Awwww-bots and cute-a-cons. And ongoing projects.

If you're not aware, Hasbro licensed the Transformers to a company called Kre-o, or rather that's the brand name of the Lego rip off company. I don't know if Transformers were too small a property for Lego to license themselves. "Transformers? Their last movie made a billion bucks? Nah, small tomatoes. Move on, please." I don't know the story. I do know that building a toy robot from scratch, and then breaking it down and building a car from the same materials, minus the actual "transforming," might defeat the very purpose of licensing an already gimmicky concept to a Lego style line.

HOWEVER:

I want angry hugs!

This is the damn cutest series of Transformers I've seen.

I've noticed something: the first wave KRE-O sets are already massively on sale at some stores (Toys R Us have them buy 1 get 1 free, and Costco has sets of two $20+ together for $21.99), and then eBayers are selling the little guys ("Kreons") for a good amount of money. Like, a lot. Like, way too much. And then selling the remaining kits, 98% of the box they are sold in, for very little. Get it? Fans/collectors are buying the $15-30-90 sets and opening them up and taking out the Lego-person-sized Kreons that resemble Transformers, selling those for a premium, and then selling the actual building set to the first bidder if they're lucky.

Maybe it was in their marketing from the getgo, but the 2nd wave of Kre-o Transformers are "Micro-Changers," Kreons sold in blind packs like Sunstorm pictured above. I'm not a fan of the blind-pack stuff. That's fine for baseball cards but not for action figures, even cheaply priced ones. I get it, if there's a hot figure, this cuts down the fighting over that one figure and leaving behind shelf warmers...but A. no, it doesn't. Fans snatch them up anyway. B. many series that do stuff like this leave #d codes on the package. These numbers indicate who is in the package. This info will be online on the first day of release (Sunstorm's # ends in 9). I'm thankful for this because of this first series of 6 Kreons, Sunstorm is the only one I wanted for this series. Yay! Collection complete, moving on.

I've cleaned up the rough paint
on his chest. "38" stickers
coming soon.

There's also two sets of four Kreons. One Decepticon (Barricade) comes with three generic Autobots. One Autobot (Cliffjumper) comes with three generic Decepticons. I bought the Barricade set because the Autobots were white all over, making them easy to paint over. I don't know if he'll be released in a set or as a Micro-Changer later, but to the right is a sloppy attempt to make my own Smokesceen.

It was nice to ruin a few brushes and a generic Kreon Autobot. I have a few other painting projects I have not been able to get to lately.

Another project that doesn't involve painting and ruining toys is G2 Devastator.

There were two of them, a yellow and an orange one. There were a few knock-offs a few years before the movies started coming out. The G2 figures look cheaper than the G1, but this might be a perception issue based on my preference for G1 stuff.  Anyway, they have a purple G2 Decepticon logo, and the word "Decepticon," somewhere on their body, so I guess it's official.

Yes, that hip piece is from G1 Devastator.
I'm not being picky here.

I found a few of the figures at Quake (Scavenger, Scrapper) and decided to build him up Constructicon by Constructicon. Hook would be the hardest the find; he has the most folding parts (heck, his body folds in half  when he forms the chest) and of course his hook. So to find one intact on eBay is in the $30 range. I could have bought a complete G2 Devastator for $50 last year, but didn't. WHY DIDN'T I? WHYYYY?

Thanks to Transformerland and a few eBayers, I was able to get Mixmaster, Bonecrusher, and Long Haul for pretty cheap. I had extra launcher (arms) and the 'hip' part needed to connect Long Haul to the leg robots. Today I saw a broken Hook in Quake's $3 bin and decided why not; he was missing a foot and the hook was snapped off. He could be a stand-in for a full Hook and thus form a complete-ish Devastator until the day I come across that full Hook for a decent price. Because I don't have thirty bucks.

That's pretty much it for now. Rock rock on.