tonight we're looking at MMC Ocular Max Hellion, their take on Cliffjumper.

Well, I don't think we're off to a bad start.  A little bit of gray waist above a dark pelvis, dark shoulders and hands, otherwise gray limbs, red car feet, car roof chest, that all checks out.  It doesn't really show from this particular angle, but he does have a little spoiler over the upper window, though it's not as prominent as the cartoon's or XTB's Toro.  The windows on his sides don't have the seam that the cartoon or Toro's do, but I don't really mind.  I've heard some complaining that his feet are too small, or that his arms are too thin, but the cartoon didn't really have big feet, and his arms are pretty comparable to MP Bee's.  He does look a little scrawny compared to ToyWorld's Bii, though.  I'd maybe also suggest that his head looks a little small.

For most people, the waist seems to be the biggest point of contention.  In the cartoon, the gray part was narrower than the pelvis below it, but despite the designers giving it a tapered shape it's definitely too big, or his pelvis too small.  I will say, however, that it seems more noticeable in photos, when you're looking at it more straight-on or from a lower angle.  In hand, with the Hellion below eye level, I don't think he looks so bad.

I think it's difficult to talk about Hellion without mentioning Toro, given that they came out so close together after waiting literally years for somebody to deliver an MP Cliffjumper.  For such a major character, you'd really think that someone would have done him a lot sooner.  Well, I haven't handled Toro, so I can't really give a fair shake.  What I will say is that, from looking at him, I might like the bigger chest spoiler and beefier arms on Toro, but I like the smaller feet on Hellion.

But what really sealed the deal for me on Hellion is the back.  Toro opts for a faux roof for his chest.  Now, I'm not necessarily against faux parts in the service of a great robot mode, but from what I've seen everything from the front windshield back, including the doors, is folded up into a giant backpack.  As you can see, Hellion's got some car folded up back there, but it compacts nicely and isn't even obviously car.  For some people, a giant backpack is acceptable if it means not having Hellion's waist, especially if the figure is rarely going to be viewed from behind.  I can get that.  I can understand that.  But for me, it's the other way around; I'd rather pose Hellion in a way that doesn't draw too much attention to his waist but doesn't have to be straight on to hide a giant backpack.

Anyway, Hellion's got loads of accessories.  We've got four skis, two pistols, a little gun thing, a hood part, a big silver bumper, a bazooka, and two replacement heads.  One of the heads has a yelling face, and the other has narrower eyes and a slight frown versus the default neutral expression on the installed head.  Needless to say, we're going to have to wait until alt mode to talk about most of the accessories.

While we're still in bot mode, Hellion's actually got a couple of hinges in his neck.  So he can rotate his head, and he can look nearly straight up or straight down.  His shoulders are on hinged swivels that'll get you 90 degrees laterally.  He's got bicep swivels, and double-jointed elbows that bend nearly 180 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His thumbs are fixed, but despite his tiny size his fingers are still hinged at the base knuckle, and his index fingers separate pieces from his other fingers.  His waist can swivel, although the wide, narrow shape of his waist and pelvis means that the more you turn his waist the less pretty it gets.  He has about 45 degrees of ab crunch, which is nice.  His hips can rotate 90 degrees forward, a little more backward, and a little more still laterally.  His thighs swivel where the light gray part meets the darker black/gray.  His knees are a single hinge that gets a little over 90 degrees.  His feet are the my only complaint as far as articulation goes.  You can get a little downward and a slight upward tilt.  But basically what we've got going on is that there's a swivel at the bottom of his shin that the red car parts are connected to.  His ankle pivot comes from that swivel, but because it's down in the foot the hood parts that make the inside of his feet prevent you from pivoting his ankle very far.

As for his accessories, swapping heads is pretty easy.  You pull the whole head off; inside where his brain should be there's a slot, and the armature that makes up his neck has a tab.  Just pick a different head and tab it on.  He holds his pistols... ok.  They have tabs on the handles that, in theory, go into slots on his palms.  However, the tabs seem a bit too large, like MMC didn't account for the silver paint they covered both guns with.  They want to keep popping back out.  Fortunately, the tension from his hands does do a pretty good job holding the guns in place anyway.  As for the bazooka, he holds that just fine.  The handle is a separate piece on a hinge so he can prop it onto his shoulder.  You'll notice that the handle piece on the bazooka wasn't painted, and wouldn't you know it but it doesn't have the same issues staying tabbed into his palms that the pistols do.

Hellion looks pretty good next to an actual MP Bumblebee, I think, although if it bugs you that Bee is disproportionately small compared to the other carbots it's really going to bug you here.  I'm a little disappointed that he seems dwarfed by Bii's chibi-proportioned alt mode, though.  While all of the dark and light grays and the red on his head and collar in robot mode is plastic (or diecast in the case of his thighs) all of the red you're seeing, plus the black bumper and around the rear window is paint.  Aside from his forearms the transformation is pretty simple and straightforward.  My one complaint is the use of sliders.  The ones in my copy's legs are fine, although I've heard reports of sagging in other copies.  There's another in his back that on my copy is insanely "OMG I'm gonna break it!" tight.

So here's the thing with me and cars... I didn't really start to learn different makes and models until I started playing games like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport in the late '90s and early aughts, and even then my tastes have definitely skewed toward vehicles made in the 21st century (minus a few timeless supercars).  So I'd say that I was probably already in my 30s before I learned that Cliffjumper is supposed to be a Porsche.  I'd always assumed that Cliffjumper was some kind of Japanese subcompact or kei car.  I'm telling you this story because, just like Takara opted for a more realistically-proportioned Beetle for MP Bee's alt mode, X-Transbots went for a realistic Porsche; looks like a 944 to me, although I'm told the original Microchange toy was supposed to be the similar 924.  Well, show me a picture of a 924, show me a picture of a 944, and neither of them look like Cliffjumper to me.

Hellion is somewhere in the middle.  He's got the black trim around the hatchback, and the spoiler isn't sticking straight up behind him.  The flaring of his rear fenders isn't as pronounced, and he doesn't have any flaring of the front fenders.  His rear end, with the six-segmented tail lights and black bumper, is pretty much dead on for a 924 (and is just missing a gap in the bumper for a 944).  He's nearly twice as long as he is wide, and much of that length is in front of the windshield.  But his hubcaps are silver, his front end isn't quite as detailed as a real Porsche, and he's proportionally a little squished front-to-back.  Now, if you happen to like that Takara went with the realistic Beetle, and you think that an MP Cliffjumper should be a realistic Porsche, then you might find yourself thinking that Toro's alt mode is the way to go.  But me, I actually want an MP Cliffjumper to be even more like the cartoon.  I prefer Hellion's alt mode to Toro's because it's closer, but it's honestly still not close enough.

Hellion's rubber tires roll pretty great.  He might be one of the best-rolling figures I own.  And in what's become something of a trend recently you can open his doors and look inside, where you'll see a steering wheel, seat backs, and even a manual shifter (just ignore that the seat cushion is the back of Hellion's hand).  While sort of neat, I do wonder if part of Hellion's weird waist is due to the small of his back becoming a dashboard.  There doesn't appear to be any way to plug in or store the pistols or bazooka (although the smaller pistol might fit into his cabin, I forgot to check).  He's got other accessories for alt mode.  The skis have little pegs on them that fit into the middle of the hubcaps so he can do that thing from that episode (Dinobot Island, Part 2).  He had the silver bumper in that episode, too, and it just tabs into the front of his own bumper.  I don't believe that's the only time his normally-red bumper has been silver in the cartoon, though, and the shape and sculpting is pretty accurate to both the silver and the red, so YMMV.  The little gun is als from that episode.  In that episode a panel just opened up and the gun came out, but to use it here you have to pop a panel out of the hood.  That's kind of a pain, as you can't really get a nail or a spudger into the seams, so you have to half transform him to get the clearance to push up from underneath.  Then, instead of plugging the gun directly into the gap, you have to plug the gun into an alternate hood piece, then put the alternate hood piece in place.  Oh, and the little gun has a hard time fitting into the hood piece.  It seems like, just like the pistols, MMC didn't account for the paint.  Frankly, all that junk can go back in the box.  Using it is just too much work for too little gain.

After fiddling with this little guy, I think I actually quite like him.  The paint and diecast do give him a premium feel, and his joints are mostly well toleranced.  He just fun to mess around with, which I like.  I don't think I'm going to recommend him, though.  The thing is, whether you prefer Hellion or Toro (whom I'd still like to look at one day, maybe in the form of the Hubcap-repaint Coprimizzo), you're settling.  You're just picking whichever has the flaws that you can better live with.  And I think a figure is rarely perfect, I'm not talking about little complaints, I'm talking about the kind of issues that make me certain that someone else could still swoop in and deliver a more definitive Cliffjumper.  That said, the MP thing has been going on long enough with enough players in the game turning out product that a lot of people are saying the G1 well is drying up, and after all this time Toro and Hellion are the best Cliffjumpers we've got.  Hellion may ultimately be a stand-in for something better, but Hellion is still a good stand in, and it does feel good to have that box checked after so long.  I think if you really want a Cliffjumper for your collection, you don't want to wait for something better, and you don't mind Hellion's flaws more than you mind Toro's then Hellion will probably satisfy you.  If not, maybe take a look at Toro, or keep waiting.

[Roy Focker]

Bought a KO MP Sun Streaker & Megatron.  Already have a couple legit and KO MPs.  Broke an arm cover on Sun Streaker during transformation.  Megatron didn't break but that transformation process is way too complex.  I would be way too terrified of transforming the really thing. 

[mikeszekely]

Last one from this shipment (but I've got more on the way).  This is X-Transbots Ollie, their version of Wheelie.  For the record, this is the third release of Ollie.  While I know that XTB supposedly made some improvements to Ollie between the first and second release, I'm unaware of any changes between the second and third release besides the box.

Aside from the tires in his midsection XTB did a pretty good job of capturing the look of Wheelie, at least sculpt-wise.  He looks a little bland, though.  A suggestion I might have made would have been to keep the lighter gray color they used on his hands, feet, and the insides of his knees, but to have used a slightly darker shade for his lower legs, feet, pelvis, and around his face.  A little dark line inside the bill of his cap, or a translucent cover over his chest might have helped, too.  I'm also a little baffled why they painted the lighter peach on a quarter of his ovoid forearm bumps instead of the half, like it should be.

Also, I don't know why, but for some reason in my head Wheelie should be shorter than Bumblebee.  But I don't know if that's actually right or not.

Ollie doesn't come with a ton of accessories, but what he's got is adequate.  There's a translucent peach replacement chest, a replacement face with the same stoic expression but a rounder, more child-like face, a silver-painted pistol, and his trusty slingshot.

Ollie's head is on a ball joint with a hinge at the base.  He rotate his head and he's got a little sideways tilt, nothing really downward, but the hinge gives him great upward tilt.  I think that's preferable for a small bot like Wheelie.  He's got transformation hinges in his shoulders that give him some forward butterfly motion, and the shoulders themselves are on ball joints that rotate freely and can extend about 60 degrees laterally.  His biceps can swivel.  His elbows can bend just over 90 degrees.  His wrists cans wivel, and despite his small size he does have a pin going through his base knuckles on his fingers so he can open and close his hands, carbot-style.  His waist can swivel, although you have to unplug the front of his pelvis to get enough clearance (not that it plugs in securely in the first place, relying mostly on the hinge's tension to stay in place).  The gray hip skirts can swivel up so his ball-jointed hips can about 90 degrees forward, 60 degrees backward, and 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs can swivel around the ball joint, and he's got a second swivel just above his knee.  The knees themselves are double-jointed for transformation, but practically you can still only get about 90 degrees of bend.  His feet can tilt up and down a bit, and a hinge gives him some pivot but the lack of clearance for it limits you to maybe 30 degrees.

He can hold either his pistol or his slingshot just fine.  They don't use tabs or anything; his palm and thumb are simply molded into a squarish form that the handles of his weapons slide down into.  Swapping the chest covers is as simple as getting a fingernail or spudger into the notch at the top and prying it gently off before snapping the other into place.  Replacing the face does require you to remove a screw from the back of his head, but as XTB often does in these cases you'll find a small screwdriver for just that purpose in the box.

Transforming Ollie really shows off how this is an older design.  Freeing his backpack from his torso means flexing the plastic of the tires around and off little tabs in his back.  You're flexing plastic again to get the sides of the cars around his shoulders.  To have any hope getting his front end together you need to make sure that you rotate his thighs 180 degrees before rotating his legs above the knees, and when you're folding his legs around make sure that you're moving his knee at the upper joint first (but don't move his knee pads).  Then you kind of finagle and push everything together, and as you can see I've still got some gaps.  He's probably a little wider across and/or a little shorter front-to-back than he ought to be, but the result is bigger than I expected.  Given that a lot of the season 3 cast was pretty big, though, I think Ollie will fit in fine.

The sculpt is pretty good overall, but I think the colors are a bit of a problem.  He's got a ton of gray on his hood that he shouldn't, and rather than form the front of the cabin with a bubble cockpit behind it his chest is the cockpit.  That gives him a chunk of peach on an otherwise mostly-orange car with nothing really to break it up.  There's no peach on the sides of the car, either.  As inaccurate as the colors ultimately wind up being in this mode I think it's the price you pay for an accurate robot mode, at least without redesigning the entire figure with a totally different transformation.  XTB did at least pick out some lights on the side with yellow, the silver hubcaps, and the red taillights.  I do kind of wonder how a toy-colored Ollie might have turned out, though.

Ollie rolls ok, and his tires are plastic.  Unlike the last three figures I looked at he doesn't have opening doors or an opening cockpit, at least not short of pulling the whole cockpit off.  Speaking of pulling the cockpit off, I think the translucent cockpit does help break up the peach and orange a bit and it makes the cockpit look more like an actual cockpit, although you can kind of see Ollie's head through it.  Both of his weapons do have some alt mode storage.  His pistol plugs into the top of the car behind the cockpit.  As for his slingshot you can pull open a panel on the back of the car and stick the top of the slingshot into the two holes on the inside, then you just close it back up.  Incidentally, he can keep his weapons stored in those places in robot mode as well, although you can tuck up the bottom of his backpack if you leave the slingshot there.

Now, I've heard horror stories about how bad the original Ollie was.  For the most part, the joint tolerances are ok on this copy, nothing broke off, and nothing feels like it's going to break.  The materials seem fine.  I do think he's a little hollow, but less so and in ways that are less visible than your average Hasbro figure this size.  I think I have minor issues with the engineering, though, and I do feel like someone could do better.  I also feel like he could stand to be at least $30 cheaper than the $70 retail price.  The problem is that for a major recurring season 3 character this is still your only MP option for Wheelie.  I've held out as long as I have because I don't really like Wheelie as a character, but I (and probably a lot of collectors by now) am hitting a point where there's only a few major characters left that I need- Kup and Wreck-Gar will technically finish out my Season 3 Autobots, I'm just waiting to see if I like XTB's Kup better than FT's and to wait on a reissue for Crash Hog (although I'm definitely replacing my Arcee, and I'm open to replacing my Hot Rod and Springer).  Nobody else has even suggested that they're doing a Wheelie, and prior to this third reissue aftermarket prices on Ollie were already getting fairly ridiculous.  If you really think you can go without a Wheelie in your collection then by all means skip on Ollie.  But, if you're like me and you need to check that box, then I'm grudgingly going to recommend Ollie.  He's not very good, but he's not as bad as I've heard.  And love him or hate him, he's all we've got.

[Kuma Style]

 

[Kuma Style]

The full review for Fansproject's WB011 Constructo Core (Limited Edition) is up. http://kumastyledesigns.com/fansproject-constructo-core-review/

Per usual the review breaks it down but to give it a summary the deco in particular on this took me by surprise in-hand and I think that it handled both the mold itself and the additions that it brings spectacularly. Here are some pics from the gallery portion:

[Kuma Style]

[Numbninja]

@Kuma Style damn those pics..... just clean af

[Mechapilot77]

kumas photos look great as always....he mght actually be improving a bit too!   having owned steelcore (Still have him if anyoen wants!)....i can't get remotely excited about his yellow redeco/remold.  the short legs and awkward hip area....i can't get past in person personally.  he is solid otherwise.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Mechapilot77

[Kuma Style]

Wow... thanks guys. 

@Mechapilot77 Not trying to sway you at all but one thing I noticed about the SC mold is that the knee cap flaps cover up the knee and then like an additional 1/4th to 1/3rd of the thigh on top of the outter side of the calf going up just as high on the thigh so it makes the legs look a lot more stumpy than they actually are. In terms of actual thigh/calf length they're proportionate but all of that extra especially being all same color really blends in and looks like a half thigh going into a gigantic calf.

 

Edited November 2, 2018 by Kuma Style