Kind of wish they would've borrowed a page out of KFC's playbook with Ditka's football and incorporated a tab on the side of the artillery shell. This figure would benefit from KFC-styled hands.

 

If the'd shown the line art off before producing theiir Galvatron design - I suspect some people would have told them not to bother.

 

Got my Big Spring today. Very nice figure. It's made of some sort of softy plastic. Feels nice and durable. For 65 dollars this is a very nice masterpiece Springer.

 

Got mine today and he is every bit as great as advertised. The face is only passable but if a replacement ever comes he will be just about perfect. The transformation is fun and the alt modes are both really good too.

I saw the rumor that Open & Play is related to Maketoys and after handling this, I totally believe it. The plastic feels like what they use on many of their figures and the general sturdiness of him reminds me of Maketoys too.

 

Softy plastic? I'm not sure what you're referring to. It all feels quite solid to me, apart from the shins, which are hollow pieces anyway so they flex because of the big "U"-shape area.

To be fair, the rumour has zero basis and the same person claims MakeToys are MAAS Toys, which Spence denies wholeheartedly.

 

Most of the season 3 characters have that sorta pastel toyish plastic look to them so I think this guy fits in fine. Honestly, unless someone just wows me to no end, this guy is going to stay as my MP Springer in my display.

 

same for me. Whilst i think XTB springer is perfect bot mode, none of the other modes are spot on, FT has a great helicoptor but weak bot and car. If I was to change, all 3 modes need to be perfect.

 

Of all the available, and soon to be available choices, this is the one that seems to nail the alt modes the best, albeit for some small sacrifices on bot mode. Here's hoping someone makes a replacement face sculpt. The fact that it doesn't come with instructions means it should actually be fun to manipulate.

 

Where is Dr. Wu when you need him...

 

So for anybody that has this and has replaced the face-

Care to sell me the stock face? I butchered the bejeezus out of mine trying to shave the plastic off the back so the face sat better. Somehow I ended up with 3 shallow gashes on the face. Despite my hand and the exacto blade never slipping, amd as far as I remember, never coming anywhere near the front side of the face. So I spray painted the face chrome silver. Which nicely covered the scratches and looked ok, even a little better than it started, but I handled it too soon (despite the can saying 1 hour to dry). And smudged and fingerprinted it to hell. So I applied one more coat. Don't dare to put another coat because the facial details are shallow to begin with and the paint has already softened them up noticeably. I'm afraid I'm one coat away from his nose and mouth disappearing entirely. And, now that it's been painted, the fit isn't any better than it was before I shaved it.

In hindsight I should have just lived with the stock face. But I bought from a private seller in China so I'm not going to be able to beg or buy a new face from them. So if anybody could help, I'd be eternally grateful.

 

I can't help you with a new face, but you could always soak the existing face in some isopropyl alcohol or enamel/lacquer thinner or something like that (but not too long or the plastic will crack, so soak it a little at a time and wipe it down with paper towels as you go) to remove the paint, then paint it up again. You could also use some sort of epoxy to fill in the gashes before you paint over it (because if they're very noticeable and you're making them disappear with paint, I would assume you're putting way too much paint on to begin with). That should all, in theory, at least fix your stock face up nice enough until a replacement comes along.

 

I have seen some video reviews on this guy and they're generally favorable, and even the audience seems to like it for the most part. Heck, it sold out at TCP when it first released. That said, I can see where it's imperfect (especially the face) and I still think Allen is more accurate in terms of being the closest to animation models, but doggone...this seems to be a really nice figure, period, and a great one for the asking price.

The one review, I knew it was going to be bad, was Bobby Skullface's. I just knew it. I have stopped watching him because of his bias, but I went ahead and watched the final thoughts segment on this guy and he pretty much trashed it. He complained about the transformation (seriously?) He complained about the plastic quality (really?) He went on and on with his love affair circle jerk with FansToys (in which he did that utterly STUPID voice of his) and it's far more inaccurate compared to this and Allen.

I'm beginning to see you can only trust a few reviewers and yourself, and I trust myself enough to say this is good figure. Now, to find one for a good price...

Man, Bobby sucks.

EDIT:

If you don't like him, I'd consider trading my Allen for your Spring.

 

Honestly the face isn't as bad in hand. It's not ideal but when not blown up to silly sizes you'll understand.

Regards reviewers I learned a while back to not listen to any of them. The best place to gauge feedback is multiple collector views. Sure you'll have overly biased either way but you get a general feel a few weeks after release. If you can't wait that long noone knows you better than yourself. Buy it, don't like it? Sell it.

 

We've already "discussed" Bobby in this thread so I don't want to harp on too much more but his criticisms were mostly nonsense. The plastic feels rock-solid to me, and the transformation is mostly fun (but it really could have done with some instructions).

But all he wants is tons of paint, a transformation made for babies (watching him try to transform anything is highly frustrating), and super-G1 accuracy.
Oh, and if FansToys has made or is making it, their version is instantly better. Which makes no sense. I like the look of MMC's Saltus and want to get him on top of already having Big Spring (who, yes, needs a new face, but it's not the end of the world). Allen looks like something I wouldn't mind owning either, since his aesthetic is quite different. And then there's FansToys' Apache, which I personally think looks awful. It's also less accurate than a lot of the others, but blind fanboys apparently can't see that.

Something which really bothered me is that Bobby did a quick follow-up in his MMC video and said that he learnt some people prefer a cheaper product, but he prefers to pay more for a better product, as if FansToys's Apache is actually objectively better for double the price. I appreciate that he tries to learn from his mistakes with each video, but his Big Spring video felt like a regression, and then not understanding why people liked Big Spring, assuming it was just because it was relatively cheap, felt somewhat insulting. Kind of like a king talking down to peasants, almost. But maybe that was just me.

Also, I will end by saying I posted a long list of complaints about Big Spring when I finally got mine... but I still love him. I'm just very critical. So, not to shill my own stuff, but if you want to see most all of the complaints rolled into one post (and then some), feel free to search out that post of mine from earlier in this thread.

 

I have both Allen and Big Spring and I have to say that as much as I like Allen and his alt modes...he's back in the box. Something about Big Spring that I can't quite put my finger on. I adjusted the face so it looks a lot better, but I dig his alt modes as well.
I'm looking forward to picking up Openplays Galvatron as well. From a company that came out of nowhere, I like what I see so far.
I am however keeping an eye on xtb springer...not feeling what Fanstoys has come up with.

 

I'd go with XTB if I didn't have Spring.

 

Got one from Ages 3 and Up so I'm stoked with the price on this guy. The face is a weak point, but not to the extent where I hate it.

 

Oh, I completely forgot about the X-Transbots one. Yeah, that looks pretty good too.

 

Please Dr Wu.... light our darkest hour!!

 

Unfortunately DR. Wu hasn't been focusing on 3P scale accessories like they used to.