The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mark-1s]

/\/\/\/\

Nice review and hilarious pics mikeszekely! 

I remember seeing him years ago and thought it was absolutely absurd, but cool at the same time. 

if I'm not mistaken, I think Toy Wolf also did a transforming urinal to go with Dirty Man.

Edit: Found it! 

Waterman: https://tfsource.com/toywolf/w-02-water-man/

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by mark-1s

[sh9000]

Cool pics @mikeszekely.

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, mark-1s said:

if I'm not mistaken, I think Toy Wolf also did a transforming urinal to go with Dirty Man.

Toy Wolf actually did two more figures in the series. Stay tuned...😉

[Convectuoso]

NewAge's Arcee

 

[technoblue]

Very nice. It looks like Newage compromised on Arcee’s alt mode to give us a better bot mode. IMO, that’s the way to do it if you have to add constraints.

Oh, is NA giving their Arcee a swappable chest piece like FT Rouge? I do like how the soles of her feet become the back of the car seats.

[Convectuoso]

16 minutes ago, technoblue said:

NA giving their Arcee a swappable chest piece like FT Rouge

I don't see one in the accessories picture.

 

17 minutes ago, technoblue said:

I do like how the soles of her feet become the back of the car seats.

I noticed that too. It's good that they're not doing the typical transformation used for Arcee 

[mikeszekely]

Car's not the best I've seen, but not the worst either.  Solid bot mode.  Impressive that NewAge can apparently pull of Arcee better at Legends scale than most companies could at MP scale.

[M'Kyuun]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Car's not the best I've seen, but not the worst either.  Solid bot mode.  Impressive that NewAge can apparently pull of Arcee better at Legends scale than most companies could at MP scale.

Agree.  Big boot there in car mode to hide the legs, but I applaud the novel approach to transformation. That bot mode is remarkable. IMHO, Dr. Wu's Amie handles the car mode and the backpack cleanup more accurately and efficiently, but I think NA's bot mode has the superior proportions. Hoping this will spur Magic Square to unveil their version soon, as I'm curious to see how they solve the various issues inherent w/ creating a G1 Arcee toy .  Too, options are good.

[JB0]

24 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Big boot there in car mode to hide the legs,

One might say she's got some junk in her trunk.

[technoblue]

9 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

I don't see one in the accessories picture.

True; however, I like the potential choice in possibilities this implies if the enhancement wasn’t just rendered in.

I mean, the FT gimmick was an okay idea but I felt it was executed poorly since the swap on those low tolerance parts could damage the paint. That happened on my copy of Rouge. I’m curious about whether NA figured out how to do the gimmick at this scale and avoid the downsides.

But if they are simply teasing another potential version of Arcee, like an H48c(urvy), that’s okay by me too.

[derex3592]

That Newage Arcee looks darn good in bot mode! 

[derex3592]

First TF'ers in two years... Newage Cyclonus and Galvatron! I gotta say these both look great in robot mode.  They feel excellent in hand. Galvatron comes with two extra faces and a little Matrix Of Leadership. I do like them, but at the prices these are now, I can't justify the price anymore, so these will prob be my last two.  These are cool for about $50 a piece which is what the originals were give or take... Now for these two it was creeping up on $200. Luckily shipping was free. 

[Convectuoso]

That's a high price. Where did you get them?

[mikeszekely]

OK, I've got another transforming figure that isn't really a Transformer™.  And while our corner of the internet is really replete with aircraft aficionados, I'll confess I was thinking of @M'Kyuun when I picked this up.  This being Bowu School's 苍鲛 (Cangjiao).

OK, before I get going too far, let's talk about the name.  I found this guy at Show.Z Store under the name "CangJiao White Shark."  The thing is, the Chinese "Cangjiao" is a little odd.  The second character, 鲛(jiao), does mean "shark," but it's not really what you would say if you were talking about a shark in modern Chinese; that'd be 鲨鱼(shayu).  I found the first character 苍(cang) is to be a bit ambiguous.  It can be understood to mean pale blue, pale gray, deep blue, or deep green... colors which are not exactly the same, and all of which have other more common names in Chinese.  However, it's often found with other characters to make different words.  For example, 苍天(cangtian) means heaven, 上苍(shangcang) is something like "god in heaven", and 苍蝇(cangying) is a housefly.  It's that last one that has me thinking this is some kind of Chinese play on words, which I'll explain in a bit.

Anyway... a lot about Cangjiao makes me think that Bowu School is a company that was trying very hard to make something appealing to collectors in China with no real experience in actually making transforming toys for adult collectors.  I mean, on the one hand, they clearly put a lot of work into the aesthetics.  Cangjiao is one part Autobot, one part mythic Chinese warrior, blending mechanical detail on his knees and lats and visored robot face with shoulder armor, chest armor, and hip skirts that look like old Chinese armor.  Even the helmet part of his head seems to blend elements of Chinese fantasy with Gundam.  And he's painted from top to bottom- not just the gold filagree or the blue accents, but all the off-white and gunmetal is painted, too.

However, there's a certain amateurish nature to the underlying design.  He's got huge feet, undersized arms, and positively tiny hands.  You have to bend his knee to get the kneepads out of the way if you want to raise his hip skirts in the front.  And, let's say I let the wings dangling from his hips slide as being Kawamori-esque, and I similarly overlook the only-slightly-folded tail on his legs as common Transformers design, there's still an abundance of kibble that doesn't really do anything, like the portion of the jet's spine stuck on the inside edges of his legs or the canards poking straight out of his back.  I can't really show it in pictures, but it's in the way that Cangjiao feels, too.  The plastic feels a bit more brittle than something HasTak or some of the more popular third party companies might use, and I had a couple issues with my copy right out of the box that we'll get to as we go over this figure, but from the start I'll mention that the transparent canopy on his chest fell off.  I wound up gluing it in place- don't worry, it's not designed to open or anything.

Oh, and size-wise, I'm not sure how he'd fit into your collection.  He's a bit taller than even Maverick here, which puts him a little over a head taller than even a bigger mainline figure like Galvatron, but a little shorter than an MP Seeker.

We've got a few accessories here.  The largest and most obvious accessory is a large pole with some silver and gold paint at one end.  There's also two translucent blue flame effects- they're a hard plastic, not the rubbery stuff that you might get with a Hasbro Transformer.  I'm not really a fan of the sculpt, or how hollow they feel.  Lastly, you get two larger missiles (presumably YJ-83 anti-ship missiles) and two pairs of smaller missiles (PL-8 air-to-air missiles) permanently attached to gray racks.

Cangjiao's head is on a ball joint that can swivel and has more sideways tilt than you'd likely need, but due to the shape of his helmet has a mediocre upward range and a fairly limited downward tilt.  His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees; there's a ratcheted transformation hinge where the arms attach to the torso that you can use to go beyond 90.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on a soft ratchet.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers are a bit like the old MP cars or Earthrise Optimus' where they're molded as one piece in a permanent curl but hinged at the base, with a fixed thumb.  There's no waist swivel or ab crunch.  His hip skirts, front and back, hinge out of the way so his hips can go 90 degrees forward and a little less than that backward on friction joints, then the wings on his hips are on ball joints so they can get out of the way for about 90 degrees of ratcheted lateral motion (with a bit too much of a gap between clicks for my tastes).  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on soft ratchets.  His feet are on ball joints so they have a little up/down tilt, a little under 45 degrees of pivot, and the ability to swivel.  On my copy the right foot feels fine, but the left is extremely loose or possibly broken.  It's just tight enough that I can pop the ball out of the socket for fear of breaking it, but so loose that it just flops freely with no resistance.

You can take one of the two effect parts and attach it to the painted end of the pole, and it makes a sort of spear weapon for Cangjiao.  Although his palm looks like Bowu School tried to cut out a 5mm port in his hand it's simply too open, and there's no tabs or anything to lock the spear in place.  That said, I haven't had too much trouble just putting it in his hand and closing his fingers around it.  The tension should be enough to keep the spear in place, as long as you don't bump it.

As for his missiles, the smaller ones use a small tab to plug onto his forearms, and the larger ones plug onto his back for storage.  I couldn't find any storage for the other effect part, though.

Transformation was a bit iffy for Cangjiao.  Parts of it are pretty basic, like the way the legs plug together and do the combiner wars bit of opening the lower legs to fold the thighs down inside.  Parts of it are kind of interesting, like the way his spine stretches or the way his lats spin around to form intakes.  The problem, though, is that too much of it (the wings, the hip skirts, the backpack) involves moving and trying to lock in very thin pieces of plastic that, again, feels a lot more brittle than you might be used to. 

But... ok, that alt mode is pretty gorgeous.  Bowu School apparently got a license from Shenyang Aircraft Company to make Cangjiao.  Which brings me back to that name, Cangjiao.  See, his alt mode is the J-15* Flying Shark (飞鲨, Feisha).  And remember, 苍 that's part of "fly" like a housefly, and 鲛 that's a word for "shark" that people don't actually use?  Making Cangjiao read like "flying shark" is a very roundabout way.  It'd be a bit like an American company making a licensed transforming F-35 and calling it "Sky Electricty".

*While I'm guessing a lot of MWers already know about the J-15, maybe there's a few readers looking at this thing and saying, "isn't that a Flanker?"  Funny story, that.  See, at one point China was looking for a fighter that could operate from a carrier for its Navy, and they wanted to buy the Su-33 from Russia.  For whatever reason- I've alternately heard that Russia was mad that China reverse-engineered the Su-27s it'd previously sold them and/or that Russia wanted a large up-front payment and a large minimum order to re-start the Su-33 production lines and China didn't want to commit- no deal was ever reached.  So instead China managed to get a Su-33 prototype from Ukraine and gave it to Shenyang, the company that'd previously reverse-engineered the Su-27 to make the J-11, and Shenyang turned out the J-15.

So, yeah, with a licensed alt mode Cangjiao is looking pretty darn good from most angles.  There's not a ton of details like lights or warning marks, but the red band with the star is what the Chinese Navy actually uses and that shark emblem on the tail has been used on at least one of the 50-ish J-15s Shenyang built.  The shape of the plane is mostly accurate, too, with just a little robot elbow peaking out from under the wings and a tail boom that sticks out a bit too far.

Even from the underside, where there's a bit more obvious kibble in the form of the back of the robot head, some visible shoulders, arms, hands, kneepads, and feet, Cangjiao is certainly a lot more transformed and better integrated than a lot of the boxy robots dangling from the underside of a jet that we're used to with even some Masterpiece figures.

While we're looking under there, you'll note that the spear splits into two halves, and one end plugs into the side of the other, so the butt of the spear is the J-15's tail boom.  Frustratingly, you can see that there's a square hole that plugs into a peg on Cangjiao's underside, with the split ends right up against his crotch; if there was just room and a way to tuck a bit more of it under, or if the boom collapsed a bit, it'd be just about perfect.  Alas.  His missiles can also store under the wings, using the actual configuration a J-15 would to carry four PL-8s and two YJ-83 missiles.  The underside of his two small rolling wheels, and there's a landing gear with rolling wheels between his intakes.  The landing gear can't fold back to further tuck between them, and his robot head is in the way in the direction it does fold, so the landing gear is basically permanently deployed... which would bug me more if I wanted to display Cangjiao in jet mode on a flight stand.  But he doesn't come with a flight stand, so... *shrug*.

I did get him to sort of balance on the stand that comes with MP Tracks.  There's no place to plug the stand into, though.

So those effect parts... the reason you get two is because they're meant to plug into his exhausts.  And, wouldn't you know it, I've run into another issue.  One part fits perfectly fine.  The other, though, was either misassembled, or the halves where misfit when it was glued together, but the rear has a gap and it's too wide to plug all the way in.  As such, it just falls right back out.

And where does that all leave us?  On the one hand, a robot that's not a G1 Transformer with some mythic Chinese aesthetics I'm not loving, on a figure feels a bit fragile and already came with a few QC issues out of the box.  On the other hand, one of the better jet modes we've seen on a transforming toy since probably Maverick and an actual, licensed jet mode to boot, and priced the same as a Hasbro Leader-class toy.  I'd ultimately say that Cangjiao's not going to be for everyone, but I think I'd recommend it if you really like transforming jets.  Cangjiao's got enough going for him and a low enough price tag that I'm willing to forgive his flaws.

Oh, yeah.  And for those of you curious... this is unfortunately the only jet from Bowu School, but they do have a few other transforming figures.  Currently there's also a pair of tanks, a Type 15 light tank and a Type 96 MBT (although Show.Z is sold out of both of those), and you can preorder a pair of trucks (a PHL-03 twelve-tube rocket launcher and one hauling a DF-41 ICBM) that turn into robots (like Canjiao and the tanks) and a Chinese-style dragon that turns into that Tiangong space station they're building.

[Kuma Style]

 

 

[derex3592]

9 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

That's a high price. Where did you get them?

@Convectuoso TF Source 

[Convectuoso]

 

32 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

@Convectuoso TF Source 

Their prices are too high. I've been getting mine from ShowZ or AliExpress 

[technoblue]

4 minutes ago, Convectuoso said:

Their prices are too high. I've been getting mine from ShowZ or AliExpress 

+1

I can vouch for ShowZ. I also like their points system. It has come in handy on a couple of my orders. 

[derex3592]

Problem is by the time I get around to buying these, ShowZ is loooong sold out of all the good ones...

[Ignacio Ocamica]

48 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

Problem is by the time I get around to buying these, ShowZ is loooong sold out of all the good ones...

Same here!!

[M'Kyuun]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

OK, I've got another transforming figure that isn't really a Transformer™.  And while our corner of the internet is really replete with aircraft aficionados, I'll confess I was thinking of @M'Kyuun when I picked this up.  This being Bowu School's 苍鲛 (Cangjiao).

OK, before I get going too far, let's talk about the name.  I found this guy at Show.Z Store under the name "CangJiao White Shark."  The thing is, the Chinese "Cangjiao" is a little odd.  The second character, 鲛(jiao), does mean "shark," but it's not really what you would say if you were talking about a shark in modern Chinese; that'd be 鲨鱼(shayu).  I found the first character 苍(cang) is to be a bit ambiguous.  It can be understood to mean pale blue, pale gray, deep blue, or deep green... colors which are not exactly the same, and all of which have other more common names in Chinese.  However, it's often found with other characters to make different words.  For example, 苍天(cangtian) means heaven, 上苍(shangcang) is something like "god in heaven", and 苍蝇(cangying) is a housefly.  It's that last one that has me thinking this is some kind of Chinese play on words, which I'll explain in a bit.

Anyway... a lot about Cangjiao makes me think that Bowu School is a company that was trying very hard to make something appealing to collectors in China with no real experience in actually making transforming toys for adult collectors.  I mean, on the one hand, they clearly put a lot of work into the aesthetics.  Cangjiao is one part Autobot, one part mythic Chinese warrior, blending mechanical detail on his knees and lats and visored robot face with shoulder armor, chest armor, and hip skirts that look like old Chinese armor.  Even the helmet part of his head seems to blend elements of Chinese fantasy with Gundam.  And he's painted from top to bottom- not just the gold filagree or the blue accents, but all the off-white and gunmetal is painted, too.

However, there's a certain amateurish nature to the underlying design.  He's got huge feet, undersized arms, and positively tiny hands.  You have to bend his knee to get the kneepads out of the way if you want to raise his hip skirts in the front.  And, let's say I let the wings dangling from his hips slide as being Kawamori-esque, and I similarly overlook the only-slightly-folded tail on his legs as common Transformers design, there's still an abundance of kibble that doesn't really do anything, like the portion of the jet's spine stuck on the inside edges of his legs or the canards poking straight out of his back.  I can't really show it in pictures, but it's in the way that Cangjiao feels, too.  The plastic feels a bit more brittle than something HasTak or some of the more popular third party companies might use, and I had a couple issues with my copy right out of the box that we'll get to as we go over this figure, but from the start I'll mention that the transparent canopy on his chest fell off.  I wound up gluing it in place- don't worry, it's not designed to open or anything.

Oh, and size-wise, I'm not sure how he'd fit into your collection.  He's a bit taller than even Maverick here, which puts him a little over a head taller than even a bigger mainline figure like Galvatron, but a little shorter than an MP Seeker.

We've got a few accessories here.  The largest and most obvious accessory is a large pole with some silver and gold paint at one end.  There's also two translucent blue flame effects- they're a hard plastic, not the rubbery stuff that you might get with a Hasbro Transformer.  I'm not really a fan of the sculpt, or how hollow they feel.  Lastly, you get two larger missiles (presumably YJ-83 anti-ship missiles) and two pairs of smaller missiles (PL-8 air-to-air missiles) permanently attached to gray racks.

Cangjiao's head is on a ball joint that can swivel and has more sideways tilt than you'd likely need, but due to the shape of his helmet has a mediocre upward range and a fairly limited downward tilt.  His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees; there's a ratcheted transformation hinge where the arms attach to the torso that you can use to go beyond 90.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on a soft ratchet.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers are a bit like the old MP cars or Earthrise Optimus' where they're molded as one piece in a permanent curl but hinged at the base, with a fixed thumb.  There's no waist swivel or ab crunch.  His hip skirts, front and back, hinge out of the way so his hips can go 90 degrees forward and a little less than that backward on friction joints, then the wings on his hips are on ball joints so they can get out of the way for about 90 degrees of ratcheted lateral motion (with a bit too much of a gap between clicks for my tastes).  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on soft ratchets.  His feet are on ball joints so they have a little up/down tilt, a little under 45 degrees of pivot, and the ability to swivel.  On my copy the right foot feels fine, but the left is extremely loose or possibly broken.  It's just tight enough that I can pop the ball out of the socket for fear of breaking it, but so loose that it just flops freely with no resistance.

You can take one of the two effect parts and attach it to the painted end of the pole, and it makes a sort of spear weapon for Cangjiao.  Although his palm looks like Bowu School tried to cut out a 5mm port in his hand it's simply too open, and there's no tabs or anything to lock the spear in place.  That said, I haven't had too much trouble just putting it in his hand and closing his fingers around it.  The tension should be enough to keep the spear in place, as long as you don't bump it.

As for his missiles, the smaller ones use a small tab to plug onto his forearms, and the larger ones plug onto his back for storage.  I couldn't find any storage for the other effect part, though.

Transformation was a bit iffy for Cangjiao.  Parts of it are pretty basic, like the way the legs plug together and do the combiner wars bit of opening the lower legs to fold the thighs down inside.  Parts of it are kind of interesting, like the way his spine stretches or the way his lats spin around to form intakes.  The problem, though, is that too much of it (the wings, the hip skirts, the backpack) involves moving and trying to lock in very thin pieces of plastic that, again, feels a lot more brittle than you might be used to. 

But... ok, that alt mode is pretty gorgeous.  Bowu School apparently got a license from Shenyang Aircraft Company to make Cangjiao.  Which brings me back to that name, Cangjiao.  See, his alt mode is the J-15* Flying Shark (飞鲨, Feisha).  And remember, 苍 that's part of "fly" like a housefly, and 鲛 that's a word for "shark" that people don't actually use?  Making Cangjiao read like "flying shark" is a very roundabout way.  It'd be a bit like an American company making a licensed transforming F-35 and calling it "Sky Electricty".

*While I'm guessing a lot of MWers already know about the J-15, maybe there's a few readers looking at this thing and saying, "isn't that a Flanker?"  Funny story, that.  See, at one point China was looking for a fighter that could operate from a carrier for its Navy, and they wanted to buy the Su-33 from Russia.  For whatever reason- I've alternately heard that Russia was mad that China reverse-engineered the Su-27s it'd previously sold them and/or that Russia wanted a large up-front payment and a large minimum order to re-start the Su-33 production lines and China didn't want to commit- no deal was ever reached.  So instead China managed to get a Su-33 prototype from Ukraine and gave it to Shenyang, the company that'd previously reverse-engineered the Su-27 to make the J-11, and Shenyang turned out the J-15.

So, yeah, with a licensed alt mode Cangjiao is looking pretty darn good from most angles.  There's not a ton of details like lights or warning marks, but the red band with the star is what the Chinese Navy actually uses and that shark emblem on the tail has been used on at least one of the 50-ish J-15s Shenyang built.  The shape of the plane is mostly accurate, too, with just a little robot elbow peaking out from under the wings and a tail boom that sticks out a bit too far.

Even from the underside, where there's a bit more obvious kibble in the form of the back of the robot head, some visible shoulders, arms, hands, kneepads, and feet, Cangjiao is certainly a lot more transformed and better integrated than a lot of the boxy robots dangling from the underside of a jet that we're used to with even some Masterpiece figures.

While we're looking under there, you'll note that the spear splits into two halves, and one end plugs into the side of the other, so the butt of the spear is the J-15's tail boom.  Frustratingly, you can see that there's a square hole that plugs into a peg on Cangjiao's underside, with the split ends right up against his crotch; if there was just room and a way to tuck a bit more of it under, or if the boom collapsed a bit, it'd be just about perfect.  Alas.  His missiles can also store under the wings, using the actual configuration a J-15 would to carry four PL-8s and two YJ-83 missiles.  The underside of his two small rolling wheels, and there's a landing gear with rolling wheels between his intakes.  The landing gear can't fold back to further tuck between them, and his robot head is in the way in the direction it does fold, so the landing gear is basically permanently deployed... which would bug me more if I wanted to display Cangjiao in jet mode on a flight stand.  But he doesn't come with a flight stand, so... *shrug*.

I did get him to sort of balance on the stand that comes with MP Tracks.  There's no place to plug the stand into, though.

So those effect parts... the reason you get two is because they're meant to plug into his exhausts.  And, wouldn't you know it, I've run into another issue.  One part fits perfectly fine.  The other, though, was either misassembled, or the halves where misfit when it was glued together, but the rear has a gap and it's too wide to plug all the way in.  As such, it just falls right back out.

And where does that all leave us?  On the one hand, a robot that's not a G1 Transformer with some mythic Chinese aesthetics I'm not loving, on a figure feels a bit fragile and already came with a few QC issues out of the box.  On the other hand, one of the better jet modes we've seen on a transforming toy since probably Maverick and an actual, licensed jet mode to boot, and priced the same as a Hasbro Leader-class toy.  I'd ultimately say that Cangjiao's not going to be for everyone, but I think I'd recommend it if you really like transforming jets.  Cangjiao's got enough going for him and a low enough price tag that I'm willing to forgive his flaws.

Oh, yeah.  And for those of you curious... this is unfortunately the only jet from Bowu School, but they do have a few other transforming figures.  Currently there's also a pair of tanks, a Type 15 light tank and a Type 96 MBT (although Show.Z is sold out of both of those), and you can preorder a pair of trucks (a PHL-03 twelve-tube rocket launcher and one hauling a DF-41 ICBM) that turn into robots (like Canjiao and the tanks) and a Chinese-style dragon that turns into that Tiangong space station they're building.

So, this guy is a mixed bag. I don't think the bot mode is terrible, but it's not great either, especially for some of the proportional differences you mentioned, Mike. The tiny hands and the huge feet especially look off-putting. I'm also not crazy about the deco, but I think the paint apps are pretty well done, and if it's an ancient Chinese armored warrior look they're going for, in my very limited knowledge of such things, I'd say they succeeded. Articulation sounds adequate; it very much has a dated quality to it, more of an early 90s feel than a post-millennial toy. That may be what they're going for, as well; for those who like vintage toys from the 80s and 90s, this would fit that niche well.

Jet mode. So, I appreciate that it's a licensed toy, and I definitely appreciate the info concerning the J-15. My knowledge of foreign jets, especially China's, as well as all the variants of both theirs and the Soviets' fighters, is lacking, as I don't do much reading on the subject. However, gauging the toy by its own merits in correlation to my knowledge of the Flanker, one of the most beautiful fighters in existence, I'd have to give this thing a B- for its fidelity to the source. The top-down view, as with many of Has/Tak's fighter TFs, is the best view, betraying little of its true nature as a transforming bot. Sure, some seams can be seen, but overall, the silhouette is uninterrupted by bot bits, and it looks quite nice. From the front view, the intakes are not easily made out, and given their size and prominence on the real fighter, it diminishes both the accuracy and the aesthetic, IMHO.  From the side, your copy looks stooped with the spine seemingly too bowed, but I think that's subsequent to a partial collapse of the front gear. Looking at pics of the real plane, if their gear bowed forward, the same effect would be in evidence. From that standpoint, intakes notwithstanding, I think Cangjiao does a good job of capturing the lines of the real jet in profile. It falls apart, however, with those protruding arms. It's a shame Bowu School couldn't or wouldn't find a better solution for secreting the arms into the fuselage in a manner that was flush and non-obtrusive. It's such a pretty jet and having those things jutting out from the sides diminishes it greatly. Looking at this, I'm reminded of TFC Toys' Craft Series in which a Flanker, or Flanker variant, has been teased, and I very much hope that figure will eventually see production. I passed on Lumitent, but I have their Aegopter, and it's an impressively engineered toy for its transformation and nigh seamless alt mode. I digress. Cangjiao, it seems to me, would appeal to most TF fans who've long grown accustomed and unperturbed by gross inaccuracies and egregiously obvious amounts of bot kibble visible in jet mode, and to fans of 90s era transforming toys. The arms being the major concession, I don't think it's all that bad relative to the many compromised jet alts we've seen both official and non over the years with Transformers. The quality doesn't sound the best, and the bot mode aesthetics don't grab me either, so it'd be a pass for me. But again, it's not the worst we've seen in terms of compromise, and as something different for a collection, it fills a certain niche for more cosmopolitan collectors looking to add some flavor to their display. Thanks for sharing, Mike, and for keeping me in mind.

Also, linguistics fascinates me. While I have little faculty for picking up languages naturally, language itself is ever intriguing and I appreciate the in-depth explanation of the hanzi involved in the name, as well as probable explanations of how that hanzi may be interpreted.

 

[Convectuoso]

3 hours ago, derex3592 said:

Problem is by the time I get around to buying these, ShowZ is loooong sold out of all the good ones...

 

2 hours ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Same here!!

ShowZ's preorder system works really well. With just one dollar you can preorder any item and cancel at any time 

[sh9000]

This Metroplex is cool.  Might go well with all of the Legends scale figures.  I think I'd want an official or 3P version that's the same height as Generations Trypticon though.

[Kuma Style]

 

[twich]

On 7/14/2022 at 10:23 PM, mikeszekely said:

OK, I've got another transforming figure that isn't really a Transformer™.  And while our corner of the internet is really replete with aircraft aficionados, I'll confess I was thinking of @M'Kyuun when I picked this up.  This being Bowu School's 苍鲛 (Cangjiao).

OK, before I get going too far, let's talk about the name.  I found this guy at Show.Z Store under the name "CangJiao White Shark."  The thing is, the Chinese "Cangjiao" is a little odd.  The second character, 鲛(jiao), does mean "shark," but it's not really what you would say if you were talking about a shark in modern Chinese; that'd be 鲨鱼(shayu).  I found the first character 苍(cang) is to be a bit ambiguous.  It can be understood to mean pale blue, pale gray, deep blue, or deep green... colors which are not exactly the same, and all of which have other more common names in Chinese.  However, it's often found with other characters to make different words.  For example, 苍天(cangtian) means heaven, 上苍(shangcang) is something like "god in heaven", and 苍蝇(cangying) is a housefly.  It's that last one that has me thinking this is some kind of Chinese play on words, which I'll explain in a bit.

Anyway... a lot about Cangjiao makes me think that Bowu School is a company that was trying very hard to make something appealing to collectors in China with no real experience in actually making transforming toys for adult collectors.  I mean, on the one hand, they clearly put a lot of work into the aesthetics.  Cangjiao is one part Autobot, one part mythic Chinese warrior, blending mechanical detail on his knees and lats and visored robot face with shoulder armor, chest armor, and hip skirts that look like old Chinese armor.  Even the helmet part of his head seems to blend elements of Chinese fantasy with Gundam.  And he's painted from top to bottom- not just the gold filagree or the blue accents, but all the off-white and gunmetal is painted, too.

However, there's a certain amateurish nature to the underlying design.  He's got huge feet, undersized arms, and positively tiny hands.  You have to bend his knee to get the kneepads out of the way if you want to raise his hip skirts in the front.  And, let's say I let the wings dangling from his hips slide as being Kawamori-esque, and I similarly overlook the only-slightly-folded tail on his legs as common Transformers design, there's still an abundance of kibble that doesn't really do anything, like the portion of the jet's spine stuck on the inside edges of his legs or the canards poking straight out of his back.  I can't really show it in pictures, but it's in the way that Cangjiao feels, too.  The plastic feels a bit more brittle than something HasTak or some of the more popular third party companies might use, and I had a couple issues with my copy right out of the box that we'll get to as we go over this figure, but from the start I'll mention that the transparent canopy on his chest fell off.  I wound up gluing it in place- don't worry, it's not designed to open or anything.

Oh, and size-wise, I'm not sure how he'd fit into your collection.  He's a bit taller than even Maverick here, which puts him a little over a head taller than even a bigger mainline figure like Galvatron, but a little shorter than an MP Seeker.

We've got a few accessories here.  The largest and most obvious accessory is a large pole with some silver and gold paint at one end.  There's also two translucent blue flame effects- they're a hard plastic, not the rubbery stuff that you might get with a Hasbro Transformer.  I'm not really a fan of the sculpt, or how hollow they feel.  Lastly, you get two larger missiles (presumably YJ-83 anti-ship missiles) and two pairs of smaller missiles (PL-8 air-to-air missiles) permanently attached to gray racks.

Cangjiao's head is on a ball joint that can swivel and has more sideways tilt than you'd likely need, but due to the shape of his helmet has a mediocre upward range and a fairly limited downward tilt.  His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees; there's a ratcheted transformation hinge where the arms attach to the torso that you can use to go beyond 90.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on a soft ratchet.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers are a bit like the old MP cars or Earthrise Optimus' where they're molded as one piece in a permanent curl but hinged at the base, with a fixed thumb.  There's no waist swivel or ab crunch.  His hip skirts, front and back, hinge out of the way so his hips can go 90 degrees forward and a little less than that backward on friction joints, then the wings on his hips are on ball joints so they can get out of the way for about 90 degrees of ratcheted lateral motion (with a bit too much of a gap between clicks for my tastes).  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on soft ratchets.  His feet are on ball joints so they have a little up/down tilt, a little under 45 degrees of pivot, and the ability to swivel.  On my copy the right foot feels fine, but the left is extremely loose or possibly broken.  It's just tight enough that I can pop the ball out of the socket for fear of breaking it, but so loose that it just flops freely with no resistance.

You can take one of the two effect parts and attach it to the painted end of the pole, and it makes a sort of spear weapon for Cangjiao.  Although his palm looks like Bowu School tried to cut out a 5mm port in his hand it's simply too open, and there's no tabs or anything to lock the spear in place.  That said, I haven't had too much trouble just putting it in his hand and closing his fingers around it.  The tension should be enough to keep the spear in place, as long as you don't bump it.

As for his missiles, the smaller ones use a small tab to plug onto his forearms, and the larger ones plug onto his back for storage.  I couldn't find any storage for the other effect part, though.

Transformation was a bit iffy for Cangjiao.  Parts of it are pretty basic, like the way the legs plug together and do the combiner wars bit of opening the lower legs to fold the thighs down inside.  Parts of it are kind of interesting, like the way his spine stretches or the way his lats spin around to form intakes.  The problem, though, is that too much of it (the wings, the hip skirts, the backpack) involves moving and trying to lock in very thin pieces of plastic that, again, feels a lot more brittle than you might be used to. 

But... ok, that alt mode is pretty gorgeous.  Bowu School apparently got a license from Shenyang Aircraft Company to make Cangjiao.  Which brings me back to that name, Cangjiao.  See, his alt mode is the J-15* Flying Shark (飞鲨, Feisha).  And remember, 苍 that's part of "fly" like a housefly, and 鲛 that's a word for "shark" that people don't actually use?  Making Cangjiao read like "flying shark" is a very roundabout way.  It'd be a bit like an American company making a licensed transforming F-35 and calling it "Sky Electricty".

*While I'm guessing a lot of MWers already know about the J-15, maybe there's a few readers looking at this thing and saying, "isn't that a Flanker?"  Funny story, that.  See, at one point China was looking for a fighter that could operate from a carrier for its Navy, and they wanted to buy the Su-33 from Russia.  For whatever reason- I've alternately heard that Russia was mad that China reverse-engineered the Su-27s it'd previously sold them and/or that Russia wanted a large up-front payment and a large minimum order to re-start the Su-33 production lines and China didn't want to commit- no deal was ever reached.  So instead China managed to get a Su-33 prototype from Ukraine and gave it to Shenyang, the company that'd previously reverse-engineered the Su-27 to make the J-11, and Shenyang turned out the J-15.

So, yeah, with a licensed alt mode Cangjiao is looking pretty darn good from most angles.  There's not a ton of details like lights or warning marks, but the red band with the star is what the Chinese Navy actually uses and that shark emblem on the tail has been used on at least one of the 50-ish J-15s Shenyang built.  The shape of the plane is mostly accurate, too, with just a little robot elbow peaking out from under the wings and a tail boom that sticks out a bit too far.

Even from the underside, where there's a bit more obvious kibble in the form of the back of the robot head, some visible shoulders, arms, hands, kneepads, and feet, Cangjiao is certainly a lot more transformed and better integrated than a lot of the boxy robots dangling from the underside of a jet that we're used to with even some Masterpiece figures.

While we're looking under there, you'll note that the spear splits into two halves, and one end plugs into the side of the other, so the butt of the spear is the J-15's tail boom.  Frustratingly, you can see that there's a square hole that plugs into a peg on Cangjiao's underside, with the split ends right up against his crotch; if there was just room and a way to tuck a bit more of it under, or if the boom collapsed a bit, it'd be just about perfect.  Alas.  His missiles can also store under the wings, using the actual configuration a J-15 would to carry four PL-8s and two YJ-83 missiles.  The underside of his two small rolling wheels, and there's a landing gear with rolling wheels between his intakes.  The landing gear can't fold back to further tuck between them, and his robot head is in the way in the direction it does fold, so the landing gear is basically permanently deployed... which would bug me more if I wanted to display Cangjiao in jet mode on a flight stand.  But he doesn't come with a flight stand, so... *shrug*.

I did get him to sort of balance on the stand that comes with MP Tracks.  There's no place to plug the stand into, though.

So those effect parts... the reason you get two is because they're meant to plug into his exhausts.  And, wouldn't you know it, I've run into another issue.  One part fits perfectly fine.  The other, though, was either misassembled, or the halves where misfit when it was glued together, but the rear has a gap and it's too wide to plug all the way in.  As such, it just falls right back out.

And where does that all leave us?  On the one hand, a robot that's not a G1 Transformer with some mythic Chinese aesthetics I'm not loving, on a figure feels a bit fragile and already came with a few QC issues out of the box.  On the other hand, one of the better jet modes we've seen on a transforming toy since probably Maverick and an actual, licensed jet mode to boot, and priced the same as a Hasbro Leader-class toy.  I'd ultimately say that Cangjiao's not going to be for everyone, but I think I'd recommend it if you really like transforming jets.  Cangjiao's got enough going for him and a low enough price tag that I'm willing to forgive his flaws.

Oh, yeah.  And for those of you curious... this is unfortunately the only jet from Bowu School, but they do have a few other transforming figures.  Currently there's also a pair of tanks, a Type 15 light tank and a Type 96 MBT (although Show.Z is sold out of both of those), and you can preorder a pair of trucks (a PHL-03 twelve-tube rocket launcher and one hauling a DF-41 ICBM) that turn into robots (like Canjiao and the tanks) and a Chinese-style dragon that turns into that Tiangong space station they're building.

so is this a transforming robot of the Su-27?  Is it from the same or similar company that made the transforming J-20?

Twich

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, twich said:

so is this a transforming robot of the Su-27?  Is it from the same or similar company that made the transforming J-20?

Twich

Cangjiao is a transforming J-15 (Su-33) from a different company (Bowu School) that's doing a line of military vehicles. The J-20 is from TFC Toys and significantly more expensive, but I believe it's larger and higher quality. TFC released a helicopter, too, and they were planning on doing the J-15, but I'm not sure how far along or if it's even still coming.

[M'Kyuun]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Cangjiao is a transforming J-15 (Su-33) from a different company (Bowu School) that's doing a line of military vehicles. The J-20 is from TFC Toys and significantly more expensive, but I believe it's larger and higher quality. TFC released a helicopter, too, and they were planning on doing the J-15, but I'm not sure how far along or if it's even still coming.

I hope so; this bot mode is absolutely beautiful and judging by the accuracy and virtually uncompromised alt modes, especially the Aegocopter, of their previous two figs, I'm totally down for a copy if it comes to fruition. 

[Dobber]

Yeah but that Aegocooter is a nightmare to transform. I was barely able to get it into cooter mode even following a video. Haven’t even tried to get it back to bot mode so I can put it back in it’s box. Just too complicated for me and the instructions are totally useless. The J-20 wasn’t so bad though. 
 

Chris

[mikeszekely]

I dunno if 3P in general is slowing down, or if there's just fewer and fewer holes to fill in my MP display, but I finally shipped my stash at The Chosen Prime.  And it's all DNA kits for official figures.  So, I guess I'll go in numerical order, starting with DK-27 for MPM-12.

When you open this kit up, you'll find that it actually replaces a good deal of MPM-12.  There's a new head, new shoulder bits with the smokestacks, new forearms and hands, new thighs, and new knees.  Plus there's a pin removal tool and a plastic brace.  But...

Well, I'm not seeing a compelling reason to use the DNA head (right).  It doesn't really solve the original's dead eyes problem, and I think the details on the original are a bit nicer.  So the DNA head stays in the box.

Then there's the leg parts.  OK, see, they're designed to solve a few problems.  The new thighs have extra pieces that allow for a proper thigh swivel.  The new knee parts add a second hinge, giving him deeper knee bends.  And combined they add a bit to his height, which honestly does make him seem a bit less gorilla-armed.  Unfortunately, I think they create a few problems, too.  For one, replacing the knees means replacing the diecast bits outside of his knees with plastic bits that simply don't look as nice.  While the extra knee bend does give him a bit more range on his knees, we're talking about going from 90 to 120, nothing too major.  And the added height makes him taller than MP-10/MP-44/MPM-04, and that's something I can't really get on board with for my collection, otherwise I'd have bought a 3P Bumblebee Prime instead of MPM-12 in the first place.  Plus, I'd argue that the truck mode is already on the long side as-is, making Prime's legs longer will only exacerbate that issue.  So, yeah, not using those parts either.

Well, I will use the new shoulder panels.  They're a royal pain, though.  First, you need to remove the top of the smokestack.  No big deal, right?  Then, you stretch the panel out and wedge it in the plastic brace.  Line up the pin removal tool and hit it with a hammer to knock the pin out.  Note that the instructions are quite clear that you want Prime lying face down.  On my copy, though, that meant pushing the knurled end entirely through instead of pushing the knurled end out first, but you can't tell until it's almost entirely out.  I suspect that made the process harder than it had to be.

As the pin comes out, you'll probably have a spring fly out on you.  Don't lose it!  You'll need it and the pin!  Take the original panel away, fit the new panel in place, then start to push the pin back in (the instructions will have you put the smooth end in first on the bottom hole if Prime is still lying face down.  Leave enough room to put the spring in place, so that one hook fits into a notch on the gray hinge and the other sits in a groove on the flap, then push the pin the rest of the way back in.  Then shove the top of the smokestack back in.

So what was the point of all that?  The new smokestacks have slightly different molding; I prefer the originals, I think.  It also replaces the stripe pattern on the original with a single solid stripe.  The stripe pattern on the original is more accurate to the scenes on Cybertron int he movie, but judging by the number of licensed 3P non-Transformable Optimuses I think the solid white stripe might be more Earth-mode accurate.  Ultimately, I don't mind the change in stripe.  But the biggest change is that there's now a hinge on the panel, which allows the top to fold over.

We're also going to replace the forearms and hands.  Fortunately, this is pretty simple.  You need to remove two screws on Prime's arm, open the flap on the back of his arm, then separate the halves.  The hand will be attached to the inner half.  Find the little plastic bit with the nub on it; you'll have to put it into the same spot on the inside of the DNA arm.  It's for the elbow ratchet.  Otherwise, the DNA arm is mechanically the same for our purposes, so fit the two halves with the hand already attached together over the elbow and screw it back together.

And what was the benefit here?  From the top, the inside, or the outside the DNA arm (right) looks pretty similar to the stock arm; it's maybe a little thicker, and there's a flap that tucks into the corner that the original didn't have.  I'll note that while the mechanical details on the inside of the arm look the similar, they actually have a hinge at that screw to fold some of it toward his hand.  But really, you don't notice a huge difference until you get to the bottom.  Where the original arm had a window and some of the side of the cab, the DNA arm has mechanical details meant to look at least somewhat more like the CGI model.

That's not quite the only benefit, though.  The new hands are similar in that the thumb is still just on a ball joint, and only the index finger is a separate digit from the other three.  However, where the original's fingers were pinned at the base and permanently molded like he's tying on a keyboard, DNA put an extra hinge in their fingers, so Prime can actually stretch his fingers out or at least have a more relaxed bend.

This means Prime can point now, and the DNA hands still have the slot for holding his rifle.  The fit was quite secure on my copy.

The new arms do necessitate a few extra steps for transformation.  For one, you still open the back of Prime's arm and tuck the hand in.  But, the panel spins 180 degrees after opening, turning the mechanical details to the inside and putting a window on the outside.  The corner is on a hinge, you'll open it up so it can wrap onto the roof.

On the inside of Prime's forearm you'll pull the dark part down, as usual, but then you'll swivel at the screw before flipping the panel the rest of the way.

Oh, and those hinges on the shoulder panels?  Flip the tops down against the back of the cab.  No more cat ears in truck mode!  I mean, that right there addresses my single biggest complaint with MPM-12.

But that's the thing... this is a kit that was going for around $55-$60, and I'm sure a lot of that went toward parts I just didn't bother to use.  Now, maybe you would use them.  Maybe making MPM-12 taller doesn't bother you as much as it does me (but again, if you were open to a taller Bumblebee Prime you probably grabbed something else, like ToyWorld or Magnificent Mecha).  This kit did fix the cat ears on the truck, and it cleaned up his arms, and if that's all it did and only cost maybe $30 I'd recommend it for sure.  But, in my case at least, I feel like I'm paying a big premium for parts I don't want.  If you already have MPM-12 and don't think you'll be replacing him, maybe you won't mind paying for very much improved hands, shoulders, and forearms, but I have to think sooner or later someone will do a 3P Bumblebee Prime that's MPM-scaled instead of ThreeZero-scaled.

[tekering]

Wow, that's a sorry excuse for a "Masterpiece," at least in alt. mode (even with your upgrade parts).  Every third-party version I've seen does a better job than that. 😒

[M'Kyuun]

5 minutes ago, tekering said:

Wow, that's a sorry excuse for a "Masterpiece," at least in alt. mode (even with your upgrade parts).  Every third-party version I've seen does a better job than that. 😒

I think so, too.  The voyager SS fig was far better executed, which seems backwards given the disparity in budgets and scales.

[Scyla]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Wow, that's a sorry excuse for a "Masterpiece," at least in alt. mode (even with your upgrade parts).  Every third-party version I've seen does a better job than that. 😒

I came to the conclusion that the big problem of Takara is that they are a toy company first (as in toys for kids) and they just can’t pull of a collectible like specialized companies like Sentinel or Tamashii Nations can, even if they wanted to.

Reasoning being that they get shot in the back every time they try because they have to deal with processes put in place for manufacturing kid‘s toys (design, material, pricing, and sourcing constraints ).

[lechuck]

36 minutes ago, Scyla said:

I came to the conclusion that the big problem of Takara is that they are a toy company first (as in toys for kids) and they just can’t pull of a collectible like specialized companies like Sentinel or Tamashii Nations can, even if they wanted to.

Reasoning being that they get shot in the back every time they try because they have to deal with processes put in place for manufacturing kid‘s toys (design, material, pricing, and sourcing constraints ).

The MPM line is foremost Hasbro driven and that only means spare nothing and cut costs where ever possible even on their "premium" line. Sure, Takara toy designers/engineers are behind this, but MPM-12 is the result of Hasbro's typical heavy-handed limitations and budget caps. This toy could have been as great as MP-44 with the right approach, design it first and then look at which price bracket it can slot into instead of the other way around.

If I didn't know better, I would be inclined to believe that MPM-12 is Takara toy designers way of saying "F* you Hasbro! You want crap, we'll give you crap!"

[mikeszekely]

11 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

The voyager SS fig was far better executed, which seems backwards given the disparity in budgets and scales.

In some ways, sure.  The back's a little gappy, and the cab doesn't line up quite right, but for the most part the truck mode is better on the SS toy.  But the MPM robot is more proportional, with the more organic legs, hidden wheels, feet that aren't so flat, smokestacks that aren't ben the wrong way, and a better torso shape.

11 hours ago, tekering said:

Every third-party version I've seen does a better job than that. 😒

Totally agree.  Unfortunately, ever 3P is also bigger, and out-of-scale with the other MPM (and 3P MPM-style) figures I have.

8 hours ago, lechuck said:

Sure, Takara toy designers/engineers are behind this, but MPM-12 is the result of Hasbro's typical heavy-handed limitations and budget caps.

This.  Most of the MPM figures have had at least some compromises, and all of them have been lacking in paint, when compared to the regular MP line.  I'd say the official MPM line has ranged from OK-ish to hot garbage.

So let's step away from the MPM line and move on to the next DNA kit, DK-31.

This kit is for the Kingdom Titan-Class Ark.  We've got ourselves a pair of articulated hands, and the rest is all filler parts.

We'll start with these fillers, a pair of long rectangles and a pair of smaller squares.  For robot mode, you'll use the square peg on the smaller part to plug it into a square hole on the larger part.  What you want to do, then is stick the combined parts onto the Ark's calves, with the smaller parts toward the ground.  The larger part has some tabs on the sides.  You'll angle them into grooves on the inner edge of the Ark's leg, then kind of push and wedge the other side behind the lip of the outer edge.  It's only held in place by the top, so it can wiggle in place but it's secure enough that it won't fall out unless you really pull it out.  And you'll need to pull it out for transformation, as this bit of the kit is unfortunately partsforming.

Next up, we have these two panels with molded turrets on them.  They're designed to look like the turrets already on the Ark.  In bot mode, they just fill in these squarish cutouts near the outside of the Ark's ankles.  Notice, though, that they're not identical.  One part has one thinner tab and one thicker one, the other has a thinner tab and then a thicker tab with a hook on it.  The one without the hook goes into the Ark's right leg.  It fits securely enough, but you can glue it if you like because these parts are designed to stay attached.

The other one, with the hook, goes on the left leg.  That side has the flap you open to fold out the tower on the rear of the Ark.  You want to open the flap, then stick the panel onto the end of the flap so the hook wraps under on the side pointed toward the big Autobot symbol.  Again, you can use a little glue if you like.

We'll come back to the last filler piece.  First we have to install the new hands, though.  Begin by removing two screws on the inside edge of the Ark's forearm, then gently pull the outside half off.  Ideally, you'll want to leave the other half in place.  Some things to be aware of, though... there's a gray part that will come with the half you're removing.  Be careful not to lose it!  One end plugs into a spot near the top of each half of his arm, and the other into half of his wrist.  Two, be careful not to lose the white ratchet near the elbow on the side you removed, or the identical ratchet behind the half of the wrist part on the side you remove.

Here's a look at the side of the arm you leave on.  Note the bump out with the hole for the gray back of the arm on the wrist part, and the hole near the elbow for the other end.

Anyway, take the original hand out of the wrist.  Before you toss it aside, though, remove the screw on the white part, then pull the white part off.  Place it onto the DNA hand, using the slots on the sides of the white part and the tabs on the hand to line it up, and screw it into place.  From there, it's just a matter of placing the hand back into the wrist, then trying to line up both halves of the arm without anything falling back out (usually the ratchet, sometimes the wrist and both ratchets, or the back of the arm).  Once you get it, screw everything back together and repeat the process on the other arm.

So what's the benefit here?  The original hands had all four fingers molded as one piece with a slight curve, pinned only at the base knuckle.  The thumb was hinged at the base, too, but permanently folded over the palm like he's perpetually pretending to be a crab.  The new DNA hands are fully articulated.  Each finger is separate, with three hinged knuckles and even an additional joint that allows them to splay outward.  The thumbs still have the hinge that lets them pinch along the palm, but there's a swivel and a hinge that lets out straighten the thumb away from the palm and another mid-knuckle hinge, too.  And there's no issues transforming the Ark with the new hands, you just have to fold the thumb over the palm and curl the fingers slightly the way the original hands looked.

And about that transformation... yeah, you have to remove the filler from the Ark's calves, and then separate the filler parts.  The larger part will go back into his legs, along the sides on the rear of the ship.  You'll stick the tops where the tabs are closer to the front, into some waffling near where his legs meet with his arms, then kind of shove the rest in.  As before, if you pull they'll pop out but they're secure enough that they're not coming out accidentally, and they blend with the side enough.  The smaller bit fits into the gap left by the back of the elbow.  You just slide it in and push it until it clicks, almost like the Ark was designed for the DNA kit instead of the other way around.  Once again, it'll pull off without too much effort but it's secure enough that it's not going to shake loose.  As you can see from the before and after it does a really good job filling the unsightly gaps left by the Ark's transformation.  My only real complaints are that the midsection doesn't look recessed enough, and I wish the rear fillers came to a narrower edge.  Still a huge improvement.

On, and that last filler piece we skipped in robot mode?  Yeah, it just shoves into the hollowed out rear of the tower on the back of the Ark.  You can also see in this photo the filler pieces with the turrets.

DK-31 is slightly cheaper than the kit for MPM-12, at around $40-45.  It feels like a much better value, though, as this time we're using all the parts.  In robot mode, the new articulated hands are a huge step up from the original hands, and in alt mode the kit does a good job filling in the gaps along the sides and in the back of the tower.  I think it might have been nice if this kit also had some kind of weapon for the Ark, and/or if it replaced the transforming toes with a fifth engine bell that split for transformation, sure, but those are more "would be nice" sorts of things that'd drive up the prices of the kit than "must haves," and I think DNA really addressed the "must haves" here.  I realize that a lot of collectors found the Ark to be one of the less appealing Titans, but if you did happen to get one then I'd highly recommend this kit.  Since it fixes the Ark's biggest flaws I'd say it's pretty much essential.

[mikeszekely]

Alrighty, one last DNA kit... for now.  This one is DK-32, for Studio Series Slag.

Much like DNA's kit for Grimlock, a big portion of the kit is devoted to replacing the slug figure, this time Daniel instead of Wheelie.  The kit also comes with a pistol for Daniel, red replacement horns for Slag, a weird gray part, and a sword.

I want to focus on the sword for a minute... this time DNA used solid red plastic for the handle and translucent red plastic for the blade.  It looks pretty nice, the sculpt is good and all, and DNA already has a kit announced for Studio Series Sludge that also has a sword with a red handle and a translucent red blade.  Which is fine, except the kit for Grimlock had a gray plastic handle and silver-painted blade.  What gives?  Grimlock doesn't match.  If DNA was smart they'd make a new sword for Grimlock that does match and toss it in with their Sludge kit (or the inevitable kits they'll make for the inevitable Snarl and Swoop).

Moving along... apparently Slag's horns are just c-clipped in place.  They'll pull right out, and plugging the red ones in is no trouble.  I'm of two minds on the red horns.  On the one hand, I like that they don't have the waffles on the inner edges like the original horns, and in general I do kind of like red horns on Slag.  On the other hand, the lack of paint does make them look a bit cheap, and the white/silver/pearlescent horns are more cartoon-accurate.  I guess I'll keep the red for now.

So what's the deal with that big gray chunk?  Well, to use it you're first going to want to remove Slag's tail.  It's tension pegged into the gray hinge, just line it up and apply some pressure.

Now, you can find the similar grooves and holes on the gray bit and attach the tail to it.  On the other end there's some notches that you can plug the spare horns into.

The whole think makes a sort of shield for Slag.  And... I guess, if the dino tail on his back is bothering you that this gives you a reason to remove it.  And I guess it gives you a use for the extra horns, sure.  But... I don't think the tail is designed for the wear and tear of constant partsforming.  And I'd rather stick with the more G1 traditional sword and gun combo.  So honestly, the shield thing is staying in the box (along with one set of horns, for now the originals).

The sword though... I really dig it!  It's got a much nicer sculp than the Nonnef one.  I also like how DNA shaped the handle so that he doesn't have to hold his sword sideways because his dino toes interfere with the hilt.  Instead there's a rectangular bit that keeps the handle from sliding too far into his hand and a long enough peg that the hilt stops just short of his dino toes.

Even better (though hard to see in my pictures), the hilt has a tab in the middle that's set at an angle.  This tab fits into notches that were built into Slag's hips for reasons that probably amounted to nothing more than cost-cutting on Hasbro's part.  It's serendipitous, though, because they allow Slag to wear his new DNA sword on either hip while he's in bot mode.

Of course, if you put him into dino mode you still have storage options.  The tail (and gun) should be properly reattached, but Slag still has 5mm ports on his dino shoulders and just above his dino hips.  Without the tail attached the shield part's handle is long enough to plug into a shoulder.  Meanwhile the tab that fits into Slag's robot hips is just wide enough that the sword will stay put if you plug it into any of the 5mm ports.

The rest of the kit is Daniel.  He's a bit of a mixed bag.  I was interested in him because I kind of thought the Core-class Spike figure was a tad mediocre, and because this would give me a Daniel that did have the exact same mold.  Well, DNA's Daniel is different, but still sort of mediocre.  The blue colors are a lot lighter than Spike, but they match the blue of the slug figure fairly well and are, I think, closer to the movie, but I also feel that Daniel is lacking a few accents like the red and blue rectangles on Spike's chest.  Daniel's head isn't the best, but aside from having more correctly-colored hair neither is Spike's.  I do like that DNA's Daniel is a little shorter than Spike.  I'm not a fan of the wheels dangling from his wrists, though, or how hollow the insides of his forearms are.  it's a shame DNA couldn't have designed the wheels to fold into those forearm gaps.

Daniel's articulation is awkward, but so was Spike's and it's still a step up from the slug.  No head articulation.  His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees.  No true bicep swivel, but he's got ball joints in his elbows and they can swivel on the ball joints.  Speaking of ball-jointed elbows, they're actually cut in such a way that they don't look like they should bend at all, leaving Daniel with arms kind of permanently bent.  Which, too be fair, is sort of screen accurate.  You can bend his elbows, though, you just have to tilt his arms out enough that the stem on the ball joint clears the cutout on his arms.  His waist swivels, and his hips can go 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally (minding the tabs on the backs of his hips), but only a little bit backward.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend just a hair under 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up a good deal due to transformation as well as slightly downward, and ball joints give him slight ankle pivots.

He holds his pistol just fine in either hand.  You might be questioning the pistol, recalling how Daniel had to transform the arm of his exosuit to shoot the acid covers down in the '86 film.  The pistol isn't entirely out of place, though!  In the Japanese Headmasters anime Daniel played a light gun videogame with a "Challenge Blaster," and Highbrow modified it so Daniel could use it as a real weapon.  DNA's pistol is clearly modeled after the Challenge Blaster, so... cartoon accurate.

Daniels transformation is both one of his best features and his worst.  I say best because it feels like it actually transforms, vs Spike who kind of rotates his shoulders, spins his arms, and lies down.  There's even a spot to plug in his little Challenge Blaster.  That said, transforming his arms involves rotating the ball socket inside his arms, something I've found impossible to do without some sort of tool like a spudger.  Why didn't DNA just design the ball socket itself to be fixed in place and have two cutouts for the stem is beyond me, but it's my single biggest gripe with Daniel.

Of course, then we have the alt mode itself, which is another sort of mixed bag.  On the one hand, even with the visible fists, I think it looks a lot better than Core-class Spike.  His legs collapse and his arms are tucked against him in a way that actually gives the appearance of a cohesive vehicle.  That said, he doesn't roll.  Those wheels are molded on, and just for show.

Despite his flaws, I do think I prefer DNA's Daniel to Hasbro's own Core-class Spike.  But remember, DNA doesn't really make figures, they make accessories, and Daniel is supposed to replace the slug that came with Slag.  So I guess the question is, how is he at that?  And the answer is quite nicely, thanks for asking.  There are little notches above his ankles on the insides of his legs, and they fit into the the thin pegs on Slag's back just like the slug did.

Given that this is another of DNA's pricier kits at around $50, how much value you get out of it is really going come down to how into the Daniel figure you are.  For me, I like Daniel better than Spike, and I like that he's smaller and distinct from Spike, although he's still not a fantastic figure or anything.  I do like the red horns, and I love the sword.  So, even without using the stupid shield thing I feel like I'm getting my money's worth.  If you think you'll use at least the sword and Daniel, then I'd recommend this kit.  However, if you have zero interest in Daniel, you don't care for the shield thing, and you like the cartoon-accurate original horns, that really just leaves the sword, and as nice as it is it's not a $50 sword.  Consider picking up a sword from Nonnef or JRC Designs instead.