All Activity

Happy 59th Anniversary.

This is the kind of product I wish more companies would make: It's a set of replacement joints from 107 Toys to make the RG Sinanju kit sturdier. IIRC that kit used waist joints from the smaller Gundam Mk.II, resulting in a Sinanju that cannot support its own backpack and torso weight. Now if 107 Toys can aim their creative guns at the self-exploding RG Zeta Gundam kit...

We're getting close to completing two Hasbro combiners now... I'm going to check out a local Target that might have Mixmaster tomorrow morning, and Entertainment Earth is shipping Fireflight and Skydive right now (as long as you order the entire wave of Deluxes, which means also getting Venin and Micronus Prime), so with luck I'll have Devastator and Superion complete in another week or so. That said, despite being made out of five or six guys, they don't seem all that big compared to the likes of the new Studio Series 86 Megatron or Optimus, who stand roughly waist high to them. One solution is to buy bigger combiners, but that can be a bit pricey. The other solution is to buy smaller versions of everyone else, something I've been doing relatively inexpensively with Dr. Wu's Extreme Warfare line. And I'm happy to say I got the latest set in, Leap and Pulse Gun. Leap is the inevitable remold of Dr. Wu's Bumblebee into Cliffmumper. That means most of the parts in red plastic are new, but all the black plastic parts and the engineering are carried over from Bee. As far as remolds go, he's alright. I mean, the face is a little off, and quite a bit of the black parts should actually be gray for cartoon accuracy (black is fine for toy accuracy). They went to the trouble of painting the bumper on his feet, too, though neither the toy nor the cartoon have a black bumper. Borrowing Bee's engineering means that, like the Hasbro toy, he's missing his spoiler on his chest. I don't want to judge Leap too harshly, though. I mean, black on the feet (though a grill, not a bumper), a lack of spoiler on the chest, and black limbs were all errors Hasbro made on their own official Earthrise figure, a figure that came first and was only later remolded to be Bumblebee. I feel like I can cut Leap some slack when he's like a quarter of the size. Leap even comes with an accessory: that bazooka he used one time in the entire G1 run. Wu figures come in pairs, and Leap's partner is Pulse Gun, aka Shockwave. As robots go, I think Pulse Guncame out a lot better, wiht a nice lilac-and-lavendar pairing and a pretty cartoon-accurate sculpt. He even comes with a pair of black rubber hoses. The main point of contention here vs Sunbow will, of course, be his backpack being a lighter color due to being made from the barrel instead of the butt of his gun mode. Again, though, this is something Hasbro/Takara has done twice themselves, with bough the Siege toy and the MP (though the MP had a more cartoon-accurate cover to put on it and use as a stand in gun mode), so it's pretty forgivable on a figure that slightly shorter than the gun-mode accessory that comes with SS86 Megatron. Leap's articulation is the same as Bumblebee's; ball joint head that can swivel and look straight up, ball-jointed shoulders that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally, hinged elbows that bend 90 degrees, no bicep, wrist, or waist articulation, ball-jointed hips that go over 90 forward and backward and nearly 90 laterally and provide limited thigh swivels, knees that bend 90 degrees, and feet that can tilt downward but not up and no pivots. The bazooka has tabs that kind of wrap around his forearm, with a tiny tab inside that fits into a little slot that would hold his arm in place in alt mode. Pulse Gun's head is on a hinged ball joint with basically no sideways tilt, but he can look downward a little and straight up. His shoulders are hinged ball joints, mostly for transformation; they swivel and move 90 degrees laterally on just the ball joint. His elbows are ball joints that bend 90 degrees and provide his bicep swivel. No wrist or waist articulation. His hips can go just under 90 degrees forward and backward and 90 degrees laterally on their ball joints, and he's got dedicated thigh swivels. His knees bend about 60 degrees, which is a little limited, but he's at least got 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Leap transforms exactly the same as Bee, which is to say his waist swings back and his knees bend the wrong way, his elbows bend the wrong way, then all the black parts get stuffed underneath while his backpack folds over his head. The wheels fold out of the backpack and the sides of the car fold out from his feet. Pulse Gun uses a method similar to other modern Shockwave toys; head head folds into the chest, the arms fold up over the head, then the backpack hinges up and covers his forearms to form the barrel. The outsides of the legs form the grip while the rest of the legs form the butt of the gun... well, mostly. On this tiny scale, there's still a pretty big gap between the legs, and it's partially filled with a flap from his back. Aside from, as I mentioned before, Cliffjumper never having a black bumper in either toy or cartoon, I don't have much to complain about here. It's a tiny, mostly Sunbow-accurate car. I say mostly because Dr. Wu went to the trouble of painting the lights, which seems nice, until you remember that not only where the lights not colored on the G1 toy/toon but that the Porsche 944 had pop-up headlights, so no silver needed on the hood (and on the bumper it should be an orange turn signal above a white marker light, btw). I'm nitpicking, though. My criticisms for Pulse Gun's alt mode are a bit stronger. As I said before, the legs have large gaps between them. This is because, rather than have the sides of the legs simply move down and forward to form the grip the legs spin 180 degrees, so the outsides of the legs have to fold down from the inside. So a panel in his back has to fold out, and it doesn't completely fill the gap, and what it does fill isn't the right color. It's an extra waist, because that flap could have been his scope, but instead the scope is missing. Then there's other things, like the visible ball joints, the visible sliders on the legs, the visible feet, and the fact that the grip doesn't actually lock in place. On the whole, Leap could be better but I feel like it's pretty easy to forgive his flaws at this scale. Likewise, Pulse Gun's alt mode is kind of half-finished, but the robot mode is super solid and, again, pretty forgiving at this scale. And this price! Even now with tarrifs to contend with, this two pack costs me about the same price as a single Hasbro Deluxe. So, once again, if you're looking for tiny Transformers for one reason or another this set's an easy recommend from me. Just be aware, this set comes in two versions. There's this one, with a pretty cartoon-accurate color scheme on Pulse Wave but black limbs on Leap. There's also a version that uses a slightly brighter red plastic and swaps the black parts with gray on Leap, but uses a much darker purple for Pulse Gun. I care more about Shockwave, hence the set I picked. It's really a shame that Wu couldn't have put the gray-limbed Leap with the Pulse Gun I wanted as "cartoon colors" and put the darker Pulse Gun with this Leap as "toy colors", but the Doctor really wants you to buy both sets.😒 There's also a third version that I have on the way, it uses the Galactic Man deco for Pulse Gun and swaps Leap with Wheel Hub, aka Hubcap.

A new challenger awaits: I'm guessing they changed the fork covers for legal reasons (even though it looks like it will come with the original covers)? I can't find details on it just yet. And with pre-orders asking over 50 USD for it, I reckon it won't be too big.

Had to dust off my mwf account to post the full armor vf-25S is on sale with 30% off coupon. The coupon is oddly specific (says Mid-Atlantic?) so maybe only applies to the east coast so ymmv. https://amzn.to/4nt0vRv Hope everyone is doing well

Mine just charged to my account; I should be getting it soon from BBTS.

Most of us were 50% smaller in 1984. 😉

Got my ML Sunstreaker and Cordon today from ShowZ. First impression: am I on crazy pills? These guys are tiiiiiiiiiiiny! For some reason, I expected them to be ~50% bigger than they are. Time and unfamiliarity playing tricks on me.

If we're taking other Street Fighter media I'm just gonna tell yous to watch Street Fighter 2 V. It's the anime I wish the animated movie was.

Rumor has it a Gladiator/Death Bird 2-Pack pre-order is coming up this month.

Thanks MT! :D I may leave the decals off though! Thanks again! I'll check these out and see how they would work IRL.

Still better than the live action ending...

Damn comic artists are getting SUPER Lazy

That had one of the goofiest endings though with M. Bison resorting to trying to run over Ryu with a tractor trailer and a shoryuken freeze frame.🤣

Yeah, Bandai looks like they have basically completely abandoned any product they can't sell overseas.

Magnets have been my first thought for a while now. I am one of the few who has ZERO issues if something is prefect transformation or not, as long as it looks awesome, I'm good with it.

Thank you guys for the positive feedback! @pengbuzz That cooment on putting a finish on your arm was funny! I'm glad to see your doing better - without a clear coat😁 I'm a little late to the dance, but cake airbrush compressors work too. In fact, I got a nebulizer froma thrift store and use that for mine. Works great too! There's also this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/PointZero-Cake-Airbrush-Decorating-Kit-Airbrush-Compressor/7148487?user=shopping&feed=yes&srsltid=AfmBOorjUp999F_Y2nwtA2jv-f1ZXAD83SMOoRqVKMD5Rt-qn-MtwH2HMSY I believe this one at HL (and other places) can be unthreaded and a hose used: https://www.hobbylobby.com/crafts-hobbies/model-kits/airbrushes/cordless-airbrush-kit/p/81182932 I hope that helps! - MT

@Robin-11 Go, go ,go... https://hobbyfrontline.com/product/re-100-1-100-denan-gei/

Definitely far better than the live action movie or American animated show. i always remember the part where Chun Li gets out of the shower and totally wrecks Vega’s face

I’m thinking magnets can be easily installed into the body and then 3D print the open missile racks. Not perfect transformation, but a quick and dirty way to add the missile racks without having to cut into all those grids in the Beta’s body.

Please add me to the list as well.

Here's the Beta all primed up, the Tamiya paint arrived so I'll be giving it a light first coat to start later today. @Mog I actually considered that for a moment but check out the pic I posted, sadly no way that is happening without doing some super major surgery. That said, if one of you Mad-Scientist 3D printers made that upper/shoulder missile rack as some type of add on accessory, I'd be on board.

https://www.parksavers.com/new-tron-ares-ride-overlay-released/

Yeah Street Fighter II the Movie was peak, can't beat that old school hand-drawn animation.

They also had an animated movie that was better than the live action one: