It occurred to me the other day that I actually own 31 seekers, mostly official but including some KO WSTs and customs, which given my aim in collecting is animal based transformers and the 'classic' characters ('84-'86 bots), that's quite a lot.
The more I think about it I have to admit that I'm a bit of a seeker addict, having said that, the 31 doesn't even include the Movie, Masterpiece or Alternity seekers. So how did I get so many? Growing up I didn't have any seeker toys but I did have a video of 'Call of the Primatives' and 'The girl who loved Powerglide'. The former is responsible for my obsession with 'Primatives', and the latter is not only responsible for my strong dislike of Powerglide, but also (I have to come to realise) the seeker obsession, and more specifically a conehead obsession.
My collecting basically started with the Takara collection reissues, and so my first seeker was Starscream, and shortly after I picked up the Hasbro reissues of Skywarp, Thundercracker and Dirge, and then ebayed Thrust and Ramjet. I had completed my seekers. Sort of.
The Sunstorm story started in the Dreamwave comics soon after, and instantly I thought that Sunstorm was the best character ever, and that (let's be honest here) a slightly rubbish toy in a slightly offensive shade of orange was well worth paying over the odds for. (I still own the toy by the way.....). That got me up to 7.
I then became aware of the WST (about the time it had become clear they weren't making any more), and so picked up Starscream and Thrust. Deciding against paying the massively inflated price for Skywarp, picked up a KO of him and then got extras of Starscream to make my own Thundercracker, Ramjet and Dirge. (Sound familiar!?)
Around this time the Classics line had debuted, but I wasn't very interested, simply because I liked my G1 Grimlock, Mirage, Optimus Prime, etc more than the new ones on offer. The exceptions were Bumblebee and Starscream who both had slightly rubbish G1 figures, but I'm slightly completist to the point where I won't just get random figures from a line. Having made that initial decision I found myself looking at the Classics figures almost continuously, and in particular Ramjet.
Starscream alone failed to convince me of the merits of the Classics line, but Ramjet really made me doubt my decision - here was a toy which like an utterly cool, modern, intimidating update of a classic character. It occurs to me now that I like the coneheads more because they featured in the episode I hated but watched repeatedly as a child. Still, I kept to my decision until the Summer of 2007.........
Botcon 2007 was (obviously, and let's not go there) a controversial affair, but for me it was the final nail in the coffin - updated uber cool coneheads available in Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge flavours? I lived in the UK, missed the boat on any pre-order non-attending pack and so decided to stump up the money (a lot of money) for the Games of Deception pack on ebay. I then went to my local Forbidden Planet and bought every different Classics figure they had. This was about a week before I left the country for 2 years, so I more or less opened the figures then packed them straight up to be shipped overseas.
3 days before I left the country I did a presentation at an international conference, it was quite a nerve racking thing, but it went well. After (and this is my luckiest ever TF find), I wandered into Woolworths (RIP) and found Skywarp and Ultra Magnus on discount for £10! Skywarp went into my hand luggage and Ultra Magnus went into my parents attic (to be later pardoned when FansProject did their thing). That bit of luck was then contrasted against the arrival of a letter from customs charging me import duty on the GOD set - I got the letter a day before I left and so had no chance of getting the package before I left. I paid the money and had the package delivered to my parents. I then made the decision to leave it there, and not risk having it sent on another journey (and not pay import duty on it for a second time!).
I picked up Ramjet (finally) shortly after and so completed my second set of seekers (though I couldn't display them together for another 2 years). KO versions of WST Thundercracker, Ramjet and Dirge then turned up on ebay, and so I got them and completed my third set of seekers. (Sadly I couldn't display them either as I'd left the others in the UK.)
I then found a KO WST Sunstorm as well (another of Heerotoymaker's efforts) and a black WST Starscream. I did a bit of research and found out that this was another ehobby figure like Sunstorm, but in cool black and gold colour scheme. I picked up both, but then I got to thinking. I had 7 G1 Seekers, 6 Classics Seekers and 8 WST Seekers, the completest in me then sunk in again and so picked up a black ehobby Starscream (Darkstorm as I call him), and bought a couple of extra Classics Starscreams to create a custom Classics Sunstorm and Darkstorm.
I painted my custom Sunstorm (pretty happy with it too), but then the Universe line was announced and in particular: Acid Storm. This threw my 8 different seekers in each of the 3 styles out of the window - did I create a custom G1 and WST Acid Storm? Did I ignore the figure? Reading further about Acid Storm, it emerged he was a 'Rainmaker' and that there were 3 of them. (Aren't there always!?) Some time later it was announced that Dirge was going to get a figure as a repaint of Cybertron Voyager Starscream, I both wanted a figure from that mold and wanted Roadbuster. How could I fit all of these things together!?
Ever conscious that I had a rather large collection I decided to make Sunstorm a rainmaker - I know that 'technically' the yellow rainmaker and Sunstorm are different characters, but really, they were just randomly coloured extras, and so who's to say whether they are the same character or not? I then decided to make Cybertron Dirge my third rainmaker (Hailstorm if you will).
Upon coming back to the UK, I rediscovered my custom WST seekers which I'd been halfway through making, the Thundercracker (to be) was still complete so I sold that on ebay, I'd hacked up the wings of the other 2 so I decided to make them into Acid Storm and Hailstorm (Hailstorm being all blue but having Dirge style wings - referencing my own terming Cybertron Dirge as Hailstorm). I found a WST Acid Storm on ebay the other day but decided against it.
So that's 8 G1, 9 Classics and 10 WSTs - 27 in total. Where do the other 4 come in? I was delighted when the 3rd party Heart of Steel Optimus Prime figure came out, but I wanted more - the alt modes for the characters were brilliant in my mind, so one of the things I'm working on now are some custom HOS Seekers - Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker. I've bought a Legends Cybertron Sunstorm to base the head/face on - so 31 in total (I'm counting the customs in progress).
I'm not tempted by the Movie style seekers, nor the Masterpiece or Alternity figures, but I could well be tempted by Masterpiece coneheads (not sure about the Igear figures). Funny how that one episode still affects my thinking!
31 for figures for now, but for how long!?
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