And arriving on sight to clean up the ruckus caused by a certain Speedster, we have what appears to be renders of an upcoming take by Mastermind Creations, Studio Ox inspired Hot Spot, Maximus Pro! The renders, were spotted by TFW2005 member godotislate, and were located on Ocular Max’s website. Ocular Max appears to be the subline, or perhaps the name for the group of Mastermind Creations’ designers who are focusing on bringing designs made by Studio Ox designs to life in toy form. Now go ahead and check out the pics, and discuss this latest iteration of Hotspot after the jump!
Lex79
Played some more with Streetwise, and I have to say the transformation feels intuitive and well engineered. If all the Protectobots ends up the same, I can see myself switching between combined, bot and alt modes more than I usual do.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to Defensor's final configurations pictures in July.
Max Rawhide
Completely no interest in Prowlastator, but if MMC would remould the Hook figure into that Prowl I likely would get it. It would never be combined (assuming I would get the MMC Constructicon set — there needs to be a toy version for that). But it would be a cool alternate Prowl.
Rook…interested in neither the combined form nor the character. But if the toy looks good, I'll find an excuse.
Yep, that's a reason why though I liked the animation models as a base, I often prefer toy colours on them. The cartoon was a 25 minute episode while the toys were played with every day.
Doesn't mean Groove was a good toy, but it did look nicer with the chrome and all the details and colours.
Speaking of, have you decided to go with this metal coloured chest or the gold chest for the toy? Something I never knew, but apparantly the first release of Groove had a gold coloured chest, while the later run was just metal coloured. Same with Swindle, learning that finally made clear why the animation models had a completely different base colour for the chest than the toys I knew.
(PS. I prefer the toy deco for Groove to not have a gold coloured chest.)
BIOMEC
I like the designs, but I would change some aspects of Prowl like adding more elements of his new alt mode on him and removing anything that comes from his old police car mode.
oku
Can we just meme Rook into existence?
Mechman42
I will say, subbing in Rook and Strongarm solves the combiner scaling.
Magna Jet Convoy
I'm so glad MMC have decided to do both toy & 'toon versions of each Protectobot – rather than try and blend both into one figure. The difference between each is becoming more and more apparent with all the comparison pics everyone's posting here. @LazyAza , neat artwork you've posted for Hook/constructicon Prowl. Ditto Protectobot Rook/Strong Arm. As an MMC staff member and spokesperson, could you update us on release dates for Hot Spot and toy version First Aid & Streetwise please?
Craigmcgowan1984
Neat I didn't know there was a different combiner using some of the Defensor bots.
VictoryStarSaber
At this rate, we'll basically have a new set of limbs for ol' Gaia Guardian.
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Gaia_Guardian
octobotimus
Functionality wise, Depends on the type of style she’d be in I suppose, her RID self is somewhat thin in the torso. If it managed to work I’d be down for her though just to have an MP take of the design
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LazyAza
yeah it started as a joke in my head that I giggled about and then I realized wait no Strongarm being a literal arm on Defenesor would be rad so I quickly scribbled her in Medicus' configuration lol
She has big boots too and a thick torso so she'd be perfectly suited to be engineered with inclusive combiner features without them impacting her appeal as a stand alone toy. I feel like she's ironically become my strongest idea now for this kind of thing so I'm gonna work on her some more. Rook and Hook-Prowl ehhhh they're not as cool.
godotislate
Oh, that makes more sense. I was wondering why Rook was an arm and looked slightly different there.
Curium
I have no idea how well they sell, but I would absolutely buy other characters designed to be compatible with MMC's combiners sort of like the Combiner Wars extended line. It would be nice to have them as complete teams, but even just random ones like throwing in a RID 2015 Strong Arm with an arm mode (I assume that is who the last pic shows). Of course that would force MMC to continue to use compatible connection points which I also like the idea of.
godotislate
LazyAza drew up some art of his ideas: https://twitter.com/Lazyaza/status/1773194628038078575
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Not very far along I guess if Rook Strongarm is replacing him.
David Hingtgen
Look at MMC's, look at XTB's—-"dat engine block…"
Gshell
I would agree with that. Though it makes me curious how far along is Blades?
mikeszekely
I guess Blades is still next after Hot Spot, but I honestly wouldn't mind if Groove came first.
mlgpapalouie
yeah there’s a CLEAR winner here lol
Curium
I just wanted to see them side-by-side
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solskjaer
This itself is an art piece. Look so good!
mlgpapalouie
what i wanna know
can the other bots ride him in motorcycle mode?