It's an entirely different skill, to be sure.

Not to mention, colours don't particularly work like that. If you used the exact same colour of paint on two different mediums then they'd look two different shades. Two different types of canvas would be enough to see the effect. Once you start talking about a transition from 2D to 3D, you're in a totally different ballpark.

When you customise a figure, it's easier. You can use multiple coats, fine tuning the colour as you go, and there are a lot of techniques you can employ to give flat colours more life, bring them closer to the ideal colour palette.

For manufacture, it's a more laborious process. You make pantone colour choices for the plastics, any paint apps, etc. and then send those off to the factory and wait for a prototype. And it's unlikely the prototype will be using the full production-level setup yet, so you make some tweaks knowing full well that when the first test shot comes back you'll have to refine it again, and again... and the back-and-forth can be costly and time-consuming. At some point you get something where the colours are close enough and you go for it.

Obviously HasTak have an advantage in infrastructure which gives them a massive leg up in the colouring game but even they don't get it spot on (often)!

Edit: And I haven't even mentioned photography (and lighting) which rarely captures exactly how a figure looks in hand!

 

Video is up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAz9XTYoKc4

Apparently these will be a timed exclusive to BBTS, with other retailers getting stock in "a few months" according to emails with Warbotron.

 

True, but we're not talking "subtle tweaks" that take a lot of refinement to get perfect---Airburst's boxart is like 20 shades darker and greener than the light red-brown the plastic is. Just getting anywhere near that would have been much more "BlastOff-ish".

I don't think the factory got any specifics beyond "brown". No amount of plastic vs ink, photos vs PC monitor, etc, would explain that much difference between the artwork and the actual figure.

And none of that explains why all the "dark bits" are purple and not black.

 

It is lovely artwork!

 

"is it cold in here, or are your landing gears not retracted yet?"

 

Wonderful......so us UK ppl get royally shafted by customs if we want one 'early'. Great way to think of the worldwide fans there.

 

Here we go again. Peaugh if possible i would like your opinion on this and, i don't know to which extend you can communicate this to botron, it seems like a bad move. First they force retailers to go all in with their orders, ordering big numbers, and now they make it a timed exclusive to bbts. So, if my reasoning stands, what's stopping customers jumping ship and going with bbts leaving the rest with massive inventories? Let's face it a " few months" could be a month could be a year. If i was any other retailer right now i would be really pissed off unless that was the deal from the beginning in which case they didn't let us know and we placed our orders in ignorance. In any case, thanks great review!

 

Thank you.  

 

Wow, really? All these months and I don't think Warbotron's ever indicated that. Every other retailer has the ETA as March or late-March. Seems like something they should've mentioned early on, so people can decide where to order, based on their patience level. I ordered mine through Toy Dojo and I don't mind the extra wait too much, but it would've been nice to know anyway. I'm guessing most retailers didn't know, as they all had the same release month listed. This seems like poor form, on Warbotron's part.

 

From what I understand this is just in the US, so you may not be screwed.

I only just found out by asking directly, and had to edit my video to reflect that fact. I'm not privy to the decisions behind it, I just quoted from the email I got back.

I did discover that you can fold the port cover back down once the port is out and the inner piece is folded up, which wasn't entirely clear in the manual. It's hard to get back out without a tool like this, though.

 

Peaugh's "sceptical of the instructions" hour was my favourite  

Nice first look!

It was interesting watching yours and Baltmatrix's videos back to back - you both mentioned things the other didn't. Which makes me wonder about the QC. Still, early days!

 

Can you rotate the head 180 to hide the face in shuttle and arm mode? While it's much "cleaner" this way, his face is sorta peeking out now. (though only a little--but more obvious in shuttle mode)

 

Ah OK, fingers crossed  

 

LOL. I just wanted to make sure I was doing it right, I've seen what happens when I don't. As for QC, yeah, I've seen some issues mentioned that weren't present on mine, and had a couple that weren't on anyone else's that I know of. Nothing major that ruins the figure though.

 

Yeah, the head rotates a full 360.

 

Also, I totally feel the combiner fatigue. But it's kind of a nice problem to have, eh? Who'd have thought we'd ever get to a point where we're asking 3Ps to consider maybe making things other than combiners every once in a while?! It's a glorious age we live in.

 

Loved how you mentioned hating for someone to drop their preorder because you left the nose cone like "this" instead of "that," and proceeded to move it 2mm up! LOL Good stuff

 

Yeah, I LOL'd at that too!

As for "combiner fatique"---nope! Keep 'em coming! I still desperately need Abominus and Piranacon, and would buy a Bruticus with an ACTUAL NASA SPACE SHUTTLE* in an instant, as well as a G1-color, Technobot-free Defensor.

*seriously, there is no valid update/alternate to this vehicle mode. Rockwell's design or GTFO at this point. No drones, no cyber-cargo-shuttles, no techy-futuristic take on it---they are all still hackneyed knock-offs of Rockwell's iconic/timeless orbiter design for NASA. So just do that one. Fake non-shuttles especially look weird when paired with real tanks, real Hummers, etc.

 

I literally laughed out loud when he did that. Peaugh is the best.  

Also glad to know the arm mode can be reversed for more posability, but I think he won't be able to hold the rifle cause of his heel-boosters being in the way.

Though does make me wonder if I can just disassemble the lower legs and remove the boosters to fix both those problems. If this set turns out as amazing as I hope it will I may buy two and keep one combined.

 

I don't disagree with you, though I don't mind him at all. But if the money comes available, I may grab a second Air Burst to modify into a proper Orbiter; it's got the right proportions already and just needs reshaped in the rear section (mostly the guns, which makes things even easier, as it's nowhere critical). You could even mount the third nozzle using the wrist joint location.