Nah. It looks absolutely nothing like any wfc or foc design at all. Not sure why you'd make that comparison.

Eh they were pretty huge in the comic on both of them:



The sword scabbards form the side and underside of the nosecone. If the sword length matched their length then the two halves of the sheaths would have to be molded much thinner and end up too fragile due to needing the space as they taper.

If the scabbards were wider to accommodate longer swords they would probably conflict with his articulation and bump in to the legs on top of looking worse not to mention make the front of the jet too fat.

 

I'd say that in the pic you posted, and the one below, the engines front to back are probably 2/3 as long proportionally compared to the toy, but YMMV. I think it'd be fine for Drift, but for Wing I just think they stick out way too far back. I'll live with it, though.

No, I get that, and that's actually my issue. The sheaths end up being giant plane kibble hanging off his hips. Conceptually the hip kibble is explained away as sheaths for swords, but this still is a bit silly because functionally the swords don't need sheaths so large. (I'm not arguing for larger swords, either.)

Understandably kibble is part of the deal with transforming toys, and as mentioned before, it's good that the leg and back kibble from the origin render was removed. But I think there is a little lack of design elegance here in that basically there are two large pieces of plastic forming the front of the jet that just kinda hang off him.

In any case, it is what it is, and as long as there's more red on the alt mode, I'm satisfied.

 

I don't post here often, usually just lurk but I had to comment on what an amazing change this guy has gone through; really amazed at how much better he looks than those original renders, both in bot and altmode. I see some people mentioning wanting more red on the altmode though, and while I can see what they're getting at, I'm really hoping it's not changed because the red in bot mode is perfectly comic accurate as-is and looks amazing. Really at this point I hope nothing is changed, he looks so good, but either way seriously excited to get this guy and eagerly waiting for the preorders to open.

 

Unfortunately the alt mode looks kind of lame now, whereas the original alt mode looked super cool.

From MMCHub facebook group:

 

I actually really like the new alt mode. The old one looked too much like it would belong to a Jetfite figure and was kinda uninspiring. This new one looks sleek and is just my kind of sci-fi aircraft.

 

I like the alt modes. Fortunately for me regardless, I'll be displaying him in Bot mode.

If I didn't know who these characters were, I very likely wouldn't be wasting my money on them in the first place. Trust me, we comic fans appreciate the "it looks cool" crew, because that means we get more IDW stuff. However I am not understanding the "sadness"/disappointment as a whole.

These aren't random "cool bots" for the sake of being cool bots - they have an origin just like your G1/MP stuff does. We also want very accurate designs. The changed alt mode doesn't bother me in the slightest because I wasnt dead set on buying a random figure.

The more accurate the better. I hope future reformatted/IDW stuff from MMC also follows this formula.

 

Hmm. The new robot mode looks quite a bit better than the old one. But the new alt mode looks like.. well, like a folded up robot. It doesn't really resemble much of anything that looks like a vehicle. At least from the angle in the pic above.

Going to need to see more of the alt mode. But the robot mode is made of win. Still very much looking forward to this guy.

 

Everything is better about the new render aside from the color layout lacking as much red as the older one. Alt mode and all. I cannot get over how nice and sleek he is in both modes. I really like the spikey space racer look. The old render had nice colors, but the busyness of the legs and the backpack soiled it. It makes it look like a much more dynamic and pretty piece. The sleek lines really do it for me over the traditional line greeble of MMC's past reformatted offerings. Please continue down this route. This went from major pass to the middle of my radar.

 

From what you're showing me every change was made to make him look as comic accurate as possible in botmode which is a definite win for me. Heck I don't even care about Alt mode with Wing really considering we never really saw it.

 

That's correct, they made him much more comic accurate!

 

The guy you have in top center isn't Wing, just a heads up, Wing is to the right of that guy.

 

As an aside who else thinks the old design for Wing could be retooled into a pretty awesome Misfire?

 

The sheaths aren't accurate to anything, so putting some red on them making up the front of the jet would be a good place to start. The tailfins also are on his back, so those could be red as well.

I think that idea and Slugslinger have been talked about here before. As well as a Fastlane/Cloudraker duo between Alpha & Beta, though it's possible that's still possible.

 

Well no the sheaths aren't comic accurate but making them the same bright red would indeed make them stand out quite a bit in bot mode, making them even more obvious that they're not accurate, at least in the white they blend in. And as for the fins on his back we DO know what his back looks like and it doesn't have the red there either.
Maybe just paint yours when/if you get one so it has the red where you want?

 

I literally explained to you why they are the size they are. Think about it outside of the alt mode, if they were shorter then the swords wouldn't be swords they would be daggers. You're looking at the dimensions and not factoring in the internal structure and how plastic part molding needs to work to retain functionality and strength and how much space is available for the swords to slot in to. Here's a visual to help:



This is the basic shape of the sheaths. The only way they could be made smaller is if the buttflap had a lot more of their mass and at that point you'd end up with a massive buttflap. The way it is on the toy allows a better balance between mass distribution in the kibble. The only solution to this otherwise would be a massive backpack and that was the primary flaw of the original designs. Big skirt armor is at least highly appropriate for samurai inspired designs.

 

I understood from your first post that because of the engineering of the design, there are physical limitations of size of the sheaths compared to the size of the swords.

My point is this: As a conceptual design, the sheaths are really big, and they don't really look much like proper sheaths for the swords. Now, obviously this is because they make up the front of the alt mode, and they have to be that size and shape in order to do that.

On the other hand, Wing has no canonical alt mode, so there was more freedom in designing an alt mode for this toy. I think it would have been more elegant if there had been some more tweaking or massaging to the alt mode and how it transforms so that there didn't end up being two large pieces of jet hanging off his hips in kind of a MP Greenscream effect. (Though not that egregious.)

Anyway, I've gone on long enough about this, and the mold's not going to change, so I'll leave it at that. I also understand that in the end, a designer has to make the thing work within time and money constraints, never mind sometimes a better idea just doesn't pop up, and welcome to the real world, etc.

 

@LazyAza

When will the pics for both modes of Beta be shown?

 

I dunno I haven't seen a test shot so I assume he's much further behind than Wing.

Did get full confirmation we're doing Deadlock and Drift versions of him today though. Perhaps once both are ready they'll be shown off at the same time.

 

Seeing this comparison side by side really cements my love for the new look. To me the first render just looks very 3rd party (if there is such a thing), it’s too busy and square. The new one has a more refined official aesthetic.

Cue excitement!