The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mikeszekely]

6 hours ago, captain america said:

My Chinese is a little rusty.  It does sound like Hasbro's putting some pressure on them, which fits with what I've heard (mostly that the reason the Core Star video got pulled from Youtube is because Hasbro filed a DMCA complaint), but the way I read that is that they're putting Core Star on temporary hold, not cancelling it.

[nhyone]

16 hours ago, captain america said:

I think it's fair to say that sufficient pressure was applied to sink the Core Star.

I agree. Hasbro was able to take down the videos because they mentioned "Unicron".

But ZetaToys itself? My belief is that Hasbro is unable to go after them directly -- unless someone shows that they were served C&D letter.

The way ZT phrases it, "it looks like it will be aborted (abandoned) this time", there is some uncertainty.

(I use 'may' previously, but now I think 'will' is closer. 'Looks like it will be ...' = likely to happen.)

Will they be uncertain if Hasbro sued them?

Maybe the factory got cold feet or retailers declined to carry Core Star, so they couldn't proceed. For now, at least.

Edited September 16, 2019 by nhyone

[Tking22]

Such a damn shame we probably won't be seeing Zeta Core Star for a while now, that thing looked incredible. I was never going to bother with the Hasbro one, I don't have the money or space, and I don't want or need a Unicron that big.

Zeta's was also FAR more aesthetically pleasing, the size was just right, and the transformation actually looked pretty fun. I am in no way shape or form a Unicron aficionado, I don't need a Unicron that is perfectly accurate in any mode, bot or planet, to any particular source, as long as it was a large Unicron looking figure that turned into a planet, I was in.

Neither Unicron was ever going to scale well with anything, I just wanted it in the same way most of us Macross fans want a nice SDF-1 figure, it was just an iconic character that I wanted a nice looking, transformable figure of, scale be damned. 

[nhyone]

Zeta says: "Thank you for your concern. We will come out with better toys."

If true, this implies that ZetaToys will still be around.

I'm still of the opinion that Hasbro can't really enforce its G1 IP much, especially in China.

[captain america]

2 hours ago, nhyone said:

 

I'm still of the opinion that Hasbro can't really enforce its G1 IP much, especially in China.

Probably not, but if you think that Hasbro's remedy is only top-down vertical enforcement, you're missing the big picture. Where direct legal pressure may fail, all they have to do is tell their distributors that any of them that continue to carry/distribute 3P products beyond a 60-90 grace window will be cut-off. No more official Hastak products for you! Does that wipe Zeta or 3P off the map? No, it just reduces the incentive to carry their stuff that much more. In many ways, this might be far more effective.  

[mikeszekely]

Meant to have this up earlier, but most of my free time is coming in that two and a half hour window while my daughter is in pre-school, and that's only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Anyway, I'm wrapping up* my look at Fansproject's Dinobots with Cubrar, their Slag.

As with their Sludge, Fansproject takes some liberties with the traditional Slag design.  But while it left their Sludge sort of not looking enough like Sludge, I think Fansproject's design for Cubrar works pretty well.  For starters, there's enough obviously-Slag elements to the design, like the dino-head hoodie and the dino-jaw bib.  But I like the way Cubrar's dino-frill splits and lifts out of the way of his shoulders, and how the particular curves on his horns have them sitting less like back kibble and more like robot-mode horns.  And I love how brutish his proportions are, something that's accentuated by using his dino-feet as his big stompy robot feet.

Cubrar comes with the standard-fare sword, and two short-ish but surprisingly G1-ish guns.  And he's got an axe.

The axe is, of course, his Lost Exo Realm buddy, this time named Tekour.  Tekour's very similar in engineering to Sludge's partner.  He's got a neck swivel, hinged ball joints at the shoulder for rotation and tons of lateral movement, double-hinged elbows that curl all the way up, ball joints at the hips that can go 90 degrees forward and backward and 45 degrees laterally, ball joints at the knees for plenty of bend and faux thigh swivels, and that's it.  He has a pair of axes of his own.

Like Sludge's buddy, he's also got a massive handle sticking out of his back.  It's not great, and like the others I'm going to toss him in a bag in the closet.  But at least he actually looks like a pretty good weapon this time.

As for Cubrar, his head is on a ball joint, but the articulation is limited by his dino-head hoodie.  His shoulders are on big ball joints for rotation , and the ball socket even hinges out a little so he can get about 75 degrees of lateral movement.  His biceps can swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed but still only good for about 90 degrees of bend.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers are hinged at the base so his hands can open and close.  Now, by design, Cubrar does have a waist swivel and an ab crunch.  On my copy, both of those joints are crazy loose.  You could spin his upper body like a top, and the ab crunch flops limply toward the ground.  But, when properly transformed, is dino tail is actually pegged between his wings.  With his tail in place, you can't really either the ab crunch and the waist swivel is very limited to the range of the ball joints in his tail.  His hips are friction joints forward and backward, a little less than 90 degrees, and soft-ratcheted outward for 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel, and his ratcheted, double-jointed knees can bend 90 degrees.  Most of his foot is fixed, but his dino-paw toes can bend up and down a little on ball joints, plus they can swivel as faux ankle pivots.

He holds his sword and axe with no problems.  The sword is a little snug, really.  And you can peg his guns into the sides of his legs.

He can, of course, also hold his guns, but like Sludge they're pretty loose in his grip.  For more weapon storage that isn't his legs, he's got a pair of peg holes on his wings.

One more thing he can do is a movie Lockdown-style gun face.  Which is cool, but I think it's not necessarily intentional.  The gun is actually meant to show in his mouth in dino mode, hiding his face in the process.  It's kind of clever.

Cubrar's dino mode is looking pretty good.  I've always liked red horns on Slag, and Fansproject did his nose horn to match.  His legs and feet are proportionally a little big, but they seem anatomically correct for a triceratops.

Cubrar's got some dino articulation.  His mouth can open, revealing the gun that covers his face.  Although the frill is fixed, his dino head is on a double ball joint so he can look up, down, or sideways a bit as well as swivel at the neck.  His front legs are his robot arms, so they have rotation at the shoulders, a bicep swivel, and an elbow that bends about 90 degrees both ways.  Nothing really at his front feet.  His rear legs have ball-jointed hips for rotation and a little spread.  No thigh swivels.  His knees bend forward and backward, albeit with a little less range than his elbows.  His ankles can bend a bit, and the front of his rear paws are on ball joints for some extra up/down tilt and faux ankle pivots.  His tail is segmented with a trio of ball joints, so he's got better tail articulation than most dinobot toys (but not as much as Planet X Grimlock's tail, or Fansproject Sludge's neck).

There are peg holes on his dino hips that you can use for weapon storage.  That kind of leaves one leftover, but I guess you can awkwardly stick it on his tail, where his wings peg in for robot mode.  And like Sludge, you can take the humps on his back and spin them 180 to create a spot for Tekour to stand.  He doesn't seem to lock in, though.

ToyWorld's Slag is aesthetically more G1 than Cubrar, but again I kind of like what Fansproject did here, and I think Cubrar is on the whole a better figure than their Swoop or Sludge.  My only real complaints are that his grip on his guns is too loose, and that locking up his tail restricts his waist swivel so much.  Between this, ToyWorld, and (probably) Planet X you have a couple solid options for a Siege Slag.  So my recommendation is to get whichever one you think you might like best.  For me, Cubrar will do nicely.

* "What about Snarl" you might be asking.  Fansproject did eventually release, quite some time after these four, a version of Snarl called Pinchar.  However, they must have made far, far fewer copies of Pinchar than they did the other four, because while I was able to find copies of these four for $40-$60 I cannot find a regular dinobot-red Pinchar at any retailer, on Ebay, or the BST boards of the forums I hang out at.

[anime52k8]

MS-01S: dead body edition.  I was hoping Transform Element would be the one to do this color scheme since he has the best matrix chamber of any MP. instead they did SG prime, which would have worked better on MS-01 since he's the only one that has windshields with sculpted cracks and holes.

 

[JB0]

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I like the way Cubrar's dino-frill splits and lifts out of the way of his shoulders

A brilliant solution to "Slag's head is in the way of everything!".

 

I like this. Looks like a really good modernized Slag. I really like how they managed to balance Slag's traditional stompin' powerhouse look with a desire to make his legs look like legs.  The flip-down dinosaur cannon is a nice fix to the traditional Slag-face problem.

The tail laying down the humanoid spine like the original toy did could be described as lazy, but it makes my inner child grin.

 

My only real gripe is that the dino frill is curved back and hangs over his ceratopsian shoulders like a capelet and robbing him of a lot of triceratops style. If anything, it should curve FORWARD(giving humanoid mode a ridiculous vampire collar instead of shoulder ruffles? I'm okay with that!). It looks great in humanoid mode, though.  I should probably get over it and accept the triceratops is just stylized almost beyond recognition. (The horns get a pass because they don't make sense for a triceratops, but they look darn cool in both modes and are recognizably triceratops-ish. Sort of a hulkaceratops look.)

...

Well, and they put the weapon sockets down on his humanoid knees/dino hips  instead of his shared shoulders WHERE THEY BELONG. Why does everyone keep doing this?!

[nhyone]

7 hours ago, anime52k8 said:

MS-01S: dead body edition.

I can't imagine there is much demand for this. I wonder how many units MS will make.

[anime52k8]

I think these two are gonna get along just great

[M'Kyuun]

Great picture- no words necessary.

Totally should become a meme.

Edited September 19, 2019 by M'Kyuun

[sh9000]

[M'Kyuun]

Some nice looking Stunticons there. Fans Toys? That Wildrider looks like a nice figure just on its own, but that die cast plate in the leg looks like it was half-heartedly painted, which erodes the spit-n-polish of the figure. Still, I think back to the 80's toys, and it makes me appreciate what marvels these modern Transformer toys are, official or non.

[sh9000]

They’re from X-Transbots.

[tekering]

Yeah, FansToys figures hew much closer to the animation models, whereas X-Transbots Stunticons are much more G1 toy homages.

They're both extremely nostalgic!  

[anime52k8]

speaking of FansToys Stunticons; they now have pictures of wildrider painted and in vehicle mode and... he's a 288 GTO now.

I don't know how I feel about that, or how I feel about the paint finish, or how I feel about the backpack, or how I feel about how tall the robot is. I just don't know how I feel about this toy. Maybe they'll do a G2 version and I'll like it more.

 

[Tking22]

FansToys don't look anymore animation accurate to me, they just look bigger, and are more expensive. IF I wanted an MP Menasor, which I don't, I'd go X-Transbots, they look just as animation accurate, more-so in some cases, and I like the bot mode scale far more, FansToys are way, way, way too big in bot mode. 

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, I'm not super impressed with FT's Wildrider. I ordered their Breakdown, though. 

[Kuma Style]

 

[sh9000]

I’ll stick with the XTB Stunticons.

[Mechapilot77]

XTB going to town with the stunticons

normal g1 toon versions, g2 exclsuive repaints and now g1 toy versions.  they do look dramaticaly different (these toy versions).  i only had 2 of the sunticons as a kid so that is one team where my primary reference (well nostalgia generator) would be the toon...they toy bot heads give them totaly different personalities.  i like toy dragstrip and toy dead ends added details and racing stripes but dislike their heads (not a coincidence that I didn't own those two toys i guess). 

i've yet to check my dragstrip's shoulders for what appears to be a latent issue (well some people broke them straight off teh bat but apparenlty som eare just breaking sitting on the shelf)... if mine breaks i hope i can get replacements but i assume thney have the issue corrected wigh the G2 and th toy versions (hopefully)...so i may pick up at toyo version and put the toon head on if all else fails.  anyway, like very other xtb stunticon collector i'm wating on Motor master news.

[anime52k8]

Coming April 2020.

[Sildani]

Nice. 

[JB0]

8 hours ago, Sildani said:

Nice. 

You mean Nicee.

[M'Kyuun]

Nicee turned out, well, nice! Even with the stylish take and anthropic embellishments, it's still Arcee. Giving a choice of heads is a nice touch, too, and I like the sculpts of both- much more modern anime inspired. I wish she didn't have quite so much back kibble, but I think they did an admirable job of trying to stylistically minimize it to thin protruding bits akin to what we see on Gundams and other anime mecha/bots. Definitely would make for a striking presence on the shelf.

[JB0]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I wish she didn't have quite so much back kibble, but I think they did an admirable job of trying to stylistically minimize it to thin protruding bits akin to what we see on Gundams and other anime mecha/bots.

Ordinarily, I'd have something to say about that much junk hanging off the back, but ordinarily they just throw parts back there with little concern for aesthetics. In this case they owned it, and made it look awesome.

'S like Bayformers Crosshairs wearing half his car shell as a trenchcoat, only with more boobs and jetpack.

[peter]

On 9/30/2019 at 5:25 PM, anime52k8 said:

Coming April 2020.

How do I buy one of these without the wife calling me hentai?

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

2 hours ago, peter said:

How do I buy one of these without the wife calling me hentai?

Just lock all the doors and secretly transform it to bot mode when she's gone.

[Chronocidal]

I'm actually somewhat comedically disappointed that they didn't work the chestplate into the dashboard somehow in vehicle mode.   Still think it looks a bit too bulbous, but it is what it is.

Seriously though.. it just looks good.  I don't even buy transformers, and I want one for the aesthetic.

[M'Kyuun]

If Nicee does well, I wouldn't mind a Windblade in this style from Big Firebird.

I hope BF give you optional chestplates to vary her endowments. The overall figure is just beautiful, though. Great style.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

If Nicee does well, I wouldn't mind a Windblade in this style from Big Firebird.

BFB did show some teaser artwork of Windblade. As long as Nicee sells I'd guess that's their next project.

[eXis10z]

10 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Seriously though.. it just looks good.  I don't even buy transformers, and I want one for the aesthetic.

This. Finally a female bot amongst all the male-ish ones in the display.

[M'Kyuun]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

BFB did show some teaser artwork of Windblade. As long as Nicee sells I'd guess that's their next project.

Cool. She's a character that I think would translate very well within their aesthetic.

[mikeszekely]

11 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Cool. She's a character that I think would translate very well within their aesthetic.

I'm not sold on the alt mode, but if the robot looks like their concept art then I wholeheartedly agree.

The way her wings hang off of her hips give me a very Chinese fantasy heroine vibe.

[Kuma Style]