November Hauls

[Dominic]

I may wait for a sale on Ironhide. I am not too picky about vehicle forms, but I do have standards. (I am not as fanatical as JT is about the alternate modes. For example, I like fanciful forms like "Cybertron" Menasor, but Ironhide's vehicle form is....well....) If I see an Ironhide on discount, I will likely buy it.

Odd thing about "Universe" is that the least desirable toys seem to the be rare ones. Aside from Wave 2, where Galvatron seems to out-number Acid Storm on the shelves, the less prefereable figures are scarce. If I drank, I would have made a game of finding Octane's at retail, taking a chug from a thermos of beer whenever I saw one. Ironhide seems to be in that category as well.


I will need to get/borrow a digital camera to show picks of Tiger Track and Spin-out.. (I am getting ready to buy a cell-phone, so hey, maybe I will get one with a camera.)



These are pretty easy conversions. The end goal is the wind up with a yellow "Universe" Sideswipe and a re "Universe" Sunstreaker. The names are based on Takara toys and information in old Hasbro documents.

If you have either one, you can get a pretty good "preview" of the converted figure. Invert the "official" configuation of the waist and arms, either figure. Swap the hands, (and if you are really picky, the shoulders), them spn the head 180 degrees.

If you just want to drop the hammer and do both, start with standard copies of both, convert them to robot form.

First, reverse the hands, (and shoulders), so that the left of each becomes right and the right becomes left. Note: Be very careful to leave the arms themselves on their original side for *official* configuration. The allignment of the door panels is needs to stay the same relative to the body, regardless of configuration. (Remember, the vehicle modes will not change at all, the these panels have to conform to that.)

After modifying the arms as described above, remove the heads. Note: It is not necessary, and probably a bad idea, to open the heads with a screw driver. Besides the (very real) danger of stripping the screws, Sunstreaker's head has springs that will pop out and are just about imossible to get back into working position. (You can still move the "ear-bits" manually, and this is actually preferable if you are making Punch/Counterpunch.) It is possible to simply pop the heads off of the ball-joints, and swap them that way. Sideswipe's is a bit more difficult to do this with, but hardly impossible. (Be sure to hold the robot chests in place while re-attaching the heads, to keep the ball joint from sinking into the body.)

Faction decals are a nice, but optional step. (I have yet to do this one mine.) Both will have faction sigils on their backs, but those will be obscured if one attaches the engines/backpacks.

A bit of black paint applied to the upper panels of Tiger-Track's (yellow Sidesipe's) chest can add color and make the toy look more "factory". (Look at the black on Sideswipe's chest.) I have not done this, as the idea of a paintless custom appeals too much to ruin the idea.

Spinout, (red Sunstreaker) is a bit trickier. His license plate will still be specific to Sideswipe. If you have the motor-skills, it might be worth painting over and re-lettering. (I lack the hands and eyes needed to do this well. Use your discretion when making the decision to attempt this.) Note: Do not paint Spinout's ears red. The original "Red Sunstreaker" had yellow ears, just like "normal" Sunstreaker.

Dom
-made a Deepcover, and has been meaning to type up a custom Spinout profile.

[BWprowl]

It's worth noting that I (and '86, if I recall) plan on swapping around all of the grey and white parts between my Spinout and Tigertrack to help differentiate them a bit more. I'm also probably going to paint Spinout's ears red anyway, for the same reason, if not just because I think it'll look better. Need to get some Autobot symbol stickers too.

Hey Dom, I understand not being able to paint Sideswipe's liscense plate (I know I couldn't), but why not just print out some decals to put over it? I totally plan on giving my Spinout a vanity plate (especially as 'Spinout' is seven characters, aka: proper liscense plate length).

[Dominic]

I will answer this up in the cusomizing thread.

Dom

[Dominic]

Pilot Scarlett, for customizing

Dom
-getting another, for another custom....

[Onslaught Six]

She's basically the only one from that wave that I want. Yes, for the stupid Glenda homage, despite me not liking any of the Argentina figures before this--been primarily more interested in Action Force figures, as such. Even did up a halfway decent Hunter homage.

[Dominic]

I am thinking of making Quarrel and Munitia, (female HiSS driver), from my pilot Scarletts. I might actually use an extra (hatted) Lady J head for a Glenda though. (Either way, she is known primarily in the US for dying in "Rise of the Red Shadows", a story that even DDP seemed to regret as they were publishing it.)

Between Scarlett and the black Stormshadow, it looks like Hasbro is ignoring foreign characters and just making odd recolors of existing characters.

Dom
-would not be as interested in making an actual "yellow Sideswipe".

[Onslaught Six]

I'd imagine they're doing the repaints as the recognizable characters still (Scarlett and SS) to help "introduce" these colour schemes to people who wouldn't already know them. But it actually makes everybody lose in the end anyway, since we get semi-inaccurate homage figures with the same names on the stands (I hate those damned stands now) and the other guys end up with obscure figures that don't work in other kind of contexts.

In essence, it's actually the case of Hot Shot Getting Painted Like Hot Rod.

[JediTricks]

Hauled in a cold a week and a half ago thanks to my niece. Since my last post, here are a few highlight hauls...

TFU Ironhide - good ideas, poor execution. Mine is bluefaced and has a paint error too, the lower part of a side window is unpainted. Alt mode is very cracky everywhere. It's also too narrow especially on the lower half, and the back end doesn't look like something you'd see on a vehicle like this. The underside is largely empty which causes the whole thing to be a little fragile, easy to cave in. Transformation is very clever, but ends up with some big problems by not thinking through a few things. Bot mode has a lot of backpack, a sunken in neck, hollow lower legs and skinny upper legs, screw holes, and stability issues in the upper body. The articulation is decent tho. The weapon is largely a brick, but the gun at least looks cool. I'd grade it a "C" probably.

Star Wars Clone Wars Jedi Delta Starfighter - kinda nifty split-in-half gimmick, deco is too clean, clever secondary cockpit for full sized figs in the droid slot, sculpting is good but could be a little tighter. Not too shabby though.

WALL*E U-Repair dlx WALL*E - very nifty, good wear deco, ok articulation but could be better, really comes apart a lot, second set of damaged treads.

WALL*E dlx EVE - pretty cool figure, interesting way of doing the eyes and arms, nice hover stand, good accessories, love how the chest doors work.

Star Wars Prince Xizor / Leia Organa Comic pack - I actually read this book and comic back in the day. Xizor is a very good figure, good sculpt and deco, hampered only by hard plastic skirt and lame recycled staff. Leia is ok, but paint problems on the face and hair, and a loss of femininity with the squared hip articulation and the oversized ankle articulation - this figure would have been better served by cheating the ankles and either not articulating them or not painting them like flesh. Her cloth wrap is a pain in the ass as it's not that accurate and it doesn't fit for crap and doesn't lay down at all. Still, an ok set.

[donosaur]

Pan's Labyrinth

TFA Swoop. I'm learning to like this guy, although he's a little wonky at first. Question: what do the pegs on his feet do? How does he hold his mace in pterodactyl mode?

[Dominic]

I'd imagine they're doing the repaints as the recognizable characters still (Scarlett and SS) to help "introduce" these colour schemes to people who wouldn't already know them. But it actually makes everybody lose in the end anyway, since we get semi-inaccurate homage figures with the same names on the stands (I hate those damned stands now) and the other guys end up with obscure figures that don't work in other kind of contexts.

In essence, it's actually the case of Hot Shot Getting Painted Like Hot Rod.

It is actually more annoying. In the case of Hotshot, no character is lost. With the half-@$$ed homage Joes, we are actually losing 2 characters. Mind you, Hasbro gave us red-ninjas (SeiTin/Shaytan), which actually made me think we would be seeing international characters. They actually did something similar with the Crimson Guard Cobra Commander. Of course, the old Red Laser figure used the battle helmet CC.

It is hard to objectively complaing about the stands, as Hasbro is hardly obligated to make the stands appealling for customizers. I have been meaning to make up some kind of labels for the customs I am working on. Right now, I have Snake-Eater, (Phoenix Guard Firefly), on a stand with somebody else's name printed on the front. Ditto for Friday, (Phoenix Guard Zarana).

Dom
-actually making a Red Laser/Vaughn figure.