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Maybe 😇: Regarding extra missiles, Yamato and adhesive putty were my hook-up :

Honestly, never considered it. Been staring at the Toynami’s for so long, that I always pictured the cockpit as white. Also, that model I posted in the first post probably left a lasting impression on me.

The “Dammit, Mog! Just show us picks of the finished product already!!” Post: So about that Gatling gun, it does rotate: IMG_8964.mov BUT I wanted to make sure I could also mount it in bomber mode. Slight shifting of parts and some adhesive putty, and the gun stays in place: All hardpoints have weapons thanks to adhesive putty too: Also, Hou-Rey combo in effect : So because of the “wonderful” limitations of the Detolf shelf, I did have to pose the fighter combo at an extreme angle: But I did make sure to snap a bunch of glamour shots: Especially with her Alpha-Beta cousins 😎:

Damn, Mog! That looks really good in red. Ouch. That explains how you got it done so quickly. 😅 At least spray it down with a couple coats of matte topcoat to conceal the brush strokes a little. That'll help prevent the stickers from peeling off, too. 👍

i need bonus missiles

I am compelled to remind Mike of Travis Knight's Bumblebee. Transformers One was a pleasant surprise (given its disastrous marketing campaign), but it has neither the heart nor the humour of Knight's film.

Well that's cool! Did you think about making the top of the cockpit red like the CM's?

WORK IN PROCESS POST 1) The Prep: Since this was no longer going to be a Mars Base Tread, I went about sanding off the MB markings on the white parts: Also, sanded off the NO STEP printing on the wings later. Not sure how they do it on real wings, but I always thought the NO STEP signs are supposed to be read from the edge of the wing, not the opposite way the are marked here. I also tried to sand down the shoulder missile racks, in order to reduce some paint rub: Probably didn’t work as well as I had hoped. 2) The Painting: I looked over the Tread and spotted a few screws here and there. There’s probably a few screws hiding under some panels. But I was too nervous to try and pop them out or risk damaging the Beast. So, spray painting went out the door. Because I have no skills or experience with an airbrush, had to go with brush painting. So, apologies for any visible brush strokes and flaws in the painting. I also used white paint to better cover up the parts that had the sanded off tampo markings. It’s a little rough and thick, but just had to make due. We shall call it Optimus Tread : The poor Tread had to be put in some compromising positions, just to get properly painted 😅: And as previously posted in the Mospeada thread, I went ahead and painted the fixed pose pilot in Rey’s outfit: I would have preferred if Sentinel had packed his bike there too, BUT he does look good in the Tread: The missiles also got red-tipped to give them a little “pop”: 3) The Panel-Lining: After taking forever to paint every nook and cranny and then using a toothpick or sandpaper to pick off any excess and paint slop, it was time to panel-line the Beast: As I’ve done in with other birds, I use a grey micron pen for the lines on white parts and a black micron pen for the lines on the colored bits. Always like the results. 4) The. . . Umm P’Stickering (to keep the alliteration going ) : So if the Tread was gonna combine with Houquet’s Jupiter Base Legioss, I had to properly sticker her up. I recall singing the praises of Toynami’s stickers for the Beta many years ago. And they still hold up even to this day: I did have to make bigger stickers for the wings too: Went through a lot of trial and error with the sticker paper back when I did the custom YF-21 years ago. But got it down to an exact science now. Now, we tie it all together in the next post. . .

I'm sticking to Jada Toys.

Funny. I have Chinese neighbors, and in my attempt to learn a little Mandarin, I discovered that food is pretty central to Chinese culture- even their greetings have to do with eating. I'm not a car guy, but I do like the way any number of them look, and I appreciate a good-looking car alt mode. I've also been collecting the LEGO Speed Champions sets since the line began, so I get cool cars from both of my hobbies. Enjoyed the review, Mike. I POed this guy as I really like the bot mode and the jet mode, although I wish they'd found a more elegant solution for the feet. Anyway, being a Cybertronian jet, I'm not going to judge it as harshly as I would a real world jet alt. I will point out the old Takara staple of arms just hanging out along the sides with no attempt to even hide the hands. So lazy and careless. On the whole, though, especially from the front or a forward three-quarter view, it's not a bad looking jet. It could've been better, but at the deluxe budget, I'm inclined to agree with you in that it looks pretty good in both modes, niggles aside. Thus far, Starscream and Arcee are the only two TFOne toys I'm getting (waiting on Pulse to release them); However, Airachnid has my interest piqued. I thought she was one of the most interesting characters from the film, I dig her flight mode, and I'm curious to see what the final toy looks like.

So as I said in another thread, the Sentinel Tread is (most likely) the last large-scale mecha I’ll ever purchase (barring some insane holy grail coming out). Other than getting few 3.75” scale figures, I’m basically out of display space at this point. (And IKEA discontinuing the Detolf kinda kills off getting another display case to fill up.) . . . So, bear with me as I get way too damn long-winded and wax far too nostalgic in this thread. It’s my last custom mecha, baby!! I’ve been in this collecting game for over 20 years at this point. And over that period, I’ve made my fair share of customs. From this board alone, I’ve learned way too much about panel-lining, white-backed decals and stickers (RIP ALPS printers), styrene sheets, the power of adhesive putty, and about photography (and using a tripod with those old point-and-shoot digital cameras). I already have two blue Alpha-Beta combos. I already bought a red Sentinel Legioss (because I like the unique color-scheme and that longer rifle was too damn cool). And I wasn’t sure if Sentinel was going to release a red Tread. So when Sentinel finally announced the Tread was going to be up for preorder last November, I knew I had one last custom mech to mess with. Because as cool as the designs are, this color-scheme needs a little “extra” to tie it all together: Pre-Planning and Weaponizing the Beast: Once I knew what the Tread was going to be armed with (originally behind that Japan-only paywall ), I got to pre-planning last November. 1) Blame this model (http://policap-inside.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2007/06/post.html) for originally giving me the idea, but I wanted to arm the Tread with a Gatling gun. I’ve shown pics before, but here’s what I got, along with a pic of me testing it with the similar sized Toynami Beta (more info in a later post): 2) I REALLY didn’t want to jump through extra hoops to get the extra missiles. Plus, last I checked, the Tread has six hardpoints under the wings, and Sentinel was only offering FOUR missiles. Add in the two hardpoints on the Legioss, and that’s eight total hardpoints to arm. I don’t think Sentinel realized how many extra missiles I have lying around or how petty or ingenious (take your pick) I can be: White ones are from the Yamato 1/60 Version 1 VF-1’s. Grey missiles are from the 1/48 Yamato Stealth (added the greys for a little color variety). And adhesive putty is my friend. More pics and posts to come! TLDR?: Moggy’s customizing the damn Sentinel Tread. That’s why his old Tread avatar had a red background on it.

I'm loving the wing missiles that came with mine and now need them to release more so I can load up all these hardpoints.

Watched the first 2. Enjoyed them greatly... I like the new creepy crawlies. Can't wait for episode 3.

My Tread arrived from Nin Nin today. As with my Tread ordered from Amazon Japan, there was next to zero packing material inside the shipping box. Inner box was in perfect condition, however. I guess forsaking packing material is the new normal.

The F-22 had the provisional name "Lightning II" before they settled on "Raptor," hence the name of Novalogic's PC flight sim for the F-22, F-22 Lightning II. Speaking of which, the third game in the series, F-22 Lightning 3, has a Macross reference, as "Skull Squadron" is the name of an allied F-14 squadron in the game.

Starscream looks nice, I still rather like that he's his Trijet alt mode and we barely even saw it in the film. Actually I feel like the characters in this film really shine in the Studio Series line. I only ever got B127 and missed out on Prime and Megatron entirely, but that figure was pretty solid compared to his deluxe variant.

I only saw the first episode cause I got my days mixed up. It wasn't bad, I'll watch episode 2 when I get home tomorrow if I'm not stuck trying to get the paperwork to my new car done.

yes, i'm also looking forward to the next part of One Piece

I’m guessing end of month. It’s odd to get the fighter without the weapon set

Mixmaster still hasn't shipped, no idea what's going on with Elita-1, so... I guess this is the last Studio Series review for now? This being Deluxe-class Transformers One Starscream. I compared Starscream with both screen captures and concept art, and overall Starscream's pretty accurate with the usual caveat that Deluxes often lack the budget for all the paint that they need. So, there's a little gunmetal paint on the inside of his forearm, but not his fingers or the mechanical details on the outsides of his forearms. Likewise, there's a little on the top of his foot, but not his toes. His chest vents are painted, but there's none on his lats. There's a hinge on his wing with molded gun-like details that's painted on one piece, but not the part that connects to it. His biceps are missing red stripes. Overall, though, the sculpt is very accurate, a blend of recognizable G1 features and the rounded shoulders, short torsos, and long skinny legs that was TFOne's schtick. I just have two minor nitpicks, and one "this should have been addressed before it went into production" complaint. The nitpicks relate to his backpack. The intakes and the hood are accurate, but they sit back further from his head than they do on the character model. Also, the intakes are just empty, hollow spaces where the CGI model had them filled with gunmetal mechanical details. As for my "should have been addressed" complaint, it's the way the ends of his wings fold. On the toy, they fold over toward the side facing forward. How could this have been fixed? By having them fold to the back of the wing instead, which would have been more movie-accurate. Starscream comes with a few accessories. The most obvious are his null rays. There's also a weird-looking blue gun, and a white bit that doesn't look like a weapon at all. Starscream's head is on a ball joint with a little upward tilt, but plenty of downward and sideways tilt. Shoulders are also ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. No wrist or waist articulation. Hips are ball joints. Due to his backpack he can only move about 75 degrees backward, and the cut of the socket doesn't allow for a full 90 laterally either, but he makes up for it with a forward kick that goes about 120 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees as well. His toes can tilt downward due to his transformation, but no upward tilt and in a first for Studio Series-level TFOne figures no ankle pivots. The null rays properly plug into Starscream's shoulders, though I suppose he can hold them in his hands, too. The blue gun and white bit can also be held as weapons, or combined into one larger weapon. You can store the combined weapon in a port on his back; that's actually the proper place for the white bit in alt mode. If you plug it in there you don't actually have to remove it or the null rays to transform him, but the blue gun does require partsforming. Speaking of transformation, for the most part it's pretty straightforward. His backpack opens a little to reveal a spot his head tucks into. His chest swings up, and the nose of his alt mode unfolds from inside. His legs tuck up to where his chest was, and his knees bend so his feet are at the back of the jet. His arms basically just lay there alongside the fuselage under the wings, which rotate on ball joints to help cover over them. Just two issues... first, lining everything up can be a bit of a bear. His heels have to plug all the way into his backpack, or the flaps on his legs won't line up right. If the flaps on his legs don't line up right the forearms won't sit over the hinges on those flaps properly. If the arms don't sit right the wings won't tab in correctly. Once you get it all sorted, though, you'll have to deal with the bane of my existence- the intakes. In theory they untab from the backpack then swing backward on armatures to "thoop" into place over the wings. See, they're held on by those mushroom pegs with the slits in the middle that are, in practice, supposed to squish in to fit through the hole then spread back out to hold the part in place. In reality a simple 5mm peg would have held on tighter, and I've yet to transform Starscream without both intakes popping off. The jet mode doesn't look bad, though. It's the lovechild of the Siege Seeker mold and the Bumblebee Seekers. While the arms are a bit obvious, they do seem to be in the right place. The sculpt is largely accurate with guns in all the right places. Discrepencies between the toy and the CGI largely come down to missing paint, just like bot mode; mostly he's missing a red stripe on the tail and more gunmetal on the cockpit. The cockpit can open; I don't think there's a need for passenger spaces on Cybertronian alt modes, but you need to open the cockpit to transform him, so it's there. As I mentioned earlier, the null rays stay on his shoulders to wind up in a screen-accurate place in alt mode, and the white bit forms the tip of his tail. The blue gun is captured between his shoulder pads as you transform him, but the placement is again screen-accurate. Starscream, much like Prime and Megatron, suffer a bit from being Deluxe-class figures. Now, I get it, most of the bots in the film were pretty similar-sized, and by making them all Deluxes they can get them out faster due to there being more Deluxe slots in a given wave. But if more of his joints were hinges and swivels instead of ball joints, maybe things would line up a bit easier. Maybe he'd have the missing paint apps. Maybe he could have had ankles, or even wrists. Maybe his intakes could have been pinned so they don't keep coming off. Still, Starscream's not bad, and I maintain that Transformers One was probably the best Transformers film since the '86 one, so I'm happy to add him to the collection. Here's hoping Soundwave and Shockwave get toys before they move on from this film.

I received my purchase notice from HLJ this morning for the Deculture Package kits too. Hoping the weapons set will arrive soon. Not sure I'm going to risk shipping these now, as they probably won't make the August 29 tariff deadline (assuming that still goes through).

Just got my first Storm Arena Ken figure in. Despite the gushing reviews these figures are absolutely not Jada killers. Not nearly as advanced or impressive as people are declaring.

Yeah, Bandai and Politics seem to be the big problems these days. Everyone else comes through fine and just getting information on pricing is a bit of a gamble. Beyond that, they have done fairly well other than the moving situation

You’re definitely the Master Tapesmith

I guess the one currently on YJA is a steal....