The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[M'Kyuun]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Ever since Dr Wu released his version of Cyclonus I've wanted him to do Scourge, too, to complete the trio of new '86 Decepticons.  Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long.  This is Star Shuttle, Dr Wu's take on Scourge.

Putting Star Shuttle with Destroy Emperor (Galvatron) and Wingman (Cyclonus) really show how far the good doctor has come along since starting the Extreme Warfare line.  Destroy Emperor looks positively primitive next to his henchmen!  But I personally think that Star Shuttle is a bit more sharply sculpted than even the relatively recent Wingman.

As good as he looks from the front, as we spin him around we do see quite a bit of alt mode.  You kind of expect that in the wings, but the outsides of his legs and his backpack almost completely hide his robot form when viewed from the back.  Once again, though, I'm inclined to cut some slack to a toy that's shorter than a tube of Chapstick and costs about as much as a Deluxe despite coming packed with a second figure.

This time he even comes with a weapon!  To be totally clear, I'm not sure if every copy of Star Shuttle will come with a gun.  The impression I got was that this is a first run/preorder bonus.

Star Shuttle's got pretty good articulation for his tiny size.  His head swivels, no tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees.  His elbows are ball joints which bend 90 degrees and double as bicep swivels.  His wrists don't swivel, but his waist does.  Hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and nearly 90 degrees backward.  He has actual thigh swivels just above his knees, which are hinges that bend 90 degrees.  His toes have some up/down tilt, and his ankles can pivot 90 degrees.  His wings are attached via ball joints, so they can spread and flap for more dynamic poses.

Star Shuttle's tiny hands are too small to practically have peg holes, so instead the handle of his gun is sort of like a c-clip that clamps around his fists.

Star Shuttle's transformation borrows more from the G1 toy than the Studio Series one, with his legs turning inward and his heels folding down to make the front of the vehicle.  His backpack spins 180 and a flap folds out to fill in the gap around his thighs.  His shoulders shrug up and his forearms turn to plug into his cape, which then wraps around to tab in near his waist on the underside.  Then his head turns 180 degrees and flips up, collar and all, so his head crest plugs into the middle engine nacelle.

I think his alt mode came out pretty well, turning into a solid, swooshable little representation of the 3-engined, aerodynamic brick we all know and love (or hate, not judging).  I think the biggest knocks against it are the visible shoulders and ball sockets on the wing joints.  To a lesser extent, the hinges on the backpack flap and wings also seem relatively larger than they might on a Studio Series or Masterpiece figure, but it's the tradeoff necessary to make a figure this tiny that's also durable.

With no wheels to roll on, not alt mode weapon storage, and no moving parts the alt mode doesn't actually do much, though.  I guess it doesn't have to.

And if troop building is your thing (at this price, why not?), good news!  While the Scourge version of Star Shuttle comes packed with an entirely different fellow we'll talk about next time, you can also buy a two pack of Star Shuttle with a brighter blue plastic and a very pale blue in place of white, so Scourge can hang with his Sweeps.

And yeah, everything I keep saying in all my other Dr Wu reviews applies here.  They're not mini Masterpieces the way Newage or Magic Square make their figures.  They're relatively simple, relatively cheap Micromaster-sized figures that do a great job of making your Titans and Combiners look even bigger.  Their small size and small price also makes them easy to collect.  So once again, yes, I recommend Star Shuttle.

I don't collect these-yet-but I have to say the amount of articulation and the sheer detail that Dr. Wu accomplished with this tiny figure is extraordinary. I'm far more into his cassettes, of which I hope there are many more, especially the main characters like Rumble Ravage, Laserbeak, etc. However, as you pointed out, this shows improvement over earlier figs and hopefully he'll revisit some of those earlier attempts with refined versions.

10 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I'll say this for Red Tank... he's not my favorite Dr Wu figure, but he's not the worst, either.  He's fine.  The fact that he's a main G1 cartoon character means you probably don't want to leave him out, and the fact that he comes with the quite good Star Shuttle means you're probably going to want the whole pack anyway.  So do it!  Do it with the knowledge that the Datsuns are coming...

Always a bit of a bummer when you're collecting a line and one toy really kinda stands out, like Star Shuttle, and your left feeling disappointed and wondering why the same attention and care isn't given to every single toy. That said, at that scale, a lot can be forgiven and I think Wu's still doing a good job on these guys overall.

Bring on the Datsuns! I preordered Prowl and Kickback tonight, as I'm a sucker for Prowl, and the thought of having a toy that tiny that still transforms and has a fair bit of articulation is worth picking up. I'm still enamored with Newage's take, which is pretty small, but it'll positively dwarf Dr. Wu's. 

[Briareos]

 

[tekering]

Back in 2016, DX9's "Tyrant" and FansToys "Sovereign" were released, and both were well-received by the fandom.  Nonetheless, collectors wondered why -- five years after the release of Masterpiece Rodimus -- TakaraTomy still hadn't produced an MP Galvatron.

Who would've believed, with the release of Sovereign 2.0 a decade later, we'd STILL be wondering? 😂

[mikeszekely]

I think I like this head better than the Sunbow one...

 

[mikeszekely]

Over a year ago I covered MMC's Shiftlane, their version a Rollbar, a retool of their version of Swindle.  And then... well, nothing for a long time.  But I don't really do full reviews for repaints, and I don't buy nearly as much 3P stuff I used to (and when I do, I don't really buy repaints).  But... I did get the rest of the set.

So the first one after Shiftlane was Chops, the MMC version of Ro-Tor.  Now, the animation models for Robots In Disguise were a lot closer to the toys than the G1 Combaticons.  MMC cleverly flipped Shiftlane's torso around.  For Chops, they remolded the front of his torso.  For the most part, that works for him.  The new torso is pretty cartoon accurate, and aside from having Vortex's little feet he's accurate enough down through the legs.  MMC tucked Vortex's tail and use the engine nacelles to make for more G1 cartoon-accurate, but that actually works against Chops, since Ro-Tor's toy-accurate arms were clearly the helicopter tail.  Ro-Tor also shouldn't have the little arm guns that Vortex does, but Chops has all the same accessories that their Vortex did.

Transformation is the same as Vortex, which is to say it's still my least favorite of the set.  The helicopter mode was designed to walk a fine line between G1 cartoon-accurate and a realistic Seasprite.  Again, it's the kind of thing that worked pretty well for the Vortex version, but the RiD animation was much closer to the simplified look of the toy.  To that end, I don't think that Chops came out badly, per se.  The realistic helicopter is fine, but some details are a bit off.  Why isn't the nose red?  Where's the gray panel on the side?

The third release was Astrolift, aka Movor.  Again, MMC made a few modifications to make the mold a bit more RiD-accurate.  He's got new feet, and a partly new chest.  As with Chops, the new chest is indeed more accurate, but the faux wheels are kind of unnecessary.  And while the arms are made from the front of the shuttle, same as Blast-Off, details like the visible pink cockpit windows are missing.  I'm not sure why MMC didn't just paint a fake windows onto part of his arm where the actual cockpit could cover over it.

As for the shuttle mode, well, Movor always had more realistic colors than Blast-Off, and the realistic look pretty good with MMC's (fairly) realistic design (the engine bells are still wrong).  It's worth pointing out, though, that in the cartoon Movor was drawn rather strangely, with small wings, a rectangular fuselage, and sharply angled engine nacelles, so aside from the colors Astrolift isn't exactly cartoon-accurate here.  Another thing to note is that Movor was animated with the larger cannons from the toy over the wings/near the rear of the fuselage.  Since MMC's Blast-Off didn't include those, neither does Astrolift... just the smaller pistol, which still folds up and tucks into a spot near the top rear of the fuselage.

The fourth release was Fortiflex, their Armorhide.  Fortiflex has remolded hip skirts, which better resemble the trapezoidal hips of Armorhide's character model.  From the waist down, no complaints.  From the waist up, though... well, Brawl's animation model was pretty different from the G1 toy, with a much smaller chest and treads for shoulders.  Armorhide's animation model, being closer to the toy, kept the big tank chest and the arms where the treads were on the backs of his arms, not the front.  The remolded chest does sort of look like the front of the tank, but it's clearly not as protruding, and no changes to the arms means you've got treads and dark browns where we should have tan bits from the top of the tank.

Tank mode is still looking sharp, though.  Again, MMC likes realistic details so we've got the periscope, mirrors, and working hatches.  Although Armorhide didn't use them in the cartoon, he's still go the rear-mounted double-barreled gun that came with Brawl.

Megalith, aka Mega-Octane, finishes up the set.  I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that Onslaught was the weakest of MMC's Combaticons due to being the most hampered by the all-in-one gimmick, and that's certainly still the case with Megalith.  However, MMC's Onslaught, due largely to his transformation, was always a bit more toy-ish than the other four, and this is something that works in Megalith's favor as the wheels on his torso and the extra kibble on the backs of his shoulders are all cartoon-accurate now.  Even the large orange pelvis is.  You just have to squint and remember that it's all supposed to be pelvis, regardless of where his hips and waist swivel are.  As far as mold changes go, the only difference is some minor changes to the molds of his chest panels.  Note that he comes with both an orange version of Onslaught's original gun, as well as the gun and boxes from the upgrade kit they did for their Bruticus.

Transformation is the same, and the truck mode is basically just Onslaught's in a different color scheme.  I suppose the grill could be a little more cartoon-y, but I think it's fine overall.  

Of course, if you're this far in, you're probably not in because you want the Decepticon Commandos, you're probably in for Ruination, so here's Eversus, the combined mode.  Like Megalith on his own, I think Eversus benefits a bit from the toy-style torso.  You'll notice that the head and chest are the ones that came with the Bruticus upgrade kit; Eversus does NOT have the Blast-Off chest and G1 cartoon Bruticus head were stock on Onslaught.  The chest is painted with details from the Japanese release of Car Robots Dorailer.

However, while the torso goes a long way toward the Ruination look, being designed first and foremost as Bruticus does hold him back in a few ways.  His left arm lacks the big red guns from the RiD Ro-Tor toy, just the little ones from Vortex.  And his elbow bends like Vortex, whereas the cartoon had the side of the helicopter as the front of the arm.  Likewise, the front of his left arm was the side of Movor, and presented as white.  The biggest difference, though, is that Armorhide connects backward in the cartoon, with the turret on the back of his leg and the front of the tank as his knee.  But Brawl was designed to match the G1 cartoon, with the turret on the shin.

The other reality is that in RiD Ruination frequently flipped his arms and legs, with Armorhide as the right arm, Rollbar as the left arm, Ro-Tor as the right leg, and Movor as the left.  But since Bruticus only had his "standard" configuration in the G1 cartoon, MMC only designed their Bruticus with the single combination, so that's the only one that Eversus gets.

So, I guess the question is whether or not the whole set is worth it.  And I think that's an interesting question.  On the one hand, the strong toy aesthetics and Megaltih and, by extension, the core of Eversus, actually seem to work better for Ruination than they did as Bruticus.  Plus, while MMC was competing at the time with Zeta and Unique Toys, there really hasn't been too many takes on Ruination, and certainly not at this scale.  I think, despite the compromises that come with being designed as a Bruticus first, this is a solid take on the characters and it goes great with Fans Hobby's Scourge.  Top it off with better joint tolerances all around than Bruticus, and I'd say that I'm quite glad to have this set.

But, the thing is, there are enough quirks with these designs that I don't really want to own two of each of these molds.  And in the years since MMC first released their Bruticus, we've gotten another take on an MP Bruticus from Magic Square.  So while this set does satisfy my desire for Ruination, it also makes me want to sell the MMC Bruticus and buy Magic Square's.

[Scyla]

17 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Over a year ago I covered MMC's Shiftlane, their version a Rollbar, a retool of their version of Swindle.  And then... well, nothing for a long time.  But I don't really do full reviews for repaints, and I don't buy nearly as much 3P stuff I used to (and when I do, I don't really buy repaints).  But... I did get the rest of the set.

So the first one after Shiftlane was Chops, the MMC version of Ro-Tor.  Now, the animation models for Robots In Disguise were a lot closer to the toys than the G1 Combaticons.  MMC cleverly flipped Shiftlane's torso around.  For Chops, they remolded the front of his torso.  For the most part, that works for him.  The new torso is pretty cartoon accurate, and aside from having Vortex's little feet he's accurate enough down through the legs.  MMC tucked Vortex's tail and use the engine nacelles to make for more G1 cartoon-accurate, but that actually works against Chops, since Ro-Tor's toy-accurate arms were clearly the helicopter tail.  Ro-Tor also shouldn't have the little arm guns that Vortex does, but Chops has all the same accessories that their Vortex did.

Transformation is the same as Vortex, which is to say it's still my least favorite of the set.  The helicopter mode was designed to walk a fine line between G1 cartoon-accurate and a realistic Seasprite.  Again, it's the kind of thing that worked pretty well for the Vortex version, but the RiD animation was much closer to the simplified look of the toy.  To that end, I don't think that Chops came out badly, per se.  The realistic helicopter is fine, but some details are a bit off.  Why isn't the nose red?  Where's the gray panel on the side?

The third release was Astrolift, aka Movor.  Again, MMC made a few modifications to make the mold a bit more RiD-accurate.  He's got new feet, and a partly new chest.  As with Chops, the new chest is indeed more accurate, but the faux wheels are kind of unnecessary.  And while the arms are made from the front of the shuttle, same as Blast-Off, details like the visible pink cockpit windows are missing.  I'm not sure why MMC didn't just paint a fake windows onto part of his arm where the actual cockpit could cover over it.

As for the shuttle mode, well, Movor always had more realistic colors than Blast-Off, and the realistic look pretty good with MMC's (fairly) realistic design (the engine bells are still wrong).  It's worth pointing out, though, that in the cartoon Movor was drawn rather strangely, with small wings, a rectangular fuselage, and sharply angled engine nacelles, so aside from the colors Astrolift isn't exactly cartoon-accurate here.  Another thing to note is that Movor was animated with the larger cannons from the toy over the wings/near the rear of the fuselage.  Since MMC's Blast-Off didn't include those, neither does Astrolift... just the smaller pistol, which still folds up and tucks into a spot near the top rear of the fuselage.

The fourth release was Fortiflex, their Armorhide.  Fortiflex has remolded hip skirts, which better resemble the trapezoidal hips of Armorhide's character model.  From the waist down, no complaints.  From the waist up, though... well, Brawl's animation model was pretty different from the G1 toy, with a much smaller chest and treads for shoulders.  Armorhide's animation model, being closer to the toy, kept the big tank chest and the arms where the treads were on the backs of his arms, not the front.  The remolded chest does sort of look like the front of the tank, but it's clearly not as protruding, and no changes to the arms means you've got treads and dark browns where we should have tan bits from the top of the tank.

Tank mode is still looking sharp, though.  Again, MMC likes realistic details so we've got the periscope, mirrors, and working hatches.  Although Armorhide didn't use them in the cartoon, he's still go the rear-mounted double-barreled gun that came with Brawl.

Megalith, aka Mega-Octane, finishes up the set.  I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that Onslaught was the weakest of MMC's Combaticons due to being the most hampered by the all-in-one gimmick, and that's certainly still the case with Megalith.  However, MMC's Onslaught, due largely to his transformation, was always a bit more toy-ish than the other four, and this is something that works in Megalith's favor as the wheels on his torso and the extra kibble on the backs of his shoulders are all cartoon-accurate now.  Even the large orange pelvis is.  You just have to squint and remember that it's all supposed to be pelvis, regardless of where his hips and waist swivel are.  As far as mold changes go, the only difference is some minor changes to the molds of his chest panels.  Note that he comes with both an orange version of Onslaught's original gun, as well as the gun and boxes from the upgrade kit they did for their Bruticus.

Transformation is the same, and the truck mode is basically just Onslaught's in a different color scheme.  I suppose the grill could be a little more cartoon-y, but I think it's fine overall.  

Of course, if you're this far in, you're probably not in because you want the Decepticon Commandos, you're probably in for Ruination, so here's Eversus, the combined mode.  Like Megalith on his own, I think Eversus benefits a bit from the toy-style torso.  You'll notice that the head and chest are the ones that came with the Bruticus upgrade kit; Eversus does NOT have the Blast-Off chest and G1 cartoon Bruticus head were stock on Onslaught.  The chest is painted with details from the Japanese release of Car Robots Dorailer.

However, while the torso goes a long way toward the Ruination look, being designed first and foremost as Bruticus does hold him back in a few ways.  His left arm lacks the big red guns from the RiD Ro-Tor toy, just the little ones from Vortex.  And his elbow bends like Vortex, whereas the cartoon had the side of the helicopter as the front of the arm.  Likewise, the front of his left arm was the side of Movor, and presented as white.  The biggest difference, though, is that Armorhide connects backward in the cartoon, with the turret on the back of his leg and the front of the tank as his knee.  But Brawl was designed to match the G1 cartoon, with the turret on the shin.

The other reality is that in RiD Ruination frequently flipped his arms and legs, with Armorhide as the right arm, Rollbar as the left arm, Ro-Tor as the right leg, and Movor as the left.  But since Bruticus only had his "standard" configuration in the G1 cartoon, MMC only designed their Bruticus with the single combination, so that's the only one that Eversus gets.

So, I guess the question is whether or not the whole set is worth it.  And I think that's an interesting question.  On the one hand, the strong toy aesthetics and Megaltih and, by extension, the core of Eversus, actually seem to work better for Ruination than they did as Bruticus.  Plus, while MMC was competing at the time with Zeta and Unique Toys, there really hasn't been too many takes on Ruination, and certainly not at this scale.  I think, despite the compromises that come with being designed as a Bruticus first, this is a solid take on the characters and it goes great with Fans Hobby's Scourge.  Top it off with better joint tolerances all around than Bruticus, and I'd say that I'm quite glad to have this set.

But, the thing is, there are enough quirks with these designs that I don't really want to own two of each of these molds.  And in the years since MMC first released their Bruticus, we've gotten another take on an MP Bruticus from Magic Square.  So while this set does satisfy my desire for Ruination, it also makes me want to sell the MMC Bruticus and buy Magic Square's.

Seeing MMC’s Onslaught always makes me twitch. Such a shame it wasn’t better. The only thing that I would improve with the limb bot would be the ability for Blast-Off’s toes to rotate so it doesn’t is so apparent that the ankle tilt is almost nonexistent.

Oh well, at some point FansToys will do Bruticus. I will wait a little bit longer for a good Masterpiece Onslaught.

[sh9000]

Does Ruination's weapons combine?

I think I'm mainly interested in the articulated hands and maybe the thigh parts.

[sh9000]

I'll only get DK-73.

[M'Kyuun]

I got the Long Haul kit (I forget the designator). I wish they'd make a kit with only their more articulated arms for Bonecrusher, Mixmaster, and Scavenger, as I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. Bonecrusher and Mixmaster, especially, could use those arm upgrades.

[sh9000]

The chest filler will be included as a bonus part.