Actually I'm surprised no one has flat out mentioned this point - The original G1 cartoon were all repainted characters!

You can't blame Hasbro for repainting a Classics Starscream mold into a Skywarp and then calling them lazy, it's because that's exactly who Skywarp is! If anything it would be the design artists for G1 that are lazy with the TF creations, not Hasbro. But honestly, I like them (ex. Seekers) as repaints, makes them more united as a 'troop'!  

Yes I would buy repaints if they well represent the character they are going for. And bottom line is, if you don't like it simply don't buy it..

 

ACTUALY, I'm almost sure that only collectors got a true beef with repaints/remolds.

Kids will just see 'em as a different toy cause of the colors and different head/whatever.

 

I'm a collector and verging on a completist (except for Dinobot... I'm not buying that one) but I have to say I like repaints. Some of them bring out features in a mold I never saw in the original. I would say the classics Silverstreak looks better than Prowl, and Skywarp looks better than Starscream IMO. If they had done Thundercracker, Thrust and Dirge in the States, I would have bought them in a heartbeat.

There are repaints that just flat out suck. The special edition Drag Strip is in this category for me. It added nothing for the mold and yellow just didn't work for me like Fracture's or Mirage's paint scheme. I'm sure there are people with the opposite opinion, though.

 

The best part of this thread is that ten people have made the same point and all seem to think they were the first ones in the thread to make it.

Honestly, does nobody read before posting?  

 

Im a sucker for a good repaint... i still want thundercracker just to complete the seeker set. i think the best they have done is sunstreaker and sideswipe.. same mold, two totally different looking robots. i personally dont mind repaints as long as they look good.

 

don't forget that honda, toyota, nissan, and hyundai rebadge cars too.
acura=honda
nissan=infiniti
toyota=lexus
hyundai=kia
I think those companies are doing fine  

 

I don't usually care about paint color when it comes to buying figures. With one exception: classics/universe.

I've bought/plan on buying a few redecos of that line simply because of the character they represent, like someone else in the thread already stated. I love the seekers, so I've bought Starscream and Acid Storm, plan on getting Skywarp, and hope that Thundercracker and Sunstorm are released eventually (as well as any other potential repaints. I'd love to see a white repaint a la Ramjet). On the other hand, I really like Prowl, but not so much Blue/Silverstreak and Smokescreen, so I only have the Prowl deco of that mold.

 

ramjet was already released, but thrust and dirge would be nice

 

I was just about to say that--as I was reading through all the posts. lol
I like re-paints. I think they look cool next to each other. I Especially like the seekers. My displays have all kinds of re-paints, re-tools, etc. Its been a large (as stated) part of our TF culture since the beginning. I'm defintily ok with re-paints. Especially on molds that are (imo) awesome.

 

I guess, when discussing the 'buy a repaint or not' argument, I don't count repaints of molds that are turned into separate characters (the Seekers, Prime/Magnus/Nemesis, Prowl/Bluestreak/Smokescreen, etc.). When I think of repaints, I think of 'Nightwatch' Prime or the recently canceled Golfire Grimlock or Rescue Ratchet or Deep Desert Brawl or whatever. Those I skip and view as mostly lame (though I admit, Golfire Grimlock looked neat from the pics). Repaints as separate characters don't count, for me. They're separate characters. If I like the character, I buy. That simple.

 

i know that, I just meant that I would like a straight-up white repaint of starscream in addition to that retool.

 

I wouldn't want to see all the repaints go away because sometimes they really find that mix of new colors that gives a whole new character to the mold. Or even better they have started to put different heads on the figures so that while 90% of the figure might be the same old thing with a new head and new coat of paint it's someone new.

But yea I'd like them to drop the lazy repaints of it being the exact same character only called jungle strike, night attack or something like that for a repaint without even the trouble of making it a new character.

 

I used to think this way, and I still do, to an extent.

Little story to highlight some reasons why I've lightened up on that policy, though. You'll have to forgive me if my wording is odd, I'm fighting insomnia, so brain is functioning even less than usual.  

Being a Hot Rod fan, Cybertron Hot Shot excited me a lot, with a transformation that homaged him, along with the wings. Bought him the first day he was available (in fact, probably the only toy I was so excited about, he got opened in the car before I left the parking lot). I was new to collecting at the time, and saw no real need for repaints. Excellion was released later on, and I couldn't resist the Hot Rod color scheme on what I consider a great toy.

It may have been the same toy, but it FELT different. Some of the looser joints on my Hot Shot were tighter on Excellion, and some tighter joints were looser. Granted, if I had picked up a second Hot Shot, this would also have probably been the case. Some of the paint apps were better (the autobot insignia on his shoulder and car hood didn't rub off), and the different colors set it aside. It may have been the same mold, but it was still a different toy.

Classics Starscream, later on, really failed to impress me, and Classics Optimus REALLY impressed me. Skywarp looked pretty good, and I liked the mold enough to want the Ultra Magnus recolor. So I picked up that set when I saw it (though the characters did have something to do with it). Magnus spent about as much time on my desk as Optimus did, since the different colorations brought out different mold details on either toy. Skywarp, however, is still my favorite use of the mold, and had me pretty much ignore Starscream. I ended up selling my Classics Starscream in the end, because I felt he was so "blah", but I still like Skywarp enough that ... err... crap, my train of thought just crashed into a blazing fireball. I did replace my Classics Starscream with the Universe one so I'd have a Starscream, and the two (Classics Skywarp and Universe Starscream) are definitely good uses of the mold. As far as Magnus? Well, City Commander came along and made that one SO worth the purchase... but that's a special case.

Universe Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are a GREAT example of a repaint (very minor remold) done right. Sunstreaker was one of my favorite new Universe molds, and I could never pick out whether I liked transforming him into his official bot mode or hood-as-chest bot mode. Sideswipe fixxed that (though I still swap their bot modes around for fun sometimes). Would be cool if HasTak could pull that kind of thing off more often, though I realize that is probably kinda tough as far as designing goes.

In the end, I've discovered that if I like a particular mold enough, I'll buy a repaint if I like the colors enough (and the character, but that's a point the OP doesn't seem to hold much importance to?). Some toys are good enough that it's worth having two of.

Wow that was longer than I thought.

Edit:

Err...  

 

TF was born out of repaints, but the show gave the individual charcters life. I only collect stuff that made it on to the screen, so half the repaints don`t matter to me.

The time I hate repaints is when Hasbro puts ot a repaint instead of the figure it should have been. I can see them doing it with Ironhide and Cliffjumper, they will repaint Ratchet and BB in earth modes. Its just crap as those guys have not got earth modes. Rather than making new figs and doing the repaints the other way to create "true" new figures, they bodge them and hope the fans still buy it.

 

Repaints and remoulds have been a part of action figure history since GI Joe first suited up back in the 1960s. You are free to buy them or not, but they serve many purposes.

 

are awesome.

 

Really I'll only buy a repaint if I missed that mold first time around, but it can suck when you're waiting on a new figure to come out and shelves are stuffed with repaint after repaint meaning a store won't bother to get the new stock yet, or at all because of it. Indeed, if I don't like/want it I won't buy it, but then that thinking by everyone also means shelfwarmers maybe hanging around longer and taking up space better new stuff could be occupying that I would like to buy instead.

Sometimes I think Hasbro takes the lazy way out with repaints. I understand that it saves them money but I could also see them thinking they might do a new mold of a certain character because the fandom likes that character and then going 'Bugger it - let's just repaint that old jet mold again and stick the guy's name on it'.

Gimme clever repaints like Universe Sunstreaker/Sideswipe that have been designed to be more than one character right from the off with proper differences besides just a lick of fresh paint. I was actually fairly happy to buy both those guys. But if it's a mold I already have that's just a straight repaint then I'll skip it. I did say to myself I might buy Universe Silverstreak even though I already had Prowl because I like the G1 characters of them, but in the end I didn't because I still couldn't justify the purchase of a straight repaint of a mold I already owned.

 

Wait....Hasbro makes repaints?

 

*Doesn't read before posting*

Honestly, I love repaints. Some of my favorite molds are repaints. I have actually spent four times as normal for a mold simply because it had a much better deco. Cybertron Smokescreen is my favorite use of the Crosswise mold imo, I would not have the Cybertron Evac mold if it weren't for the universe Blades repaint. I would never have tracked down the RiD Prowl mold if it wasn't for the OTFCC Sideswipe repaint and I never would have gotten Armada thrust if he wasn't redeco'd in his Toy Dreams Red coloring. Repaints, redecos and especially remolds give fans multiple chances to obtain a figure, and to do so with colors some may prefer more over others. I passed on so many Cybertron molds simply because of bad decos but eagerly pick up many of their universe or movie-verse repaints because they look that much better.

Nevermind getting into the whole "same mold multiple characters" bit. Though to be honest, I only really go for that with the Seekers. Because of Cybertron Smokescreen and Universe Prowl, I happily passed on Universe Smokescreen. I had the mold, I had the character, I don't need it again.

Still, I do own four different versions of the Deluxe Movie Jazz figure...but I've always been a sucker for that cat.

Slightly offtopic, but something I always found funny about the G1 repaints. Despite so many molds and so many characters being exactly the same, except for their paint jobs, how did Sunstreaker and Sideswipe end up being the only "Twins" in the show? Those two were made from completely different molds, and yet they're the only ones who seem to have a familial relationship.