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slaginpit

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    The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

    in Anime or Science Fiction

    Posted

    10 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

    Space in the universe may be infinite.  But space in my house is definitely finite, which is why I've been trying to be more focused with my collecting and winnow my collection down to G1 MP.  Despite this focus, I do have one Detolf in the corner of the room with nothing but Optimuses.  Needless to say, I've been looking forward to this one pretty much since it was first announced... this is TFC's S.T. Commander, an MP-scaled take on some concept art Don Figueroa did of an Optimus Prime that transforms into the Rolling Thunder vehicle from G.I. Joe.

     

    Based on the box and manual, this guy is actually the "Titical" Commander, who is only "Supreme" when he's armored up.  The logo, though, has tiny periods after the "S" and "T", and a big star that's half in the gap on the "C" and half on the "O" in such a way that the logo really looks like it says "Stoomander," so for the rest of this review I'm calling him Stoomander.  (Speaking of the box, I don't usually talk about those but I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that the Stoomander logo is styled after the G.I. Joe logo, and the artwork is an homage of the Rolling Thunder's box art from 1988.)

    Anyway... that's a pretty good-looking Optimus.  There's tons of recognizably Optimus details like the grill on his abs, the yellow on his pelvis, the chest windows... even the guns on his shoulders are evocative of G1 Prime's smokestacks.  He also reminds me a little of IDW pre-Earth Prime/Orion Pax, which shouldn't be too surprising since I think that design was also Figueroa's.  My only real complaint is his head.  TFC decided to go for light piping, and the pale translucent plastic they used looks dead unless there's a light source directly behind it, at which point it's a light blue tint away from being clear.  I'll probably take the head apart and paint the eyes myself.  Less fixable is the overall sculpt, which I think would look better with more defined ear-tennas and without the blue chinstrap.  I can't really fault TFC there, though, as it's true to Don's art, minus the color.  Don's original design has Prime in the Rolling Thunder's green colors instead of the traditional red and blue.  Which reminds me, Stoomander is available now in Optimus colors, but preorders are up at most retailers for a green version that more closely matches the colors Don used, with an early 2019 release date.  (And when TFC first announced this figure they show the S.T. Commander logo in three different colors; colors that match this, colors that match the green one, and colors that heavily imply that they're considering Ultra Magnus colors as well.)

     

    Stoomander comes with a ton of accessories, so we're going to break them down into three groups.  The first group is what I'd call the "normal" accessories.  He comes with a little Roller car, two large missiles molded into some kind of racks, and his rifle.  Roller's cockpit can open, and like the MP Roller you can plug the rifle into Roller.  There's even a little rubber cable on the back of the rifle that plugs into the back of roller, per Don's art, and the handle of the rifle is on hinge so you can aim the rifle upward.

    The second group of accessories are the diecast bits.  I see the silver ones as being sort of like Megatron's fusion cannon and part of Stoomander's body, although as you can see they are removable.  They can rotate on their pegs, and there's a hinge on the shoulder guns so the barrels can go up and down.  They're bare diecast, and don't look look quite as nice as the gunmetal ones, which are either a darker metal or diecast with a finish (I can't tell, I'm no expert on that).  The larger double-barreled guns have a hinge at the back, so they can move up and down but not independently, and when they're flipped 180 degrees and the flap with the tampoed number pulled back they actually leave a little seat.  The smaller double barreled guns have swivels and hinges at the base of the barrels, so they can me moved around and aimed independently.

    I should point out that this isn't the only diecast.  On the the above robot, Stoomander's also got a diecast flap on his back, two non-removable diecast guns on his back, a diecast grill between his chest windows, diecast bars along the inside edge of those windows, diecast rims in the wheels, and diecast in the silver and gunmetal in his shins.

     

    The third group is basically the bits you need to make a proper alt mode.  Of course, they do have other uses.  And they do have more diecast.  In this case, we again have diecast rims in the wheels, diecast guns in feet of the boot-parts, diecast in the stabilizer pylons on the red red parts, and gunmetal diecast braces for the big missiles on the red parts.

    IMG_20181203_220055.jpg.df45fc16da19f0014df248971c5230d8.jpg

    Stoomander's articulation is excellent.  His head is on a ball joint that can look up and down pretty well, tilt sideways more than enough, as well as rotate.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets and have ratchets for lateral movement that'll get you 90 degrees before his large shoulders are lying flat against the top of his torso- as long as his shoulders aren't rotated.  I will note here that basically the only hindrance I have with Stoomander is that rotating his shoulders means that they'll turn into his body if they also try to move laterally, so you really can't use both joints at the same time.

    Moving along, though, he's got bicep swivels and double-jointed elbows ratcheted at both ends good for 150 degrees or so.  His wrists can swivel.  Each finger and thumb is individually articulated with a ball joint at the base and two additional pinned hinged knuckles.  His waist can swivel, and he's got 90 degrees of forward ab crunch.  His hip skirts are hinged and can swing up and out of the way so his hips can ratchet 90 degrees forward and backward.  Lateral movement is also ratcheted and gets one click over 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel around the hip joints.  That means they can only turn inward a little and outward about 30 degrees, but I think that's adequate.  Like his elbows his knees are double-jointed and ratcheted at both ends, good for nearly a full 180 degrees of bend.  The front of his foot can tilt up and down.  His heel is ball jointed and can bend down and rotate for some reason.  Finally, a dedicated hinge gives him 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

    One thing I really want to point out is that he has a ton of ratchets.  A pet peeve of mine is when you have a ratchet that's strong and takes some force to move from one click to the next, but the joint is limp and loose between clicks.  This was, I think, the major problem with Zeta Toys' Bruticus.  The ratchets were strong, but too much wiggle between clicks in the hips and knees made him prone to toppling.  Stoomander doesn't have this problem at all.  Every ratchet is perfectly toleranced.  None of the ratchets feel too soft, none of them feel like they get stuck or take excessive force to move between clicks, the clicks are close enough together, and there's little or no play between clicks.  Stoomander is one of the most solid toys in my collection.

    He holds his gun rifle fine using the standard tab on the handle and slot in the palm.  There's also one post on each shin, one on the inside and outside of both forearms, and one on the outside of his shoulder.  You can use them to mount the diecast single-barrel guns, double missiles, and and smaller double-barreled guns in any way you wish, although the standard based on Don's art would be single-barreled guns on the shoulders, missiles on the outside of the forearms, and nothing on the shins or the inside of the forearms.

     

    Af for the leftover bits, you can stick the blue parts together and fold the feet down.  The guns inside the feet can be flipped out, the bigger double-barreled guns attached to the front, and the smaller ones attached to hinged pegs on the top by the wheels.  Not only are those pegs hinged, mind you, but they're on a flap that can also be hinged open to give you options for positioning.  As for the rest, I recommend putting it together in basically the way it goes for alt mode.  That creates a stable platform for the two big missiles with little ramps for deploying roller.

     

    The instructions suggest that you can split that stuff apart, putting he chunk with the missiles behind and the parts with the rams on either side.  However, they don't actually attack to the blue parts this way.  They're just leaning there.  Precariously, in the case of the big missile part.

    The instructions do suggested another thing you can do, which is basically setting the blue parts up back-to-back, with the wheels touching and facing forward, then putting the other parts together the way I had them in the previous picture and sticking Roller in the middle with the rifle set into Roller at a 90 degree angle.  The diecast parts in the back have fold out handles for Stoomander to grab, so it looks like he's firing some kind of missile turret.  Unfortunately, the connections aren't super solid, or in the case of Roller, nonexistent as he's just sitting in the gap between the red part with the missiles and the red parts in the front.  So none of your options for base modes are exactly lighting the world on fire, but I don't think anyone really expects them to.

    IMG_20181203_212742.jpg.249e798113c60f81baff27c1560bf056.jpg

    Stoomander does have an alt mode mode without all the extra bits, in case you were planning on leaving them in a box somewhere.  In fact, one of the transformation steps for this mode is to collapse his legs Combiner Wars-style, something you only do for this mode.  The transformation is pretty easy.  The results are kind of meh, though.  The front looks cool enough, but the rear is very obviously the collapsed robot legs.  There's even a little gap between them from his crotch to his ankles.  I will say that there are a lot of little tampos that I could take or leave in robot mode that really shine in vehicle mode.

     

    In this mode you have access to most of the same posts you did in robot mode, allowing you to attach the smaller double-barreled guns, diecast missiles, and single-barreled guns as you see fit.  They all rotate on their posts.  Additionally, the windows that were on his shoulders can open, there's two diecast guns on the roof that move up and down independently of each other, and two panels that can be flipped up behind those guns.  The tires roll.  I don't think they're rubber, but they're a rubbery plastic, not a hard one.

     

    I'm not sure that it was ever part of Don's original concept, but the parts we used for various base modes can be worn as armor (which you could probably tell since the blue parts were pretty obviously new lower legs).  The new lower legs snap on tightly.  The smaller red parts form new forearms that don't seem like they should secure that well, given that they wrap around the existing forearms and peg into themselves without actually connecting to the existing forearm, but in practice they work fine, and I like how the diecast parts become hand armor.  The gray part makes his crotch bigger, and I think making it gray instead of blue is a real missed opportunity.  The ramps fold up and slide onto his shoulders after you spin the shoulder guns out of the way.  It practically screams "we couldn't think of anywhere else to put these!"  I also think the blue looks out of place.  The rest fits into his back.  This connection actually is pretty bad, as it just used two tabs on the backpack that go into two slots that also have screw holes cut into their tops.  There simply is too little connection with too little friction for such a heavy pack, and it was prone to falling off when I manipulated him.

    It's a shame nothing bulked out his torso or gave him a new head.  Basically, he looks like his limbs are too big for his body in this mode.  Sure, it's cool to see Optimus bristling with weapons, but aesthetically I think I like him better without all the add-ons.

     

    For the most part Stoomander's articulation isn't affected much in his Supreme mode, but where it is affected it's affected negatively.  His shoulder rotation is completely hindered by his backpack.  His new hands are built the same as the old ones, although you have to move the diecast parts out of the way to use his wrist swivel.  His heels don't rotate since they're just hinged and not ball-jointed and his toes have a little less upward tilt, but both his toes and heels can bend down and he's still got 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

    The new hand can hold the rifle the same as the old hands.  He's still got posts on the inside and outside of his forearms, and the posts on his shoulders are still accessible although there's a little less clearance around them with the new shoulder pads.  His shins are where the big change is, as he's now got hinged posts on the outside of his shins instead of the middle.  Instead, the middle has peg holes and little notches that are for the larger double-barreled diecast guns.  Plus, if you want to do a Freedom Gundam-style full burst you can flip out diecast guns in his toes, and the big missiles are on a pair of hinges (on friction, one ratcheted) so they can be aimed up and over his shoulders.

    If you don't want them in a firing position, and you don't want them just dangling from the usual missile mounts, there are tabs on the sides of the backpack and slots on the missiles.  You can use them to tab the missiles along the sides of the backpack like big rocket boosters, making the backpack like a rocket pack.  It seems to have been something of an afterthought on TFC's part, though, as the stabilizer pylons stick out from the sides a bit and force the missiles to sit at a slight angle.

     

    One more thing you can do with (either) robot mode: you can take either missile off of their usual connectors on his backpack and slide it over the barrel of his rifle.  Because if there's one thing Optimus needed it's a gun that shoots ICBMs.

    I'll mention here that the instructions seem to indicate that the barrel of the rifle can be removed, and a picture on the back of the box shows the rifle and its barrel as separate pieces.  I tried pulling on it as hard as I'm able to without the use of any tools, and I couldn't get the barrel off of the rifle.  Honestly, though, I'm not sure why you would want to.  The barrel has no use without the rifle, and you need the barrel on the rifle even if you want to put a missile on it.

     

    Obviously, this complete Rolling Thunder mode is the real reason for all of the extra parts.  And here's the thing about it... is it super accurate to the actual Rolling Thunder vehicle?  Maybe not.  The shape of the front end is different, and the Rolling Thunder is flatter with small missiles on the overhangs and a large turret on the back.  Instead we've got missiles on the sides, more small guns in the front, and the big turret is replaced with a pair of gun emplacements.  It is, however, pretty accurate to Don's design, down to the stabilizer pylons, the location of the various missiles and turrets, and the clamps holding the missiles.  my only real complaint is the big gray joint in the middle of red, but even that joint is in Don's original work, so I guess it gets a pass.

     

    The stabilizer pylons don't extend outward from the vehicle, but the diecast parts do slide out to touch the ground.  I should also mention that on my copy three of them were fine, but the fourth (the one that ends up on his left arm in Supreme Titical Commander mode) is super loose.  The blue parts in the middle do unfurl into ramps, which the Rolling Thunder did have, and there's just enough space in the gap there that you can fit Roller in there.  It even stays in there pretty securely with the the ramps closed, although there isn't any way to actually lock it in place.  The diecast clamps can lock the missiles in place via tiny slots on the rearward ones and tabs on the missiles.  When not used for that purpose the rear ones can fold down either way.  The front ones can only fold the one way, but they can rotate.  One big miss in this mode, I think, is that there's nowhere to mount the rifle.

    The big gimmick is that Stoomander is supposed to be compatible with Titan/Prime Masters and/or the Diaclone reboot guys.  You can open the windows in the front and stick some in there, you can open the panels on the roof to create a seat, Roller's cockpit opens to make a seat, the larger guns on the shins have seats, if you open the panels on the sides of the legs there's enough room to be a seat, and even the guns in Stoomander's supreme feet have seats.  The problem is, at least with Titan Masters, is that they don't quite fit.  They're a little too big, especially with the faces on their backs.  I could kind of get them to work by bending them the wrong way that the knees instead of the hips, but they sit a little high and loose, and even then you can't close Roller's cockpit and they still don't always have the clearance for the faces on their backs.  Unfortunately I don't have any Diaclone guys to test; the Diaclone reboot didn't really interest me, although now I'm kind of tempted.

    Stoomander isn't perfect.  There's a few spots where the fit and finish could have been a little better.  And while he does have lots of painted detail and tampos there's going to be some who are put off by the largely unpainted red, light gray, and blue plastic.  And I think my biggest complaint is that you really need all the extra parts to make the alt mode look good and correct, but the robot mode is actually better without the extra junk.

    Despite his flaws, Stoomander is extremely fun and (minus the backpack coming off, sketchy connections in the base modes, and one loose stabilizer) very solid.  He's easily the best Transformers figure TFC has ever made, and the best Optimus figure I got his year (a year that also gave me Generations Toy's Gorilla and Unique Toys' Challenger, mind you).  I'd go so far as to say that he might very well be my favorite figure of 2018, after Graviter.  I'm going to go ahead and give Stoomander a strong recommend.

    Oh man that Prime looks glorious. " Space in the universe may be infinite.  " lol a problem for all collectors. But the bigger problem is the multiplier effect of collecting for every figure you need space for you also need either equal or double the space for the boxes.

    The Third Party Gundam Thread

    in Anime or Science Fiction

    Posted

    On 11/26/2018 at 1:06 AM, no3Ljm said:

    Ok. So I read this one caption in the photo from that Facebook feed. What's the ruling here if someone copied based from a design that is also based from an existing original design? Would that second-hand designer have a say or right to sue the third designer?

     

    Babelfish?

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