Sunday, December 28, 2014

Brainstorm! Arcee! Chromia!

So a little while ago Brainstorm was available on Habro Toy Shop so I ordered him and he arrived shortly after. How awesome is he? 


Pretty awesome. His alt mode? Whatever. It looks like something from the Star Wars prequels. The headmaster's head looks like it's about to snap off. Aside for this photo, I won't be removing it from the body. Unlike his the other Generations Voyagers that came out this year, there's no sticker sheet, so there's nothing to break up the teal, white, and gray color scheme. The briefcase is Lionel Hutz'.


ARCEE! This version's hands are 'open.' Vehicle mode is meh. I was worried that this was too similar to the Impossible Toys figure from a few years ago, but it's instead vastly superior, at least in figure mode. She's still a bit of a shell former and the shell that makes the front part of the car is too close to her transformed body to hold the blue swords (like Animated Arcee). Anyway, it's great to finally have an official G1 themed Arcee (even though I would have dug the recent IDW version).


Pretty great figure. The legs pop out from the hip ball joint very easily, but not with any damage. The real problem: be careful with the upper arms' elbow joint. When you turn her forearms, you can feel them resist and...will it stress the ball joint and break it? Taking off the upper blue shield bit might help. The front wheel 'fork' on mine has already started to curve. Great figure, neat motorcycle design.

From "good to great" isn't a mixed bag of description. You've probably seen several complaints about recent Hasbro Generations figures being flimsy to hollow and clunky. If you're on the fence about Brainstorm, well, it depends if you are a fan of More Than Meets The Eye, in which case it's a no brainer (or YES Brainstorm! get it?). Chromia is cool but some of us clumsier fans are going to break those arms or lose pieces transforming. I don't care for having to transform Arcee and struggle with fitting the hips into the car shell part, but her robot mode is very sturdy.

So yeah, cool figures.

...see, BRAINstorm. BRAINer. Why do I have to explain it?

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Hey, how about I type about some toys for a change?

OMG, I've been so busy drawing Mort strips and drinking coffee that I haven't typed up anything about my toys. And since I got Generations Brainstorm and am expecting Arcee and Chromia tomorrow, well, maybe I'll talk about some of the other stuff.

PLASTIC ROBOT DOLLS!

So I got Windblade, Jhiaxus, Nightbeat, and the playwright. But before those four arrived, what else have I found?

GENERATIONS ROADBUSTER - Ah, now I don't ever have to search out the G1 "deluxe" figure. The figure itself? Pretty amazing, save for his hands being attached to the forearms and not being able to move. He also has large feet. Large clown feet. He also has a lot of weapons you can creatively put on any of the pegs of his body, or put together in many combined forms. However, there's a lot of them. I haven't found good combinations for these. His transformation is actually pretty simple, and so all the empty space behind his legs and other parts of his body serve the purpose of making a very tight looking car. He's very light but still sturdy.

G1 GNAW - I keep forgetting that the Sharkticon has an actual name: Gnaw. But I like Sharkticon and why shouldn't I? That's such a great name that adds to the ridiculous figure, because Sharkticons are ridiculous. The one I found is missing the tail/weapon. If I make "Sharkticonado," well, now I have the star, don't I?

G1 Overbite - This is another G1 shark figure that has legs. RUN WITH IT, BABY! And arms, but I'm missing those. He's a "Scramble City" type of combiner so that means his head is super tiny and so he stays in...alt...form...a shark with legs. HOW DO YOU NOT LOVE IT?

A few G1 Micromasters - I don't know their names and I didn't take pictures. But I got my first G1 Micromasters. Never had them when I was a kid because by then TFs were off my radar. They're plane. They're SMALL, that's for sure. And with movable arms (but not moving elbows) and then legs that move together on two joints each...they're almost more posable than the original larger Autobots & Decepticons! Pretty cute.

Nope, I didn't take pictures of any of them. Go to TFW or TFwiki or Seibertron or visit one of my blogger friends linked on the bar on the right, those guys do a great job. I don't. Been busy with a lot of drawing stuff (if you can't tell). Hey, visit Robots With Coffee on Twitter and Facebook.