Assuming the new Targetmasters are of comparable height to the Legends ones, then these guys look like pretty normal deluxes, voyagers and leaders. Prime actually looks pretty tall!

 

Voyagers have been pretty good throughout. I don't love all their designs but their size hasn't really been diminished with the exception of SS Prime.

Either way, it seems for people who aren't happy with official stuff, there's the KO companies often making them bigger and better. What's your take on that?

 

Here are some size comparisons with Takara's stock images in light of this new group shot:

Magnus' inner robot in relation to his armored form:


Siege Optimus and Magnus:


Magnus' inner robot with Siege Optimus and armored Magnus:

 

Thanks !

So with Siege Voyager Prime being 7inch, then it looks like Siege Magnus...is 8 inch at the top of his helmet (Leader class heads being 2.3cm - 2.5cm)....
which would mean he's only 2cm smaller than CW Magnus and 2.5cm smaller than TR PMOP. ( because CW Magnus is 0.5cm smaller than TR PMOP ).

 

Guys it's not a fair comparison. CW Magnus doesn't have to do nearly as much and it has a similar budget.

But I like the comparison above.

 

Damn, I love how clean they both end up looking, despite having different proportions and transformations and alt modes.

 

So Magnus's core robot will be smaller then Prime? huh. It makes sense given that they're trying to make more scale accurate this time but still it's pretty funny that Magnus when not in armor is shorter then his boss but in armored mode it's the opposite. XD

 

Yeah, this is the first time I've actually really studied them both. Now I know why some of you were saying it's not a retool when I said that earlier (I didn't mean it literally tho' to be fair) but it really is a completely different figure. I do wonder however if Ultra Magnus will be redone to be Siege PM Prime because of the forearms of Magnus.

 

I said "now" not "in the future." Obviously it's harder to project on figures that haven't been released yet.  

Contemporary ARE flimsier than the AEC era stuff in terms of their construction, and have been for a while. Smaller proportions, fewer screws, fewer solid pieces, fewer ratchets, generally lighter and more hollow, with openings galore. It's not even a debatable point.

But articulation is generally better now, and we get some interesting workarounds in the engineering. TR Astrotrain's hip joints are in interesting example. I'm not fond of them, but you can see how Hasbro is trying to build tension-based ratchets into a single molded piece, to achieve detentes in the joint without additional moving parts. Inventive, but not that successful in my opinion.

Yes, if you want to cherry-pick examples, then the Classics Seeker molld has always been too small to really look good with most of the other Classics... though it's got some chunk to it, and the jet mode is a decent size. I haven't broken any of my Seekers, but those wing hinges are always a bit worrisome. At the same time, the figure doesn't feel flimsy or lightweight. It's very much a "transition figure"... one of the first really faithful G1 homages in a modern line. It needs elbow and thigh swivels... and of course, had it been released as a Voyager, it would have been chock full of ratchets and screws. Hasbro missed a trick there.

The size of Voyagers has fluctuated quite a bit... it often depends on the line, and then drops for a year or so, and then bounces back. There are quite a few Voyagers that are on the puny side... a few that are unusually big and robust. POTP Astrotrain and CW OP are pretty biggish figures... but then you get POTP Grimlock, and he's absurdly short, and you can't help thinking "It... it's Grimlock... but WHY?"

And then there are freaks like Cybertron Vector Prime, who is big, heavy, and also has electronics (I suspect he was originally designed as an ultra, but for some reason needed to be released in the Voyager assortment).

As for the oversized high-quality KO market, I can't stop buying them. When I can get a Voyager-sized version of a Skullcruncher or an MP-scaled version of CW Hotspot, with improved joints and diecast construction, shipped to my doorstep for dramatically less that I paid for the officials (including shipping) then how can I say no?

Honestly, while Hasbro is giving us some good homages and designs these days, it's what the KO companies are doing with them that usually excites me more...

zmog

 

It is.
There are some subjective items in that list.

- Smaller proportions ? Subjective matter indeed.
Early CHUG were very loose G1 interpretations and quite a few characters got proportions looking so bloated, way beyond their G1 characteristics. I am glad the John Warden era went the oposite direction.

- Fewer screws. Actually, I think that's a great thing. Seeing screwholes these days, is a bit off-putting to me.

- Generally lighter. A more lightweight construction doesn't mean less sturdy. In fact, in all areas of engineering, from consumer products to automotive engineering - lightweight designs with inner support structures have proven to be superior to full solid. Yes I can understand a certain percentage of collectors appreciate 'heft', but it's moreso a subjective experience and preference than a factual measure of sturdiness. It's just an anecdotal emotional factor, just like die-cast, rubber tires etc.

- More hollow. Well, Siege is getting less hollow. And it's not as if early CHUG figures didn't have their fair percentage of hollowness either. Regardless, I'll take a few hollow parts over less articulation & less features any day.


Regarding KO companies. They're an AFTER the FACT kind of thing. If it weren't for HasTak, these KO companies wouldn't have stuff to copy, upsize and sell to you.
So, I'm not here to diss KO companies, but they sure as heck don't deserve much respect either. They're like hindsight ; easy talking, after the fact.

Either way, I'm glad to see team Warden going strong.

 

There are exceptions with the voyagers, but it was never consistent. I passed on Grimlock, but not for size, just... he sucked. I loved Vector Prime, but he has one of the simplest Transformations this side of Ultra Silverbolt. That might contribute to his generous size.

As for the KOs, I buy the occasional one, but only for the figures I care more about and when there are slightly more extensive improvements. I am seriously getting gun shy about buying official figures now though.

 

Do you know what 'subjective' means? Smaller and larger are quantitative terms. There's not much room for subjectivity there. Moreover, you didn't refute my claim, but only said that you prefer the smaller proportions. Be that as it may, we can still say that the old figures are bigger and heavier (and largely tougher) - ie "less flimsy".

But let's keep going... let's see how far you want to push an arbitrary contrarianism...  

I'm ambivalent to screw-holes. But pins are worse because there's a higher degree of variability in pinned construction, and fewer options if a pinned joint is loose or misaligned. Usually, the pinned elements are molded in as few parts as possible to cut costs, meaning you get more gaps and fewer mechanical elements. A good example is how the pinned joints on Takara MP cars are a big step down from the rigorous ratcheted and screwed-together joints in earlier lines. A great many MP cars have loose limb joints, and there's not much to be done about it. In the older joint-types, you could easily disassemble and fix them if the QC wasn't great.

Now, the tendency is to put pins where screwed-together parts would have been, and then put tiny plastic nubs, hinges, and clips where the old pins used to be. Is it a more cost-efficient mode of construction? Certainly. Does it yield a better build overall? I don't think so.

You're really stretching. Lightweight designs are not favoured for overall sturdiness in most cases, but because being lightweight benefits the functionality of the object... cars are more efficient, parts are more easily transported, planes fly better, tentpoles flex better, etc... the engineering on bridges and aircraft is intensive and highly, highly optimized for durability, efficiency, and safety, but trying to port that over to mass-market hand-held plastic toys is pure reductio ad absurdum.

The benefit of toys is largely contained in the haptic and perceived experience of the object. "Heft" is part of that appeal, sure. But also, these aren't purely subjective values. Rubber tires roll better, and mimic real tires better - which is why people like them (the down side is that they don't usually age well - and they probably cost more for Hasbro to produce of course). Material durability is another no-brainer. As someone who has cut apart many transformers, I can attest to the superior durability of those older figures made with thicker, better-reinforced plastics... where often now, a little accidental force can result in a worrisome stress mark, or snapping off a tab or part entirely.

This is still not an argument. More is still more. Less is still less. And with the exception of Ultra Magnus here relying on a totally different engineering scheme to his CW counterpart, I'm not sure you can make the claim that "Siege is getting less hollow"... in fact it was just in your previous comment that you argued that we couldn't make such statements about this line because we don't have them in-hand yet. *cough*  

See, this is creating a false dichotomy. When we're discussing the ideal quality level of the toys, the above is not actually a necessary trade-off. At the outset, I stated that the engineering and styling on a lot of the newer toys is superior, even if the construction is flimsier. So the superior engineering is not a point that's under debate. My assessment is that the superior design work is ill-served - that is, undermined and devalued - by cost-cutting choices such as using more single-mold / hollow /open construction, pins over screws, fewer mechanical ratchets, lower parts counts, quantitatively less plastic, etc...

If you took today's engineering, and coupled it with the higher quality build standards of older lines, you'd have a truly fantastic product... and one that I'd probably feel a bit better about paying dramatically more money for... and really, in a way, that's something that many 3rd Party companies have been putting to the test.

Oh, sure... it's easy for unregulated companies to scam some CAD files, tweak the dimensions, add a couple of ratchets or minor improvements, and sell them for a fraction of the cost to an enormous Chinese market...

But at the same time, as a consumer, in terms of the product I get in my hands, that sits on my shelf, that I pay so little for, and hits all the sweet spots for me... it's awesome, and much better than NOT having that.  

Plus, in a lot of cases, you get a sense that many of these KO companies are big fans themselves, circumventing the limitations Hasbro works within to give other fans the versions of these toys that they really wanted... or something cool that we just wouldn't have had otherwise. So there's some charm there too, when it's done right.

zmog

 

I replied to you directly on this, since it was starting to get more and more off-topic.  

zmog

 

Oh look Prime and Magnus next to each other physically

From Dengeki Hobby:
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We are 16 pages for the freakin' scale.
Keep it going guys.

 

 

And that's just about right if not actually perfect.

 

Interesting, and a little odd that inner robot and optimus prime are different sizes...

 

You sure are a passionate fan - and tbh, that's a good thing, but still ;

- I very well know what subjective means. But I think you missed my point here; some of those early figures featured proportions, uncharacteristic to their original G1 character designs. This was due to them being more loose interpretations of G1.
So the point is preference: someone might prefer either a figure which might have more bulk, but uncharacteristic to its G1 design -
or, a figure which has less bulk, but falls more in line with its design origin. That's the subjective angle I meant.

- The pins allow for more intricate engineering, whereas a screw based design requires more space for the treaded screw holes.
Overall, the pin and snap fit engineering feels more streamlined and articulated. It is indeed a bad thing if the QC of some of those pins doesn't hold up, resulting to a loose joint. But when it works, it's marvelous and you gained more articulation, a more streamlined transformation or play features. Example: the CW Aerialbots feature snapfit elbow joints. They do feature a sort of ratchted sculpt, but it didn't really hold up. Fast forward to PotP Blackwing & Dreadwind; same molds similar elbow joints, but they adjusted the tolerances and the elbows now work marvelous as intended.

- About the heft; so indeed, you concede it's a subjective experience/preference. You're talking from your point of view as a collector.
You're fully entitled to that, but it doesn't reflect the view of the overall consumer base.
About the rest: well, you pointed out the pro's and con's there. Again, depends on preference to put emphasis on whichever aspect.
Insist on rubber tires? Sure no problem, but don't be surprised when they turn brittle.

- Regarding Siege's hollow factor; Perhaps I should have worded that differently. Less gappy, instead of less hollow. Indeed, we haven't had them in hand yet, but it's pretty evident, the Siege figures feature panels to cover up transformation inherent cavities, resulting to a less gappy appearance.

Goodluck hunting down the KO's, because surely.... they'll never be able to KO an entire line or maybe that specific character you like so much. So while these KO's may satisfy the needs of a few ibndividual collectors here and there, it's certainly not a wholesome alternative for mass consumer base or for collectors who want to have a certain unity in their line collection. ( not to mention the KO's sometimes feature a really bizarre paint/color scheme differentiation ).



On another note: Seeing the pics Shin posted : yeah... if Siege voyager Prime is 7 inch at the top of his head, then that Siege Magnus is 8 inch at the top of his head. He'll fit in nicely alongside CW Cyclonus and TR Sixshot ; the relevant context.