transformers – TOBOMI

Quickie Review Photodump: Planet X Triton

General Tekno — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 04:24:15 +0000

Or, well, PADDLES!

To provide a super quickie history course… Paddles is the sixth Dinobot. From a UK short story collection. Who turns into, well, not Champ. Not Nessie. But OGO. POGO. A Plesiosaur.

A ****ING PLESIOSAUR

Anyway Venture Bros reference aside, that Planet X did this is pretty cool. He’s a retool of their take on Sludge, only with flippers instead of legs, as well as a new head. And in altmode HOLY HELL IS HE IMPRESSIVE. Like, he’s freaking huge.

Like LOOK AT HIM next to my keyboard. SO FREAKING LONG

Transformation has a couple tricks to it, but is otherwise pretty straightfoward. A lot of the mass compresses into a nice squat bulky robot with some decent posability to it. He looks nifty indeed!

*slams BW Megatron voiceclip button* SIDE-GUNS!

Weaponwise, he’s got a king’s ransom of armaments. Twin giant cannons and a Transmetal Megatron tailwhip are his main weapons. He also comes with some translucent swords that, as I understand it, are meant to go with their Swoop moreso (but he can still hold/store them). But honestly the BFGs are enough… especially given you can plug them in onto his shoulder flippers so they sit above the shoulders nice and stable-y. His own set of side-guns!

In summary… I won’t lie. Paddles WAS a bit of a novelty buy. With BBTS having him for 30 bucks back in December, he was a no-brainer to throw in a box with a couple other things. But he’s a really REALLY GOOD novelty buy.

Anyway hopefully next review doesn’t take as long for me to actually writeup. Meant to talk about him the week after Akane Shinjo, but then got sidetracked.

Quickie Review Photodump: MP-10 SG Optimus Prime

General Tekno — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 07:50:16 +0000

Or, should I say, Masterpiece Akane Shinjo.

This next Kaiju’s gonna light our darkest hour!

This was one of those figures I had no interest in, really. And then within an episode of Studio TRIGGER’s “SSSS Gridman” premiering, everyone realized that virtually all the characters in the cast were stealth Transformers homages – mostly of the Shattered Glass variety. And the main antagonist, who was awesome in her own right (seriously, what a fantastically realized character) was SG Optimus Prime.

It’s not just Gridman with vehicle partners now!

Then BBTS put this Asian market exclusive on a crazy good sale over the holidays and I caved. (There’s something else I got too worth talking about but that’s for a future post). And getting it in hand – it’s pretty nice.

Truck mode is… well, it comes with the trailer! Which is a cool bonus feature. It doesn’t come with a Roller drone, surprisingly (or a Spike), but the main Combat Deck functionality is still all there. The trailer’s pretty sparse on paint but given it’s in black plastic, it doesn’t really need it.

Rikka, you’re the only one for her.

(Fun fact, for the TFcon 2018 custom class figure, we actually made an SG Optimus from the Perfect Effect PMOP figure. And, given I had a spare lying around, I painted up a copy of the trailer portion of Ginrai to go with it/give it Powermaster armor using this figure as the basis for what the trailer would look like.)

Robot mode, meanwhile…. well, it’s an MP-10. I know MP-44 (Optimus 3.0) is due out really soon, but this is still a mold worth owning due to the fantastic engineering.

ACQUIRING SHIPMATE

Really, the biggest noticeable change from the stock MP-10 is the lack of chrome. Given this was made at more of a budget that’s a little understandable, BUT unfortunately this leads to a design flaw, because the tolerances for the chest locking into place were all built around the extra thickness the chrome layer provides. This is obviously fixable with some properly applied floor polish, but it’s still a flaw nonetheless.

I’m going to love you and hug you and squeeze you and call you George!

Also worth noting too is the plastic. It’s not as uniform as the plastic on the Hasbro Optimus that I have – in fact it’s got some swirls in it here and there. This very much comes across as a release that they wanted to put out for fun and on a budget, given it’s not up to the same standards as a regular Masterpiece release. BUT THAT SAID! It’s still the MP-10 mold. These flaws aside, it’s as poseable as a regular MP-10 is.

I WANT YOU INSIDE ME RIKKA; YOU WERE MADE FOR ME

This is a figure definitely not for everyone. It’s a niche thing, especially given my reasons for wanting this (I can’t help but think of this as Akane Shinjo’s transtector, after all). Wouldn’t pay full price for it, but for a sale it’s worth it. And, more importantly, it’s a way to justify keeping a copy of the MP-10 mold if you want MP-44 or one of the 3P Optimus options coming out this year and don’t want to Optimii in your collection.

KEEP AWAY FROM MY WAIFU, YUTA

Quickie Review Photodump: MMC Cylindrus

General Tekno — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 06:06:26 +0000

So I kinda decided I wanted to use this site for more things this year given I never use it. Actually create some content and the like.

So with that said, “Toy Review Crap” is gonna be a new feature – basically me doing quickie text reviews of things I got, using whatever photos I randomly took for fun on Twitter or something with my phone.

And first up, we have a big one – the (currently) final retool/redeco of Mastermind Creations’ Kultur mold – Cylindrus. Or, in actual character names, Roller from the Roberts/Milne/Lawrence MTMTE/Lost Light series at IDW.

I’ve seen people on certain major Transformers forums whining about MMC. And all the redecoes/retools they’ve put out in the last year. And I won’t deny it’s a lot. But A) you don’t have to buy them, B) retools/repaints are a way to recoup mold costs/create seed money to cover upfront costs for new tooling, C) take a look at their upcoming slate for 2019 and all the new molds within, D) you don’t have to buy them, E) YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY THEM.

(So anyway, I bought all of them.)

Vroom vroom!

Just checking out altmode, it’s a fairly involved retool of the already very involved retool of the Collisus (Thunderclash) retool of Kultur. While it’s also an eightwheeler, lots of parts have been clearly changed (I’ll do the rundown in the botmode section), and the clear windshield is a really nice touch that helps sell the “it’s Roller” of the retool. Unlike all the other iterations, he looks like he can actually carry passengers in theory. While not accurate, it’s on the level of a Hasbro “this comic design is neat so let’s use it as the basis for a new toy with a different altmode” that we saw a lot of around 2012 or so.

Even bigger than a giant mug!

Botmode, naturally, is where this toy REALLY shines, though. As they retooled a LOT for this version of the mold, even just comparing him to Collisus – back kibble, cockpit, chest, head, shoulder kibble, knee kibble, and toes have ALL been retooled to bring him closer to Roller’s character design in the IDW comics. As with all the other iterations of the mold, he’s got a killer amount of range in his posability. The head sculpt is pretty darn bang-on, and the color layout is a pretty great match for Roller’s comic art. As one can tell in the group photo, while he shares a LOT of parts with Tarn and Thunderclash he’s very much got enough changes to give him his own distinct visual identity.

Accessories aren’t that numerous, but he’s got what he NEEDS – the rifle originally tooled for the Machine Wars Optimus Prime version of Collisus (which, interestingly, uses a DIFFERENT attachment point, showing some forward thinking on that mold!) and the most important accessory…. the Kremzeek juice box he’s always holding. If he hadn’t come with that, it would have been a travesty, but he does, and while it’s a little tricky to get in, it’s sculpted to fit in his hand in a “has been squeezing the juice out of it” shape. A necessary accessory for most robot mode posing you’re gonna want to do with this guy, indeed.

He’s got the moves like squids and noseless kids

Anyway, end conclusion? Posable toy, and a solid use of the mold. If you’re hung up on comic accuracy to altmode/botmode, you may want to wait for the Roller FansProject is doing, but if you want something without a breastmaster gimmick and with a good solid large size, decently accurate botmode, and proven QC track record, the MMC one is for you.

And to cap this off, here’s a non-listicle of my subjective ranking of all the Kultur mold uses:

Thunderclash
Roller
SG Tarn
Tarn
MW Optimus Prime

Listicle: Top 5 Not-Transformers Transforming Toys of Twenty-Eighteen

General Tekno — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 05:25:48 +0000

With 2018 now in the rearview mirror, it’s now the time to curate my lists of the best toys of the year – and having done so with the official Hasbro/TakaraTomy releases, it’s now time to do so with the UNofficial stuff. The unlicensed things. The knockoffs. What the layman calls “third party” even though the actual definition for third party items is not these. And like the HasTak list, I will abide by certain ground rules:

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2018 (this excludes stuff like MP Sunstreaker, who I was messing with Dec 31 of 2017)
Toy does not have to have been released in 2018 to qualify – it can be something I only just got this year
Five things plus an honorable mention of “something that’s not on the top 5 but deserves to be brought up all the same” are going to apply for each list.

This was honestly an INCREDIBLY hard list to curate – there’s a lot of quite frankly amazing things that didn’t make the cut even though I loved them. But I wanted to make sure I represented a bunch of high points of the past year, and so with that in mind, here we go:

Honorable Mention : Black Mamba Ares Nitrogen

2018 has seen a lot of knockoffs of official Hasbro/Takara product. Some are just essentially carbon copies of the original (albeit high quality) like all of the MP-36 KOs we got, and others are actually full-on upscales and upgrades of the original molds.

The Nitro Zeus figure from 2017’s TLK toyline was one of my favorites. Not just because he had a fun character and gold chain in the film, but also because it was a kickass design and just a really good overall transformation. And not something I expected to see, well, improved.

Black Mamba is one of the third party groups specializing in upscales/upgrades of movie toys. Often adding various engineering tweaks, paint apps, and diecast, their figures are pretty top-notch quality. And finding out that they were doing a Nitro Zeus upscale, I had to get my hands on it… and it is quite frankly amazing.

The paint budget is incredible. The feel of the toy is incredible thanks to the added weight. He’s got added ankle tilts. The entire plane body is even painted, and he comes with an alternate head that is an upscale of the DOTM Shockwave mold’s (which, in fact, is a far closer match to the movie design’s head than what came with him at retail). One of the surprises of the year for me, and something that I felt HAD to be highlighted SOMEWHERE on this list.

#5 : Mastermind Creations Stray Asterisk

Over the course of 2018, Mastermind Creations released a number of reworks of their Alpha/Beta mold based on Wing and Drift from the Drift miniseries. (I count both of these in the same breath because, even though he’s a very extensive remold, Beta shares the same core skeleton/transformation scheme as Alpha. In sum total, 2018 gave us 5 versions of this in total, and I am not ashamed to say I own all of them.

To flash back to an anecdote from 2017, when I was in Toronto in the days leading up to TFcon, I came across a really neat knockoff of RTS Jazz in Chinatown – done up in blue and gold with a new head, it was a representation of a G1 styled Drift based on his deco in AOE. Horrendous plastic quality, but too gorgeous NOT to own – and so I paid the relatively cheap cost and got my hands on him, as I mused just how WELL the movie colors worked.

Flash forward to TFcon 2018, and to everyone’s complete surprise, MMC unveiled a version of THEIR Drift done up with the same general inspiration – Drift in AOE colors. And as they did on the knockoff, they POPPED here. To further enhance the toy, the cloak that the original release of this mold came with was redone in a deep dark purple that was a fantastic complement to the already awesome blues and golds.

The mold is fantastic, and the TFcon Chicago redeco of the Wing version was also quite incredible. But the Toronto version is just pure perfection.

#4 : MakeToys Skycrow

As everyone who’s messed with it knows, the MP-11 Seeker mold… has not aged very well. A rework of the MP-03 Seeker design (that was basically removing all the deviations Kawamori did when they hired him to add a designer’s toucuh to said figure), MP-11’s aesthetics are really getting worse by the year in comparison to everything else on the shelf.

And so MakeToys stepped into the void in 2017 by doing an entirely new Seeker mold in the Masterpiece scale that went for cartoon accuracy. While I don’t own it yet, the original Starscream version simply looks fantastic and blows away the HasTak MP-11 release aesthetically.

2018 saw the release of the mold in the mandatory redecoes – Skywarp and Thundercracker. And, on the heels of a successful unloading of my extra FansProject Dinoking shells at a toyshow, I went straight over to Ages Three And Up’s booth and dropped that cash on the Skycrow – the purple and black redeco of the mold.

He is gorgeous. The transformation is great. Aesthetically he blows away the Hasbro release of Skywarp, and NAILS the shade of purple on his forearms/stripes – something that is definitely one of the hardest things to do with that color. With his acquisition, Skywarp has gone from being buried in the background of my MP Decepticon shelf to front and center.

#3 : Open and Play Big Cannon

Not all third party toys need to be fancy to be great. Sometimes affordability and playability can be big assets. And Big Cannon is a fantastic example of that – an upscaled rework of Hasbro’s Titans Return Galvatron mold, he adds a bunch of new parts to increase his articulation and G1 accuracy.

He’s no FansToys Sovereign. The paintwork is barebones, and it relies on the plastic colors to do all the work. Unlike a lot of Masterpiece-scaled releases, he definitely looks and feels like a toy. But his simplicity is his strength, because he also happens to be very affordable and FUN.

He’s a great toy to mess with. QC is pretty solid on him, and the biggest weakness is actually born of a strength – you can unpeg the cannon from its base and directly into the body in altmode to increase the G1 accuracy, BUT the unfortunate drawback is that it pegs in via a half-attached CLEAR PLASTIC peg. This part broke on me, and I have to thank the stellar customer service at Ages Three and Up for getting a replacement cannon to me ASAP.

(Incidentally no, A3U isn’t a sponsor of this or anything. I just buy a lot of 3P stuff from them, they show up to a lot of toy shows I attend, and overall I’ve had a great experience as a customer of theirs.)

#2 : Perfect Effect Mega Doragon

Okay, this toy was obviously going to be SOMEWHERE on this list. I’m a huge Beast Wars fan. A massive Beast Wars Megatron fan. And this is a companion piece to 2017’s Beast Gorira, their take on Optimal Optimus – the (clearly iconic) Transmetal 2 dragon form of Megatron, only revamped and stylized up the wazoo.

It’s not going for accuracy – in fact, it sheds the techno-organic look of the original toy for something closer to Beast Machines Megatron’s ideal of technological perfection – a very mechanized dragon that still evokes the original CGI model closer than the actual toy did (the chest on the original toy not being accurate at all, for instance.) He’s got a few bonus features, like a swappable faceplate, fold out blade, and an entire forearm hidden inside his dragon neck that can be flipped out to give him symmetry… allowing him to wield the twin swords stored in his wings.

And OH YE GODS, the wings. That wingspan alone is a reason to buy this toy – fully deployed, it is a thing of beauty. The headsculpt is sublime, and the colors bang on – in fact, the entire finish of this toy is a superb metallic gold, with some fantastic translucent orange wings and gold detailing everywhere, and a proper burnt-out purple look to the face.

It’s honestly weird that this is becoming very quickly the go-to design for 3P companies as the number of unofficial Beast Wars homages proliferates – it’s actually the SECOND dragon Megatron homage to market (granted, the first homages his TCC toy more) and there are 2-3 MORE dragon Megatrons soon to come that I will find myself tempted to buy, yessssss. I mean, the Transmetal gold dinosaur, to me, is still THE iconic Beast Wars Megatron body. But all the same, Mega Doragon is freaking GLORIOUS!

#1 : NewAge H1 Flipper

One is a small number, and so it’s fitting that the Number One on this list is also the smallest figure I purchased this year. Coming from NOWHERE from a brand new 3P company, this Bumblebee homage took TFcon Toronto by storm, being easily the toy of the show.

I’m not really using hyperbole – a number of people I know got him, and upon Vangelus getting a hold of one during his “Why Do We Like The Toy” panel and marvelling at it, the figure almost immediately proceeded to sell out. I ended up getting my own copy months later, buoyed by all this word of mouth – and oh man, it lives up to the hype.

The pocket sized 3P items have gotten really big, so to speak, in the last year or two – Iron Factory keeps putting out hit after hit, their releases eventually becoming hard to find months later, and DX9 and Magic Square are also throwing out a ton of great figures. And NewAge’s simple entry into the increasingly crowded but affordable market is, well, the perfect little tiny Bumblebee. Only a few inches tall, he easily has the complexity of a mainline deluxe, with an impressive partscount and even an alternate transformation to allow for the Goldbug redeco to maintain a Throttlebot backpack. (Which is also a nice redeco that I ended up buying.)

This Bumblebee is one of my regular fiddle toys – the QC is fantastic and the transformation involved but very easy, intuitive, and satisfying. Even if you haven’t fallen down the pocket sized rabbit hole, you owe it to yourself to try this toy.

Listicle: Top 5 Transformers of Twenty-Eighteen

General Tekno — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 04:18:10 +0000

Wait, what’s this? A new post to this site? YES!

Basically I decide that I wanted to maybe actually use this thing that I pay money to maintain to post my top toy lists for 2018 as I also try and get myself back to working on my own personal projects in the coming year.

So with that said, we’re going to start with Transformers – specifically, the official Hasbro/Takara Tomy varieties. To lay down some ground rules for how this list works:

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2018 (this excludes stuff like MP Sunstreaker, who I was messing with Dec 31 of 2017)
Toy does not have to have been released in 2018 to qualify – it can be something I only just got this year
Five things plus an honorable mention of “something that’s not on the top 5 but deserves to be brought up all the same” are going to apply for each list.

So let’s get down to brass tacks:

Honorable Mention : SDCC Throne of the Primes w/ Optimus Primal

I’m a big Beast Wars fan. So the fact we got a new Optimal Optimus mold in 2018 was frankly an amazing thing. It really is a nice mold, and the retail one is pretty great even though it makes some color compromises (which I need to fix still with the unopened Reprolabels I’ve got off to the side.)

But the SDCC release is the perfect package – it gives Primal a really really cool cardboard throne with a faux-ratcheted mechanism for storing all 12 Prime Masters in it. A sceptre that can store the other 4 Prime Masters released. And of course a crown. It really adds a bit of an Infinity War vibe to the character which is pretty great.

And even more importantly, it does something that I’ve never really considered re: this toy – it actually IMPROVES on the color work. Look, I love Beast Wars. I love the original Optimal Optimus. But I have to be perfectly honest – when I take off my nostalgia filter, it’s hard to argue that the SDCC version isn’t superior. They did what I’d never even CONSIDERED and mapped his Season 1 colorscheme to the toy, and in doing so enhanced the entire experience. It maps incredibly naturally and is a “why did nobody think of this before” thing. (I mean hell, the Matrix chamber in his chest even allows them to evoke Primal’s S1 chest detailing!)

#5 : Power of the Primes Counterpunch

When this toy first got announced, we were all wondering what the hell it meant. Were they retooling Jazz into Counterpunch somehow? Were there steps we didn’t know about on that toy? How would a combiner peg be incorporated? Little did everyone suspect that what Hasbro ACTUALLY had planned was an ENTIRELY NEW MOLD – one that eschewed the linewide combiner compatibility in favor of just remaking the original Punch/Counterpunch toy with articulation.

He’s got the same head reveal gimmick. Two sets of hands in order to switch the thumb placement in the two robot modes. And even some hideable faction symbols for either mode. And when comparing him to the last two releases that the TCC did, well, he blows both away – the original Sunstreaker retool has aged horribly (even though it was an inspired concept in its time) and the TCC Counterpunch, while also a nice toy, lacks the dual robot modes.

Ultimately, this guy had to be acknowledged on this list. Such a nice toy indeed.

#4 : Studio Series Blackout

When news of Studio Series first leaked, it was a weird thing to think about. The idea that the Transformers films had been around for a decade now is still kinda nuts, and it’s even more nuts to think about how in that time a generation of fans that grew up with the original films are now adults with disposable income to spend on better versions of the toys they got back in the day. And with Studio Series, Hasbro’s designers were determined to get a (mostly) scale-accurate feel into the toyline. After years of scale not really being a consideration, its return to toylines has honestly been pretty fantastic to behold (and I look forward to 2019’s ambitious ROTF Devastator combiner as a showcase of this.)

Leader Blackout was one of those pipe dreams the fans kept pining for that entire decade. Blackout’s original Voyager toy suffered from the old model of packaging everything in vehicle mode – as a result, they had to fit a giant helicopter in that box, resulting in a very short Voyager that didn’t scale well with anything in the line. And while this new toy still compresses a lot (like the CG model), it being packaged in robot mode means it goes from a large intimidating robot to a MASSIVE helicopter. (And in fact, the Black Mamba upscaled knockoff of said toy looks to be even more impressive and massive)

Blackout’s got the size we always wanted and clamored for. And an even more accurate robot mode, complete with the horribly designed legs of the movie CGI model. Which highlights one of the weird odditites of Studio Series in a nutshell – the toys are accurate to the point of replicating some of the WORST design decisions of the CGI designs faithfully, and not only do I not deride this but I celebrate it. (See: Brawl’s AWFUL shoulder design for instance, lovingly and accurately remade in toy form in 2018).

Studio Series is the toyline I never thought I’d love, and going into 2019 I’m eagerly awaiting to mess with the new takes on Jetfire and the aforementioned Devastator combiner.

#3 : Power of the Primes Battletrap

Technically these are a set of two separately carded releases – Battleclash and Roadtrap. But you can’t discuss them in isolation given how integral the combining gimmick is to these two figures.

Battletrap is a great example of taking a G1 toy and improving on it – unlike the original G1 Duocons, which had 2 altmodes that combine into one robot mode, his two parts are two entirely separate Transformers that then combine into an incredibly posable G1 Battletrap robot mode. He’s fun and fantastic, and there’s really not a lot to elaborate on with him- once you have him in hand, you understand very quickly why he won Hasbro’s fan poll for the best Transformers toy of 2018.

#2 : Siege Optimus Prime

While these are technically 2019’s new product, as per usual, wave 1 started to show up in late 2018 – and thanks to some odd Hasbro Toy Shop shenanigans, I was able to get the first wave of Siege for some pretty good prices up here in Canadaland.

2018 and 19 have actually been very kind to Optimus Prime – coming off the heels of 2017’s MPM release, we got the Studio Series mold (which while I don’t have it, I’ve heard great things), the really cool POTP Leader, and later in 2019 the movie 1 Studio Series retool plus the Bumblebee movie release (and of course MP Prime 3.0 at his insane price). And going into Siege, I will admit that my initial thought on this mold was “oh great a new Optimus Prime; I guess we do need to keep the character current for new buyers after all.”

And instead what we got is the first true successor to 2006’s Classics Optimus Prime mold. Sure it’s an odd “Cybertronian truck” that’s the 80s cab with some tweaked greebles, but the robot mode is phenomenal. Incredibly posable, with ankle tilts, wrists, and a fantastic headsculpt, and an incredibly intuitive/satisfying transformatino to boot. Plus, with Siege, scale is once again at the forefront of the toyline, meaning that he’s a proper size to go with all the bigger and smaller robots in the line.

I never thought I would get excited for a mainline Optimus Prime toy like I have gotten excited for Siege Optimus. Never mind declared an OPTIMUS PRIME toy the best toy so far in the line. And here I am.

#1 : Masterpiece Dinobot

Okay. This one was an obvious no-brainer to anyone who knows me. It’s the toy I was MOST hyped for in 2018 – a toy that I never could have possibly IMAGINED would exist. Beast Wars Dinobot is very much a CGI design of its time that cheats so thoroughly that I never thought he would get any sort of show accurate representation – never mind in Masterpiece, where I figured after Primal and Cheetor we were probably done.

And THIS TOY. THIS TOY. It pulls it off. It goes from the laughable bad 90s CGI velociraptor to the “there is no way this actually transforms” robot mode in an incredibly intuitive and satisfying way. It’s incredibly posable. Has multiple face options WITH MOVING MOUTHS. Light up eyes. A spinning rotate blade gimmick. And, because it’s being done to scale with Optimus Primal, is on the larger end of Masterpiece releases, standing around the same height as Masterpiece Optimus Prime (2.0).

Dinobot is truly one of the grails of my collection. An amazing toy of one of my favorite Transformers characters. I love Beast Wars Megatron and I love that he is also getting a Masterpiece toy (which will dwarf Dinobot because again, scale.) But Megatron was never the challenge to pull off that Dinobot was always going to be. And yet they tried. And succeeded.

And so Dinobot is the Robbie Rotten chorus and Majel Barrett of my list: he IS Number One.

Coming up next for my lists: Third Party Transformers. Aka the big money sink for the dedicated transforming toy collector.