If I'm not mistaken most 3rd party Transformers range between 5-7 inches.
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Transformers |OT| Transform and roll out...
- Thread starter Mike M
- Start date
If I'm not mistaken most 3rd party Transformers range between 5-7 inches.
ColonelSkills
Member
Masterpiece Sideswipe for scale.
I have these not-Bruticus components on preorder, and the individual prices are higher than individual MP prices, but if not-Blast Off is any indication, the figs are going to be pretty solid throughout.
Third party stuff tends to be pretty god damn pricey, and it can be hit or miss, but I took a gamble on Warbotron and it's paid off so far. The second one, not-Brawl, is currently in the mail from BBTS. Should be here in a week or something.
The final combiner is going to be massive and I have no idea where I'm actually going to put it. It will not fit in in a Detolf.
They're roughly Voyager sized.
The combined robot towers over the average Masterpiece figure.
BattleMonkey
Member
What what
Well, there was this interview with Shogo Hasui, one of the designers of TakaraTomy, back in early 2013.
Since Ultra Magnus is about to come out, expect Jazz and Bruticus to be confirmed soon!
Since Ultra Magnus is about to come out, expect Jazz and Bruticus to be confirmed soon!
Huh? Those things are gorgeous.
This also reminded me to pre-order the reformatted STAG cleavers for Terminus Hexatron (they're the ones that come with the new black version) since they look amazing. Kinda wish they also came with the new helmet as well, but what can ya do?
BattleMonkey
Member
I doubt they will put effort into releasing a full MP Bruticus
There's too much unnecessary detail on those warbotron figs. I say keep it simple and clean. They're also too liberal on the robot designs. Swindle doesn't have tires sticking out from his shoulders and is that supposed to be Onslaught? The robot form of not-Brawl doesn't have the imposing body shape of Brawl from the cartoons. It looks they designed it with the toy in mind, but I think Takara Tomy would care more about retaining the faithfulness of the cartoon designs.
Devastator looks more faithful at least, apart from that huge crane sticking out like a sore thumb. Doesn't look as imposing as I imagined Devastator would be though. They should have used the design from the movie. ...Perhaps I'm too picky. :lol
Devastator looks more faithful at least, apart from that huge crane sticking out like a sore thumb. Doesn't look as imposing as I imagined Devastator would be though. They should have used the design from the movie. ...Perhaps I'm too picky. :lol
BattleMonkey
Member
He looks closer to the art renditions and what we saw in the WFC games, the previous Bruticus combined always looked awful in toy format. They modernized the vehicle choices for this 3rd party figures... it's busy yes but think it looks great either way.
I don't see takara doing a MP level original accurate bruticus combiner though. Frankly none of their combiners have looked that hot all together. They have a hard time getting a single former to be accurate to any source material, MP's usually as close as you can get and those sacrifice alot often. Try to make all these figs combine together, it's just going to get even tougher.
I don't see takara doing a MP level original accurate bruticus combiner though. Frankly none of their combiners have looked that hot all together. They have a hard time getting a single former to be accurate to any source material, MP's usually as close as you can get and those sacrifice alot often. Try to make all these figs combine together, it's just going to get even tougher.
Mainly you're not taking into consideration the size of the figures. Also that Devastator has had a lot of fanmods done to him, extending his legs and messing with the paint, and I think he looks weird and spindly as a result, plus the crane can be set properly backwards, but the guy who owns that one turned it around so he'd fit on the shelf. Lotta bad decisions on him, IMO.
On Warbotron, because he's so huge you need a lot of detailing or he'll look plain and blocky at that size. You can see that problem happening already with MP Magnus, who looks like he's made out of solid colored bricks due to the character's cartoon design. The detail lines also won't stand out so much on the final colored product, as those prototypes are designed to make that stuff stand out more visibly. Warbotron is probably the best designed combiner I've ever seen.
Barrow Roll
Member
Maketoys Green Giant is still the most aesthetically pleasing Devastator to me. Whoever's doing the designs at Maketoys and Fansproject has a really good style, reminds me of Don Figueroa. A lot of other 3rd party stuff just doesn't do it for me.
That's more because Ultra Magnus's original toy design wasn't terribly well-designed to begin with. Basically, it's a white Prime with a shell and add-ons. Still, I don't find it to be offensive; it is close to cartoon accurate as you can get and Ultra Magnus is one of my least favourite G1 characters. I'd rather have
than
or
Just let Bruticus have more or less the same characteristics as the original design.
Done! No hundreds of lines crisscrossing to make it more sophisticated than it is.
BattleMonkey
Member
The toys of bruticus were real simple too, but all it did was create a blocky looking combiner. Some of this stuff just doesn't translate well or you can't get it perfect either way
The one thing I don't like about these is that they cheat, a lot.
I own both Green Giant and TFC Hercules, and the latter is waaaaaaay better. Maketoys uses really high quality plastic, but their scale is too small for the cost and most of the Green Giant figures are fiddly and annoying, especially Scrapper and Long Haul. Green Giant looks great on my computer desk, but I will probably never separate him into his component robots ever again. Such a pain.
Something that clean and blocky is just not going to cut it as a 20 inch tall robot. Warbotron is a fantastic updating of the Bruticus concept. I have no real interest in slavish devotion to the 30 year old animation models. That's what Takara's MP line is for. I prefer the third parties to have a little fun with the designs.
Barrow Roll
Member
Gonna have to strongly disagree with you there. I work in a comic and toy shop and we had both of them in stock and on display side-by side a while back. I was able to get personal hands-on time with both and I vastly prefer the Green Giant. Like you said yourself, the plastic quality is much higher. The plastic quality and color saturation on Hercules gives it a very cheap look to me. The individual Hercules bots do nothing for me; they're way too chunky and blocky for my tastes. They have a Unicron Trilogy era voyager vibe. And I'm going to have to disagree on the price. Green Giant was around $350 when new from US retailers if I recall correctly? Each Hercules figure was around $90-$100? So we're talking $350 vs $540-$600 and the size difference isn't even that large. Giant comes up to Hercules' chest. It was nearly unanimous preference for Giant with our customers when they saw them side-by-side, especially given the price of each.
Looks decent, but the lack of wrist swivels for something that expensive is a sin. Perma bicep curling arms, no thanks.
HammerOfThor
Member
I really like the not-Megatron and not-Galvatron figures but their small for the price.
BattleMonkey
Member
The warbotron space shuttle mode bot does look way too busy and kinda ugly personally, but Heavy Noise looks fantastic.
Im still fighting the urge to pick up a green giant, the main issue I'm having is space for anymore toys in my house. It's gotten bad
Im still fighting the urge to pick up a green giant, the main issue I'm having is space for anymore toys in my house. It's gotten bad
Not an uncommon viewpoint in the fandom itself, but Hercules is much closer to the "proper update of the concept" angle that I prefer. Green Giant is a nice piece, but it's too damn small and the individual bots are really subpar compared to the combined mode. I enjoy fiddling with most of the Hercules bots (not Bonecrusher, because of that stupid three-part shovel), but the Giant guys are really unintuitive, especially Scrapper. It's a well-made figure but it just doesn't compare to the big, blocky, solid goodness that is Hercules. Hercules is Devastator in my "Classics" collection shelves. Giant will probably be sold off at some point.
That said, Maketoys does quality work overall, and their upcoming Computron looks like a huge step forward and a must-buy. That Power Core Combiner style version of The Fallen they did recently is also great.
For general information about lore and characters and such, I use TFwiki.
For forums, I use this thread : P I dropped out of active participation with the fandom quite some time ago, I just reached a point that I found all the boards to be completely insufferable.
TFW2005 is the biggest I think. There's also seibertron.
Barrow Roll
Member
I'm in the same boat as you, but I still check TFW2005's frontpage for news.
aparisi2274
Member
I like TFW2005.com, but I prefer TFORMERS.COM. Both are great sites for Transformers News and announcements.
Barrow Roll
Member
All TF sites basically report the same news, but I think the reason I prefer TFW2005 is because their image galleries are the easiest to browse. Seibertron and TFormers making me load a whole new page for every image in 2014, ridiculous I say!
So I read the two TPB's of Dark Cybertron.
I was so let down by the whole thing.
The writing, the art was not up to the usual standards at all.
The whole thing felt like it had great elements but nothing flowed and connected with each other. Everything felt disjointed and forced despite the set up.
All in all it was very disappointing.
I was so let down by the whole thing.
The writing, the art was not up to the usual standards at all.
The whole thing felt like it had great elements but nothing flowed and connected with each other. Everything felt disjointed and forced despite the set up.
All in all it was very disappointing.
ColonelSkills
Member
Yeah, the actual discussion threads on something like TFW2005 are...quite painful.
That said, the marketplace and trading forums on it are useful, and you can score some good deals if you glance about and are looking for something in specific.
Other than that, I'd echo these sentiments. The fandom can be extremely grating.
Let it never be said that I claimed otherwise : )
What bothered me about the Transformers fandom in particular that seems to be somewhat unique is that the big message boards seem to be populated almost exclusively by adult collectors, yet the moderation policy is conducted as though the primary audience is a bunch of grade-schoolers.
I realize that is precisely the target audience of much of the franchise, but c'mon...
ColonelSkills
Member
You aren't wrong, but I think Mike hit it on the head. There's something peculiar or specific about the way that Transformers discussions tend to go that gets on my nerves quicker than the usual internet bullshit.
It's probably a combination of its more niche nature and smaller community than something as broad as video gaming, but I won't claim to know for sure.
In any case, has anyone picked up the MP-18S Silverstreak repaint? I'm trying to avoid doubling up on MP repaints since that can be a painful rabbit hole to fall down, but the photos turning up of it make it look pretty sharp.
This ended up going for almost $27,000.
Tizoc
Member
I agree, I personally did not like how they didn't let each book follow its own set of characters, like MTMTE can focus on Prime and Rodimus' crew while RiD was what was going on on Cybertron. The art is the worst offender for James Roberts' parts of the story because of the same face art, if it was the usual artist as in MTMTE it would've been far better =(
At least it showed us the
Rod Pod
So bad it made me drop TF comics half-way through.
ColonelSkills
Member
Just had Heavy Noisy show up. This is one of the more enjoyable transformations for a third party fig I've ever dealt with. No really bizarre actions. Everything's exactly as you expect it to be, robot mode looks great, tank mode looks fantastic.
I thought I was keen on Blast Off but this shits all over that.
I thought I was keen on Blast Off but this shits all over that.
Thanks. That'll work. I can cut that sticker sheet up and use it as a masking tape to give my Dreadwing a white Decepticon logo.
D
Diggeh
Unconfirmed Member
Swerve and Cosmos been readily available on Amazon for $8.99. Keep checking back.
Ugh, first I've heard of it...
Whimsical Phil
Ninja School will help you
If you really need a Swerve/Cosmos, let me know. I have a set that will be arriving shortly from Big Bad Toy Store, but I already broke down and bought 'em from Target a while ago. So if you want 'em, I would be happy to get them to you for cost + shipping.
