She's not released so I'm not supposed to be sharing in-hand pics. If it's traced back to me then that's that.

 

Was about to ask how, but that answers that. My one question is, can her head be swapped to her car deluxe?

Optimal doesn't have any swirly plastic that I can see, so I'm surprised to hear he has it. Mine's held up really well over the years, except for the obvious chrome flaking around the joints and pegs.

 

I don't have her car mode sadly   The head is on a balljoint, with the ball being on the actual head itself if that is helpful to you. I think I can get a pic of her head with the detailed write up.

 

Excellent 8) I’m getting the urge to re read it over Christmas!

A few bits from the visual history book that I liked. As always I’m mainly in it for the g1 stuff, but I liked the cyberverse art more than a thought I would, and a couple of the movie concept artists and storyboarders escaped the ‘generic concept art’ look and had some energy:

 

@tikgnat Sorry to hear of your GPS woes; I’ve just avoided figures that may be prone entirely!

Glad to hear you managed to salvage it a little though...

 

Nnnnoooooooo!!!!! I checked and the head needs to have the socket, the ball is on her body. Oh well, thanks for the info.

 

Id toys winning as always

 

Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor, heroes of the Revolution. I don’t know who that is in the background but it could be Jimmy White.

 

If that's not an example of how we can all get along without politicians and their BS I don't know what is!  

I just watched a couple of videos of Asphalt Legends and it looks very like the sort of thing I'm looking for, just got to see if my PC will run it without melting.

My progress on Lonely Mountains Downhill is going fairly well, I just made the mistake of watching a speedrun on YouTube that was borderline superhuman in terms of the precision used to line the bike up to make perfect jumps and drop off really steep sections without crashing.

After that I felt less smug about some of the times I made on the early tracks  

I played F-Zero a lot as a kid as a friend had it. Decent game albeit a source of many a Mode 7 induced headache.

@Underlord,
Good call!

I think Grizzby should also be added to Greedo's dialogue the next time Disney edit Star Wars  

 

I was slightly ambivalent about Lio Convoy and Bludgeon or the Beast wars leaders because I didn’t think I had a place for them in my collection, but I’m weak and he looks amazing. Too amazing. Like a perfect effect Leonidas.

 

I'm still new to some of the 3rd party figures, but i was really hoping they will do an amazing Bludgeon in war for cybertron. However a quick google search and found the below...that is tempting

 

Agreed on the aesthetics, Jon, that nipplepiping on Bludgeon tho!
But those waists sure do worry me at the same time.

 

That Bludgeon looks sexy as heck!

 

 
Good afternoon folks!

Now I can't unsee every Brawn as a TMNT! Which reminds me of an old custom I faffed about with using Prime Sergeant Kup as a base funnily enough to turn into Brawn! Might slap a turtle head on him for shits n giggles cos why not!  

Thinking about it I own so many older TFs which have been replaced with more modern interpretations still stored away, I could more than likely set up another display in a smaller size/scale which would work pretty well? BUT NO! No space, no time, need monies!  

Along with Crosshairs I also paid for a set of Prime Masters which where in stock so they are defo not holding anything up? Guess they've run out of stock? I dunno?  

 

I really like that, but hopefully there'll be a redeco that's less Optimus Primey. I don't go in for legends size stuff but this might turn my head.

 

Yeah there is a picture of a painted one


I think it’s a cool figure but I think it’s too extreme to be Bludgeon for me. I can’t quite explain. Bludgeon is a tank and a samurai inspired skeleton. I know they have merged his pretender shell with his robot in most non G1 media but I feel like if they are doing that he should be orange. His inner true form may have been green but it was never the samurai part.

It’s picky but I think it’s making me see it more as someone trying to impersonation of bludgeon. Like a student trying too hard.

I don’t know if I’d feel different if it was orange mind you, and I’m not saying I won’t get it to fight Lio Convoy but it’s not a G1 or even Bludgeon. It’s like a weird alternate reality version.

It’s very Darkstalkers bishamon

 

Have taken on the task of dusting the detolf as and rotating a few figs in and out.

Bit of sparse shelf this one. I was going for Victory and Zone, but the choice just isn’t there at the moment, I might have to finally get myself together and get the Siege Micromasters that represent the Zone cast.

No idea why I never went for the Leader Class Sky Shadow either....

 

So, Astrotrain then? He’s a weird guy. He’s one of those legacy characters who are popular despite not really doing much in the original pieces of media from the ’80s. Yeah, he had an episode of the cartoon where he managed to convince a bunch of aliens he was a god, but I think I put that more down to their isolation and gullibility rather than his intelligence. I mean he also tried to take over the Decepticons with a bunch of trains. Not transforming trains. Just regular trains. So yeah, intelligence isn’t his strong suit.

After that his most notable accomplishment was Galvatron getting his name wrong in the IDW comics. But we love him regardless. Because he’s a Decepticon triple changer with the coolest alt-modes out of the lot of ‘em. A space shuttle AND a steam train? Yes please!



For the longest time though he always seemed to get kinda shafted in toy form after his original toy. The concept was always compromised by size or design. The Classics mould had a decent shuttle mode but was happened by kibble in other modes. The Titans Return toy has a great robot mode…but the alt-modes suffered from weird design choices such as quashing the shuttle mode and stretching what you could convince people a train was. But it was decent enough in bot mode that people were mostly happy to say “Yeah that’ll do as my main Astrotrain even if the colours aren’t right unless I wanna fork out for the Japanese release.” Mainly cos he was a decent size.

But then along comes Siege with the best goddamn Astrotrain in years! In the right colours! And in the leader size class! And there is nothing wrong with him!



So yeah, let’s get it out the way. Siege Astrotrain is another one of these “leaders” like Shockwave and Ultra Magnus where’s the main toy is a voyager and he gets extra bits. Ultra Magnus had his normal armour, Shockwave got a surfboard that became some actually cool armour in robot mode and turned his “totally not and laser-gun” alt-mode into a damn good-looking battleship.

Astrotrain gets a box that turns into boots and a backpack. Oh, and LOT of guns, that can also combine into one mean BFG.



Yeah, this is where all that extra plastic went. You could have gotten a bigger one if say they only gave him one gun instead, but honestly, I don’t mind him at his normal size. He frankly looks so good, and as hinted at in the second image, due to how he’s constructed there’s almost no hollowness to him, making him solid as hell. He also has far more articulation than any other Astrotrain toy, including a waist swivel and ankle-tilts. Plus, the box has other uses, but more on that later.



I like the shuttle mode. It looks like his G1 toy/cartoon self, boxy fuselage and all, but beefier and mode robust. Yeah, the back end is a little skeletal but you always gotta sacrifice something in a triple changer. And honestly the transformation is pretty fun, with some nice intricacies like how the arms become the rear and connect to the boosters and keep the tail fin in place. It’s fun and looks like it’s cartoons elf, which I’m not usually needing but I’ll take it here. Like the bot mode it features a whole load of ports so you can stick the guns all over him and make the world’s deadliest shuttle. Or you can store them in the box, which can also become a makeshift launch pad, but it looks a bit doofy so I didn’t bother taking any pics.

But honestly? The best mode is the train mode.



I love the train mode. I love the detailing; I also love how this makes no goddamn sense as his Cybetronian mode. But it’s big, purple, and girthy. Yes, I know how that sounds and I don’t care. It just works so goddamn well. Plus, you know that box of his? It can be used as a goddamn tender!



I have no idea why this excites me so much, but it just does. It looks fantastic. Plus, since this mode doesn’t feature as many weapon ports as the shuttle mode adding the tender means you have enough to make the DEATH TRAIN.



So yeah, he’s short because he has a box, but I love this guy. He’s easily made it into my top ten figures of 2019 right at the buzzer. It’d be nice if he wasn’t so short but what we get in lieu of his size makes up for it. Buy him.

 

Speaking of dusting the Detolf, I've got that to do when I find a spare 5 mins.

Mind you it'll take me more than 5 mins as I've invested in a couple of cans of Air Duster. The cabinet is in a bit of a state to say the least.

 

Well, it's fair to say that went a whole lot better than expected!


I did not expect the bonnet/feet, chest halves, and arms to take the dye that well! In my experience the more polish-finished plastic parts are often the toughest against staining.
Just goes to show this dyeing malarkey is an unpredictable alchemy, not a science!
A brief bit of worry that the tolerances might be borked but it turns out, as you can see above, not enough to stuff up transformation. Project: Oilmaster might just be ON!