Customs and Other Stuff

So I think it's time to finally share some pictures of my completed Metroplex! This first picture is Metroplex as I got him (almost): yellowed, broken waist, tatty stickers and missing most of his accessories:

He was missing his chest ramp as well but I wasn't prepared to pull it out just for the photo. So the first thing I did was to buy the accessories he was missing (I managed to find a lot on eBay which included non-yellowed legs plus the chest ramp), plus repro stickers. I did a (bad) job on repairing his waist and this is what I ended up with:

I don't think it looks too bad in this photo but that waist is wood! (From an old sofa!!!). Thanks to Jin Saotome Dangerous Toys website I later discovered Hobby Link Japan and basically how to go about this project so I started again.

I liked the extra height that the replacement waist gave so I decided to keep that idea, I then designed knees with swivels thighs, elbows with swivels wrists, articulated hands (from Jin's website), plus a ball joint head.

From previous experience I'd found that I find it's really hard to sculpt cubes or cuboids from epoxy putty so I made the pieces I wanted from polystyrene (easy to cut to size), made a rubber mold and then casted the pieces. It took a bit of filing, filling and sanding but it worked fairly well. I then used ball joints to give the movement.

Despite Metroplex having a broken waist I didn't want to permanently change the figure so I designed the pieces to be non-permanent. By undoing a few screws, etc, all the pieces are removable. (I did alter the legs though as I had a spare pair.)

So here's Metroplex in his restored non upgraded glory:

Metroplex now has knees and elbows so is capable of slightly more dynamics poses than arms up/arms down. So here is the finished item:

I dread to think how long this has taken me but I'm very glad to have finished! He's now posed on my shelves with some WST.

So here's a couple of other much smaller things I've done. Firstly Terradive from the Hunt for the Decepticons line, it's an awesome mold but I wasn't sure how to fit him into my Classics collection so I came up with the idea of making him a minion of Unicron (I bought 3). I removed the Decepticon insignias, painted the white bits silver and gave them a black wash, and then finished them with some Unicron faction stickers:

I'm a big fan of the Real Gear line, in particular Booster X12 aka Laserbeak, it seemed wrong that Buzzsaw didn't get the same treatment so I pulled out my gold paint:

Speaking of the HFTD line, it also featured a certain Bludgeon. I thought his head was too movie looking so I made my own by making a resin copy of MOTU Skeletor's head and painting it silver. I've since bought HeadRobots upgrade as well so he's also going to get a new sword:

As I've mentioned previously, I love the Hearts of Steel steampunk asthetic, so I felt inspired to pick up a few ROTF Ransacks and paint them as the seekers. Pretty rubbish robot mode but the alt mode is decent enough. I made some machine gun weapons as well:


I'm going to be working on some Terrorcon customs soon, pictures in several years!

Nearly There!

I am now on the verge of finishing my Metroplex custom parts! Created extra bits for the arms and legs so that they can bend, as well as swivel (thighs/wrists), I've made a waist part so he's a bit taller, and I've made a neck and hands so he can look around and wiggle his fingers!

I'm very happy with how it's looking, I've finished all the filing and now he's ready to paint. Quite literally, I've just washed the dust off and he's just drying. I reckon pictures next week!

I've been working on it for at least 6 months so it feels like a bit of a milestone, I won't be hanging up my paintbrush for long though as I've got a load of Kabaya kits to be putting together - WST scale Predacons, Hun-Gurrr, Star Saber and God Ginrai. Should look pretty awesome together. Talking of WST, looks like we're getting Sixshot soon so he'll display very nicely with an articulated Metroplex (ala the IDW comics). We're also getting a Kabaya Victory Leo soon (which was my reason for getting Star Saber), they'll display very nicely with Countdown's base (ala the Victory cartoon).

Customs aside, there's not been much doing in Transformers land recently, the club's Runabout and Runamuck look awesome and I'll be signing up just to get them. There's NYCC next week so hopefully we'll hear about some more Generations stuff, if only the repaints hinted at through the instructions. I've got the FansProject Insecticons sitting in my BBTS pile of loot as well as Perfect Effect's Reflector, so once Doctor Strange (finally) arrives I'll ship and let you know what I think.

Speaking of which I've seen his wavemates in the UK so BBTS has really fallen behind - beaten by UK (regular) retail. Shocking! I found Apocalypse recently and with Mister Sinister on the way it's looking good with all the X-men villains, I'd really like to see Omega Red soon though. Hopefully we'll get a bit more Marvel Universe news at NYCC.

I'm going to rearrange my collection next week, I've currently got lots of Transformers rammed together so I'm going to put some of them away and space things out a bit, as well as displaying some things I've got which have never been displayed. Honestly, photos soon!

Convention Season!

SDCC 2011 is next week so I thought it would be a good time to talk about the year so far, Botcon and how everything's going.

So, not much doing at Botcon for the Classics verse collector, it was all about the third party stuff - it seems like every company under the sun is doing minibots, iGear are doing some particularly interesting stuff, hinting at doing the entire cast of IDWs LSTOT Wreckers series. I'm listening....... (Although it's only really Topspin and Twintwist I'm interested in.) Fansproject are doing a 'Heartmaster', which may or may not be War Within Grimlock. If they did an entire set of WW Dinobots then that could be very interesting indeed.

Since my last post I've completely caught up on all Transformers I want - got Movie Powerglide (I'll see how those third party efforts get on) and all the Generations stuff. Am looking out for a HFTD Tomhawk for use as a custom, I've seen his wavemates so whether I can track him down remains to be seen. I think I'll hold on for SDCC to see whether a Western market repaint is on the cards - Vortex seems to be Takara only.

Am really looking forward to Doctor Strange and Invisible Woman, will be great to finish the Fantastic 4 and original Defenders. SDCC Sentinel will be awesome too, shame it's not going to be at US retail.

I've decided to start collecting (Marvel) movie figures so I can have unmasked MU figures - Wolverine, Deadpool, Thor, Nick Fury, etc. (Okay, so Fury is already unmasked and Thor just wears a helmet but you get the idea.) Hoping we see Tony Stark, Rhodey and Black Widow soon........... I made a custom cigar for Fury which (imo) looks pretty good. Collection pics soon.

Specifically collection pics when I finish customising G1 Metroplex; when I first got him he had the standard waist break, years before I knew about ball joints and epoxy I did a repair which was a bit rubbish. So I'm doing a much better job plus giving him a few other 'improvements'!

I will update this blog after SDCC with my thoughts..........

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So, almost a month later, how did SDCC measure up? Rather well actually! No more Transformers news, or even any (good for me) DC news but a plethora of awesome Marvel Universe with a sprinkling of Gremlins.

We already knew NECA were doing some rather good mogwai figures, what we didn't know was the new gremlins - George, Lenny, Daffy, flasher Gremlin and even electricity Gremlin. Nice one NECA!
Marvel Universe then, for me possibly the greatest announcement of figures in one go since the line debuted. Psylocke, Kang, Hercules, Jubilee, Beast, Scarlet Witch, Fin Fang Foom (Masterworks!), Kraven the Hunter, Mr Sinister and She-Hulk. Plus Angel and a new Hulk.

I reckon Mr Sinister just about rounds off all the key X-men villains. Beast, Psylocke and Jubilee help to almost finish off the X-men (Professor X and Rogue where are you!?). Fin Fang Foom rounds off all the ML BAF figures that I really want to see in MU. (I'd like to see MODOK but I think Giant Battles is probably a better size point for him.)

So there we go, a much more exciting SDCC than Botcon (it's unfortunate when the third parties outdo Hasbro), guess once the third movie's all wrapped up we can get back to some Generations goodness.

Here's looking forward to Toy Fair 2012!!!

New Horizons

Howdy! So here we are a quarter of the way through the year, feels like it's barely got going! Generations is almost done pre-Movie, we've had Toy Fair, Marvel Universe is looking exciting and there's some awesome third party stuff on the horizon. I've tried to be a bit more careful about my spending so far this year and aside from some (quite) big spending on WST custom boxes, I've managed to achieve that. Combined with selling a load of stuff on eBay it's looking good.

So, Toy Fair; for me the most exciting news was Jazwares announcement of some 3.75" Mortal Kombat figures (in addition to the previously announced Street Fighter figures). I'm hoping for the entire cast of MK Trilogy and Streetfighter II! Pre-orders went up on BBTS last night for the first wave of MK - most of the classic and robot ninjas plus modern Raiden and Johnny Cage. That's about a third of the way there already!

Also announced were a good few Marvel Universe figures - Invisible Woman (finally!), Doctor Strange and Quicksilver. Great stuff, although we won't be seeing most of them until Autumn. There's also a scout sized Powerglide coming in the Transformers Movie line which looks Classics style, which is lucky as I was just weighing up the benefits of Ultra Universe Powerglide.........

Had an amazing delivery from BBTS (and only got marginally screwed on custom charges!). Most of the Generations Figures plus Wave 16 of DC Universe (Azrael Bats and Bane yay!). Great to finally catch up on those figures, plus got Wheeljack very shortly after he was released. Some excellent figures which I'm slowly opening. I found Windcharger here as well, very strange that he's so hard to find in the US but relatively easy here. Makes a change!

I think the only other news to talk about is the large number of very interesting/exciting third party figures/Knock-Offs on the way. From FansProject we've got Classics style Insecticons and hopefully Broadside (it's been on the cards for a while). Perfect Effect are releasing Reflector (they've really got those small figures nailed), Mastermind Creations are doing some brilliant stuff with their Heart of Steel line - Shockwave and the Insecti-train. Shockwave makes me want to cry with happiness - potential Classics stand-in, Steampunk aesthetics and a boat (other than Seaspray, I have no water based Transformers).

TFClub are doing a Classics style Devastator which looks great, but I don't think I can justify the cost (rumoured to be $90 a pop) - I've already got actual (Energon) Classics Devy plus the Crazydevy upgrades for the G1 version. If FansProject do an upgrade then I'd be far happier. The Hybrid style Dinobots from Justitoys are apparently still on the cards (just hope they're a decent size).

Finally KOToys are doing KOs of the Japanese exclusive dino cassettes, delighted if I can actually get hold of those. Also they're doing a Universe Sunstreaker/Sideswipe kit with all the heads to make it into the various characters including G1 Breakdown (presumably using the Botcon head) which is pretty sweet. I'd rather it was a straight up knock off but a kit could be fun.

So there we go, exciting times ahead plus all the repaints of the Generations figures that have been hinted at through the instructions - Ratbat, Gears/Skids, Reflector and more. Hurrah!

Figure I want to see in 2011!!!

As is traditional, I thought I would list the 50 figures I want to see this year (I say traditional, I did it last year), it's a bit different this year as rather than the top 50 figures I want to see, it's the 50 figures I want - once I get these 50 I will effectively give up collecting. (There will of course be a few new characters, new versions of existing characters and minor characters, but I will feel like I've completed all my collections.)

I'm not including figures that have already been announced - Broadside from FansProject, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn (hopefully to be released - we've seen prototypes) Infinite Heroes, all the announced Marvel Universe and Generations figures from Hasbro, the later waves of 5" Nintendo figures from PopCo, and Dragonzord from Bandai. I have included figures which are only rumoured such as Doctor Strange, and given we're getting Thundercats figures, Lion-O is a bit of a given, so it balances out. I'd love some Masterpiece Dinobots, but I've not included figures which are really unlikely.

So here goes, in no particular order:


Marvel Universe/Spider-Man 3.75"

01. Invisible Woman - to complete the Fantastic 4
02. Elektra
03. Doctor Strange - to complete the (original) Defenders
04. Professor X
05. Rogue
06. Beast - to complete the (original) X-men
07. Psylocke
08. Emma Frost
09. Jubilee
10. Black Bolt
11. She-Hulk
12. Pyro
13. Quicksilver
14. Toad
15. Avalanche
16. Mr Sinister
17. Omega Red
18. Abomination
19. Kingpin
20. Kraven the Hunter
21. Sandman


DC Infinite Heroes

22. Penguin
23. Riddler
24. Bane
25. Mr Freeze
26. Azrael - Knightfall version


Transformers - Classics Style

27. Blitzwing
28. Sandstorm - I'd be happy with a repaint/remold of FansProject's Defender
29. Trailbreaker
30. Hoist
31. Skids - I'd be happy with a repaint of Universe Ironhide (with head problems fixed)
32. Defensor/Hot Spot - maybe a repaint of Universe Inferno?
33. Menasor/Motormaster - maybe a remold of Generations G2 Optimus Prime?


Thundercats - 3.75"

34. Lion-O w/Snarf - I think it would be fair to include Snarf as an accessory
35. Tygra
36. Panthro, maybe a Thundertank to go with!?
37. Cheetara
38. Jaga (ghost/translucent)
39. WileKit
40. WileKat
41. Ben-Gali
42. Lynx-O
43. Pumyra
44. Mumm-Ra - Mummy Version
45. Mumm-Ra - Powerful version, w/Mumm-Mutt
46. Slithe
47. Jackalman
48. Monkian
49. Vultureman


Sonic 5"

50. Robotnik


I'll see how I did at the end of the year!

How did I do?

Well we're in December now and I thought it would be fun to see how many of the figures I wanted in January I actually got. Green for Yay, Red for Nay!

01. Carnage (From the Spider-Man 3.75" line, could do with some waist/chest articulation but a nice figure.)

02. Sandman

03. Elektra

04. Kingpin

05. Ghost Rider (Needs his bike!!!)

06. Beast

07. Rogue

08. Apocalypse (He's on his way - yay!)

09. Sentinel (Also on the way, big yay!)

10. Mr Sinister

11. Professor Xavier

12. Pyro

13. Quicksilver

14. Invisible Woman

15. Riddler

16. Penguin

17. Mr Freeze

18. Poison Ivy (We saw a prototype, let's hope it actually sees the light of day.)

19. Bane (I'm picking up the DC Universe version, so this is almost a yay but I was really hoping a 3.75" figure.)

20. Harley Quinn (Really hope we see this one.)

21. Jazz

22. Stepper (Surely this is an obvious repaint?)

23. Wheeljack

24. Tracks

25. Skids (I reckon they could do a reasonable Skids out of the Universe Ironhide mold - as long as they fix the neck issues though.)

26. Trailbreaker

27. Hoist

28. Grapple

29. Windcharger (He's a scout rather than a Legends figure like his minibot mates but it looks good.)

30. Gears

31. Huffer (Okay so he sort of got a PCC figure but it doesn't really look anything like him.)

32. Seaspray (Voyager mold but sufficiently awesome for me to forget the scale problems.)

33. Powerglide - Legend

34. Galvatron - Voyager

35. Scourge

36. Sandstorm (I'd be happy if FansProject did a repaint of Defender but apparently they've ruled it out.)

37. Kup

38. Blurr

39. Perceptor

40. Reflector (Should be a repaint of Perceptor, if not Perfect Effect have shown they plan to do a very g1 accurate figure.)

41. Sunstorm

42. Whirl (Repaint of Tomahawk perhaps? Headrobots are doing a custom head for the Movie figure so that almost counts.)

43. Runabout (A repaint of Tracks/Wheeljack might work quite nicely.)

44. Runamuck

45. Shockwave (Mastermind Creations have announced a Hearts of Steel Shockwave, yay yay yay! But not quite Classics style.......)

46. Motormaster - Ultra (Maybe a repaint of Generations G2 Optimus Prime?)

47. Hot Spot - Ultra (Still hoping for that Universe Inferno repaint.)

48. Rumble (Very nice little figure too.)

49. Frenzy

50. Blitzwing


I make that 19 out of 50, 40% if you will!

We had some excellent figures in 2010 - Drift/Blurr and Unicron 2010 for starters, Jazz, Tracks and co. for afters. Let's hope 2011 is just as good!

New Arrivals

I recently had a couple of rather large boxes arrive from BBTS, I got rather screwed on customs charges but that was quickly forgotten when they arrived...........

A quick summary of what I got:

Generations Blurr, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Megazord and Titanus, Marvel Universe Galactus, Hawkeye, Phoenix, Mystique and Captain Britain, FansProject Swindle and Blast Off, and Piranacon. (Plus a few other miscellaneous Marvel figures.)

Several months ago I decided to re-arrange my collection according to the Dreamwave War Within factions plus a few other factions based on the G1 Dreamwave and IDW comics. I've been meaning to re-arrange my collection slightly so with these new figures arriving, I decided to take a couple of days off work and do it properly.

The Power Rangers have gone into storage, hopefully I will have room to display them at some point.

I extended my faction idea slightly to include my Marvel figures - I've created a villains faction based on IGN's 100 greatest villains (http://uk.comics.ign.com/top-100-villains/), then for the heroes; the Avengers, Defenders and X-men. Basically I only get a figure if I know the character and if they fit into one of the factions. I've also got a 'Sinister' faction for Spider-Man villains not in IGN's top 100, and a 'Brotherhood' factions for the corresponding X-men villains. (Oh, and I've made an exception for Punisher.)

I've then teamed up the Marvel factions with a Transformers faction - Wreckers with the X-men, Avengers and Fantastic 4 with the Autobots, and Defenders with Lightning Strike Coalition. The Brotherhood with the Decepticons and the Predacons with the Sinister faction, and finally the Illuminati with the High Council. (I'm waiting for Professor X and Doctor Strange first though.)

I have to say, spending 2 days opening toys and carefully re-arranging my shelves was fantastic. Totally selfish, but fun and and satisfying to finally get all the small things I've been meaning to do with my collection (like open some figures I've had for a while, apply stickers, etc) done. I'll take some photos soon to demonstrate the set-up.

I've had Device Label Blaster opened for a while, I think he's a great figure and good counterpart to Music Label Soundwave. Some kibble admittedly, but a good face sculpt and nicely posable. Similarly with Arcee (Valkyrie), I'd heard bad things, but I'm really happy with her - I've got a nice kneeling pose out of her and she looks pretty badass with her pistols. The only thing I didn't like about the figure is that it's painted rather than being pink plastic. These 2 figures plus Blurr have nicely finished off my 'Resistance' faction (Hot Rod, Arcee, Doubledealer, Gnaw, Wheelie, Blurr plus Blaster and his Cassettes.)

The Predacons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Predacons) faction also did rather well from the new arrivals - FansProject Munitioner (Swindle) and Explorer (Blast Off) joined their Energon/Universe counterparts to form Bruticus, who is easily the best ever combiner (and even better than Superion). A posable combiner who just has an amazing presence, truly FansProjects greatest achievement. Here's hoping they have a go at Devastator (and then Defensor and Menasor.........). Speaking of Devastator I've also got all Crazydevy's upgrades now so at some point I'll have a look at them.

Snap Trap also joined the Predacons.

Marvel Universe Galactus is simply awe-inspiring - he's 19" tall, and dwarfs every other toy I have (apart from Fortress Maximus!). This will make more sense when I take pictures, but I have a couple of metal bars in my display cupboard using the holes that the shelves normally fit into. I then have Galactus looking like he's holding on to one of them up, and then using min-mags (little magnets that fit into the holes on the bottom of every 3.75" figures), I've lined up my villains by the order on the IGN list.

The other Marvel Universe figures I got were pretty cool, and I feel a little bad not taking my time opening them, but it had to be quite clinical. It was good to get Hawkeye though, as my Avengers are pretty much complete now (I still want to get Ms. Marvel, but I've got everyone who I consider to be the key members).

I had 2010 Unicron arrive from Robotkingdom.com a couple of weeks before the BBTS shipment. I've held the Armada version, and to me the 2010 version is far superior (maybe because I'm a g1 fan at heart). Even so the figures is and always was quite stunning in scale, a fine addition to any collection.

I have to admit I'm rather proud of my collection, again pictures soon. As I've said before, I feel I'm almost done, there are spaces for Generations Jazz, Tracks, Scourge, Perceptor and co, as well as Marvel Universe Invisible Woman, Professor X, Rogue and Beast (c'mon!!!) , and although I could probably name about 50 more Marvel characters I'd like, really there are only a few left that I really want.

It's back to the waiting game now, waiting for Generations, Reveal the Shield, Marvel Universe and waiting to see Hasbro's plans (presumably at ToyFair in February). Waiting also to see whether we'll get a Dragonzord and some decent Thundercats figures from Bandai, as well as some good 3.75" Batman figures from Mattel.

Bruticus, Galactus and Unicron are ready to take on the world!!!