Kuma Style

w/Shapeways face

11 hours ago, kanedaestes said:

Fans Toys Arcee looks great!!!

 

http://news.tfw2005.com/2017/11/22/fans-toys-ft-24-rouge-masterpiece-scale-arcee-354017

Oh wow. 

 

4 hours ago, nhyone said:

Just a few months ago, I was a Masterpiece-only collector, more out of inertia than anything. Something changed after MP-36 and MP-39.

Also, 3P now skirt ever closer to G1 look. It used to be that Masterpiece > 3P in terms of G1 likeness. Now, I can't be sure.

It's ironic that I waited for years for MP-11 (Starscream) to be re-released only for him to be obsoleted by Meteor a few months later. (YMMV)

Now I hope MMC's Ravage and MakeToys Jazz get a re-release one day.

Honestly, for me HasTak is still the king of MPs to the point where I only look at 3P as "Filler" regardless of if I buy them or not. The options in general are a great thing though and it really keeps things competitive. 

17 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

I'm still waffling between this and FansHobby's offering. The struggle is real.

Unfortunately (for the wallet,) I'm getting both since they're in different scales and sooooo different design-wise. I'm looking forward to the FansHobby **more** but excited for both. 

On 11/18/2017 at 9:39 AM, M'Kyuun said:

I echo your sentiments; not crazy about the Bay designs, but having just looked at still photos of both modes indicates an impressive level of engineering brought to bear.  

Changing topic, I'm a big fan of the cassette figures, and by extension, the Ocular Max Remix full sized cassette figures by MMC. Their take on Rumble and Frenzy is pretty slick. I could live without the electronic pile drivers, as they only drive up the price, but the figures themselves are really well done. I hope they continue to do all the rest of the cassettes in this fashion. 

I'm not going to lie... the motored piledrivers are SO unnecessary, but they made it a must-buy for me, LMAO. But now, I have to track back and get Jaguar and whatnot so yet another hole to drown in.

On 11/13/2017 at 10:18 PM, HoveringCheesecake said:

 

Which vendors did you guys use?

I'm pretty sure I used The Chosen Prime for that one.

18 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

FansHobby delay for PM Prime?   For what/why?  Like, mold changes? 

It's not even another delay. They anounced it as end of November some time back. They just said that they aren't sending out early review samples but instead when actual production is rolling out because of a tight schedule. Only people really affected are the ones who were hoping to see a review prior to them hitting stores.

That's also pretty cool on the general plane interest. As someone who is just like "Doesn't look like crap; fine by me." when it comes to those types of figures, it's nice to see some insight into how they at least SHOULD look.

------------------

 

The next installment of "The Fan's Project" is up. This time looking back at the original explorer release:

Few pics from the galla portion:

@David Hingtgen your plane knowledge never fails to impress. Seriously.

 

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

I seriously cannot imagine anyone succeeding at making Silverbolt anything other than a Concorde lugging a giant robot in box-form underneath.

If someone ever proves me wrong, I'll be first on line to get one, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

I don't know if it's "lowered standards" or something but I completely agree and have somehow come to grips with it.

Video for SkyCrusher:
 

That Superion is going to be absolutely MASSIVE.

Got the Full review for X2Toys XT-010 SkyCrusher up on site. http://kumastyledesigns.com/x2toys-skycrusher-review/

Definitely had to go a little longer in the article because this one nails so much but falls short in  a few areas that are pretty crucial. Here are some pics from the gallery:

I'm getting every Jetfire that's good, TBH.

Speaking of multi-character collections, started organizing my primes again.

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

I find your critique, "PITA", both amusing and a bit cryptic. Difficult to transform? Things don't line up? Is there a forthcoming review to elucidate the 'painful' aspect? 

Regardless, it's purty. I dig it from looks alone. Is this Iron Factory?  I remember seeing something like this not too long ago posted among a number of convention pics, I believe still in grayscale. Too lazy to research, but I recall even then, it caught my attention. 

I'm rather quite content with my Fanstoys Phoenix, but Skyfire, and Jetfire, based toys always interest me, and so therein lies my curiosity. 

- It's Sky Crusher from X2Toys. Had problems with the headmaster but for the most part have it fixed up now. It's pretty damned nice. More diecast than any other transforming piece I've ever played with, intricate but not "hard" transformation, and overall looks decent in both modes minus the actual face on the headmaster. Review will be up Sunday.

- This is classics-scale vs. Phoenix being MP. I collect both so it's nice to have an appropriate one for each class. I'd love a Dark Skyfire repaint of this.

 

44 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

EDIT: And what's up with FansProject? Huge gaps and total silence between releases have people thinking they're all but dead, and they respond with a new upgrade kit for a 10-year old toy they already made an upgrade kit for?

Were never dead; just restructuring. The original City Commander kits were made with Ultra Magnus in mind (obviously) and cashed in on repaints where this one does the opposite with being made primarily to upgrade Prime into PMOP and then the retool/repaint cash-in for Magnus. These are much better than the original commander armors in terms of functionality, but City Commander has a very big nostalgia charm for me. The Prime one just kicks the crap out of the DIA repaint, though. Surprisingly, it looks much better than Striker Manus to me side-by-side as well. Upcoming next is Pinchar (Snarl) to finish up the Lost Exo Realm Dinobots. Check out their Facebook page to keep up-to-date with them since they're updating that pretty diligently now.

This thing is a PITA
 

Oh yea, man. I'm with you in that none of it really matters. Completely. Just fun for the conversation factor. 

Someone else said earlier that Third Party normally refers to licensed products from other parties while anything else would just be called unlicensed and not a party at all. Toy collecting is really the first time I've dealt with this verbage at all but that seems to make sense.

---------------------
Got the full review up for the TFX-07 Parallax Blue Armor armor.  http://kumastyledesigns.com/fansproject-tfx-07-review/

Tried to give my opinion on this one as clearly as possible in the article because it's a bit mixed. Here are some pics from the gallery portion:

I'm in the same boat to where Third party has become synonymous with "unlicensed," but it's definitely become a long discussion and some really good points have been brought up (By you guys as well.) Here are some responses from when I posted it on my Facebook:

"I think we can call them otp aka official third party?  i pre order drift too, and i hope you will make the review as soon as you get it, i will get my drift maybe about one or 2 month after you because shipping etc"

"I would consider them first party, but yeah the thing to expect with all of those is....no transformation what so ever"

"For me it's a first party alright. Since they're using official names and badges for the said products. A third party doesn't use the official names and badges but a new product nonetheless. Well, that's just my opinion anyway."

"Given the term is a colloquialism informed from the gaming community, I tend to bend toward those informal definitions. In this example first party is Hasbro, second party is contracted by Hasbro and third party exists outside those contracts. Since most collectors are also gamers, this tends to communicate effectively.
I'm not really sure what Ha"

"I'm pretty sure this is the definition of 2nd party. 1st party are the license holders. 2nd party are licensees, and 3rd party are not licensed."

"they're still made by a 3rd party, so they're still 3rd party. they're just licensed."

" I would still consider them official (first party). It just meant that particular line got subcontracted out. Still in official license though."

"Third Party licensed." - ***This is what I would label them as myself**

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

Well  technically they are the „real“ third party products since they are officially licensed.

I was severely tempted by the MAS and 3A Nemesis Prime but they are just too big for my likings.

The FlameToys Transformers are right up my alley though. I‘ll wait for some reviews on the Drift to decide if I want to open another jar of worms.

Honestly, I cannot damned wait for the Flame Toys Drift. I actually made sure to order it from the Sentinel store so it ships out right away and avoids any retailer delays and whatnot. They make a really premium product and like you said, it's at that "right" size point as well. Just hoping it gets here before the end of the year because it'd be nice to close out with it.

26 minutes ago, HoveringCheesecake said:

Can anyone speak to the ease of removal of the orange barrel plug for MP-36 Megatron? From what I'm reading, tfsource may be easier to remove when compared to BBTS. Anyone able to speak from experience?

Mine literally pulled right out with 0 effort. Wasn't glued or anything. 0 seconds to remove.

And with that weirdness knocked out, general question;
 

When it comes to Transformers products that are licensed, but not made by the owners (takara tomy/hasbro,) do you still consider them first party? Third Party licensed? Got brought up in a group chat regarding that upcoming Flame Toys Drift and obviously extends to quite a few licensed products (Ultimetal, Ori Toy, Toys Alliance, etc.) and I think it's a pretty good topic. Would like some of your thoughts.

19 minutes ago, Jeremy007 said:

Blah blah blah: The sequel

Looks like that ignore thing was more bullshit.

>Stay out of threads that you've never posted in;

... when did I tell you to stay out of any thread? I just asked that you contribute something on topic. Looks like that's hard.

> Called out for being an ass...

... Sorry that you're used to sycophants who take what you say in turn regardless of if it makes any sense but even to you it should be blatant that it's not the case right now. If you cannot take being responded to in turn to that attitude that you present, then you should probably not approach/confront people in that manner at all. It's very simple. 

So, here's what's going to happen; I'm going to continue to post pictures of and talk about 3rd party transformers in the 3rd party transformers thread. It's you're right to either like or dislike that it happens, however if you have a problem with it, "take your own advice" and use the ignore function as I've laughed at and humored this off-topic nonsense enough and am ceasing to further.

Stay toxic. Bye bye.

Trying to get this done.

16 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

for P-Bandai,  this release and usually most every web exclusive. They have limit of 6 per order (which is a good sign) and are kept open for unlimited ordering till a deadline date is reached. at times orders close before the deadline date but they re-open all the time. it's pretty easy to order as stores like Nippon Yasan carries pre-orders if you don't want to use a proxy service. 

it is much much harder to secure retail releases at pre-order. they go in about 20-30 seconds. 

 

Got it! Thanks for the clear explanation; makes a ton of sense. That's pretty cool that they're made to order; I had no idea.

Edit: @no3Ljm thank you as well. Didn't see your post because I had this response box just sitting open while I did other stuff.

Double post... does this board have a delete function?