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Thanks @jenius. Like many, for years & years now I have wanted the Shadow Beta for my collection. With CM's and Toynami never officially offering one, I went for it and made my own... worth it! Right now, it's linked up to a Shadow Fighter, later on I'm going to see if my CM's Pilot-less Dark Legioss will connect with the Beta.

DanDaDan episode 24 has a bunch of different mecha anime references all crammed together thanks to the focus character being a sci-fi fan who uses nanomachines to create his own giant robot to fight the supernatural monster of the week. The visual design references a lot of Ultraman, GoLion, and Gundam with the giant robot Buddha having five cockpits and what are very obviously fin funnels. Some of his Called Attacks reference other mecha anime including Macross, like his Daedalus Attack at about 8 minutes in. (He even does Dai-Guard's infamously awful rocket punch.)

Nate from the Transformers team put out a pic of Soundwave with a tape measure. I took a picture of Netflix Soundwave with a tape measure and tried to line it up. Not exact, but it looks like Soundwave might be bigger-er than I first guessed.

@Thom Thank you! I've been adding stickers and some decals to the TREAD, she's looking pretty mean right now. I transformed it to Bomber mode and right now she's linked with a Shadow Fighter, I'll take some pics in the morning. Overall, the paint held up nicely during transformation.

Next update, right now the official word for Rogue is "next Month." However, AoA Wolverine and Cyclops were both set for the 27th of September and now their official release date is "next month" too. If things hold that would probably make Wolvie/Cyke the 11th of October and Rogue on the 25th. But that's a heavily salted guess.

DYRL VF-1S Max weathered and SSPs weathered

Summer '25 is wrapping up... Betrothed to My Sister's Ex had a reasonably satisfying conclusion. Some good closure for the story after oh-so-much waffling with the evil parents getting their comeuppance for their various crimes. Secrets of the Silent Witch's penultimate episode is another good one. I decided to bite the bullet and buy the light novel to get more. Solo Camping for Two decided to try some actual character development for its penultimate episode, and it honestly fell pretty flat for me. Mainly because the protagonist has never really had any character traits beyond being an antisocial jerk whose only real interest seems to be driving into the wilderness to drink large amounts of cheap beer and eat canned food like a hobo. Dan da dan... y'know I've never figured out of it's meant to be DanDaDan or Dan Da Dan... are we really watching an Ultraman monster fight a giant robot Buddha with the Nu Gundam's fin funnels? You have to admire the audacity, if nothing else, even if it feels increasingly like the series is just throwing random sh*t at the wall to see what sticks. Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant had a predictably unremarkable ending. Not bad, but shockingly bland for a protagonist whose whole schtick is cooking. The Fall '25 simulcast lineup is being announced now too. https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/seasonal-lineup/2025/9/17/fall-2025-anime-crunchyroll Still a LOT of generic-sounding isekai titles in the Fall '25 simulcast season lineup. A Gatherer's Adventure in Another World, A Wild Last Boss Appeared, Campfire Cooking in Another World S2, Dad is a Hero Mom is a Spirit I'm a Reincarnator, My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's, Tales of Wedding Rings S2, The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess, and The Fated Magical Princess. Color me surprised that that hot mess Tales of Wedding Rings got a second season. That was an open air tire fire of a story. There are some titles of considerable merit and interest though. A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace seems to be another case of the manga industry documentarizing itself, albeit with a lot less ecchi than last time. Let's Play, a series about a video game developer whose first-ever game release is derailed by a terrible review from a famous streamer. I really want to see where they go with that one. One Punch Man season 3 promises to be amusing, if nothing else. Spy x Family season 3... what can I say except "Yes, please and thank you" and doubtless "Please sir, may I have some more?" at the end of the season. Tojima Wants to be a Kamen Rider promises to be interesting too. It's the story of a lifelong Kamen Rider fanboy who, armed with a fairbooth Kamen Rider mask, sets out to fight crime. Phrasing is dead. I stopped cold seeing titles like L'il Miss Vampire Can't Suck Right, Pass the Monster Meat, and This Monster Wants to Eat Me. Maybe I just have a filthy mind. Actually, no... I definitely do... but still. Phrasing. That first one's description sounds like the center of a Venn diagram of Rosario+Vampire and Actually, I am... and the second sounds like a series about some relatives of Laios from Dungeon Meals with a couple who are connoisseurs of consuming fantasy monsters.

Okay, see you!

That’s a tough question to give a straight answer. If you go by the line art it works, but the pilot would be too small for animation, since the animation shows zentraedi as battroid height. But I think it will look great with the plamax kit, as long as you don’t open the hatch next to it.

Nice looking dio @tekering. Good idea with the paper for metal. @F18LEGIOSS2 That brings back some nice Robotech* memories! *don't hate me, I as a kid when I watched it!! Good luck, @pengbuzz! That is a great looking ship scene! I remember loving that Alpha/Beta fighter team ups @505thAirborne. That's so cool. @MechTech Right! It's not a scoop without the scoop!

And Wheelie is Primus' joke on the entire Transformers race. :p

all these wonderful hasegawas over the last few years...and i now live where i can get to akihabara or Leonardo in 20 minutes. Yet i cant justify buying them since i have such a large backlog of models =p. I really really really wish they would make a new 1/48.

Aww, reminds me of the oft teased Toynami... Glad you were able to make your own, looks good!

A little something I've been working on.

Beautiful! They nailed it for me. It's exactly what I hoped for. Question for everybody, regarding scales, does the Hasegawa Rau 1/72 match well with the Plamax 1/72 battroid? I would love to do a diorama.

The odd thing thing about TRON: Legacy was the Jeff Bridges de-aging. It looked terrible in the first scene in the real world for Flynn but looked fine in the digital world for CLU. Anybody feel the same way? I guess its because CLU was supposed to be a separate character from Flynn, or at least in my mind it was.

I will definitely be picking this up when it is released. Great job, Hasegawa! MB

I'm just going to enjoy it like this for a moment before I add the Jupiter Base stickers & decals. Overall, the colors suggested by @tekering match the Toynami Poseable & CM's Legioss very closely, the Alpha MPC is slightly different but overall, I'm happy with it.

I might be an outlier but I found the original Tron movie boring, stilted, and badly acted (or directed - I've certainly seen the two leads give far better performances in other projects).. The FX were interesting but the extras seemed to be wearing ill fitting sweat suits - and that really annoyed me for some reason.

That right there is spot on. I can only see them doing a parody these days. MV was cemented in the time it was made, right down to the pastels (which IIRC they were the instigator of)

How about we split the difference? Onyx Prime is why there's mechanical beasts, like the dinobots, predacons, insecticons, Sky Lynx, etc, and Beast Wars-style forms that actually look like animals are a more modern "disguise" technology, evolved from the invention of pretender shells? ... And the mixed organic/techno stuff like Fangry are just abominations mocking Primus's light.

I think I’m still more of an og Battlestar Galactica or Buck Rogers fan, but I do also love Miami vice,A Team, Airwolf, 80’s Magnum PI and a couple of others that I have a hard time picking favorites from as far as live action.

Yeah, back when it came out video games graphically weren’t a whole lot better than pong. The other thing is the effects were simple, but done in a way to try and make them believable in a realm for a computer at the time without trying to look too realistic. Kinda like if you look at it, you immediately understand that they are not in a real world and that they are inside a program. Things have come so far tech wise that the new one sorta looks like any other sci fi world. I think that’s why people were so impressed with the original at the time and kinda like warm to the new one. I like both, but it’s kinda like watching ghostbusters and then watching a decent ghostbusters sequel. Or the og Jaws and then any other shark based movie. The og still has that time and place excitement, while the sequel kinda has a been there done that a few times kinda feel.

I watch this video to kill my nostalgia for the 1980s, lol.

Personally I was fine assuming that the Transformers on Earth transformed into vehicles because Teletraan-1 mistakenly thought those vehicles were the dominant life forms on Earth, and beastformers were just what happens when Transformers scan some other life form for their alt mode. Though, I suppose that does raise the question of how they came up with their alt modes on Cybertron... I digress. The point is, Minicons came from Micronus, and Beastformers come from Onyx Prime. Onyx Prime's first appearance, to the best of my knowledge, was the Covenant of Primus. And again, to my knowledge, he's really only appeared in two other places, IDW comics and a design for Transformers One. The latter two sources obviously drew on the Covenant for inspiration, so they all have certainly design similarities like wings, digitigrade legs, and head that looks like he's wearing an animal skull for a helmet. The brown colors are pure Covenant, as IDW and TFOne both depicted him as primarily blue (I assume TFOne was based more on the IDW design, while there was an in-universe reason for the shift in Onyx's design...). I think it's fair to say that Age of the Primes Leader-class Onyx Prime is still sporting a somewhat original design, though. Here he's a bit more organic than other depictions, with faux fur on his shins, the insides of his elbows, and the joints of his wings. He's also sporting a tail, which I'm not entirely sure he had in other versions. In any case, I quite like the design. The wings, digitigrade legs, and hooves give off devilish vibes (even if Onyx was actually described as being a good friend and loyal ally to the other Primes). Onyx's relic is called the Triptych Mask, an artifact that supposedly gave Onyx the ability to travel the spiritual world and appear in dreams. It's heavily implied that the brown thing on the left is supposed to be the Mask, but I would think the mask is actually the aforementioned animal skull helmet... that is to say, his head. He also comes with a pole and his tail. Onyx's head is a hinged ball joint. He lacks much downward tilt, though he's got adequate sideways tilt, and he can look up quite a bit but the further up he looks the more his head sinks into his chest. His shoulders swivel and move 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his fingers (molded as a single, curved piece) are hinged to open and close. His waist swivels, though his butt flap and loin cloth are attached to his upper body. His hips can go 90 degrees forward and backward, and over 90 degrees laterally, and his thighs swivel. His knees, due to being digitigrade, are a bit different. His knees bend 90 degrees, but they don't straighten all the way. Even if they did, his true ankle range from about 90 degrees forward to just shy of straight. Down from his ankle, at his foot, there's no up/down tilt but he does have around 75 degrees of pivot. The "Mask" fits onto the end of the pole to make a spear that he can wield in either hand. I forgot to grab a pic of it, but those tabs on the spear can plug into slots on his wings to store the spear on his back. His tail can either be plugged directly into his butt, or flipped 180 degrees and plugged into his butt flap. Now, the thing about Onyx is, in the Covenant, he's built like a centaur. That is, he has four legs and a horse-like lower body with two arms on a humanoid upper body. The clearest picture of Onyx has him rearing up on his hind legs, though, and IDW artists missed that detail and wound up drawing him as bipedal (though again, this is retroactively explained), and since TFOne copied IDW that version was also bipedal. So AOTP is bipedal, because that's easiest, right? Nope. Centaur mode is included. Officially, you push his face up into his mask, lift his loin cloth, and uncoil the front legs from his chest. His upper torso rocks back so the front legs can reach the ground. This is my favorite mode, and (aside from keeping the mask open) how I'll likely display him. My only real complaint is that his shoulder pads didn't shift in some way to cover the shoulder joints that were previously hidden under the front legs. Articulation in this mode is mostly the same. I didn't mention the wings before, but they have a limited up/down range where they connect to his back, and a hinge to spread them wider. There's also a hinge to move them front-to-back for flapping. I think a swivel would have been nice, but not having one isn't the end of the world. Without the front legs blocking them, those new exposed shoulder hinges give him some front/back butterfly joints. He loses his waist swivel. His front legs can swivel 360 degrees, as long as you move them out laterally enough to have the clearance. And they move nearly 180 degree laterally before his arms start getting in the way. They also have thigh swivels, knees that don't quite straighten but get 90 degrees of backward bend, and digitigrade ankles that can go from nearly 90 degrees forward to 90 degrees backward. His hooves don't pivot, but they can fold downward. And guess what? You can remove his tail, and split it open. One of the tabs that holds it closed actually fits into slots on the insides of his fingers, allowing him to hold it like a bow. Using the same tabs on the spear's shaft that attached it to his back, you can attach the spear to the tail like an arrow. I think I'd honestly be happy enough if they'd stopped there. Bipedal robot with a centaur alt mode works for me. But Onyx is actually a triple changer. From the centaur mode, lift his head up so it tucks into his chest, then hinge his chest armor up and over it. Fold the beast head from his back over his head so it tabs into his chest. Straighten his torso back out, then use the butterfly hinges to bring his shoulders forward, rotating at the biceps and wrists so that his arms still make some sort of anatomical sense. And her we have Onyx's real alt/beast mode... some kind of six-legged horse-dragon chimera. I don't hate it... but I don't know that I love it, either. In my mind, it's an interesting concept, but probably the weakest of his modes on a figure where I was already content without it. The only new articulation to bring up is the beast head. It's on a ball joint, with some limited ability to tilt up, down, left, right, and swivel into a sideways tilt. The jaws can also open. The instructions have you store the spear by removing the "mask" and plugging it onto the side of the pole, then plugging the pole onto his butt. Why not just plug it into the wing? Because, fully unfurled, the wings actually don't leave enough clearance. You can only store the spear there if you keep the wings tucked in. Speaking of options, what if you don't want a six-legged alt mode? I mean, it was good enough for Odin's horse, but maybe Liege Maximo is the only Prime you want having a Norse influence. Hasbro's got you covered. You can shift his shoulders back out into their regular robot position, then wrap the middle legs back around his torso. Still works! As one of the newer, less-developed Primes, and one with a bestial robot mode, a bestial alt mode, and a bestial in-between mode, I think Onyx might not appeal to the "just give me the G1 cartoon" crowd, especially as his Leader price tag makes him less of an impulse buy than a Deluxe like Alchemist or Micronus. That said, the winged centaur of the Covenant was always kind of an out-there design, and I love the way the team brought that design to life. I think he's a pretty cool figure, definitely one of my favorite Primes* so far, and I'd recommend checking him out. *And for those who haven't been keeping track, we're up to nine of the Thirteen now. Deluxe-class Quintus Prime and Voyager-class Amalgamous Prime were announced for the first 2026 wave at SDCC. While not officially announced, I'm hearing that the remainder, Voyager-class Nexus Prime and Leader-class Liege Maximo, should be out by summer 2026.