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tekering

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Everything posted by tekering

  1. tekering
    Oh wow, I totally missed that review. Cheers, Mike!
  2. tekering
    The grey arms are toon-accurate, of course: The choice to split the cars in two, however, only makes sense if you're going the Studio Ox route, depicting Drag Strip and Dead End as the actual arms (rather than just big shoulder pads). Having half a car stuck on each grey forearm isn't accurate to anything, and just looks ridiculous. 🤨 Unfortunately, it seems to have suddenly become the default solution: Even Magic Square is doing it now.
  3. tekering
    Regardless, decals wouldn't be able to hide those grey arms... ...or do anything to disguise the fact that Dragstrip and Dead End have obviously been ripped apart.
  4. tekering
    I finally got a Menasor I'm content with... ...aesthetically, at least. XTB's "Monolith" (the so-called "youth" version) gives you the option of a cartoon-style profile with additional toy detailing, harking back to the classic Masterpiece styling of Shogo Hasui. Color, proportions, and sculpted details are all superior to the other options I've seen. However, it's virtually impossible to transform the trailer into a robot without breaking tabs in the process. It's unbelievably counter-intuitive, and the instructions are hopelessly inadequate ("fasten the five buckles of the protrusion in the direction of the arrow"). Easily the least fun I've had with a transformer in years. Remember the nightmare of MP-5 Megatron? What's worse, it lacks ratchet joints where they're most needed -- namely, the ankle joints that hold the damn thing up -- and the hollow legs barely handle the weight of the upper body. Menasor is always ready to topple forwards (or backwards), and it's difficult to find a decent pose he will pull off effectively... and that's with an empty torso! I haven't even added the weight of "Gravestone" himself. I don't dare put him up on the top shelves with my other combiners. Now, to be fair, I've had very similar experiences with smaller combiners (TFC's "Hercules," "Uranos," and "Warbotron" spring to mind), so it's nothing new for 3P. Still, ToyWorld established a new standard with "Constructor," and both Zeta and MMC have followed suit with their MP-scaled combiner teams. "Monolith" feels like a significant step backwards in engineering.
  5. tekering
    I accept your challenge, sir. 😅
  6. tekering
    I'm thinking twice at ¥15,800. I've never spent that much on a transformer that small, official or otherwise. Sorry, TakaraTomy. No sale.
  7. tekering
    Very clean photography! Your weathering and panel-lining would look great on a larger-scale subject (1:48, 1:72, even 1:100), but it doesn't make a lot of sense at this scale...
  8. tekering
    Awesome, thanks. At 20,000 yen, so am I...!
  9. tekering
    I must say, that's the most photo-realistic CG toy rendering I've ever seen. Hell, the .jpg artifacts look like dust, even. Not nearly as chunky as he used to be... 😅 ...but as Raiden's torso, he kinda has to be.
  10. tekering
    Roughly equal to Siege Jetfire, then. Wheeljack, of course, is the only Victory character to have received a toy version of late (since Perceptor's not out yet). Hell, the only reason Wheeljack appeared in Victory to begin with is because nobody even bothered to tell the writers that he'd been killed in Transformers: The Movie, which just goes to show how badly the franchise had been mismanaged in Japan.
  11. tekering
    Actually, there's no need to specify, 'cause every DX VF-1 release to date has sold out. Regardless of what Valkyrie (or accessory set) you're after, the secondary market is your only option.
  12. tekering
    For the individual robots, it's entirely possible -- FansToys, XTB, DX9, MMC, Toyworld and Zeta have certainly proven as much -- but it'll never be possible with the combined modes, because of how ridiculously oversized the combiners were consistently depicted in the animation. Thankfully, we have a lot of cartoon-accurate figures at smaller scales these days, so between Earthrise/Kingdom and 3P Legends, you'll probably find a satisfying size for whatever mode you choose to display your combiner teams in.
  13. tekering
    With all the inaccurate shapes, proportions, colors, and internal mechanisms evident, scale is the least-distracting issue. However talented, the artist clearly has only a passing interest in the source material.
  14. tekering
    I only know of the Banpresto figure from 1998.
  15. tekering
  16. tekering
    That's why this Star Saber is the only one that interests me: ...and why MMC's "Carnifex" is the only Overlord I'll ever need.
  17. tekering
  18. tekering
    You mean a VEFR-1?
  19. tekering
    That's absolutely correct. The "G" in "MPG" stands for "gattai" (to combine), "giant" and "great," apparently. That's absolutely correct as well. Combiners are rarely to scale with each other, much less other toys in their respective lines... And even when robot-mode scale (as depicted in the animation) is strictly adhered to, the combined form always ends up about half the size it's supposed to be.
  20. tekering
    That's exactly the problem, see: He's covered up significant portions of the exposed interior, he's misinterpreted surface detailing on the domes as transparency, he's simply painted over the bits he can't parse, and his colors are way off. If he'd even glanced at the animation itself, he wouldn't have made such errors.
  21. tekering
    That weathering's incredible. Looks like it spent a decade on the floor of the Atlantic. 😅
  22. tekering
    Erm... is that supposed to be a Robotech redesign, to make the Zor mothership look more like a Zentraedi battle cruiser? 🤨 The color, the uneven surface edges, and the purple domes are a significant departure from Ammonite's line art. The spires look like insect legs, and those domes look like ratty umbrellas with that rib structure.
  23. tekering
    If only their model sheets had hewed closer to the toy... Something like this, eh?
  24. tekering
    I appreciate the insight, especially since I haven't given the HasLab a second look. So it's a Star Saber/Victory Leo two-pack? Meaning it's Saber, with parts to upgrade to Star Saber, who can combine with Victory Leo to upgrade to Victory Saber? That would explain the awkward proportions (which similarly plagued Legends Super Ginrai). Without a childhood connection to either the original cartoons or the G1 toys, I don't imagine I'd appreciate Victory Saber any more than I do Super Ginrai. I enjoyed Headmasters for giving Sixshot and Punch/Counterpunch their due, but as soon as legacy characters like Rodimus faded into the background, I lost interest... and everything that followed after Headmasters was either childish and forgettable (Victory), childish and derivative (Car Robots), Transformers-in-name-only (Masterforce), or simply unwatchable (the so-called "Unicron Trilogy"). Honestly, Japanese have never respected Transformers fiction, and their original series embody the worst tropes of anime (the absolute nadir being Transformers Go!), so I tend to avoid Japanese-only characters. I only bought FansHobby's "Athena" and "Ace Hitter" because of your recommendations, actually. 😅
  25. tekering
    Damn, dude! A Legioss Supreme! In the performing arts, that is what is known as a "mic drop." I thought you had begun five years ago... Seriously, if I had one of those 1:32 beasts, I'd be planning on entering next year's contest. Ten weeks isn't nearly enough time to give that kit the effort it deserves. Unless, of course, those photos are actually years old, and you're much further along in your build... 😅 Either way, can't wait to see what you do with it! 😍
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