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That's why I said to carefully wipe it down; 91% alcohol is especially notorious for that. Thanks for mentioning it specifically though, PsYcHoDyNaMiX; I might not have been clear enough.

Okay; that said, were there interest, I bet it could fund a small government.

Avoid going over any existing paint/tampo with alcohol, most paints that companies (now a days) use on toys are acrylic base. The alcohol will wear or take the coat/paint off.

Assuming Sheryl's "VEGA" black card works the same way as its real world equivalents, that wouldn't be a concern. That Sheryl has a black card is a pretty clear indicator that her status as the galaxy's #1 idol has made her fabulously wealthy. That the card issuer, "VEGA", doesn't decline Sheryl's attempt to charge what must have been a literal fortune to her personal card in order to hire an entire PMC is proof that she has absolutely ridiculous amounts of money at her disposal. That she's still stunned rigid by the size of the invoice is a pretty solid argument that hiring a PMC like SMS must be a hugely expensive undertaking in its own right too. 😆

Sheik Mainland has been releasing their mech kits of original design, but I'll be damned if their upcoming kit is not a Zenith wanzer:

The version I always wish for, but rarely see. I think the armor looks best on the 1a, especially with the extra kind head laser

Ugh what's the obsession of a lottery. It's not like they going to get a cut of a secondary market prices. just make it store exclusive item like the VF-1J last year.

Wow, white out is something I never got desperate enough to try. I do however still use sharpies on details here and there. The metallic ones do great for mechanical parts since they’re very smooth and don’t really have a flaky look even though they’re a bit duller. Oddly they still look like the dull metal in stuff like engine components even after a little dull coat.all the gold and silver around the eye and the pistons and gun barrel parts were done with metallic sharpies. I kinda like that they aren’t distractingly shiny, but they do still catch the light depending on the lighting.

You gotta do the setup with them all facing the camera in line, like a full transformation scene

I remember using only “White Out” and a “Sharpie” to do all the details on this 1/144 kit. Sir you have unlocked “my childhood.” You deserve a badge of achievement. 🤗

Progress!

Phtt…. Bandai couldn’t be even bothered to make the M&M 1J set with Supers even if they cared. Just leave everything half a** done and there will still be collectors complaining about as well.

Did you miss the memo?

Any pilot would quit from claustrophobic reasons.

Well, well! While I've accumulated a small pile of repaints over the last two weeks or so that I do eventually need to get photographed, seems Amazon has started sending out the final wave of 2025 Studio Series figures. Which means that I now have, sitting on my desk, one of the most-anticipated figures of the year, Leader-class 86 Megatron. For me, almost since I started collecting, a proper Classics/Universe/Generations/whatever Megatron has felt just out of reach. Classics? I was glad to have something to go with Classics Optimus, but the winged white-and-purple Nerf gun was a bit of a reimagining. Combiner Wars had better colors, but poor articulation and a lot of compromises to make a better tank mode, not to mention he was closer to MP scale than Generations. ToyWorld's Hegemon scaled well and had a proper G1 style, but was kind of fiddly and kibbly even for the time. Siege's squat proportions and stylized fusion cannon were getting closer and still make a decent Cybertronian mode, but he did have a backpack and leg molding that was obvious tank parts. The Earthrise remold gave him a more cartoon-accurate fusion cannon, head sculpt, and abdomen, but an even bigger backpack and partsforming chunks for his turret and barrel and the space between his legs on the back of the tank. NewAge set themselves up for what looked like a home run- clean and very cartoon-accurate bot mode and the gun mode that Hasbro can't do, but they jumped the gun by scaling it with Earthrise Optimus right before the new taller 86 Optimus came out. When 86 Megatron was first leaked, I had just two requests. The first was for the figure to maintain the high level of cartoon-accuracy that 86 Optimus brought. I know Hasbro can't do a gun Megatron, I don't care if Megatron has to be a tank, but I don't want to see any tank kibble on him. This was more important to me than the ability to transform, so important that I'd actually modified an Earthrise Megatron, repainting some parts, removing the backpack entirely, and attaching one of the weird pistols that came with Siege Soundwave to give him the gun barrel on his back. And for that wish, I think I have to give Hasbro an A here. Megatron has pretty much all the cartoon details you could possibly ask for- he's got the hammers on his shoulders, the details on his abs (including the red on the sides that was missing from Earthrise), the black "diaper" pelvis, and the gun barrel on his back. There's something a little off about his fusion cannon. I feel like the barrel is ok, but the middle section should be slightly longer with a dial instead of that lip, and the rear section is a tad long and probably should collapse closer to the middle section. But that's about it. I mean, even his back and sides are remarkably clean and free of tank kibble, just as I asked. You can sort of make out the treads inside his thighs, but the grooves aren't really that far off from the grooves of the gun grip. There's also a chunk near the heel with obvious tank wheels, but even that sits where the attachment point for the shoulder stock. Oh, and a note about the colors... yes, the gray on his legs is a little bluish. I think, under brighter lights and as picked up by my camera (and the cameras of the leakers), they do look too blue. However, sitting on my desk in more normal lighting conditions, the gray looks fine to my eyes. The other wish I had was that he'd come with an accessory that represented his gun mode that other figures could hold. As great as it would be to have a Megatron toy that could turn into his gun mode, the fact is in the cartoon he always shrank so a minion, usually Starscream, could wield him. Megatron turning into a gun captures the spirit of the G1 toy, but a cartoon-accurate Megatron robot packaged with a gun-mode accessory captures the spirit of the cartoon. Once again, wish granted, as he does indeed come with a pistol-mode accessory with a standard 5mm peg handle that anyone (including the future SS86 Starscream) can use. Additionally, there is of course his aforementioned fusion cannon and back-mounted gun barrel. While I largely consider them to be parts of his body, they count as accessories. I mean, not only are they removable (and not installed in the box), they have to come off for him to transform. Lastly, you get the beam saber he used in his fight with Prime in the movie. I know a lot of people wish he'd also come with his energon mace, as they think of that as more his signature melee weapon, but I get it, the saber was in the '86 movie and the mace wasn't. Honestly, since Prime's axe has been installed inside his trailer since I finished that review nearly a year ago, I don't think I'm too bent of out shape about the exclusion of a mace I'm also unlikely to use. So, Megatron's head is your standard ball joint fare, very slight downward and sideways tilt, slightly more upward tilt, and swivel. His shoulders swivel, move laterally 90 degrees, and due to how they're engineered have some forward butterfly action. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a bit over 90 degrees on a single hinge. His wrists are ball joints for swiveling and a little wiggle. His hands are identical to Prime's; fixed thumb, but articulated fingers with a hinge at the base and the middle knuckle, with the index finger separate from the other three. His waist swivels. His hips can go about 90 degrees backward, over 90 degrees forward, and just under 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees. Using some transformation hinges, you can get some decent up/down tilt on his feet, plus his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. Megatron has 5mm ports on the side of either forearm, as well as a pair on his back. This is how you'd properly attach the gun barrel to his back and his fusion cannon to his arm... but I suppose nothing's really stopping you from sticking his fusion cannon on his back, and mounting the gun barrel to his forearm. As for his other accessories, like I said before the gun has a 5mm peg for handle, so Megatron or anyone else can hold it. The pommel of the saber is too big to slide into a 5mm port. The top of the saber does come off, but there's a flare near the top so nor can you feed it up through the bottom of a fist. You kind of have to open his hand and snap it between his thumb and the curved bit of his palm. I don't really like the way it feels doing that. You can use second 5mm port on his back to plug the saber into it. Meanwhile, there's a tiny tab on the pistol's scope, and it plugs into a slot between the 5mm ports, allowing Megatron to carry all of his accessories. After transforming the dirt-simple Combiner Wars Megatron and the Earthrise toy where a backpack and some add-on bits are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, 86 Megatron's transformation feels very clever. His forearms don't just open to hide his fists, the opened forearm armor spins 180 degrees so it captures his elbows when it closes. His chest does open to allow his head to fold it, but also continues to unfold to become most of the front of the tank. His arms work their way out of the torso a bit, too, then his back also opens up and the swivel for the turret comes out. The hollow space you created in his torso captures his pelvis. His shins and feet lift away from the legs, tucking over his thighs with his feet wrapping behind and under to make the back of the tank. The bulk of his lower legs unfold to form the sides and treads of the tank. The gun barrel plugs into the fusion cannon's barrel, and the fusion cannon sandwiches between his arms (with a little hatch that opens so the rear of the cannon can hide the arm joints) to finish off the turret. Now, ok... it's not the best tank mode we've seen. Combiner Wars looks a lot better, but a lot of what makes his tank mode so good compromises the robot mode. The front of Earthrise's turret is a bit better, but the front of Earthrise's turret is also a big partsforming bit. Frankly, I'm impressed that the tank mode even came out as good as it did. Yeah, the cartoon-accurate arms mashed onto a nearly cartoon-accurate fusion cannon with a cartoon-accurate gun barrel poking out of it don't make the most convincing turret (and that turret does sit a bit far forward), but his chest makes for pretty decent front of the tank, his legs make for great sides of a tank, and his feet and shins at least fill the gap between his legs better than a random hunk of black plastic, and with (abstract turret notwithstanding) basically no robot kibble. Since the concept art Bumblebee Megatron came out I'd been saying that was the way to go- make an awesome robot, even if it meant phoning in the tank mode. So, to my eyes, Megatron's tank mode is far from perfect but also more than adequate. The tank does roll, by the way. The turret swivels, though the swivel is at the very back of the turret instead of the middle, so maybe don't. You can't elevate or lower the barrel, anyway. What you can do, though, is use one of the two 5mm ports on top of the turret or the one along either side to store your pistol and saber accessories. Studio Series 86 Megatron is not a perfect figure. With a bit more budget maybe he could have had a better fusion cannon, some extra panels or transformation to make his turret look better, or more accessories like his mace, the pistol he murdered Prime with, etc. And it's a safe bet that someone like DNA is working on an upgrade kit to do one or more of those things. While not perfect, I do think that Megatron is still a very good, perhaps even excellent figure, because he delivered more or less exactly what I wanted; an excellent Sunbow-style robot with solid articulation that scales with 86 Optimus, an adequate tank mode, and a pistol accessory that represents his "real" alt mode. If you picked up SS86 Optimus, you're definitely going to want this Megatron to go with him.

Good news is that they continue the 001 release on both tailfins , like they did with original Focker release. Still hard to believe they doubled down with the Mechanic Edition Hikaru VF-1S with the 100 tailfin extra option, such a weird commitment to that mistake.

Tamashi sort of addressed that with the concern on the product page

i'm glad they're releasing this again. I kept my Justice MB. With the re-release of Freedom 2.0 and this. I may get sucked back in to SEEED metal builds.

for the dx chogokin, the pilot should be hikaru. the only armor Roy had was the VF-0S

I really liked the VF-1J Combo pack that Bandai did, Not everything these day has to have a retro vibe to it! And some good effort was put into the GBP package!

The DX GBP was a 'loosely' based on the Takatoku GBP release=the sharp angled upper corner and the tab at bottom center. I agree they could have leaned more retro in the first DX GBP release Toynami went all in with their 1/100 retro version, so maybe Bandai saw that and did the pivot to the Nichimo box style. I'm personally very happy with their choice, I love the Nichimo kits and it really gives it a retro look in my eyes.

^^True, but Cavill is a pretty big dude himself. Have always pictured MacLeod being a bit smaller than the Kurgan.

I was kind of hopeful that the newer ones might have had better qc/production values. The apparent care given to the paint and packaging of the Fugu made me think that maybe the production tools were being used by a different party, but it's just as likely that it's the same backing.

The model box art tribute is great, but I'd have loved to have seen a tribute to the old Takatoku gift set.

that's actually inaccurate, Octane is bigger than a shuttle. They just made AstroTrain too large in the movie.