I've just rescued my pics and they're now on my computer until I get signed up to Flickr which I'll do over the weekend as I haven't time today.

Am popping into town shortly so I might go in Forbidden Planet (Nottingham branch) and have a laugh at their badly posed, ridiculously overpriced 1:6 scale figures and lack of Transformers.

I will inevitably leave the store with at least 1 new Funko POP! figure as I think they put something addictive in their plastic  

 

Oh and my chestpeice for TR Space Choo Choo is done and it looks really good, ill post pics when i get home, along with the v2 chest for Trailbreaker, which also looks really good...should be done with scratchbuilding for a little while...until I get inspired by buying a new TF or seeing a cool custom.

 

Yeah, this is crazy and I bet their business doen't survive the year. I checked dome older photos I'd posted on here but it seems i'd hosted them with an ISP webspace that I stopped using 10 years ago yet *they're* still showing up - bwahaha!

 

A question for our wonderful photographers...are these cheap light tents worth it? I know they wont be as good as your setups but they must be better than the paper-lined box I use?

Portable Light Room Camera Photo Studio Photography Lighting Tent Kit Mini Box | eBay

And if i did get one what type of light would be best? I like the look of the built in light clipped to the top of the box in one of the pictures

 

I've not used that one but am sure you'll be able to get some really good results with it. The basic lights that come with something like this will do (preferably with LED bulbs so as to save yourself from temperatures hotter than the sun).

In other news:

 

Well i just noticed the one i linked has a built in light, i thought it came separate...i really think i might get one, I may struggle to snap leader class and larger but it does fit with my cramped room.

 

Yeah, give it a go dude. Am sure the results will be decent.

 

I don't use a light tent.

When you think about it, they are unnecessary. The tent is there to diffuse the harsh light from your lamps but for me, the best way to diffuse light is bounce it off of a large surface... Like a wall.

I also don't use constant light as I prefer flash. Check the exif info on my photos on Flickr to see how fast I shoot.

It's horses for courses though...

 

Right, a big lad today. I went on for much longer about this guy than I expected, so spoiler tagged for ease of scrolling.

I tend to think of myself as a fairly typical UK G1 fan. Aged between five and ten in 1984. Watched the cartoon the few times it was on as part of 'The Wide Awake Club' and had 'Arrival from Cybertron' on VHS. Read the comic religiously week in, week out. It was a very different experience than the U.S. one, where the cartoon was more readily available and the comic wasn't the main thing. Certain characters that Bob Furman/Simon Budianski would barely touch would get starring episodes in the cartoon and us lot over the pond would be in this peculiar situation where we had some iconic toys that barely got a look in as far the fiction went, none more so than Metroplex.

Metroplex was an amazing concept. An Autobot city! Obviously the limitations of toy manufacturing meant that he was really just a pretty decent garage for minibots and combiner limbs. I can appreciate how he's a hard sell for a writer. The mere act of interacting with the other characters requires some logistical problem solving. He got one, admittedly quite impressive, scene in the UK comics and even then he was saved as a last resort. But as a toy he was pure gold and in the winter of 1986 it seemed like every Transformers fan I knew got Metroplex for Christmas.

Spoiler

And he was such an exciting thing. He came with so many bits and pieces, some of which even combined to form a robot?!?!?. I spent most of Christmas Day with this guy. The playability factor of this thing was incredible. Optimus Prime had seemed pretty fucking cool the year before, what with his trailer which turned into a little repair platform and roller, but he didn't compare with this. In my hand it had that tactile addictive quality of a rubicks cube; I just didn't want to put it down. Changing it through all the modes, experimenting with in between modes, different configurations, driving scamper round and launching him from the chest. It just came with so many bloody options. They'd take the idea to its limit the following year with Fortress Maximus.

But let's go through them systematically. In his robot mode Metroplex stands tall above most of the rest of the others, though Magnus and Galvatron come close, and is easily stockier than either. He's still an impressive and iconic looking robot and his legs, in particular, were really well articulated. We've all made Metroplex do the splits. His chrome face has a certain haunted quality that's unique even within the Diaclone designs. As most folk know, Metroplex was one of the last Diaclone designs as he was intended to form the 'Free Combination' line along with the 'Special Teams'. Looked at as a complete line Metroplex and the combiner teams make an impressive little subline. It's a pity more wasn't made of their relationship to each other.

Metroplex is one of those ones where I can't achieve full objectivity and nor would I particularly want to. There's loads of things about the robot mode I could pick fault with, such as the peg in hands, but doing so would be disingenuous. I love this guy. I love that I can pose him with his little nuclear family or I can rip six gun to pieces and arm Metroplex up with shoulder cannons and massive, fuck off, torpedo like guns with firing bullets. I can have him all civilised and polite or I can pop out his chest rockets and the flip round shoulder cannons. If I want to go totally wild I can start plugging Aerialbots into him because....so that he...well, I can. And that's enough.

I should give Sixgun and Scamper a bit of attention. Six gun makes an incredibly awkward robot. I think I only ever wanted to put him together when I as bored and wanted something to occupy my hands for a minute. It's a great little added extra but it's hardly the most memorable feature of the set. Scamper I always wanted to like more. With his sinister looking robot mode and his really rather cool car he should have been a great little addition, but I think it's the fact he was all just black did him a little injustice. Just a few stickers here or there would have made such a difference.

I never had a great affection for the battleship mode. It was cool that you could roll it around on its rubber wheels (I had the rubber wheel/chrome leg version and was always glad of that), and I definitely made the most of that in the one room of the house that had wooden floorboards. It's the least convincing mode of the three and the one that seems to fit least well with other Transformers. But man! That city mode. I still think it's amazing. It's such a smart, economic design. It makes the most of the robot's fairly simple design and unfolds and sprawls out, attaches all the little extras and suddenly it's a convincing Cybertronian building with towers, ramps and helipads. They improved on the 'city' detail when Takara re-released this as Metrotitan, with the little lights that the stickers represented, giving it the feel of a city (Come on. A city block at best) at night. This was definitely the mode that had the most play value and that 'added value' extended to those underappreciated mini-bots. Suddenly there was a level of interactivity that they were crucial to.

Generations Metroplex was our first 'Titan Class' toy, and what a whopper he was! Just that bit taller than the original G1 Fortress Maximus, previous owner of the 'world's tallest transformer' crown, his size was his main selling point. And it's not a cheap gimmick. As a citybot he finally towers over...well, everyone! And it's not just some oversized brick. This is an incredibly well articulated figure. Hips, thighs, knees, wrists, elbows, shoulders, waist and neck. Even fingers! I picked up a 2nd hand one via one of the trusty Facebook selling groups and thus it came without Scamper or stickers, which is a real pity as both would greatly enhance the lad no end. There's some key points where he looks very bare without the stickers, such as the control tower under his chin. On the upside mine came with some of the nice 3rd party upgrades like a new head with a metallic face.

It's a great design. An update that is easily recognisable as the original but isn't slavish to it. It's only when I really put the G1 toy next to this that all the divergences really jumped out at me. We've got the black helemt with the red ears, the boob missiles and ramp, the funny knee pads. He comes with a lot less guns though, and the guns were a key feature./ We have two, far less versatile, shoulder cannons that are chunkier and shorter than the originals and one big red whopper of a gun that covers as both the torpedo style red guns and the red cannons that fixed onto his back. His proportions are very different too. His arms are massive. Popeye style. His torso tapers more dramatically than the old lad and his thighs are tiny too. It certainly works, he is a well-proportioned figure, but it's a distinct departure.

The battleship mode I'm still not that into, in fact I think this might be weaker than the original. The black runways are a...logical touch but I don't actually like them. I'm cheap, shallow, and nostalgic, so I want them to be white. The little repair claw is a nice touch, but the tiny waist makes the whole thing look funny. It would have been great if it could have compressed down to make a more solid mode...that I wouldn't have liked much anyway. Yeah, alright. Fair point.
Oh, but the city mode! The city mode is great. Chronologically, I reviewed Titans Return Fortress Maximus before this and he was my first experience of this mold. Now, I think Metroplex kicks the crap out of Max at every turn but in citymode he really rubs his face into the ground. Trivial complaints: the ramp could actually go all the way down, the waist could compress down to make something more solid, the legs sprawl a bit too much. Now that unimportant stuff is out the way, let me just rave about this. It's fantastic! The guns make excellent Cybertronian spires. A deluxe vehicle can drive under the knee caps, the helipad! It's big enough to get a big chopper like T:30 Springer on there. There's so many little spots for your legends figures to hang around or man the armaments. And it just looks so good. Everything that was great and fun about the 1986 model but oh so much bigger.

I can't believe I waited so long to get this guy. I was focused on G1 and Masterpiece when this came out. I'm delighted I have him now and I can't wait to make him wrestle Trypticon.

 

Good luck, mate - have a cracking day!  

 

Have a great day, @Brum Bot!

 

Do you guys reckon Fort Max and Metroplex (or Devastator) will get reissued at some point, either in POTP or the next line?

 

Yeah but that is highly dependent on available space. For most people the convenient and compact nature of a lightbox is going to be far, far easier. Using flash lights too is a lot more complicated (it's certainly not a road I've felt comfortable to go down due to the tech/learning curve).

 

I doubt it. I don't think the profit margins on the Titan class figures can be all that great so reissuing them probably isn't that attractive to Hasbro or Takara. I'd grab Max while he's still available if you are interested.

 

Congrats @Brum Bot!

Was out traveling yesterday through part of the western half of North Carolina and into Tennessee.

Some pictures of birds from when I was almost out of North Carolina.









Some pictures I took in the Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.

 

Beautiful! The sight of ducks always warms my cold, dead heart!
Geese can do one though. They're god's own bastard!

 

It is hard to say but IIRC there was a relatively recent report of Hasbro re-upping his trademark, and look how many Unicrons have been reissued. I wouldn't totally write off a Platinum rerelease timed to hook NuTrypticon owners that don't already have a city bot nemesis for him.

 

(don't listen to him. paint fumes. you know)

 

Nowt wrong with paint fumes, although i prefer glue sniffing myself  

 

It's a young man's game!