The V2 just fell into my POL at BBTS.

 

Just got mine today from BBTS, and good lord is this an epic figure. I spent three hours carefully unpacking him, taking off each of the pieces of protective baggies and testing each joint, making sure nothing was paint locked and everything was moving smoothly. I knew he was gonna be epic, but even with all of the pictures and comparisons posted I wasn’t prepared for the presence this figure commands. I’m gonna hold off transforming him until tomorrow, but I can’t wait to see how beautiful his dragon mode is. My wings look great, with only a few of the specklie paint cracks on one wing, and only noticeable if you look at him from just the right angle, and even then, it’s only noticeable if you’re looking for them. I’ve never owned a hot toys figure, but I feel like this is the transformer equivalent of that. I’m also looking at him and dreaming about a TM 1 version of Megatron, and how amazing that figure would be scaled between the season 1 masterpiece and this. Just lovely.

 

Does anybody know if there's a video of the proper way to move the wings so they don't break?

 

Opened my set up a while ago and overall it's amazing! I do/did have a couple of issues though - the electronics did not work. I had to pull his head apart and found that one of the soldered wires were disconnected. I figured I'd risk more damage if I removed the electronics entirely to solder it, so I used a spot of super glue on a toothpick to hold it in place. It worked like a charm!

The second issue is more annoying - the blast effects are turning sticky on me. The fire effects just barely, but it's definitely a problem with the ice effect. Anyone else have this issue?

 

BBTS is big bad toy store? I preorder him in January but the website still says preorder. Why is that?

 

Pandemic?

 

Check the JiangXing Weibo account, 15th/16th January 1月16日 .

I can't post the link directly due to the Sina System sign in bit.

EDIT - check here for more info (in Mandarin or Cantonese, but still), it details how to loosen up the wings and apparently how to replace them too, but I haven't gotten that far in yet.

 

Hmmm. Maybe they only got part of their total shipment? Not sure when I preordered, but it was probably last year sometime.

 

When you go on the website does it show the wing dragon in stock? Or preorder?

 

I just checked it says, "Pre-Order."

 

Did you get a chance to transform him yet? Any issues?

 

So I just took delivery of this guy (One of us! One of us!) and, first things first: sweet merciful crap is he gorgeous. That paint and finish... there's a few marks, sure, and unfortunately the occasional visible sprue dag, but it's absolutely stunning. I can easily see why people are both distressed and completely un-caring about the damage some units show over time. Mine's a V2, so I'm hoping that won't be too much the case.

But I did some checking before transforming the first time, and I'd like to show you the following:


This is on the rear of his left wing, and shows (as best I can with the equipment I have charged, anyway) why the joints are quite a bit stiffer than they should be. If you look on the left of the purple joint, you can see the paint itself is bridging across between the two pieces. This is why you need to carefully crack the joints! That little bit of paint can get a good enough grip that if you lever it from too far away you can break the plastic first. Remember: that's the same paint as everywhere else, and it's tough stuff (brittle, perhaps, but tough). And if you can imagine that join is across two pieces that aren't being firmly held against each other - all of the surfaces which rub together while rotating, which have been painted, are even more likely to have similar paint bridging.

So take your time and carefully crack every joint, holding as close to the joint as you possibly can to direct the force into this wayward paint instead of the plastic. This goes for not just his wings, but everything down to even the fingers.

Other than that, if I had to point out any negatives with the figure, it's got to be those dragon mode shoulders. They're... not good. Popped the ball out on each of them at least twice, and the lack of any (soft) locking point lead me to be unsure if I'd even transformed them properly. The absence of a wrist swivel in dragon is also disappointing. Otherwise it's pretty much all good news.

 

Still a $250 figure shouldnt be having these issues right?

 

You mean the paint or the nit-picking?

Thick paint and tight joints is going to do that to you. Once you get it thick enough there's almost no way to tell when the initial layers will have finished curing/drying, and compressing them in a tight joint after a few days is likely to "reactivate" the top coats. Even if they sat on the parts for 4 weeks before assembly there would be no guarantee the whole lot was done, so you'd wind up with a few spots still doing it and the dead inventory (which I doubt most 3Ps can afford to have much of).

I blame the "must have paint!" crowd. They could have coloured the plastic and put the metallic fleck through it, only painting the highlights and wing gradients, which would have avoided every single one of the paint-related issues from the get-go. But that crowd gets weird when there's unpainted plastic on a "premium" figure, even if it's the right colour and looks great (though admittedly metallic plastic never looks as good or consistent as metallic paint).

The nit-picking is exactly that - nit-picking. The shoulders are just a weird design that I don't care for. Perfectly serviceable but I feel like they're a little disjointed from the rest of the figure. And it's that disconnect which lead to the balls popping out, though that's infinitely preferable to having broken the hinges (which may explain how easily I did it, actually...). The wrists are a design oversight to me, but tolerable; and it's possible I missed a forearm swivel due to the tight joints, which would serve the same purpose.

 

So the paint still chips easily this time around? Or is the paint chipping very minimum?

 

I didn't see any on mine, though I've not even had it a day and only transformed it once each way (including "tank" mode) to ensure there were no breakages or major flaws in case I needed to get spares (there wasn't, but one of his chest "claws" did come out - undamaged, so I pushed it back in and will look into glue later if need be). Checked what I've come to understand are the "usual suspects" (at the front of the head plate and around the shoulder joints) and didn't see anything. Time will be the real decider, mind, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Not that I was using kid gloves to handle it. I started that a little that way, given the stories, but it's a kinda frustrating transformation (once you know how everything is supposed to move and fit it's better) plus the stiff joints so I definitely didn't finish that way. Didn't go full-on gorilla, of course.

 

Glad no major issues with the second run. Now just waiting for mine to arrive.

 

I've heard that you can maybe freeze or heat up joints to loosen paint stuck joints, is that true and can it maybe work on this?

 

This is a pricy figure. I wouldnt risk it.

 

I just got my figure today, there are no problems to speak of other than the stuck wings.This figure is amazing and I highly recommend it.