The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[derex3592]

@Convectuoso - I went back and forth on that in my head like 1000 times while I was waiting on the stickers to arrive.  Honestly, there's no "right" way I don't think. G1 line art shows mostly the way I did it, the original G1 toys were flipped, (which is what I grew up with), and then the MP-11 Molds look like that just decided to do a little bit of both! So hey, whatever floats your Cheerios! LOL! 

 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Convectuoso said:

But, aren't the logos upside down?

[Convectuoso]

Well, I guess I was wrong, then. It's like the UN Spacy text on the Valkyries' gun. What may look right from a point of view looks wrong from another. 

Well, since mine are just placeholders till the other logos I bought arrive, I will keep them as they are and then put the others in the right direction.

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

Well, I guess I was wrong, then.

Well...

So there's precedence for both.

My personal preference is upside down in robot mode, because that's how it was in the cartoon, and because that makes it right side up if you were looking at his jet mode from above with the nose pointed "up."  That's the same orientation for the USAF marks on real F-15s I've seen.  But the G1 toy had it the other way around, and it makes a certain sense that an alien robot would wear his badge right side up in robot mode and not give a hoot about the alt mode.  Ultimately it's whatever you prefer.

[M'Kyuun]

Well, y'know, we're not limited by 80's technology or mindset anymore, so why not put the faction symbol on a flip-able panel so it's facing appropriately regardless of mode. Seems a simple enough solution to me. 

In all honesty, I've never really noticed which direction the logo was facing on my Seekers; my focus is always on the engineering- what they did right, what they could have done to make it better. That's usually the main area of criticism for me. In the Earthrise vs Siege comparison, the bot mode for the Siege toy exceeds that of the Earthrise by a fair margin. It's toy de-evolution at it's most disappointing.  Actually, no- T30 Arcee to Earthrise Arcee is the most egregious case now. Beyond disappointing; it's downright depressing. 

[David Hingtgen]

On 7/4/2020 at 12:07 AM, Convectuoso said:

Today I took the time to build my Kubianbao Grimlock kit

I'm really happy with it

Based purely on your post, I ordered one the next day, just got it yesterday, and started working on it today.  I'm painting a few bits on mine, so it won't be done today by any means.   

[M'Kyuun]

I like how that hobby mat is perfectly reminiscent of the old G1 background. Every time I see it now, I hear the intro/outro music between commercials.

[Negotiator]

wow, nothing compares to holding this in hand. beautiful!  It's not mine.  Brother brought it over since he got it first.  

Edited July 18, 2020 by Negotiator

[CoryHolmes]

Wow, which Unicron is that???

[Negotiator]

6 minutes ago, CoryHolmes said:

Wow, which Unicron is that???

https://showzstore.com/2nd-release-01-studio-cell-unicron-aka-zv-02-core-star-lord-of-chaos_p2320.html

[mikeszekely]

My Unicron had an estimated delivery date for this Monday. But Pitney Bowes is involved, so I'll see it to believe it.

[CoryHolmes]

1 hour ago, Negotiator said:

https://showzstore.com/2nd-release-01-studio-cell-unicron-aka-zv-02-core-star-lord-of-chaos_p2320.html

 

I love this!  I wish I had the money and space to spend on him!

[Convectuoso]

11 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Based purely on your post, I ordered one the next day, just got it yesterday, and started working on it today.  I'm painting a few bits on mine, so it won't be done today by any means.   

I'm glad I could help. It was a fun build for me

[derex3592]

I wanna see a pro panel line and lightly weather that Unicron. My god...it would be beautiful! 

[David Hingtgen]

22 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Wow, which Unicron is that???

The good one.  

[Kuma Style]

 

[mikeszekely]

After being killed by a C&D from Hasbro... after weeks at sea and, even worse, going from customs into Pitney Bowes' network, it's finally arrived!  This is ArmorToys' Armor-MB08.

I like the colorful yet minimalist design to the box.  What you see on the top, that's it.  There's nothing printed on the back or the sides, and aside from the super non-descriptive name on it there's nothing to indicate what's in the box.  And what's in the box is a head and some wings.

The head is clearly Unicron's.  It looks pretty good, with blue and orange paint and metallic green on the eyes.  Now, I'll say this- if the '86 movie is your standard for Unicron this head's not totally there.  In the movie his mustache really blended into his cheeks and stopped at his jawline, and he didn't have teeth (although he frequently had teeth in the Marvel comics).  If I had to guess the design and sculpt of this head was probably based more on Guido Guidi's art from Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, which is the first image you'll see if you search for "Unicron" on the Transformers Wiki.

There's a cover on the back of his head, and if you open it up you can stuff in two or three LR44 batteries.

If you push the black button on the back of his head his eyes will light up.  I like how they're painted, too, so his eyes don't look dead when they're turned off.  That's not the only light, by the way.  If you push the top of his head in it'll glow orange!

Well, that review's a bit anticlimactic, yeah?  Depending on where you order from this might be a sold on it's own, but most places are selling it as a bundle with another piece.

This piece is 01 Studio's Cell.  This box has marginally more information on the back and sides, but the front cover is dominated by cute drawings of little monsters.  This time what you'll find in the box is Unicron's body.  It seems that ArmorToys and 01 Studio are both aliases.  What we have here is Zeta Toys' Core Star, the Unicron they revealed last year around the time Hasbro was doing the Haslab for their Unicron.  Breaking it up and releasing it at two products under two different aliases is apparently Zeta's idea of taking care not to incur Hasbro's wrath again.

Cell comes with a lot of accessories.  You get two discs and two cones.  The cones can peg into the discs.  You'll also get a bag of screw hole covers, four sprues with spikes on them, a small flat head screwdriver, and eight alternate panels.  I'll cover the spikes and screw hole covers in a separate post later.

I don't know if it's really important or not, but Cell's instructions an the few product photos do indicate that you can remove the plugs from his shoulders, put the discs on, then put the plug bag to hold it in place.  Those discs can stay in that spot in alt mode, and the cones can even attach to them so he's got cones shooting off of his shoulders.  For some reason.

That's not really why you're here, though, is it?  Fix the thing where his head should be into a collar, and you can peg the ArmorToys head into place.  Pull the plugs out of his shoulders and toss them aside.  You can then plug the wings in and furl them out.  There you go, now you've got a Unicron!  

Before I continue, I should point out that much has been made of this Unicron's size.  Sure, it's bigger and better than Armada Unicron, but it's actually a little smaller than Siege Omega, which makes him significantly smaller than Titan Metroplex and Fortress Maximus, the ToyWorld/Zeta combiners, DX9's Menasor (and presumably XTB and FT's, and FT's Superion), and DX9 and Fans Toys's Omega Supremes.  It's also a lot smaller than the Haslab Unicron is supposed to be.

Frankly, none of that matters much to me.  Thing is, he could be as tall as I am and he's still be wildly out-of-scale with any other figure you'd possibly own.  He's already big enough to be a bit cumbersome to manipulate.  I think he's fine at this size.

In fact, I dare say he's very fine.  There are a few inaccuracies; the "craters" on his chest and hip skirts are symmetrical on this guy when they're actually supposed to be asymmetric.  He's got sharp finger tips- again, while this was sometimes a Marvel Comics thing it's probably based on Guidi's artwork.  Either way he didn't have claws in the movie.  The sides of his feet and his heels are a bluish color instead of white, and he's got a tiny bit of kibble near his knees.  The feet and knees, though, are the only real concessions to the fact that he transforms.  From the back you'll see he's remarkably clean.  Indeed, the back of his torso is identical to the front.  This isn't just a case of Zeta/01 Studio/whoever mirroring parts, either; if you go back and watch the movie you'll see that the only difference between his back and his front is that the red abs protrude a bit in the front but are recessed on his back, so this Unicron is actually like 90% accurate even from the back.  This is, in my opinion, a huge improvement over the mess of panels stacked all over the back of the Haslab version.  Which isn't to say that Cell doesn't have a lot of panels involved in his transformation, just that Cell is better about hiding them.

Cell has really good articulation.  His head seems to be on a ball inside the head (we know the bottom is a peg), because he can look up and down a little, but he's actually got more sideways tilt.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and are actually double-jointed laterally (also ratcheted) for around 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel on soft ratchets.  His elbows are double-jointed, both ratchets, and I'd say good for 150 degrees of curl or so.  He's got ratcheted wrist swivels.  All of his fingers have ball joints at the base and two additional pin-hinged knuckles.  His waist swivels on yet another ratchet.  He's got a (ratcheted) double hinge in his torso for both an ab crunch and a back bend.  His hips ratchet forward and backward just shy of 90 degrees, and laterally a full 90 degrees on some very tight ratchets.  His thighs swivel on what seems like one of the few friction joints on the figure (although he's also got ratcheted knee swivels).  His ratcheted knees bend 90 degrees.  His heel can bend down, and the front of his foot can bend up and down a little.  Despite those hinges being friction they're toleranced well enough to support his weight (so far). Additionally, he's got ratcheted double-jointed ankles that give him over 45 degrees of ankle pivot, and they can also swivel (friction).  Plus the wing-things come off of his shoulders have a ratchted hinge that moves the top toward his shoulders and the bottoms away from him.  Friction hinges at the top allow the three spines to splay away from each other.

There are a lot of nice visual touches here and there.  If you open some flaps you'll find paint in spots that don't show in either robot or alt mode.  In his chest specifically, which you open for transformation, you'll see some molded and painted details like the orb with pistons that start pumping after Unicron ate Lithone, and the ball of monitors he used to watch Prime pass the Matrix to Ultra Magnus.

If you open the sides of his arms you'll find molded on the inside the clawed cables that were grabbing at the Autobots after they crashed into Unicron and got separated from Hot Rod, although these are unpainted.

Oh, and while we have his arm opened like that you'll see that you can remove the panel you opened up.  It's just pegged into that gray part.  Removing it allows you to swap it the orange part for a blue one.  There's another swappable panel on the other side of his arm, too.  The thing is the yellow parts are accurate for robot mode, but the blue parts make for more accurate colors in alt mode.  If you want accuracy in both modes and don't mind partsforming you can swap them whenever you transform him, otherwise you'll have to pick your poison.

The other swappable panels are for the front and back of his shoulders.  Now, swapping these panels requires you to remove a pin (marked).  And it's a pain.  The instructions show you using the screwdriver (that serves no other purpose, by the way) to push the pin out from the bottom.  Thing is, the screwdriver's head is bigger than the pinhole.  Even if you find something that does fit, like the pin punch I had lying around, it has to have a long end because the handle doesn't quite fit around the corners of his shoulder.  I'll say this, yellow is what was installed in the factory, and the easiest thing to do is live with it because these are not parts you're going to swap every time you transform.  That said a compromise is to swap just the backs of his shoulders.  If you transform him right they'll end up above his equator, just in front of where the ring connects to the side, while the yellow fronts will end up below the equator.  I can live with that.

Yeah, speaking of equators, you guys know Unicron turns into a planet that eats planets so you're basically transforming Cell into a ball.  He actually scrunches up a good bit, and unlike his older Armada cousin is quite round.  I'm not going to lie, transforming him takes some work.  I was sweating when I was finished.  He's just so large and has so many ratchets that moving his parts takes effort, but once you know what you're doing it's honestly not that bad.  I do have some tips.  For one, take the wings off.  Yeah, partsforming.  No, it's not strictly necessary.  But having them out of the way will help.  Second, if you put the spikes on him, expect that you're going to knock a few off.  There are clips that fold out of the panels on the backs of his shoulders that are meant to clip into the panels that come out of the top of his shoulders; if you transformed him properly the clip on your left (regardless of which side of him you're looking at) will clip in, the one on the right won't, so don't even bother with it.  Finally, and this is the most important tip I can give you, two wing tips on each wing have hinges that bend them inward, allowing them to meet their counterpart on the other wing and for the supports that connect the ring to the north and south poles.  On those tips you find a flat tab near the tips, hook tabs at the hinges, and a second flat tab between the tip tab and the hook tabs.  Get a pair of hobby nippers and cut those middle tabs off all four parts.  If you leave them on you will fight to get the rings to join, but if you cut them off and line the tips with the holes the bottom tabs will lock naturally, you'll have enough wiggle to get the hook tabs to lock, and between the bottom tab and the hook tabs they'll hold together just fine without the ones you cut off.

Being so round makes it hard to just set Cell somewhere.  Grab one of the discs and plug the cone into it.  You'll notice gaps in the cone that allow the Cell's ring to run through it, and the combination disc and cone acts as a stand for the planet mode.  I'll say this, the planet is round and spikey, it's got all the features you'd expect to see on Unicron... but the ring could stand to be bigger and farther from the planet's surface.  The spikes could be bigger.  The maw is looking a little flat.  These are all things that the Haslab version looks like it might do better.  You'll also notice that the gold equatorial band doesn't go all the way around to the back.

If you swapped in all the blue parts the rest of the coloring isn't a big deal, but if you didn't you'll also notice bigger yellow on the sides of the globe.  The asymmetry in the yellow on the northern hemisphere compared to the southern is where I swapped the blue panels into the backs of his shoulders.  Again, these issues in coloration are things that Hasbro is doing better with their Unicron.  If you're getting a Unicron primarily for planet mode then maybe that's the way you should go, but I think the trade-offs to the planet mode are worth it for the much cleaner robot mode.

The teeth in Cell's maw can fold out and open.  From the side, and if you display him eating something, it doesn't look too bad.  Be aware, though, that from the front you're going to have a big hole with Cell's head tucked way inside.  There are fixes for this, but they all involve partsforming.  One thing you could do is simply pull his head off.

Alternatively, you could grab the second disc.  It has four pegs that fit into four small holes around Cell's maw, with little cutouts to go around the mandible horns.  It's molded to look like a more movie-accurate maw.  As a bonus, with Cell's head still stuffed inside you can use the LED on top of his head to light the maw up.

You can even stick the other cone onto the disc to give Unicron his tractor beam that he uses to suck up his food, although that's personally not my favorite way to display him.

Cell has a good, but not great, planet mode, but I've already said that I think the trade-offs are worth it to have an excellent robot mode.  It's not totally fair of me to judge this against a toy that I haven't handled and isn't even out yet, but on looks alone I prefer Cell to the Haslab one.  The robot mode is a huge improvement that more than compensates for having a slightly worse alt mode.  The robot mode is solid, stable, and has excellent articulation.  The transformation takes some effort but it's impressive to go from such a clean robot to a sphere.  And once you have all the pieces in place that sphere is solid.  Yes, I had some tabs that would pop out while I was trying to line up other tabs and get all the panels locked down, but I didn't have the trouble a certain Youtube personality seemed to.  I'll confess that I don't know that I'd be as enthusiastic with him if I paid the $400 price he wound up going for. but I do think that paying that for Cell is still a better deal than $600 for the Haslab Unicron.  For the $300 price I managed to lock in with my preorder I think he's an amazing figure and would highly recommend any fan of the '86 movie to try to get one.  I know we've still go half a year to go, but as of right now this is the my number #1 figure of 2020.

[Negotiator]

dammit, mine is still in pitney limbo. wtf.

great review btw. 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Negotiator

[derex3592]

Awesome review! I really wish I had gotten an early pre-order in for this guy!!! Oh well, I don't really know where the heck I would put him anyway...

[Mechapilot77]

mike, wow that looks nice.  great write up.  he looks great.  i do wish he had more detailing on him.  i remember the look of unicron in the movie when they did close ups of him transforming...he had lots of detail.  that could have ben conveyed in more panel lines etc.  that being said, the haslab one has that but this unicron does just about everything better.  the one other complaint i have is that his wings and the ring around teh planet mode are too small IMO.  i dont' know if its accurate to the source material though but they look a tad small.

[mikeszekely]

@Negotiator (and anyone else who is getting or planning on getting Cell), this if for you guys (assuming you didn't see me post this pretty much verbatim at TFW2005).

On 7/24/2020 at 12:22 AM, mikeszekely said:

I'll cover the spikes and screw hole covers in a separate post later.

The instructions for Cell aren't the best.  It's covering the entire process of balling Cell up (a process that took me over an hour my first time) on a single two-sided instruction sheet.  A sheet, I'll remind you, that spares room to tell you to push out a pin to swap the shoulder panels using a provided screwdriver that's too big to actually perform the task.  But the instructions don't tell you what to do with all those screw hole covers and spikes.  Luckily, you guys have me.

Do note that most of Unicron's parts are mirrored.  So, for example, I might say something like "this cover goes on the side of his leg."  That'll probably mean the inside of his right leg, but the outside of his left leg.  I think it'll be clear what I'm talking about when you have him in hand.

Anyway...

We'll start off easy. You'll have eight of these blue-gray screw hole covers. They go in the lower legs. If you look at the molded detail on the other side you'll see that the line across them is basically horizontal. You'll also note that those details are slightly recessed so you'll want to push them in pretty far.

Before we continue let's take a closer look at the orange screw covers. There will be six loose ones; two with lines, two flat circles, and two that are kind of like rectangles with bulges on the short sides. Then there's two T-shaped sprues with two covers each and two Y-shaped sprues with two more covers each.

The loose covers all go on his biceps. The rectangle goes in the top front so that the flat sides line up with the molding around the top of his bicep. The flat circle one goes toward the back. The one with the line goes at the bottom, and it'll protrude a bit. Again, if you look at the molded detail on the other side you'll see it protrudes there, too, and the line on it angles up toward the front.

Look carefully at the T-shaped sprues. You'll see that one of the covers is thinner than the other. Clip the thin one off, and it'll go into the side of his thigh, nice and flush.

Now lift up his hip skirts. One hip will be flat, the other has a screw. Take one of the fatter covers from the T-shaped sprue and stick fit it over the exposed screw. Then spin him around. With the hip pieces mirrored you'll see the same thing, one flat and one exposed screw. That's where the other one goes. However, like a few other people have mentioned one hip on my copy seems pretty good and the other seems a bit tight. If you think you might want to open up one (or both) hips to lube up the ratchets, maybe shorten a spring a little, then you should probably leave these covers off. His hip skirts cover them anyway.

Lastly we've got the Y-shaped sprues. These covers go on the planet horns (although you don't have to transform him all the way if you don't want to right now; just open his chest and back, pull the flaps with the horns out, and then fold the horns out from behind the flaps. Note the molding on each cover. The one that's got a little molding near the edge goes near the base of the horn, an the one with the molding right down the middle goes near the middle of the horn. The molding on the covers lines up with the molding on the horns.

OK, now let's do the spikes.

First, you'll have two sprues with six spikes each. These are the easy ones. Each sprue has enough spikes for one arm (inside and outside); you'll need to decide if you're going to use the yellow parts or the blue, because you only have enough spikes for one color. Now, notice that while all six look the same at a glance the middle pair actually have slightly longer tips, and they all have a c-clip at the base. Push the c-clips onto the arm, with the longer spike in between the shorter ones, on both sides of his arm. Once they're clipped on they can fold flat against his arm. If you're going for movie accuracy the spikes on the inside of his arm should be flat, the ones on the outside should stick up.  They'll all be up for planet mode.

Now, you should still have two identical sprues of spikes left. Before we continue let's take a closer look at one. On one side you'll have spikes that are at an angle to the base with their c-clip. You'll have four others that look very almost the same, but take a closer look at the bottom near their c-clips. Notice how two of them have thicker clips that are basically flush with the spike, but two have thinner clips that leave a little ledge (circled).

Take the ones with the thinner clips. They'll go on top of his shoulders. They fold like his arm spikes, and for robot mode you'll want them flat.

Now, take the sides of his forearm (where you put the spikes earlier), unpeg them, and fold them back. Take the back of his arm near his elbow and pull it away from the rest of his arm a bit, exposing the gray post the whole flayed it can swivel on, then bend it back toward the elbow. Be careful; if you just go straight to folding the arm back without sliding out that gray post you'll stress or break the tab near his elbow (like a certain masked Youtuber broke in his review).  Once the the back of his arm is free spin it so the inside is facing you and you'll see a trench. The spikes with the thicker clips fit into little bars inside the trench. They'll stick out for planet mode, but for now you can fold them back in and close his arm back up.

Last but not least are the angled spikes. You might want to pop Unicron's wings off if you already put them on; the spikes are going around the hole where the wings plug in on his shoulder. I'm not sure what Zeta/Studio 1's intention is or what the consensus is on this, but I clipped them on that the spikes angle away from each other. When you're done you can pop the wings back on. 

When you're all done, he should like this in robot mode, with the spikes on the outside of his arms pointed out and the ones on the inside of his arm and the tops of his shoulders folded down.  The ones around where his wings connect are soft of opened out, like flower petals.  Pointy flower petals of death.  In planet mode all the spikes will be up.  The ones on his shoulders and in the arm trenches will be along his equator, while the ones on his arms will be above and below the equator, just behind the ring.  The spikes that were open like petals should stand up a bit more, pointing toward the ring.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Thanks for the info and review, mike-I was definitely curious about this Uni.

[sh9000]

That Unicron is awesome.

[M'Kyuun]

I agree. I supported the Haslab project, but part of me wishes maybe I should have gone for this instead, as it does a far better job in the two areas I tend to prioritize- bot mode and engineering. Unicron is nigh impossible to realize into his planet alt mode without panel-forming; it's the only practical solution, but how that panel-forming is handled and integrated makes a world of difference, pun intended. And those differences are stark when comparing the cleanliness of this Unicron to Haslab's version, festooned with its plethora of obvious and non-integrated accordioned panlels. I still think the basic sculpt of the Haslab is excellent- the artistry is not in question- Takara's peeps are talented, and that makes a close up inspection of the Haslab version a feast for the eyes. Too, Takara got a lot of the details right, such as the asymmetrical circular patterns on the chest. And of course, the Haslab's planet mode is gorgeous, and very accurate to the animation model. But for all its pluses, at the end of the day, I'm a robot guy, and the Cell version is superior in that respect. So, I'm saddled with a little regret; for a price tag in excess of $600, one is inclined to think the engineering would be far better, and all those panels integrated more seamlessly into the bot mode. Alas I'm committed, and I'll reserve judgement when I finally have it in hand, likely next year. However, as of this writing, I find myself drawn more to the Cell (Zeta) version for all it did right in favor of the robot mode.

[Negotiator]

Has anyone else's unicron from showz been in limbo after it hit California on July 14th?  Ive got no updates since

[twich]

So, with the Robot Heroes KO Oversized MP-11 Airstrike/seekers, how good of a toy is it? Is it 1/48 scale? Where, other than eBay is a good place to order it? I have seen a few reviews, and saw another member comments on page 111 of this thread to include comparing it in size to a VF-31J with supers, and it looks huge! Which is why I would like one, had the original MP-03 that Shoji Kawamori helped them with, and that was awesome! Thanks to anyone who can help out!

[claude grant]

1 hour ago, Negotiator said:

Has anyone else's unicron from showz been in limbo after it hit California on July 14th?  Ive got no updates since

Ordered mine from TF-DIRECT, but same result as you've gotten so far.  Emily said it would ship in early June, and since then crickets.

[Lexomatic]

On Friday, mikeszekely wrote:

Quote

He's got sharp finger tips- again, while this was sometimes a Marvel Comics thing it's probably based on Guidi's artwork.

There are definitely some design cues in Cell that resemble, as noted, the image on page 50 of The Transformers: The Ultimate Guide (2004), but I believe the notion dates to the original Floro Dery concept. There's a second movie poster (it's on the back of the collector's sticker album for the 1986 movie (39 cents, 49 in Canada), which I happen to have in a box two meters from this very PC) that shows Unicron in robot mode, in which his fingers are round and have talon-like fingernails. "Pointy fingertips" is a hybrid between "blunt square fingers" and "talons". (FWIW, the poster's composition is odd -- several of the characters are facing in random directions.)

[Lexomatic]

A banner ad led me to an intriguing eBay listing for "WJ Transform Computron Wars", an interpretation of the G1 Technobot combiner team. At $60 it's priced like a knock-off, but it's not Maketoys Quantron (2014) or the official Unite Warriors (2016), or any other design I'm familiar with -- wait, it might be an alternate deco or knockoff of "Weijiang Calculation King" (eBay listing for that, with a photo of the toys in their packaging), which has a red and white deco resembling Jetfire.

The topology (which of the five figures become which limbs) isn't the conventional fusilateral quintrocombiner:

• Afterburner (motorcycle with canopy) - blue - left leg
• Nosecone (drill tank) - brown and yellow - right leg
• Scattershot (plane with nosecone cannon) - white - arms
• Strafe (plane with two nosecones) - red - torso and thighs
• Lightspeed (car, now with hood-mounted supercharger) - red - chest

I recall the brand name Weijiang from the dealer's room at TFcon DC 2017, but I haven't seen the name on merchants like TFsource or -- oh wait, here's a listing on Robot Kingdom for G1-styled "Megathron".

 

[Kuma Style]

Alright so finally at a place where things are good and unpacked and I can do regular photography/reviews like normal. Here's my Shadow Scythe collection. On the outside it's Official/Authentic 2008 SG Rodimus and Henkei Wildrider and in the middle are two customs I had done along with a custom painted Shadow Scythe armor on the red.
 

Note: the face on the SG Rodimus armored version is a kit from Dr. Wu that I never knew existed until I saw it with the Scythe armor I purchased. I love it.

[sh9000]

[Chronocidal]

On 7/27/2020 at 6:34 PM, twich said:

So, with the Robot Heroes KO Oversized MP-11 Airstrike/seekers, how good of a toy is it? Is it 1/48 scale? Where, other than eBay is a good place to order it? I have seen a few reviews, and saw another member comments on page 111 of this thread to include comparing it in size to a VF-31J with supers, and it looks huge! Which is why I would like one, had the original MP-03 that Shoji Kawamori helped them with, and that was awesome! Thanks to anyone who can help out!

I only picked up one of the Robot Heroes releases, the original Greenscream colors, since I really just love the pseudo-real F-15 scheme.  I don't know how subsequent releases might be, since I picked mine up pretty early, but the one I have is rock solid.

It's slightly larger than 1/48 scale actually, by maybe half an inch in length (close enough for me), and they made a bunch of improvements to the original mold that really work well.  The only minor disappointment I had with it was that they wound up cancelling their add-on pack that would have included the dual sidewinder pylons, and external fuel tanks.  Those would be pretty easy to just source from a 1/48 model kit though, so I wasn't too upset.

[ghostryder]

On 7/27/2020 at 7:34 PM, twich said:

So, with the Robot Heroes KO Oversized MP-11 Airstrike/seekers, how good of a toy is it? Is it 1/48 scale? Where, other than eBay is a good place to order it? I have seen a few reviews, and saw another member comments on page 111 of this thread to include comparing it in size to a VF-31J with supers, and it looks huge! Which is why I would like one, had the original MP-03 that Shoji Kawamori helped them with, and that was awesome! Thanks to anyone who can help out!

I've posted pics of mine on TFW2005.  I think they are great toys, and the leg sculpt improvements over the MP-11 mold help make them look less blocky and give a pseudo-ankle tilt. 

Not sure where to get them now, however.  I got all mine off of ShowZ in the past.  Keep in mind there is another OS seeker mold that's sightly smaller, and without the leg mold improvements (see these on ebay). These are not as nice and the Robot Heroes.

I've painted mine up with G1 toy colors.  They are still my favorite seeker mold to play with and display just because of the sheer size:

 

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by ghostryder

[Negotiator]

Pretty cool

[sh9000]

1 hour ago, ghostryder said:

I've posted pics of mine on TFW2005.  I think they are great toys, and the leg sculpt improvements over the MP-11 mold help make them look less blocky and give a pseudo-ankle tilt. 

Not sure where to get them now, however.  I got all mine off of ShowZ in the past.  Keep in mind there is another OS seeker mold that's sightly smaller, and without the leg mold improvements (see these on ebay). These are not as nice and the Robot Heroes.

I've painted mine up with G1 toy colors.  They are still my favorite seeker mold to play with and display just because of the sheer size:

 

 

Very cool and nice work.  Plus they scale well with the DX VF-1 line.