Yep, even with the smudges, that's already looking utterly fantastic. I love HA Barricade, but it looks like he'll finally be put to pasture.
I see several people say that, but how do we know for sure? Let's face it - as much as we all like to pretend to be experts on the design & manufacture of TFs, none of us here know exactly how Takara and their factories interact. It could well be that the designer actually does have some input into the manufacturing side of things.
And boom goes the dynamite. Barricade looks awesome! The proportions (longer arms and legs, broad chest, higher crotch) and design cues (two clawed hands, wheels on the shoulders and wrists, door panels that hang correctly from the upper arms, the little wings in the back) all look spot on. I hope they nailed his head sculpt. My HA Barricades aren't going anywhere since I still quite like the mold and the fact that the alt mode has working doors and a car interior for mini figures to fit inside.
My point is that you blame the designer for bad quality of a product, even if you consider it a bit, a designer wouldn't go from japan to vietnam (where it's the factory where they made the MPM Prime), just to supervise every process, but just as you say, we don't know how they interact, even though they don't have the job to do it, do you really think guys like Hisashi Yuki, Shogo Hasui or Onishi spend all their time to secure the process from figures that they've designed?, some factories in china were supervised by the own factories without much relation to Hasbro (in the sense of having staff from either TT or Hasbro). Back on topic, i'm truly excited to see Barricade, regardless.
Yes because for all we know maybe Takara makes the designer responsible for the entire project from start to finish, including check QC of production items(whether a sample batch is sent to Takara HQ or the designer travels to the factory in person). But like you and I both say, we'll likely never know unless we one day work for Takara. +1 Barricade looks fantastic!
Like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, there is Jimmy Takara's masterpiece factory, where the designers are on a balcony watching all the production line, don't you know that?
Okay it's nitpick time: My only complaint would be the EASILY visible kibble from the robot coming out the vehicle, something i totally hated about the MPM Prime was this. Unless it's misstransformed but i doubt.
