Article of the moment: How are Transformers made?

Answer: in the heart of the sun by the prophet Ezekiel.

I didn't get past the headline, am I correct? Check out this article about TF design.

new! podcast! new!

Eric from 'Til All Are Mine and I get together and make our first podcast. Here's the audio. You can stream it, or right click and save the file, yo.

Update: I should probably mention what we were talking about. It's our first podcast, we don't have a title just yet. We vow to keep it short (45 minutes). How we got started, our first figures, Gear4Toys Ratchet upgrade, Headrobots Whirl upgrade, Prime Beast Hunters Smokescreen, FOC Ruination, Shia getting arrested at Walgreens, and what we're looking forward to.

Thanks Andrew S for helping us record this!

UPDATE! I uploaded this on youtube originally, and then...um, the sound disappeared after 25 minutes. So, I fixed it! So if you don't want to download or stream that file up there, and it's easier for you to leave comments on YouTube, here's the podcast on YouTube!

Life is full of disappointments.

"Something is missing. Or, I am expected to
walk around on my robot genitals."

If you ever read the original The Tick comics by Ben Edlund, you might remember near the end of that (unfinished) run that Arthur would complain about his bad luck, and The Tick would explain it as "Charlie Brown Karma." I pick up lines or phrases like this and they become part of my own personal language. This either becomes part of an accepted way to speak to others raised on pop culture (my band exists because we would use "Everything's Coming Up Milhouse" to describe how we were feeling) or as a sign of some sort of schizophrenia.

So, sometimes, certain aspects of my life can be best described with Charlie Brown Karma. Somewhere something tempts me and I go for it and at the last second Lucy Van Pelt pulls the football away from me and I fall on my back. This is a RIDICULOUS feeling, because in reality someone dropped the ball on their end and it's not my fault at all. Because it has happened MORE than once, and because I ooze Catholic Guilt, I think it's because I WANTED SOMETHING and, because thou shalt not want, I am being punished for wanting something.**

This week was a double dose of anticipation and disappointments.

First up, I bought a few things from Shapeways, a 3d printing site. Clever people create schematics for their items, and Shapeways prints them up. For the fans who are impatient for 3rd party manufacturers not as impatient with Hasbro as they normally are, this is potentially AWESOME, and there's already a variety of products you can get to enhance certain action figures. There's a few things I haven't ordered that would solve a few custom ideas I have, but because I don't have what I consider to be the proper action figures to work with, well, that's why I haven't ordered it.

But I did order three items and blindly; I haven't seen these by any of the die hard local TF base. They took about three weeks to arrive. I was stoked when they did; I was having a bad day at work and this would have totally cheered me up. I could inspect it and then start a-paintin' it when I got home and added to my bizarro TF collection.

I will talk about the full haul, quality & service, later; for now, the one little guy I really wanted to check out? See the photo at the top. Yup, someone created a Targetmaster that TURNS INTO A CHAINSAW. Dudes. DUDES. You would have gotten such a blog entry about the Jackyl Lumberjack song once I painted him, believe me.

This is going to be the best...with joy, I opened up his little bag, and I put his arms on his body and the saw part in place...but, uh, how do the legs fit on? Um, they...don't?

Oh, I see...they forgot the thigh parts. From his torso to his feet, he has no legs.

I was DEVASTATED. I'm serious: this was a bummer. I didn't want to look at the other two items (I did, they were complete). I felt my Charlie Brown Karma kick in: I wanted this, but I don't get it. Shame on me for wanting something, and so badly.

The ziplock-style bag he came in was sealed tight, but I searched the small box he was shipped in and no tiny white legs. My sadness was great, but I figured I should write to Shapeways ASAP and let them know. Maybe they'd believe me? Maybe I can get a refund? Maybe they won't tell me to get lost? I took a pic with my cell phone and emailed it to them right away.

They got back to me a day or so later: if they don't find the parts, they'll ship me a new figure. Woah! Thanks, Shapeways! My anticipation grows again, and when I get the figure, a review. (And you can help me choose what to paint it. I'm thinking something orange and red for the non-chainsaw part of his body.)

The 2nd disappointment was less anticipation and more regret. I sat in at Quake, that toy store where I get a lot of loose figures, and I saw the GT-01 Head & Arms Set from Gear 4 Toys. So the owner sold me one of the two sets (one for G1 Ironhide, the one I got for G1 Ratchet). The concept: it's the top half of a robot body that fits over their G1 counterpart to make it look like the G1 cartoon. The Diaclone version of Ironhide was piloted by a Micronaut-sized figure, and thus Diaclone Ironhide always looked less like a Transformer than a robot piloted by someone, with the seat-sticker seeming to be a last minute substitution for a face.

It took me FOREVER to realize on Ratchet's box art that his robot mode featured with two eyes on his windshield. (Click on the Ratchet image.) That was the original plan, I guess, and how he was featured in the first issue of the Marvel TF comic. Obviously the cartoon had different plans, and some of us kids who got Ratchet for their birthday or xmas did our best to accept Ratchet with the help of our limited imaginations. Though he had a Classics Universe release, the Gear 4 Toys upgrade seemed like a very welcome enhancement for G1 Ratchet & Ironhide.

By the time you get through this caption, he's toppled over.

Note that the name of "Gear 4 Toys" could easily be mistaken for "iGear." Punchline: iGear makes good toys. OUCH. BURN!

That's my review. Maybe I got a bum set. Not helping is that my G1 Ratchet is uncooperatively loose on every limb. See the picture on the right? You won't believe how long it took me to get the piece to fit. The eyes light up, and that's a nice touch, but I'd rather have it FIT, and I think the space where the battery & electronics go to provide the light could have been used to make sure the piece fit over this seat-face. Instead, to make sure he stays on (because the vertically straight sides won't fit around the inclined windshield) you really need to fight with his old arms to hold the piece in place as it tries to pop out. And it has to be perfectly balanced, which is almost impossible if the feet are loose even in the slightest.

I'm a-keepin' it for now because the top part of my G1 Ratchet is broken and I can't sell him on eBay. But I say avoid this and use that money to buy an actual figure you don't have and would like to get. Or donate it to a church or buy some mutual funds. I don't know.

Until next time,
-paul

** My actual religious views (non-views!) are none of anyone's business.

Some great pre-Transformer Diaclone ads.

Here's a collection of Diaclone TV ads. The real thing, complete with drivers. "Car Robots" will be the last bit.

Note that there's a lot of sophisticated action sequences, a futuristic society, hints at a battle that rages across the universe...and yet, one of the evil plans is to block a passenger train.

Thanks, Til All Are Mine, for the heads up.

Twin Spin and Toptwist. I can't be bothered to look up the correct names.

One of the solicits at Big Bad Toy Store this month, and probably the same solicit at your local comic shop, is a case of new Fall Of Cybertron deluxes. One of the robots is the earlier feared FOC Whirl, and it looks like he's one of five robots, along with Roadbuster, IMPACTOR, Twin Twist and Topspin, that are retools of the Combaticons from this line. They are known to many fans (of nearly every comic series) as the Wreckers...

...who of course didn't combine (in any of the comics series). But, because they are retools (new heads, new weapons, new terrible paint jobs) they combine to form "Ruination."

Someone hit my car.

Someone SIDESWIPED my car the other night. A hit & run. I could see the tire TRACKS. There was a white streak on the side of my car where the dents were. My car is named Gears, but the singer of my band calls it Skids. So, this conversation:

monty:  is there a white Stunticon?  because i think that's who hit Skids.

 me:  um, Breakdown

He's a Lamborghini

so he'd be kind of low to the ground. You know, that makes sense. I should look around my neighborhood for a white Lamborghini with a black smudge on its bumper.

 monty:  i think you should.

Anticipation: Trailcutter (breaker) and Hoist

I can't wait for the Generations line to return with the "Classics" versions of Trailbreaker (which will be Trailcutter) and, duh, Hoist, which will be a retool of Trailbreaker/cutter.

 My only worry: So, you know that I didn't like Fall Of Cybertron Sideswipe. The major problems included that his head didn't really pop out as predominantly from the neckhole in his chest as it should have. And then you folded his arms over his wheels, and then that awkward mess stood up on two tiny legs with very little spacing between them (and two fake wheels serving as his feet; his forearms hold his real back wheels).

Okay, so, on the link above for Trailcutter, check out his arms.

Uh-huh.

Same thing: his arms flip over from the side of the door, covering the front wheels, and then his head pops up through his hood/chest. Is the transformation similar? Is this a MAJOR retool of FOC Jazz/Sideswipe? 

When I get a chance, I'll include a graphic to politely further my case...

Sideswipe drawings

My friend Pat Loboyko drew these for me, on sketchcards (the size of a baseball card).

Thanks Pat!

Super Change Series - SPEED POLICE!

I was at a CVS and saw an imitation Transformers brand, SPEED POLICE!

It's a "New Arrival" in the "Super Change Series." Please note tagline that is less a marketing plan than a direct command, "COLLECT THEM." Do it now, comrade, or else! Knock-off/bootleg/imitation figures crack me up. I couldn't find much online other than from wholesalers that probably specify in cheap crap. (CVS was charging $9.99, by the way.) Someone reviewed it on the youtubes.

I think what I enjoy most is the writing and layout. Both are of course terrible. The names, as discussed earlier regarding Go-Bots and their knock-offs (Lotus Eater?), leave so much to be desired, yet would I change a thing? Let's take a look at the next photo, which I took with my cell phone, so it's a little blurry, but you should be able to make out the names...

I'm guessing that the bottom list is the group of bad guys. The police car is one of the bad guys (??) and thus is not a member of "Speed Police." Don't think too hard about this lost opportunity, you are a busy person and you don't want to start crying over the illogical branding.

The bad guys (?) all have the word "HELL" in their names. This is supposed to be a children's toy, presumably something for the child to hold onto and won't realize isn't Bumblebee or any other recognizable Transformer, and won't care even when it breaks super easily. So they each have "Hell" in the name, followed by that of an insect (or in the case of Hell-Scorpion, an arachnid). Where the people packaging this for a quick buck really in that much of a hurry? Did anyone involved thing, "hey, kids probably can't hear the word Hell on their cartoon shows" (note: not sure where to look it up, but according to tvtropes.org "hell" is allowed in G rated films) or at least think "hey, we can't have one of our figures with the name 'Hell-something!'"

His coworker, if he has a coworker, at the computer putting together graphic with a deadline in two minutes: "You're right, we'll have FOUR of our figures with the word 'hell' in their names."

Do you have an imitation transforming action figure from the 80's you're fond of?

One of the COOLER things (link to TFW2005 thread)

Make your own tech spec.

Like this. But I didn't load the correct font before finishing it...so make sure you add the included fonts in your windows/fonts folder before you open Photoshop. Otherwise I used "Agency FB" which kind of sucks...sorry.

(You can enlarge the whole picture, by the way.)

When you do print it, change the width to 7.5 inches; that's roughly the width of the original "Autobot Cars" box specs.

FUN. TOO MUCH FUN.

Custom - "Classics" Downshift

One of my favorite TFs was G1 Downshift. You could get him via mailorder, saving up Robot Points and sending them and five bucks to Hasbro and they'd mail you a figure they figured they couldn't sell in a package.

The Omnibots (those mailaway figures) are a little smaller than the regular G1 cars save for Skids (misconception about Skids: he's a minivan. Us Americans had seen compact cars, but not the City Turbo.). Yet Downshift, Overdrive, and Camshaft all had "battlemodes," where a part of the car flipped out and a weapon could be displayed. The appeal of Overdrive, already a red sports car, he had WINGS that flipped out, so that made him one of the first Triple Changers (well, along with Tracks) even though neither is designated as such. I had Overdrive and Downshift; I wouldn't get Camshaft until literally a year ago when I was full on collecting and realized "Hey, I don't have the 3rd mail away Omnibot."

I thought Overdrive was pretty cool but, looking at him now, he's kind of a flimsy bot. Or Flimsybot (tm). Somehow he stayed together over the years, but I lost two of his three weapons. When I got Camshaft out of the need for completion, well, I was disappointed. He was a little hard to transform, and honestly didn't look that cool as a robot. Plus his head pops up and doesn't stay up; I had to rest it against the missile in the launcher directly behind his head.

Downshift was always a solid figure compared to the other two, and I don't think he gets the love he deserves. His transformation is not unlike that of G1 Wheeljack, and his hands can actually hold things!

This gave me an idea for a custom, of course. And a theoretically easy one...

Blinded by the paint job. Wrapped up like a...

Like I said in the last post, the Headrobots Drone (Whirl) upgrade was pretty well received by the local Transformers Afficionado crew (as seen in "Transformers Afficionado Magazine," no longer in print, the publisher of which long out of business). They thought his weapons and feet/skis were neat, and that the head was pretty good as well, and all winced at the price of $35.

Well, duh, of course I should have expected a Generations Whirl.

He's a retool of FOC Vortex and like the Bruticus will combine with other "Wreckers" to form...some giant robot that the Wreckers of Marvel and IDW and etc. etc. never combined into, which I believed Hasbro already trademarked the name "I Don't Recall The Wreckers Combining Into A Larger Robot-icus."

I kinda knew this was coming because I did see his name mentioned on another blog for the Fall Of Cybertron figures. But I didn't think for a long time that we'd get a Generations (of which FOC falls under) Whirl, or at least one that looked like a Generations version of G1 Whirl.

I don't feel so bad getting the expensive upgrade when a simple head sculpt, even one done at home and painted by myself, could have sufficed, but I'd feel bad if a Deluxe sized Whirl came out. Well, you know when this hits the shelves we'll be complaining about the $18 shelf tag. Still doesn't make me feel better.

The color choices on this figure make me feel better about my purchase, pending inspection if the head fits over a ball joint or if the socket is in the neck, as some Prime and FOC figures have been manufactured lately. No, this makes me feel awesome. What a terrible looking figure.

Ugh.

Comments? Send your letters to "Transformers Afficionado Magazone," care of...

(I hate the song I'm parodying in the title.)

Just plays a mean pinball.

I feel like a jerk because some local Transformer afficionados (as seen in "Transformer Afficionado" magazine, now out of print for obvious reasons) had a get together and I semi-invited Til All Are Mine to join me. But I didn't have an address for the event. Until the day of the event. So Til All Are Mine, sorry, as by the time the party started I was trying to get my house internet back online, and then I had to bolt out the door. So next time.

Myclone! And some neat links.

I'm adding a few links to the bar on the right (when you scroll down); I don't know if I can reference EVERY TF blog, but there's some really cool ones out there, some of which serve as a wealth of information for other Transformers fan (and myself!). I've said hello to Heroic Decepticon and Til All Are Mine and they've said hello back and linked me (probably how you found this page).

Through their pages I'm checking out Botch The Crab's archive of box art (and much more!) and I just discovered the Obscure TF site. So this will help fill in a few moments of my day between meetings and such. Yay fellow TF fans!

A few months ago I'm browsing the frequently mentioned/visited store Quake and they had these:

They're called Myclones, "superdeformed" versions of G1 figures. I picked up Jazz, Sideswipe, and Trypticon. They're absolutely adorable...and they fall apart easily. More below:

Diakron Multi-Force 14 - the bad guy Megatron should watch out for...

I stopped by Quake Collectibles in Chicago and was happy I brought my camera. Dave had the Diakron Multi-Force 14 Robot.

(Please note that the back of the box pictured on the Multi-Force link is slightly different. I'll get to that after the jump.)

If you check out this amazingly well researched TF site, you can see how Multi-Force 14 fit into the pre-TF world, or whatever other licensed toyline he was a part of at the time.

It looks like he was a bad guy, going by the comics that were included with the Diaclone figures, and maybe the main bad guy.

This was, as far as I could tell, a complete figure, though I didn't see any instructions or stickers. Dave was also charging $250 for the shebang. See more after the jump.

Another Swerve custom, and a BONUS easy custom!

Here's another custom. You may have already seen my "More Than Meets The Eye" Swerve. But I also painted the face of the G1 Swerve minicar to try to match his comic book counterpart.

early custom attempt - Starchild Prime

A quick few things that are not newsworthy at all:

1. I won't be buying the Beast Hunter (Prime) figures. Not like anyone asked me or cares what I think.

2. The Mrs. pre-ordered MP Smokescreen for me.

3. I am having a tough time finding the "wave 1" of Kreons.

OKAY, so, anyway, I like to paint my Transformers. I never said I was awesome at it. This is for my own amusement (though I DID sell one! Really!). I've gotten some advice from customizers in the local TF community, including ideas like "you should spraypaint them first" and I can't do that where I live. One guy said "you should use tape, to make straight lines," and then the look of terror when I tell him that I did in fact use tape.

I'm THAT clumsy.

SO, anyway, after the jump, is maybe my 2nd custom attempt. And it's the whole reason why I bought paints to ruin extra transformers.

Whirl - Headrobots Drone kit

First up, holy moly, the Hasbro Toy Fair news: so many Generations figures, the biggest news about the biggest transformer, "titan" class Metroplex: I don't have $130 for this guy.

Sideswipe head action figure ruination

I mentioned before I'd be switching the heads for Classics and Fall Of Cybertron Sideswipes. I did!

Pic 1 - The FOC head on the Classics body!
Pic 2 - the FOC head, with his eyes painted blue! (The piece of plastic that form the "eyes" is too short from the getgo, and hence that is why they don't reach the eye sockets in his face. Not because I shaved them down or that they wouldn't reach because I supeglued the head back together.)
Pic 3 - when you turn his windshield on his back, the head descends into his chest. It FITS! Whee!

There you go.

Fall Of Cybertron Haul

FOUR figures. That's me. No wait, technically SEVEN figures. The JUMP: