Just wanted to chime in to say that after 30 or so transformations, mine (from the very first batch) is still holding up perfectly.

 

Glad that you still hold the figure in high regard.

As for mine... I'm sorta tired of transforming it after multiple issues.

 

I had a chance to put his unmodded bot mode through its paces and figured that I would share my thoughts... and a few pics.

He's a beautiful representation of movies 1-2 Prime. Nearly perfect visually. When the renders of MPM-4 were leaked, this is what I was expecting.



The presence is through the roof!

I freed him from his tray and felt the heft he has. Appreciated his paintjob with chrome and myriad of modifications. Placed him next to other MPMs and almost forgot that this is technically a KO.






Then I began to pose him.






It's while doing this that his faults reveal themselves. All the mods that make him so awesome also make him less dynamic. The bigger ?oil filters? on the backs of his knees are nice to look at but take away the deep knee bend. The redesigned buttflap looks great but tends to clash with the also redesigned wheels that restrict waist swivel and hip spread. Everything moves. That is good and bad. I move one part and that knocks another one out of place. He's so much better and worse than the MPM he's based on.


Overall I agree with what others have said. I like him a lot but there's still room for better. It would be nice to have poseable toes and a head that's on a ball joint. A simple face swap would clean up the neck gap that's created by the current setup.

 

This is exactly my experience. He is not very balanced as well as having a lot of the articulation limited so he just can't pull off the dynamic poses that the official MPM can.

 

I’m actually curious what sort of dynamic poses the MPM can do, I have it and honestly the lack of toe articulation and an ab crunch along with the limitations on the head don’t allow much crazy poses.

 

Here are a few pictures of my MPM in poses that have not been able to recreate with BA Prime.
I also have been able to successfully pose the MPM on one foot with a fair amount of stability.


I've since done some modifications that increases the articulation range on BA Prime, but he still lacks the balance that the offical MPM and KO LT figures have.

 

How are you transforming the chest pieces on yours? They seem to sit better than mine, mine seem to sit flat where as yours sit at a slight angle and that looks more movie accurate.

I also understand the gripes in regards to poseability, however I feel the improvements made in their sacrifice are more than worth it and he still remains very poseable which is impressive for a figure of this size and weight.
I'm very boring with my poses anyway opting for a neutral "heroic stance" for my figures over anything else so it really didn't bother me.

 

I think the dramatic cutting for the chest mods should lower his upper body mass enough if I decide to do them. Putting the hip wheels on a single diecast piece really was a bad move. The buttflap would also benefit from not being a single piece. If it could bend out of the way of the wheels, this would be leagues better. This is a case where the mods aren't designed to work harmoniously together.
I can't help but think Black Apple should have went with a hybrid of the ROTF leader and MPM with heavy mods. Similarly to what he's doing with his upcoming MPM/SS Ironhide hybrid with mods.

I haven't touched the chest pieces, only the firewalls. Can't argue with how he looks in a heroic stance. He's definitely the leader of the Autobot MPM shelf there.

 

Sorry, that's the bit I meant.

 

Oh. I can get more pics when I get home from work. I just moved them to a position where I think they look good (at least from the front) to my eyes. I didn't try to put them in any specific groove or slot.

 

Please! I'd like to do that to mine. One of the few complaints I have about him is the abs/chest.

 

hey guys, is this prime having 2 big gap that can see through the other side at the body part? just worry that it was mis-transformed.

 

His abs actually don't seem to protrude out as much in that picture.

 

appreciate if you can show the picture without the arms covered? thanks!

 

the picture was taken from a youtube video and the reviewer was using the other way to align the chest.

 

Mine has been heavily modified, so I'm not sure if it'll be an accurate representation.
The picture I had was an old one before a lot of the modifications.

 

Quick update: it turns out that using 2/3 of the broken joint is fine, as the broken bit more or less just sits there and doesn't rotate. Hopefully that will hold over until the new leg arrives.

In the meantime, two more defects: one of the "eyebrow" chest bits was installed off-joint, which explains why it's so loose. (Not really fixable; don't care.) The top of one of the smokestacks popped off; that's maybe fixable but easy to mess up (small joint + glue on chrome would look super nasty). That side also had an issue where the smokestack wouldn't stay up; the other side has a soft "click", this one doesn't. Looking inside the now broken stack didn't clear things up; there's a slot that runs through the whole stack, connecting to the locking mechanism at the bottom. It's way wider than the tab at the top; if the "click" is supposed to be the slot narrowing down to hold the tab with friction, that would explain why it's not staying up. (If not, I have no idea.) Thinking of either thickening up the peg or the slot at the very top of the stack with a tiny bit of putty; it would be tricky, but I can't think of a better alternative.

Also had a closer look at the guns. I mentioned it before, but a lot of BA's changes involve bending plastic bits around other plastic bits, and the worst example is transforming the guns back into alt mode. You literally have to bend the connector piece to clear it both ways, because the connector piece isn't long enough and/or the barrel is too long. It's bad enough that paint is scraping off the end of one of the barrels during transformation.

What's weird is that there's a joint in the middle of the connector piece that, if it didn't have a right angle stop molded into it, should theoretically bend enough to allow transforming with less stress; I don't understand why they felt the need to add a stop at all. Since carving up that joint is super risky, the only other fix I can think of is to saw a tiny bit off the barrel ... but I'm not doing that. Can't trust myself to do a straight cut, and don't want to deal with sanding down and repainting afterwards.

Since the guns are required for alt mode, breaking those during transformation would potentially ruin that. But then, not being able to transform the guns takes away one of this figure's biggest features.

-XCN-

 

Oh yeah, my smokestack popped off too. Tried to put some glue onto the bottom of the detached piece but it didn't really hold up, neither it could be locked back into positions now, so whenever I transform the figure I'd need to eyeball the smokestacks so they line up.

Also everytime attempt forcing the cover piece off the gun barrel I legit fear that I'd break the connector piece.

Well BA Prime can only dream of doing the poses MPM-4's capable of.

Also looking carefully MPM-4 has the knee nubs too, just not painted AND not too long that it hurts the kneebend.

 

Damn, i love that head.
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