Actually, the "pixelated" dot matrix printing effects are a very fancy printing and painting technique. Think about it - how is someone going to "paint" something like that on a 3D, often curved surface? It needs a digital printing device which for industrial purposes typically cost $10-50 thousand dollars each and require a long time to individually "paint" each piece, since they go line by line (just like as you say an old school 80's printer). The advantage of these machines is that they can print anything - any combination of colors - over almost any surface, allowing super complicated painting and printing effects that would otherwise require enormous expenditures for tampographic one-color-at-a-time printing. It's what makes things like this possible, and it's very, very expensive to do - it's just cheaper than trying to mask and paint it manually or tampo each color one by one:


Paint decos like Hot Toys Toyworlds or even 3A's can be done with a spray booth and some sponges, and can therefore be done in small batches by an individual with little to no expensive equipment overhead. It's skilled labor, obviously, but it's not in any way fancy. Despite its simplistic appearance, the printed paint jobs on the MP toys is actually quite sophisticated, and does require a hefty investment, either to buy the equipment or to find a factory that's already got it.

Anyway, that's all, carry on.

 

How many accounts does Breauxman have?

 

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean?

Never mind, looked him up. Okay. I gotcha. Not me, though  

 

Just thought it was funny that there's so many people signing with "carry on" these days  

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's "spray-can and masking tape" "do it at home" easy, but I fail to see how it's any different to painting an autobot logo on a curved vehicle bonnet like MP-21 Bumblebee or printing sponsors logo's on MP Smokescreen or Wheeljack. These are ALL printing small, complicated, single colour shapes on uneven and curved or oddly shaped three-dimensional surfaces.

In one case it's a red symbol made up of small shapes (faction symbol)


In another, it's a black image/text made up of small shapes (words and logo)


In the third it's a pink marking, made up of small shapes (Megatron's dino stripes).


That's all Megatrons stripes are (forgive my crude Photoshop "Select similar colours" technique I used above):


It can all be done with traditional tampography printing Pad printing - Wikipedia which is how it has been done in Transformers and many other toy lines for decades. It's a single-colour shape applied using a flexible silicone pad. That's the basic fundamentals of the process. You can do the exact same thing at home using a sponge (though you'll end up with something a lot cruder and less clean - thats the difference between a toddler and a professional manufacturer)

Sure, it's entirely possible they are instead using some kind of fancy digital transfer process but there is no need to assume they are. Any factory that is being used by an official, 3rd Party or KO manufacturer is going to have access to the sort of equipment required to do this kind of printing as a stock standard routine process. It's been common-place since the 70's!

Now Optimus Primal, I'll grant you, uses a very different process Water transfer printing - Wikipedia but that's because he has a very different look:

Spoiler: More Examples of Tampo printing

This below, the tiny writing that is about 1-2mm high, is done with tampography on a 3P product (Gcreations IDW Optimus Prime).


MP Smokescreen has tampo printed writing, logos and shapes on curved and uneven surfaces all over him and was KO'd years ago.

 

Fair enough, but none of those example you posted are anything close to the contours and shapes of a figure like BW Cheetor  . You simply can't tampo print something like the insides of his cheetah legs (the hollow parts over his shoulders) - it's recessed and on too much of a curve. A simple gradual curve like the hood or doors of Smokescreen, sure, can be done, but pretty much all of the examples you showed were of shapes that were for all intents and purposes close to flat. Round, organic shapes would be a nightmare to tampo which is why they need something more sophisticated, and paint masking can't create designs like the "pixelated" look of Cheetor or Megatron.

The company I work for (that makes the train cars like the one I linked in my original post) does both processes, so I'm quite familiar with how it all works  . Anyway, even if they WERE tampo printing every - single - surface of these figures, that's also a pretty extensive (and costly) process - much more complex again than the kind of boutique weathering paint you get on a Toyworld figure.

 

?

 

You're cherry picking bits of my post but that's fine, because those are great example photos of my point   Not one of those figures you listed has printing on the kind of curved or recessed surfaces that are present on MP Cheetor. The sheep isn't tampo'd at all but likely either hand blotted by a factory worker or masked + sprayed, as is the cheetah figure. You can clearly see the "spots" (hah) on the Cheetah where the stippling stops - when it approaches the recessed sections of the body like the underside or the chest. On the original Cheetor toy, the spots on the sides of his legs only encompass the outermost curved part - once it moves around to the vertical it's bare yellow plastic. This is the limitation of basic tampoing or masking.


There are several places where on MP Cheetor the deco should just stop, using common tampo techniques - but they don't, they wrap all the way around. Sure, some of him is standard tampoing because that's cost effective, but you simply cannot tampo a surface like the insides of his shoulder pads without specialized equipment:

 

I’m appreciating BW MPs more by the second.

 

Grabbed from TF Safari

Upgrade /accessories for MP 43




If toysmage will really give our megs diecast crotch then he's gonna be great with this kit

 

I have the official MP-43, and while mine doesn't suffer from crotch-crack, I do have the loose waist problem. I'm curious if the KO will add ratchets or not. I got my official for about $80 under retail, but still mixed feelings here with the price and English clips. Makes me wonder how much of a markup Takara is doing if the KO can fix problems and be that much cheaper.

 

ahhh been a week again since the previous update, hope we get something tomorrow

 

So the upgrade/accessories pack has new fake back piece for bot mode? And one or more stands to hang all the beats kibble on should you strip Meg's down to his endoskeleton? And then the big bullet thing which I assume is from some episode. Interesting but probably not worth it for me.
The paint finish on the add on back pieces looks pretty comparable to the official paint, which is a good sign.

 

According to dates, they're probably calculating and estimating with prices and amounts.

 

but we havent gotten any new pics right?

It is offered to us locally at 5000PHp / 100 dollars shipped

 

Hummm...interesting. I might need to take a look into this.

 

I knew sooner or later somebody would make show-accurate back plates. Surprised they also didn't do smaller hip pieces too.

 

So the kit and the KO bot are from 2 different companies? Hmmm

 

yup

 

given that the paint was the most obvious flaw of the IT knockoff, maybe this Megatron is focusing on getting that part right? From what I understand the official figure had issues with breakage so maybe they see more opportunity than usual with this one.