Generations Jazz, Tracks, and Lugnut

Tracks and Jazz from the TF:Reveal the Shield arrived tonight courtesy of Hasbrotoyshop!I also received an advanced copy (so to speak) of Lugnut.


They are awesome. Tracks I have to give some extra credit to because it's not often I need to refer to the instructions to get those last few steps when changing a TF back from robot to car.
Tracks-overall a solid toy I think. Would I like larger wings? Sure, but considering the 'flight mode' of the G1 toy looked like a silly afterthought anyway, I'm not going to complain. The web feet are only really noticeable if you stare at them, but they serve their purpose-keeping the figure upright. If I have any complaint about this figure, it would be that I wish the arms could shift down a little more at the shoulder. Right now his shoulder joints are almost above the neckline, which bugs me. Shaving off a little plastic should do the trick though.
Of course what really excites me about Tracks is my plan to repaint him into Road Rage-and the inevitable repaint/release from Takara, Hasbro, or FunPub. But until then, the next Tracks I get is slated to go on the slab for the the operation.

Jazz
The first thing I noticed about Jazz is that the boy's got the proportions of a body builder! He completely SHAMES the placeholder Jazz custom I made out of Prowl back in 2008... which by proxy means that he shames Prowl.


Great sculpt, a transformation that takes a little bit of thought, and great poseability. I'm really loving the new open hand design the designers have been implementing. Not everyone needs to be clench-fisted and ready for some fisticuffs.
I am looking forward to seeing this guy repainted into Stepper. Yes indeed.

If your nitpick senses are tingling, it's probably because of what I think is the only noticeable flaw on Jazz. The center strip of plastic that his head rests on rotates up as you move his chest piece down. Unfortunately, there's nothing that pegs into place on the torso or this strip which means the whole setup relies on friction. This could lead to some droopy noggin syndrome down the line as the plastic wears, something that could be avoided if there was a peg or notch that secured the parts into place.
But that's something easy to overlook when you have Jazz in all his robotic glory.


Lugnut.
An amazing leap from Animated to the more modernized Generations look. Though I do have a bit of an issue with his noggin looking like an egg on a stick, I've modified his robot mode a bit to leave more of the canopy leaning forward. It may look silly to some, but I wanted *some* semblance of a thick neck, which is what I always thought Lugnut should have.
I'm looking forward to the more purple-hued TF: United version that's coming out in Japan.

Generations Breakdown

I know Hasbro's giving us all kinds of awesome and amazing things, and I love it.... but...I'm just sayin'... is this too much to ask?


Give us Generations Breakdown dangit!

New Finds

I just found Generations Red Alert and WFC Soundwave at Toys R Us!

I’m not surprised by this, having JUST ordered them both from TFSource because I didn’t think I’d see them until October. Arg. But I did find Banzaitron as well, so that was a neat little surprise. Sadly they won’t be opened until sometime next week after I’m done moving. Then they can join their robotic brethren.

More customs for my Generation 2 shelf

Oops, forgot to post these bad boys.

Combat Convoy!
This actually turned out better than I hoped!

I varied the color placement a bit from my initial digibash (see earlier posts) and kept a little more blue to make him look more like his G2 counterpart.

Decepticon Rage

Leader of the Decepticon Stormtroopers (no, I’m not making that up), Rage is one bad mofo. So bad in fact, he seems to have that Motormaster relationship with his teammates. The funny thing about not only Rage, but his comrades, is that their stats are ridiculously high. Of the four, Rage is technically outranked by two his own troops, and I think all of them have stats that rival Megatron… very interesting. It almost makes me want to see something done with Rage that made him into more of a headliner.

Scram
Scram really seemed the prefect repaint for the Classics Silverstreak mold!

There really wasn’t a whole heck of a lot that needed to go into this aside from laying the base coat, adding lots of blue, silver and orange. The hardest part was laying out those dang pink squiggles! I puzzled over how to create them and wound up just doing it manually. Not as clean as I would have liked, but I’m happy with the way they came out overall.

Generation 2 Ramjet
Way back in 2007, I thought it would be a good idea to try to create my own Dirge and Thrust. Things didn’t turn out too well, so I wound up stuffing the failed attempts in my duplicates bins until I could figure out a worthwhile use. Cue this year’s Botcon theme! Now what was once a failed attempt to create Botcon Thrust is remade into Generation 2 Ramjet! Of course, this will wind up just being a placeholder, as the TF Club announced at Botcon that one of the upcoming club exclusives will be none other than, wait for it, Generation 2 Ramjet. Arg.

Straxus arrives! Also, PowerCore Renegade

Straxus, er, Darkmount has finally been freed from his Post Office prison. I like this guy-a lot. The helmet isn’t quite as feline as I thought, and the lower legs are actually a lot better than a lot of reviews I’ve seen made them out to be. He has waist and ankle articulation, take that Drift!


He is now free to terrorize anything that resembles Blaster.


PowerCore Renegade:
I’ve had the PowerCore character Searchlight in my possession for a few weeks, but never actually picked him up until yesterday and realized that he’s a dead ringer for the Renegade Twin Spin. I’m sure other people have noticed this as well, but it’s the first time I ever took a good look and came to the conclusion myself. It’s striking, right down to the colors and having propeller blades on his forearms. Replace the gray with some beige and you’ve got yet another slot in the Renegade Ranks being filled.


Man, good job Hasbro! I’m anxiously awaiting the upcoming Highbrow-who will be repurposed into Bolt, as well as Tomahawk, who locks right into place as Wrong Way.

Black Animated Prime!

Black Animated Optimus Prime arrived today! Woo!

I thought I was done with Animated, having sold off most of my original collection-then they had to go and release Arcee and that delectable crystal ‘Sons of Cybertron’ set! This however, trumps everything else in the line, even ShadowBlade Megatron.


Love the way the window detailing looks in red. And because Japan loves to torture me so, how much do you want to bet there will at some point be a release of this guy with a Decepticon insignia?


He fits right in on the Black Shelf, now I’m hoping for a Black Animated Arcee. Oh who am I kidding, that’ll have to be another custom in the queue.

Botcon Supplementals: Part One

I started working on this bunch of customs a little while before Botcon, but then got distracted with the trip itself and the subsequent laziness that followed. Now that that’s passed though, here is the first few custom bots that will be sharing the shelf with this year’s Botcon Generation 2 themed figures.

First up, Autobot High Beam.


I liked this guy, he was one of the original ‘gobots’ from G2 that could be used in the HotWheels sets. According to his bio, he’s not considered a fighter by his teammates, but has never backed down from a fight. I like that, and combined with what I think is a very striking color scheme, earned him a custom.
You can see some more pics of him over on TFW2005.com.

Decepticon Jetstorm:


Not my favorite custom, unfortunately the general layout of the original doesn’t match up well enough with the Classics Mirage mold to retain the more defined features of the character in both modes. In robot mode he’s not bad. Obviously he needs some of those original decals to full invoke the feeling of his G2 counterpart, but even without them I think he has a definite G2 Jetstorm feel.

The problem comes in vehicle mode. I don’t know if even the decals would make someone think this is Jetstorm because of how much the black covers the figure without any bright blue breaking up the layout. Oh well, looks like Jetstorm will forever be in bot mode.

Fearswoop!
Yes, *the* original G2 Fearswoop, take THAT cruddy ROTF ‘Fearswoop’ in Hooligan colors!


I like the way this guy turned out, he’s got enough wacky colors going on to really evoke that G2 feel. The downside for me on this custom was a reminder of how I need to strengthen my resculpting skills... or painting skills, maybe both. The face on this was covered up with sculpty in an attempt to recreate his original visor, and though the original sculpt didn’t look too bad, the details completely vanished once paint was applied. Rats. Still, from afar, Fearswoop makes a nice addition to the upcoming Botcon set methinks.


More to come as I prep more final pics!

Drifting thoughts

I just completed both the Decepticon and Autobot campaigns in War for Cybertron, and the whole time I’m zooming around like a madman trying to narrowly escape Trypticon’s endless barrage of missiles and fireballs, I couldn’t halp but wonder…

Wouldn’t Drift’s toy make a neat Generations version of Zeta Prime?



(Credit for base toy photo goes to TFW2005.com.)

Just saw these new pics on TFW2005. To the left is Tomahawk, to the right is Terradive.

Does Tomahawk's head remind you of anyone? Maybe a certain GoBot whose name ends in a single digit number?
No?
I took one look at Tomahawk's Leader-1 head and then Terradive's jet mode and thought "Leader-1 Movie upgrade!" Then went on twitter and saw that even Derrick Wyatt was thinking the same thing, as I'm sure lots of random TF fans were.

So I'm thinking, it's time for me to take the head of one Robot, and put it on the body of another Robot. It's time for Head Swap!

...first you take a head and put it on another's body like if Tomahawk's head was on Terrdive's body, that's a Head swap!


Heeeaaaad Swaaaaaap....
Why the blue? If you don't recall, Leader-1's repaint was a very dark, very nice looking shade of blue,
I think it's nice to break away from all that gray every now and then. That could always be the repaint, right?
I also took away the trident. Seriously, what would Leader-1 do with a trident?

Axer: Quick and dirty

Just saw that 'Axor' is in the Hasbro 'Hunt for the Decepticons' game. He's essentially Movie Lockdown with a new head, but the new head looks pretty cool. Got me thinking about the original ActionMaster Axer it's based on.


How I didn't see the similarities to the Classics Prowl mold is beyond me, so I digibashed something just to satisfy my curiosity.


Considering how quickly and easily this could be done, I may take a stab at this after Botcon. I thought about using Silverstreak, but kind of like him having that light bar. And of course, being coo-coo for two packs, I figured he should keep his cycle partner. Throw in Cybertron Ransak, he already smacks of Axer's motorbike companion. But if you wanted to go for the double homage, recolor that bad boy black like Axer's R.I.D namesake.

(Credit for base toy photos goes to Seibertron.com. Credit for reference pic goes to the Transformers Wiki.)

Omega Doom

With the random Botcon leaks hinting towards us getting a Shattered Glass Ravage and Wheeljack (though I'm hoping it's Slicer, unless the color schemes really are the same, then who gives a crap?) as souvenir figures, it reminds me...
Arg, I still want FunPub to give us Shattered Glass Universe Omega Doom!

C'mon FunPub, give it!
Quick update as of 6/11/10:
I received War for Cybertron Optimus Prime and Bumblebee yesterday and think they're mighty neat! Of course, you know what's going to happen eventually:

Botcon Digibash: Combat Hero Prime

There was also an unreleased variant of Hero Prime that was just blue, black and red.


Personally I loved the way it looked, so I decided to throw him into the mix as well.




His story? I dunno, maybe he was charged with the task of tracking down and putting a stop the murderous actions of General Convoy and Sgt. Hound.
Anyway, I know, I know, too many Primes! Not to worry, I’ve got some other ideas coming down the pike. Now that I’m actually registered for Botcon my creative juices are flowing big time.

(Credit for base toy photos goes to Seibertron.com.)

Botcon is in the air

Botcon is getting closer, you can tell from all the interweb buzzings of "This is AWESOME!" and "That's HIDEOUS!" as FunPub begins unveiling the upcoming Botcon exclusives.

For the last few years, I've enjoyed making my own customs to fill out my Botcon ranks depending on whatever the theme happens to be. For '07's more 'Classicsverse' focused bunch, I made a custom Skullcruncher, Apeface, and Snapdragon to join the Botcon Weirdwolf. A Shattered Glass Galvatron leads my '08 'Heroic Decepticons,' and the '09 Wings of Honor set grew a bit with a custom Boss and Snare.

This year the announced theme has been Generation 2. It's as good as any, a niche corner of the TF Universe that collectors love that also have a slim to none chance of being released at retail. We've seen Pyro on the TFCC club's page, so now my head's been racing to figure out which character from G2 would make for an interesting custom. I am, of course going to aim a little outside the box for my first few, just to ensure there's little chance for an overlap.

First up:

I stumbled across these guys on the TF wiki. Apparently in the '95 Sears catalogue, there was a picture of some Unreleased prototypes, including recolored autorollers made into characters that were going to be called General Optimus Prime and Sgt. Hound. I LIKE that idea a lot.


I figured General Prime would work well as Classics Onslaught with some chamo and a new head.
Sgt. Hound? Recolor classics Hound, white with gray chamo, new head. Ravage could just be Ravage carried over from G1.


Maybe change Ravage's eyes to a different color and have the story be something like:
The Decepticons have only heard whispers of the name General Prime and his right hand, Sgt. Hound. In truth they have no idea what the duo look like, because when a Decepticon does see them, it means he's seconds away from being killed.
The Autobots don't know who the duo answer to, and with each unspeakable act of violence, the Autobots begin to wonder if they answer to anyone at all.


General Prime:
General Prime has been immersed in the Great War for so long he rarely acknowledges that there are even sides anymore. His focus has become more about ending the war, with little regard as to which side deserves to win. Though he has stated that his allegiance is with the Autobots, many of them wonder… if it meant bringing the war to an end, would he turn his fury upon them?

Sgt. Hound:
"Sgt. Hound is a relentless tracker and an unrelenting warrior. His loyalty to General Prime is topped only by his eagerness to inflict unnecessary damage upon anyone who refuses to cooperate.
He takes great pride in Ravage, whom he captured and reprogrammed to obey his commands. Ravage, though forced to follow Sgt. Hound's orders, has never stopped trying to figure how to override his captor's program. He dreams of the day he can break free of Sgt. Hound's control so he can exact revenge and return to his true master."

I’ve been eyeballing a few other characters within G2 that I think would be a nice addition to the Botcon set; I’ll post more digibashes as they’re completed.

(Credit for toy photos goes to Seibertron.com.)

Shattered Glass Galvatron

The latest exclusive Trasnformer being offered by FunPub is Shattered Glass Cyclonus. Not bad, I'll be getting him, but I would LOVE to have seen Shattered Glass Galvatron offered. Aside from SG Prime, Soundwave, and Omega Doom, this version of Galvatron has been the only member of the SG universe that made me do a double take. Pete Sinclair's posted on one of the TF message boards that there was a larger figure they wanted to offer, but Hasbro put the kibosh on the idea. I'm all but convinced it was supposed to be SG Galvatron, considering his bio was in the latest issue of the magazine, one that concluded the storyline. Considering they already made Megatron's SG form for Botcon, it would make a lot of sense to round out the line with his ressurrection as SG Galvatron.
So, to fix this travesty of justice (as much as one who's not working for Hasbro or FunPub can) I customized one of my own. Should one of a more official nature appear sometime down the road, I'll be more than happy to toss mine aside. But until then:







If you'd like to see larger versions of these pics, I also have a thread in the Radicons section of the TFW2005 messageboards.

That's just Super Couper

By now I'm sure you've seen the pictures of Toy Fair 2010 showing off some of the upcoming Transformers, including a new Scout named Hubcap. Pretty neat, a little couper.

Know what else would be neat? I'll be shocked if they don't repaint that little guy into a certain Guardian named Super Couper.

They've already hit Crasher, Dart, and Spoons, why not keep the streak alive? C'mon Hasbro, you know you want to!


Super Couper Gobot images taken from Counter-X, one of THE best GoBot sites I've ever seen.

Overloaded

Remember Overload?

He was a nifty little MicroMaster with a minibase.

He was also in Armada.

How can you deny that's little Overload toting around a big 'ole box of destruction?

And yes, the name was applied to a Green Universe Scattorshot repaint... which should have been called Flak.. but that was used for the Botcon repaint... ugh, anyway...

I'd love to see Overload pulled into the Classics-verse line in yet another Two-Pack idea. With Hasbro's trend of scaling up Minibots (i.e Countdown, Movie repainted yellow Mudflap, who's a dead ringer for the Micromaster Erector) I think it'd be pretty neat.

Real quick...

The eHobby Skids and Screech exclusives...
This is what we got:


























 
This is what I wanted:

Bought some lime spraypaint yesterday >:)
Dammit eHobby, you could have saved me some time and effort if you'd have just repainted the Classics mold! Oh, and you would have been guaranteed my moolah.

Edit: My God, why is it a battle to insert images and text in Blogger without it freaking out and shifting things all over the place? I shouldn't have to type in direct html to make sure the damn thing doesn't spaz out. Too bad, I'm not in a rush to move this back to Livejournal, but at least their setup doesn't punish you for wanting to post pictures. Arg.

Cy-Kill

So... Cy-Kill.
Why exactly does the majority of people I see mentioning him have an unhealthy need for him to be a motorcycle?  Notice how Megatron doesn't have to be a hand-held weapon anymore? He's a tank, a car, a dragon, a giant hand, a jet, a chopper, a pile of plastic, a flying tank... I'm trying to figure out how he's avoided being a horse-drawn carriage... But you get my point, if Megatron doesn't have to be a pistol anymore, why should Cy-Kill have to be a motorcycle?

Okay, the whole Cy-Kill being a play on Cycle, I get it, but is it possible to move beyond that? I'd love it if that happened. Would it kill anyone to spell it PsyKill? SyKill? Or heck, even if it remains Cy-Kill I'm willing to accept the fact that if Bumblebee doesn't have to be a VW Bug or an actual bee, then I'd be fine with Cy-Kill upgraded into a vehicle that the engineers can successfully turn into a robot that doesn't look ridiculous.
But I know change stirs some of the most unpleasant things in some people, so for this update, I used Dark Crumplezone to ease the conversion. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this mold, it's great! It's got the perfect three wheeled vehicle alt mode so people can still cling to the 'cycle' aspect of Cy-Kill for just a bit longer, and the beefy body I think suits Cy-Kill perfectly. Even though (as far as I'm concerned) Cy-Kill was more of a schemer, I always thought that he would be absolutely elated to be in a larger, bulkier body to match the power he possessed.

For this, I swapped the head out for Astrotrain and did some tweaking. I do like Astrotrain's general look, but unfortunately the actual toy head is a little too small to look like it belongs on Dark Crumplezone's body. I had to scale it up for this digibash. I also kinf of like a simple recolor of Dark Crumplezone's face if you wanted to go for a Cy-Kill that was a little more savage.

I can't stand seeing Oil Slick repainted into Cy-Kill. I guess if you need him to be a motorcycle it's okay, I just hope above hope that Hasbro never decides to go in that direction. Besides, if anyone from Animated resembled Cy-Kill, it's Lockdown.
In my personal collection, I like using Lockdown as a stand-in for an advanced, updated Cy-Kill until I can get my hands on the movieverse version.
I know, WTF? Right? he's like, a car and stuff and junk!
Hear me out. Take a look at the color scheme that was originally intended for Cy-Kill (the Red, white and blue we got was only used because the recolor didn't reach the animators in time, the same reason Leader-1 is gray and not blue like his recolor), and look at how similar they are. Now look at the face and the distinctive wraparound chin strap.

By tinting the face and head gem, Lockdown becomes a pretty convincing Cy-Kill upgrade right down to the body proportions and color layout. Lockdown does sport a little more black, but I like that. Him being a muscle car that looks like it smashed out of a Mad Max film just makes it that much more of a perfect evolution of Cy-Kill.
Now granted, he is a bit gangly, and I do like the bulkier Dark Crumplezone, but I think Lockdown's appearance still exudes power. He still works great as an upgrade for Cy-Kill and fits right in with the updated Crasher/Fracture, Dart, Spoons and BugBite.

Disagree if you like, but I think it would be fantastic to see a little more thought be given to the leader of the Renegades. Would it really be such a bad thing for Cy-Kill to progress and evolve past the whole motorcycle bit and branch out into more accommodating modes? I certainly don't think so.