The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[JetJockey]

Someone on the Transformer forum posted a modified Transform Element OP and he looks incredible. They need to make the version 2 closer to that.

Edited February 8, 2019 by JetJockey

[technoblue]

Thanks for the Azalea review, @mikeszekely. My copy is slowly making its way to me from PSX, and the good reception will make it worth the wait I think. I also have the stealth version to keep my interest in the meantime so not a big deal. 

But, oh boy, I have a different subjective opinion about FT Rouge when comparing the two. Fans Toys’ version ultimately triggered my uncanny valley response. I really wasn’t a fan of the super-model-doll-as-a-bot look. 

Looking back, I think the only mode that Fans Toys got ‘right’ is Rouge’s alt mode. The future car is nice, and I like the detailing with the seats, the console, the lights on the front and back of the car, even the antenna is nice. But bot mode looks off—both proportionally and in the design of her character features.

For me, the fact that Rouge came packaged with chest gimmicks was ultimately the most frustrating thing. 1) I wish she had been done up in G1 mode out of the box with the option to step up to that more realistic look. 2) Since Fans Toys insisted on doing it the other way around, and not going G1 standard, they should have at least made the chest swap simple and the pieces made of a material that wouldn’t get damaged so easily.

The face sculpt and the hands were another let down (as hinted to above), which unfortunately isn’t anything new from FT. I would have liked Rouge’s face to have more well-defined robot features. Instead, Fans Toys gave us a number of soft tone doll faces, an okay visor face, and a flip-top robot hat. Add to that the unfortunate paint chipping and lack of waist articulation and the whole package just couldn’t live up to the hype in my case. I’m happy MMC’s Ocular Max team gave us a replacement that has other compromises which make more sense (at least, they do to me). 

[derex3592]

15 hours ago, Dobber said:

Awe man, sorry to see this. Your heart must’ve sank when you saw that itty-bitty envelope.

Chris

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I got the "Your Item Has Been Delivered" email from Ebay on my phone as I pulled into the garage after work, so my first thought was "why the hell didn't my RING doorbell go off on my phone when they dropped the package off?" Then I went to the front door and no package, so I went to the mailbox to get the mail and found that...I laughed out loud. 

[M'Kyuun]

Still, it sucks to be rolled, and I hope you get your money back, and they ban the seller. Glad you're able to find some humor in the situation, though. Good on ya. I'm not sure my response would have been equitable.

Anyway, best of luck on your next attempt. 

[mikeszekely]

I grew up on G1, and that's why I primarily collect G1, but if anyone asks I'll tell them that James Roberts and Alex Milne's run on More Than Meets the Eye is the greatest work of Transformers fiction in the entire history of the franchise.  And I love the Decepticon Justice Division, but I ultimately sold off my MMC Reformatted Kultur, Anarchus, and Cynicus.  They just didn't scale with the rest of the collection I was building.  I've been pretty interested in Iron Factory's "Spirits of the D.E.C." since they were first announced, though.  I figure the set of five will probably cost less than two or MMC's, and the smaller Legends-scale means I can keep them in a small display on my desk.  And that was before I starting buying some Magic Square stuff and thinking about doing a whole Legends collection.  So I went ahead and preordered, and the first one arrived.  This is Dubhe, Iron Factory's tiny Tarn.

I went back and looked at a few MTMTE issues to refresh my memory, but yes, Dubhe is extremely accurate to Milne's artwork.  There's only two things I can really find fault with.  The first is that IF only put two pink lines on Dubhe's abdomen instead of six, but I'm guessing space had something to do with that.  The other thing is that while Dubhe appears pretty proportional, Tarn actually wasn't.  He was built like a gorilla with large arms that came down almost to his knees.

Those complaints are pretty minor next to my biggest one, though, and that's the size.  There's no way I can display Dubhe with my other Legends figures.  Tarn should be as big or slightly bigger than Megatron, but when MS releases their Optimus and if they ever do a Megatron you know that they're going to be bigger than Dubhe.  Now, you might argue that I'm being unfair, that IF sticks to their scale and MS uses a larger one and I shouldn't expect IF to scale with their competitors.  But that's an IF Brawl there, and Tarn's not even a full head taller.  So no, I'm inclined to say that Dubhe is too small, period.

You might have noticed that tiny Tarn's hands are molded into balled fists, like MMC's Arcee that we just looked at.  And just like that Arcee, Dubhe comes with some extra hands.  You get one set of hands molded into the usual IF 5mm peg-holding shape, and one set of splayed-fingered hands.  You also get his signature asymmetric double fusion cannon, which looks kind of off to me.  Honestly, I think it needs more pink, silver, and gold paint.  The cannon barrels can be removed from their mount, but you can't do much with them as the pegged end is on the mount and there aren't any other pegs to stick them to.

Dubhe's head is on a ball joint.  Rotation is slightly hampered by his mask catching on this collar treads, and he can't really look down, but he's got fantastic upward range and more sideways tilt than I'd ever use.  His shoulders are ball joints that provide rotation and a slight butterfly, but a dedicated hinge is used for 90 degrees of lateral movement.  His elbows are ball joints that can bend over 90 degrees, as well as act as bicep swivels.  His wrists are just pegged on and can swivel freely.  His waist can swivel, and he's got 45 degrees of ab crunch.  His hips are ball joints that can go a little less than 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees backward, and slightly over 90 degrees laterally.  He can get a little thigh swivel around the ball joint, but he's got dedicated swivels just below the ball joints.  His knees can bend 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt down 90 degrees and up a tiny bit.  Disappointingly, those toes are actually connected to the rest of his foot at that round part at his ankle.  The only ankle pivot he gets is the small about that the front of his foot can get from that ball joint.

Swapping hands is as simple as pulling on off and pegging another in its place.  And Dubhe's double fusion cannon can peg into either forearm via a 5mm peg.

Or, should you give him the 5mm peg hole hands, Dubhe can also hold the cannons like a double-barreled rifle.

Dubhe's tiny mask can be removed; it just uses a tab to fit into a tiny slot on his forehead.  I kind of thought Glitch's face underneath looks a little like the head IF used on their Seekers, just with some scarring on his left side.  But again, I looked at the comics, and Dubhe's Glitch face is honestly pretty accurate.

Dubhe turns into a Tarn-ish tank.  It's... ok.  I mean, I guess it's slightly more accurate than Kultur's alt mode, but still not exactly comic accurate.  Maybe Milne didn't give enough thought to how Tarn was supposed to transform.  Maybe this is as close as we're going to get.  I don't know.  I do know that he still looks little next to IF's Brawl.

The tank mode really doesn't do much.  There's no wheels, so he can't roll.  The way his backpack opens up and forms fenders over the front treads means that the smaller guns can't swivel anymore, and they never had any up/down movement.  Likewise, there's not enough clearance for the cannon barrels to swivel where they're pegged onto the mount.  There are hinges in both barrels that you can use to swivel them up, but it breaks the sculpt.  Maybe they'll have another use?  Dubhe himself does.  You can transform him into a block, one that does use the cannon mount but not the cannons themselves.  This block doesn't do much of anything right now, but apparently when you get all five Spirits of the D.E.C. you'll be able to combine them.  Neat.

Well, I think I've made it clear that i have some problems with Dubhe's size.  Like I said, I don't feel like I can display him with my other Legends figures, because he's just too small.  Quite frankly, I find myself hoping that MechFansToys gives him an upscaled KO, like they did for Iron Factory's Shockwave and a whole bunch of DX9 figures.  Beyond that, there's the usual IF stuff like tight tolerances, and if Magic Square can use universal hips and dedicated bicep swivels and hinged elbows instead of ball joints I think Iron Factory should be able to, too, but those aren't really big deals.  The robot mode just about nails the look of the comic book, and the alt mode is... well, it's close enough.  My only serious complaint is the limited ankle pivots.  But it's not like Kultur fits my collection any better.  At least Dubhe is far cheaper and takes up significantly less space, so as the centerpiece of a small DJD-only display he succeeds with flying colors.  I think if you're into the DJD, or just really like IF's stuff, then he's worth checking out.  But most people can safely pass on him.

[nhyone]

On 2/8/2019 at 1:37 PM, mikeszekely said:

If you're using other hands with her, like the gun hands, they'll peek out from underneath.

It looks kind of creepy. 

Azalea is about 10-20% too small for me. Also, her pelvis is too undersized for her hips.

[nhyone]

On 2/8/2019 at 2:23 AM, derex3592 said:

Yeh, I knew it was probably to good to be true, but I rolled the dice...

The cheapest you can get is ~US$83 on TaoBao. Plus shipping to US, it'll be around US$100.

This is a new figure. No one would sell it for less.

Because PayPal more-or-less guarantees a refund, there is no incentive for buyers to be cautious.

Heads, I win. Tails, PayPal loses.

[mikeszekely]

Guess I'm a little behind, what with my store using the slow boat for Silver Arrow, but I did get my hands on Zeta Toys' Catapult, their Slingshot.

I mean, I'm not sure where Zeta's been going with this set.  A tiny shock of black on his chest when either the G1 toy or the cartoon was black to at least the pelvis.  Silver thighs again instead of white.  Silver feet instead of either black (cartoon) or (white) toy.  The same smoked translucent plastic in place of G1 stickers or cartoon details.  White on the top of his head and dark blue eyes instead of the all-orange that would have been either toy or cartoon accurate.  Between their Fireflight, Air Raid, and now this guy you've got three guys white shoulders, white forearms, white shins, silver thighs, silver feet, black hands, and mostly red torsos with translucent bits on the pecs and hips.  Aerialbots, or Genericons?

Eh, it's not like anyone's buying this set for the robots.  And credit where it's due, at least Zeta molded a fake rolling wheel onto his chest.

Size-wise, you guys should know what to expect by now.  I'm showing Catapult with their Fireflight, but you can expect them to be roughly MP Seeker-sized robots.

Most of what you get with Catapult is the usual Zeta fare: a gun, some missiles that fit onto c-clip racks, and some screw covers.  Because the Sunbow crowd complained loudly enough about the toy-style heads Zeta did throw in a new head for Fireflight, but that face is so goofy it's almost like Zeta is trolling them.  No skin off my teeth; of all the combiners in the G1 cartoon the Aerialbots have the least personality.  I prefer the toy head on Fireflight just to help him stand out a bit.

Catapult borrows a lot of his engineering from their Fireflight, so articulation is pretty similar.  His head is on a ball joint that can swivel and tilt a reasonable amount.  His shoulders swivel and are actually double-jointed so they can extend laterally well over 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel.  He's got a hinge at the elbow, plus another at the top of the bicep, but he still can't get much past 90 degrees.  His hands are the same crappy hands Zeta's been using since they designed Constructor for ToyWorld; swivel at the wrist, individual fingers pinned at the pbase with one addition non-pinned knuckle, thumb on a ball joint with no additional knuckles.  His waist can swivel.  His hip skirts are hinged, and his hips can go forward and backward a little under 90 degrees on a joint that feels mostly like friction, btu for some reason there's resistance moving it from the straight position.  The hips move 90 degrees laterally on ratchets, his thighs can swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets.  Then we come to his feet, which are the worst.  Basically, nothing moves but the silver toes, so most of the time you're actually trying to balance him on the inside edges of his lower legs.  Then the toes themselves are on ball hinged ball joints.  You can move them and twist them to create the illusion of ankle tilt or ankle pivot, but the joints are too weak to actually support his weight.

He holds his gun fairly well, using thin tabs on his palms into slots on his gun's handle.  Like the other Zeta Aerialbots his wings are just pegged onto his legs, so you can remove them if you want a cleaner look and don't mind partsforming.

Catapult turns into an AV-8B Harrier/BA Sea Harrier II.  It's not bad; like the F-4, the Harrier seems to lend its shape to being converted to a robot without too much blocky robot kibble on the underside, and there's some nice attention to detail like the little flap with the refueling probe on it's left side.  Speaking of, be careful, that flap comes off pretty easy.  A lot of people are reporting that it's not even attached when they take Catapult out of the box, but mine was.  In any case, if I weren't planning to combine these guys alt mode would be my next choice as I really think he looks better as a plane than a robot.

Since the engineering is basically the same as their Fireflight's he's got some similar problems with clearance around the chest and shoulders when transforming him.  The flap with his head is also kind of loose, and his chest pops open way more easily than I remember Fireflight's doing.

I think it's expected by now, but Catapult's got landing gear, tampoed caution marks, and an opening canopy.  The canopy doesn't open very far, though, and does so by rocking back on a double hinge instead of swinging up on a single hinge.  Maybe real Harriers do that, I'm honestly not sure.  One other nice touch is that the VTOL nozzles can be swiveled.

There's a spring-loaded spot on his crotch where you can attach him to a ToyWorld/Zeta base.  And the underside of each wing has two 5mm peg holes where you can attach a missile rack or his gun, although he holds both kind of loosely.

I'll cut to the chase; Zeta's robot modes are kind of passable, and Catapult's no exception.  So taken on his own, as an MP Slingshot, I wouldn't recommend him.  The aesthetics are there, and the fit and finish aren't there.  He's not a bad looking jet, though, and I don't think too many people are buying Zeta's figures because they're good figures.  They're buying them because they want 20", pants-wearing combiners.  And Catapult is cheap enough that you can buy him, knowing that the robot isn't that great, just because he might make a good arm.  And on that last note, hopefully we'll know in a few more days how that goes.

[tekering]

It saddens me greatly that I can't upvote your reviews any more, Mike.

That's a surprisingly good-looking Harrier, and tampography is a welcome addition on any third-party toy.  

[JB0]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I really think he looks better as a plane than a robot.

Things you never thought you'd hear said about a Transformer.

[mikeszekely]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

It saddens me greatly that I can't upvote your reviews any more, Mike.

That's a huge compliment, and it means the world to me.  But if it means one less headache for Shawn then I can't complain; the man has generously provided this space for us to talk about Macross and all our other anime/sci-fi interests at his own expense for so many years, and I'm deeply grateful to have this community to share with.

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Things you never thought you'd hear said about a Transformer.

Sad but true.

[derex3592]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

That's a huge compliment, and it means the world to me.  But if it means one less headache for Shawn then I can't complain; the man has generously provided this space for us to talk about Macross and all our other anime/sci-fi interests at his own expense for so many years, and I'm deeply grateful to have this community to share with.

 

TRUE dat.

[M'Kyuun]

It's easy to take the positive things for granted; Thanks Shawn, and thanks, Mike, for reminding us.

And that Harrier mode does look amazing; actually, I'd have to say that's the most accurate Harrier mode I've ever seen in a transforming toy, so kudos to Zeta.

[Chronocidal]

4 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

It's easy to take the positive things for granted; Thanks Shawn, and thanks, Mike, for reminding us.

And that Harrier mode does look amazing; actually, I'd have to say that's the most accurate Harrier mode I've ever seen in a transforming toy, so kudos to Zeta.

Seconded, thirded, or whichever we're up to now.  

Also, agreed, I'm kind of shocked they got that good of an airplane out of one of the limb bots.  Looks like a really decent Harrier from all angles except behind and beneath.  I don't think I've ever considered purchasing one of the Aerialbots just for the alt mode, but this one's tempting. 

Can confirm though, the canopy's accurate to real life; the Harrier has a rear-sliding canopy, rather than a clamshell.

[derex3592]

Does anyone know where i can get my hands on a real Transform Element 01? I looked all over the web and I can 't seem to find one. Really don't want to jack with Ebay anymore. Should I just wait until TF direct gets more in?  They seemed to have the best price when it was available... I'm now kicking myself that I didn't grab one. 

 

 

[mikeszekely]

40 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

Does anyone know where i can get my hands on a real Transform Element 01? I looked all over the web and I can 't seem to find one. Really don't want to jack with Ebay anymore. Should I just wait until TF direct gets more in?  They seemed to have the best price when it was available... I'm now kicking myself that I didn't grab one. 

 

 

Couple places with preorders, nothing immediately in stock.  Might be worth waiting.  Sounds like TE rushed to get a batch out before CNY to compete with Magic Square, but they've already said there'll be another run in the spring with an alternate head.

EDIT: Scratch that, looks like he might be in stock at Toy Dojo.

Edited February 12, 2019 by mikeszekely

[mikeszekely]

Well, starting my Legends collection around the same time I got Gigapower's Guttur and I found myself really wanting Legends-scale Dinobots.  I looked at DX9's, and they looked pretty cool... but I like my Dinobots big, and DX9's Grimlock looks scarce.  So I did the next best thing, and I bought a couple of MechFansToys' OS KOs of DX9's Dinobots.  This one is Slagus, based on DX9's Bumper, aka Slag.

A lot of what makes Slagus look so, like the engineering and sculpt, is on DX9.  The biggest difference with MFT's, aside from size, is small color tweaks.  Namely, they used metallic gold and silver paint, whereas DX9 did have some silver paint apps but was mostly silver and pale yellow plastic.  There's also the fact that they gave Slagus black thighs instead of the more cartoon-accurate silver DX9 used.  This is kind of serendipitous to me, though, since I have the chrome Gigapower Grassor who also has black thighs, and I display him with the red and silver head, so they match.

But yes, there is also the size thing.  I don't even think it's supposed to be much, maybe a head or so.  But it's enough that Slagus is closer to Deluxe than what you'd normally think of as Legends.

And yet, put with Magic Square and New Age Legends, that look right to me.  Maybe Blaster's a bit short, but that's true when you put him with Sideswipe alone.  New Age's Bumblebee is about knee-hight to Slagus, and MP Bee is about knee-high to Grassor, so that's perfect.  I think when Magic Square releases their Legends Optimus that Slagus will be appropriately tall next to him.

Anyway, accessories.  He's got a cartoon-accurate silver gun, and a red translucent sword.  I think the gun and sword are all that Bumper came with, although it looks like the mold is different for the sword and the gun is black, so I guess MFT is actually more accurate.  You also get a second, silver painted sword if you prefer your weapons to not be translucent.  And, kind of strangely, you get a little KO Diaclone dude.  I guess I'll put him with my TFC Stoomander.

Articulation is fair on Slagus.  His head seems to be a ball joint that can look up a little, but nothing really down or sideways.  It can swivel, too, but his dinosaur head makes moving his robot head difficult.  Shoulders rotate and hinge out over 90 degrees laterally.  He has bicep swivels, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels, but due to transformation they can bend downward which is great for sword poses.  No waist swivel.  No ab crunch, but he can arch his back.  Hips are ball joints that can move 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  His thighs can swivel, and his knees can bend 90 degrees.  The gold part of his feet are on hinges, so the can't bend his feet up or down but he does have pretty extreme ankle pivots, although they're not the prettiest.

The main thing with articulation is that the joint tolerances are inconsistent.  I find myself wishing that his hips were a little tighter moving laterally, but some of his other joints are scary tight (perhaps due to not accounting for paint?).  It takes enough effort to turn his shoulders that I keep unplugging his chest.

He holds is weapons just fine.  The handles are pegs, and his hands are molded into peg holes.  They look roughly 5mm-ish, but I think they were 3mm on the original DX9 versions.

Slagus' transformation is a little non-traditional.  In some ways that pays off.  I really like how his tail becomes his feet, for example.  But other stuff causes more problems than it solves.  His hind legs are actually is robot arms, and to get them there requires some very specific manipulation of his robot shoulders and the halves of his robot legs, and is probably the primary reason he doesn't have a waist swivel.

Can't really argue with the results too much, though.  That's a very good looking robo-triceratops.  He could be a little more cartoon accurate if they'd given him silver horns instead of red, but I actually prefer red horns.  I just wish they weren't translucent.

Slagus doesn't have a lot of articulation as a triceratops.  He can open his mouth, and since the horns are just pegged on you can adjust them to your liking.  His front legs can rotate at the shoulder/hips, and bend a little under 90 degrees forward, but even though the shoulder/hip is a ball joint there isn't much clearance for lateral movement.  His rear legs, as mentioned, are his arms, so they can rotate, bend 90 degrees, and extend laterally.  No head, tail, or feet articulation.  And I couldn't find anywhere to stash his weapons in this mode.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure how I feel about Slagus.  I mean, for his size he's a much better Deluxe-class Slag than the one Hasbro gave us with Power of the Primes.  And he certainly looks great in both modes.  I guess I'm just a little spoiled by Magic Square.  Their releases have been like mini-Masterpieces, but the engineering on Slagus doesn't quite stack up.  Still, I'm not sure that there's a better choice for a Slag that fits with Magic Square's Legends figures, especially scale-wise.  So, I'm going to give him a recommend, if a tad reluctantly.

[JB0]

Man, in spite of my blatant toy-supremacy attitudes towards the Dinobots in general and Slag in specific, that is a nice Slag in humanoid mode.

...

The triceratops mode is a chrome potato, though. With an unangled frill at that.

[M'Kyuun]

Slag seems to be the toughest Dino to do without making him look like a potato in dino mode, or dealing with compromises to head articulation in either mode. For its size, Slagus mostly gets everything right, although I'm curious why they made the bot arms become the back legs. Anyway, so far as legends class Dinobots go, I imagine both Magic Square and New Age will eventually get around to them. Given their prowess for packing a lot of engineering into a small package, I'd be interested to see how Magic Square's Dinos would turn out.

Abruptly changing topic, I believe it's Cyberverse that has an upcoming crummy looking Optimus with a small Autobot Ark riding along on its hitch area, and it makes me long for a transforming Ark/Omega Supreme from Animated. It'll be twelve years this year, and of all the most recent lines, it's the one that has received the least attention both officially and unofficially so far as new toys. I was really hoping for a tenth anniversary toy from Has/Tak, particularly the Ark, but we got nothing. So I'm still holding out hope that one of these third parties does a few of the unproduced figures from that show at some point (preferably while I'm still alive and kicking).

[JB0]

27 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Slag seems to be the toughest Dino to do without making him look like a potato in dino mode, or dealing with compromises to head articulation in either mode.

I think the potato problem is actually being done intentionally for toon accuracy.  Which doesn't make it any less wrong. Slag's dino mode animation model is terrible even by the standards of the original cartoon animation models.

 

28 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

For its size, Slagus mostly gets everything right, although I'm curious why they made the bot arms become the back legs.

I suspect it is for proportions.  Back dinosaur legs should be longer than front dinosaur legs. Using the arms as dino legs requires either ill-proportioned arms or huge chunks of dino leg stashed away somewhere that serve no purpose in robot mode.  

...

Or you can go the Combiner Wars route and just give him bent front legs. One of my few complaints with that release, actually.

[derex3592]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Couple places with preorders, nothing immediately in stock.  Might be worth waiting.  Sounds like TE rushed to get a batch out before CNY to compete with Magic Square, but they've already said there'll be another run in the spring with an alternate head.

EDIT: Scratch that, looks like he might be in stock at Toy Dojo.

Thanks @mikeszekely, I'll sit tight for the next run I think! 

[Kuma Style]

[M'Kyuun]

Oooh, aaah! Pretty sweet take on Jetfire, and I think the Quinjet-ish alt mode was an inspired choice. 

Got a review in store for us, Kuma?

 

Momentary bump- today I got my shipment containing MS' Strongman (legends Huffer), MMC's Hellion and PS-04 Azalea. Strongman is my first MS legends sized figure (I have Light of Freedom, as well) and he's an impressive figure for his size-even has ab crunch! Anyway, he's currently occupying the space on my CHUG shelves  that IGear's Huffer used to command, although I'm still keeping him out  for sentimental reasons. Hellion makes for a nice MP Cliffjumper, and although getting his doors to fit into his body and getting those little hinge bits to interlock on his shoulders proved to be a bit less than joyful, overall, I love that there's really nothing extemporaneous about the figure- everything has a place in both modes and his bot mode is virtually kibble-free, which is more than can be said about the new MP Bee. It's a pretty amazing transformation, too.  Finally, Azalea- hearkening back to Mike's review, as well as any number of other video reviews I've seen thus far, she very much is like a super-poseable action figure that just so happens to transform into a tiny pink car.  Transformation is pretty straightforward, if a bit ingenious, for fitting all that bot into a tiny car. The only sticky bit I encountered was getting the two  back sections to move past each other so they could overlap. Once conquered, however, everything went together well, and she's  pretty solid in bot mode, save for the panels on the backs of her thighs, which have no underlying reinforcement and can be easily pushed into the recess. It's easy enough to fix, but some may find it irritating.  It's  a tradeoff I can live with just fine. Also, the lower shins don't 'snap' into place; however, the joints on my copy are sufficiently tight enough by friction to keep them in place. I do think a snap would have been appropriate, though, as over time that joint may loosen. Something to be aware of.  The overlapping fender sections comprising her iconic back pods can be a little fiddly, as there's no tab to give that really solid feeling connection. However, there is a 'sweet spot' where the fenders will mate and you can feel it when they do. It doesn't take much to jar them loose, though.  Those being the only niggles I have thus far, they're pretty minimal, and really don't affect my enjoyment of the figure. I'm glad I waited to see the differences between Rouge and Azalea, as MMC's take is about as perfect as you can get in realizing a fun transformable Arcee figure. Not sure Takara could do better, although I wouldn't mind seeing them try. Then again, with all the overt panel-gami that's been endemic of their latest figures, I'm not sure I'd like the outcome. To that I say, Kudos MMC! and cheers for making me a very happy TF collector.

Edited February 12, 2019 by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

15 hours ago, JB0 said:

I think the potato problem is actually being done intentionally for toon accuracy.  Which doesn't make it any less wrong. Slag's dino mode animation model is terrible even by the standards of the original cartoon animation models.

More or less.  It's the same reason why Grimlock will always be upright, three-fingered, and stomping around on his robo-wrists instead of being a proper horizontal digitgrade two-fingered Rex.

15 hours ago, JB0 said:

I suspect it is for proportions.  Back dinosaur legs should be longer than front dinosaur legs.

Yep.  Can't speak for the Dibots, but among the Gigasaur's both Grassor (Slag) and Graviter (Sludge) have pretty massive lower legs in robot mode, and quite a bit of Graviter's rear dino legs are still kibble on the outside of those legs, plus both of their robot arms collapse a bit at the bicep/shoulder to make shorter front dino legs.  Maybe that sort of engineering isn't practical on a Legends-sized figure, so for Bumper/Slagus the front dino legs are actually on his back, tucked between his actual back and his dino back wings (and likely contributing further to his potatoey shape).  To make his rear legs, the front of his torso, including his shoulders and arms, are on a ball joint.  The hips and pelvis have a hinge at the base of the spine, so they fold down and back to get out of the way, then the front of the torso folds down, spins 180 degrees, then folds back up the other side.  It's kind of an interesting take.  Like I said, I especially like they way his tail splits, re-folds, then tucks into his lower legs to make his robot feet.  But the lack of a waist swivel and the frustrating way you have to maneuver his lower legs around his robot shoulders to get everything together in dinosaur mode have me thinking more along the lines of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

[JB0]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

More or less.  It's the same reason why Grimlock will always be upright, three-fingered, and stomping around on his robo-wrists instead of being a proper horizontal digitgrade two-fingered Rex.

That's both toy and toon-accurate, though. Well, except the three-fingered part.

Cartoon Slag is a lot more potato-y than toy Slag, as they stacked a bunch of extra mass above his legs to make him look bigger.  He's like a tricera-camel.

 

And I know I'm in the minority, but I would love a higher-end version of Classics Grimlock.

[David Hingtgen]

On ‎2‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 7:57 PM, mikeszekely said:

 

 

I'm a little late, but could I see a level, head-on shot of Slingshot with the gear down, and matching the real thing's dihedral angle? (as in, angle those wings DOWN!)

[mikeszekely]

44 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

I'm a little late, but could I see a level, head-on shot of Slingshot with the gear down, and matching the real thing's dihedral angle? (as in, angle those wings DOWN!)

Best I can do.

You can get the wings angled a little more down, but the weight of the figure centered on those points pushes them up.

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

And I know I'm in the minority, but I would love a higher-end version of Classics Grimlock.

I liked the dino mode, but I hated the robot mode.  I think a good compromise would be something closer to a real T-Rex's proportions in dinosaur mode, but with a more traditional transformation, like IDW's Grimlock.  Which reminds me, MMC is working on one.  Here's what I could find on it, although I have it on authority that much of the design has been or will be reworked to get it a little closer to the comics.

Unfortunately that same authority tells me that pretty much everything MMC's announced is ahead of this guy in the queue, so he might not see the light of day this year.

While we wait, how about a look at MFT's Swooper, their upsized KO of DX9's Skyer, aka Swoop.

Out of the box I think this is easily one of the best-looking Swoop toys I've ever seen.  DX9 absolutely nailed the proportions and aesthetic of the cartoon.  I think the only thing that's really off at all is the goofy face sculpt and the lack of dino feet on his knees.  I thought Swoop was one of the better PotP Dinobots but there's really no contest (although I do kind of like the black outline on Swoop's face).

Swoop comes with his (non-firing) rocket launchers, a translucent red sword, a silver-painted sword, and again we've got another little Diaclone dude.  And I kind of realized that I kind of glossed over him yesterday, so yeah, here he is with a Titan Master, so you can see he's pretty little.  He's got no neck articulation, and tiny ball joints for shoulders that allow for rotation and about 30-45 degrees of lateral movement.  His elbows can bend 90 degrees.  No bicep, wrist, or waist swivels, but there is a hinge in his torso that gives him an ab crunch.  His hips are also ball joints that can go forward or backward about 90 degrees and laterally about 30 degrees.  No thigh swivels, knees bend 90 degrees, no foot or ankle articulation.  And there's little magnets in his heels.  I don't know if it's because they're KOs or what, but they feel kind of flimsy, although they haven't broken on me.  I think they're probably ok as an accessory for a cooler Diaclone toy, but I couldn't see myself stocking up on them.

As for Swooper himself, his head is on a ball joint with an adequate up/down range but negligible sideways tilt.  The shoulders are also ball joints that can rotate as well as extend over 90 degrees laterally.  The pegs are hinged at the other end, so he can kind of shrug, too.  No real bicep swivels, but the elbows are again ball joints that provide swivels as well as a little over 90 degrees of bend.  No wrist/hand articulation, no waist articulation.  His hips can bend over 90 degrees forward (but only about 30-45 degrees backward due to the wings getting in the way), and just about 90 degrees laterally.  He does have thigh swivels, and knees that bend just under 90 degrees (although you can cheat a bit more if you open the flaps on his calves.  His feet have some pretty good up/down tilt in addition to a ludicrous 180 degrees of ankle pivot.

Swooper can hold the rocket launchers in his hands, but to me they just don't look right unless they're pegged on the wings.  Swoop kind of gets the short end of the stick that way.  Well, he can hold his swords fine, too.  This time the pegs are definitely a bit smaller than 5mm.

Things get a bit dicier when we get to alt mode.  As with Slag, DX9 seems to have felt the need to reinvent the wheel, so instead of tucking his arms in and having his dino feet on his robot knees, the two sides of Swooper's torso from his waist up actually turn inward 90 degrees, and his dino feet are actually on his wrists.  At worst, this looks like a pteranodon with legs growing out of his chest.  To be fair, the robot shoulders do tuck in a little, and you can kind of think of his robot elbows as the dino hips, but it's still not ideal.

From another angle, you can see that his dino feet can't bend any further down (and his robot hands are visible), and he can't even totally straighten his legs.  It's a shame, though, because he looks quite good from other angles, where you're looking more at his head and back.  Speaking of his head, there's a hinge that lets it move up and down, and he can open his beak.  His wings have hinges at the base and about mid-wing for flapping poses.

Aside from all this, I'll point out that he also has the same joint inconsistencies as Slagus.  The outward movement on his hips is especially loose.  But despite the goofy alt mode I think I actually like him better than Slagus.  He's not perfect, but he's kind of fun, so I'll recommend him.

[David Hingtgen]

Thanks Mike----is the landing gear still "vertical" when viewed from the side, when it's like that?  Or are they angled back to fit? 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, David Hingtgen said:

Thanks Mike----is the landing gear still "vertical" when viewed from the side, when it's like that?  Or are they angled back to fit? 

Vertical.

[Dobber]

Oooh, I like that Grimlock! I’m a Dinosaur person and really din’t Like the old school grimlock withbthe thick belly and tail drag. I really like that “more like a real T-Rex” interpretation. 

Chris

[sh9000]

Hopefully in the following week the next XTB Stunticon will be put up for preorder.

[Tking22]

I'll definitely be getting all five MFT legends scale dinos, they look great, I love the gold instead of the yellow on the original DX9 figures, plus the scale is better.

I needed some legends scale seeker action so I got the MFT seekers. I really only wanted the main season 1 seekers, I always thought the cone heads were lame, but I couldn't find just Starscream and his compatriots so I settled for a bundle of both seeker sets, for $75 shipped I can't complain.

Highly recommended, really nice little figures for a good price, and no real QC issues to speak of. They're not perfect, but they look good and are solid overall, so works for me.

[mikeszekely]

I guess we're going to keep rolling with MFT Dinobots.  Tonight we'll do Slurdge, an OS KO of DX9's Quaker, aka Sludge.

Now, these guys have been out for a while in both their DX9 and MFT incarnations, so I actually had trouble finding this guy.  First I bought him from ebay, but the seller turned scammer (still waiting for PayPal to get back to me on that), then ebay dried up.  I managed to find one from GCI Toys, where he not only cost a bit more but the shipping was over a third again the price of the figure.  Ouch.

Well, that's a right proper looking Sludge, at least.  His torso has a proper T-shape, so he's not looking all shrunken like Power of the Primes Sludge, and the black and blue stripes on his shins and the blue rectangles on his hips are nice touches.  If I were picky I might point out that the dino toes on his wrists should really be silver, and that even the cartoon model had some of the dino legs on the outside of his legs.  Maybe I should be impressed that they're not?

Actually, keeping them on the outside might have been a an improvement.  Once again, we have DX9 reinventing the wheel, and this this time they kind of inverted him so it's his tail on his back and his dinosaur head that has to fold up into his leg, which it kind of does.  The halves of his neck fit pretty neatly, anyway, but the head doesn't split.  The whole thing sits on his left leg.  So on his right the dinosaur legs tucks in just fine, but on the left the dino head is really in the way.  Let me see if I can adjust it so it's not quite so messy...

...well crap.

At least I can tuck that dino foot in...

*sighs*  So Slurdge comes with the usual stuff: translucent red sword, matching silver-painted sword, black cartoon-style gun, and a little Diaclone guy.  And a busted dino head.

Slurdge's articulation is similar to, but slightly worse than, Slagus'.  I can't tell if his head is a ball joint or a mushroom swivel, but it pretty much just swivels.  You can get a very small amount of downward tilt, but that's off of a transformation hinge.  His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees.  I'll note that the hinge on on left shoulder is very loose on my copy- the opposite of his bicep swivels, which are "oh geez I'm gonna break this!" tight.  His elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist or waist swivels, but he can arch his back.  The front of his pelvis is one hinged flap, giving way for his ball-jointed hips to move just over 90 degrees forward, just under 90 degrees backward, and 90 degrees laterally.  He's got thigh swivels, and his knees can bend 90 degrees.  He's got no feet or ankle articulation.

The peg handles on his weapons fit fine in his peg hole fists.

Well, the base of his neck seems a little small, and he's got stripes that should properly be on his butt.  If we're being picky again I'll point out how the toe bump on his back is backward, his dino toes (again) should be silver, or that even in the cartoon the front of his dino body (where the toy was chrome) was lighter than the rest of him, but this guy is pretty much all silver.  But the truth is, for a Deluxe/big Legends figure this is pretty good.  Much better than PotP Sludge.

Not a ton of dino articulation, though.  His mouth can open and close, and there is a swivel so he can look left or right (but not up and down).  His rear legs are his robot arms, so they can swivel, extend laterally, and bend at the knee, but only about 45 degrees the correct way.  The front legs can swivel at the hip/shoulder and bend just a little at the knee.  Nothing on the tail.

Happily, the broken head isn't a huge deal.  It's broken at the ball joint where it's connected to that side of the neck, but it pegs onto the other side of the the neck.  It'd be totally fine if that pegged connection weren't so loose.  And... wait a minute... *looks at dino shoulder* looks like he's missing the translucent cover on his right dino shoulder.  Apparently "QC" is too hard for Sludge to spell.

Well, overpaying for a toy with so many QC issues definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm going to try to be objective.  And objectively, Slurdge/Quaker is still the worst of the MFT/DX9 Dinobots.  He's got the worst articulation, and while all of them have some questionable joint tolerances Slurdge's are the worst.  The way the dino head is supposed to hide in the leg is lazy and half finished.  It's a design than looks good (from most angles), but Slurdge is the only one that really makes me want to not recommend him, and I wouldn't if there was an alternative.  For now, though, if you want a G1 Sludge for your Legends collection it's this or the smaller DX9 version, that's it.

[mikeszekely]

19 minutes ago, Tking22 said:

I'll definitely be getting all five MFT legends scale dinos, they look great, I love the gold instead of the yellow on the original DX9 figures, plus the scale is better.

I needed some legends scale seeker action so I got the MFT seekers. I really only wanted the main season 1 seekers, I always thought the cone heads were lame, but I couldn't find just Starscream and his compatriots so I settled for a bundle of both seeker sets, for $75 shipped I can't complain.

Highly recommended, really nice little figures for a good price, and no real QC issues to speak of. They're not perfect, but they look good and are solid overall, so works for me.

KOs of the DX9 ones?  How big are they?  Can you take a picture with Magic Square's Blaster or Sideswipe?

[Tking22]

31 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

KOs of the DX9 ones?  How big are they?  Can you take a picture with Magic Square's Blaster or Sideswipe?

Yup, DX9 slightly up scaled KO. Quick and dirty with MS Swipe and Trailbreaker, also Hot Soldiers Soundwave. I'll be getting MFT shiny Megatron soon and he'll be my legends Megs, Newage looks good, but they're a bit small for my taste, except their Bee, he was spot on for me.