Going toon accurate in alt mode is the stupidest thing they could do. But I guess I'm in the minority on this one. I dunno, like I said before, all of my vehicle enthusiasm stems from my fascination with transformers as a kid. I wanted to be able to turn into a car and drive around. I loved Gran Turismo on PS1 back in the day because it was so realistic with real world cars (at least as realistic as they could pull off back in the day). I'm not a gearhead and I can't call out every inaccuracy of every vehicle mode (I'm not going to call him out here, but we've got a site member who is amazing at that and I always enjoy his comments on alt mode accuracy). I just can't fathom wanting the alt mode to look like a cartoon car rather than the actual car. But, like I said, it seems I'm in the minority.

Are you asking if I'll be making hub caps? Sadly no. I'd love to but they'd need to be shiny gold metal and I've just never found a really good way of chroming pieces. Spaz stick or molotow are about as close as you can get and neither of them really pulls it off plus they're not durable enough.

On the other hand, my wife has gotten into jewelry making lately using bent and hardened wire and now I'm wondering how difficult it'd be to make them using actual gold wire (or more likely brass - just something gold colored). Damnit, I'm going to end up buying another figure purely for the sake of making upgrades, aren't I?

Ha! I knew some smartass would find a real world example. Take your upvote and piss off! (I don't actually mean that in case the blue text isn't clear. I'm genuinely impressed you found one).

 

Still need to catch a PO for this one.

 

Wait, seriously? That's such a trivial difference (I literally own Maketoys Downbeat and never noticed the color of his rims). Plus Jazz doesn't have gold rims in the cartoon, which is what FT Jazz is based on.

Hopefully Hastak revives the Alternators line for those car enthusiast out there. Fanstoys just ain't it.

 

There are some serious aviation, train, and car enthusiasts on these threads. We all just have different preferences for what we want our figures to look like in the end. Those discussions and photos are more enjoyable than the constant complaints about POs and price. That Porsche sure is purdy.

And for those who want the gold rims, just start a rumor and make some mock-ups of an XTB Jazz with a bunch of accessories. Then maybe FT will give us swappable wheels. You’re welcome.

 

Dude you and me have been chasing that accurate 935 look for years now! haha. I really like the bot mode on this guy, but damn- was not wanting to do those Martini waterslides all over again, like we did on Downbeat (they never look perfect, and are not totally durable). To be honest, I finally just bought a 1/18 Martini 935 scale model, to put on my desk, and that has sort of scratched that itch. Still- would be great if FT did a 2nd run of this figure with realistic livery. (And to anyone who recommends the Toyworld or Hova versions- yes! The alt modes look good, but the bots modes are not great. I want it all in one package   )

But those wheels, jeez! I know FT was going for "most toon accurate Jazz, in the world" but you have the draw the line somewhere. Even the most hardcore toon-fanatics would not have cared if this thing had decently detailed wheels. It just comes off as lazy to me.

One option could be to buy some disassembled BBS scale model wheels. 1/24 or 1/32, not sure which would fit best(see attachment)- and fit the "wire" spokes portion to the inside of the chrome FT wheels. You'd probably just have to drill out the center to clear that pin.

 

Those were the days. But yeah, like you say, homemade waterslides aren't very durable. Even with the clear coat I sprayed over downbeat's decals, he's got a few blemishes and my first run NA Jazz faired even worse (I've since replaced him with the ex version). Also I'm not super Jazzed (see what I did there?) about the idea of modding an FT figure. They're just too damned expensive to risk it. Fitting the wire spokes from a 1/32 model into the wheels is a neat idea but I went back and looked at Jive's wheels and the disc rims just don't sit very deep in the wheels. By the time you add the spokes, you'll have pretty much reached the outer edge of the wheels which is really not the right look.

I got the recent reissue of Hova for my "toy version" Jazz. He scratches the itch about as well as it can be for now but you're right that his bot mode leaves a lot to be desired. I think I'll stick with Downbeat as my MP Jazz and Hova as my toy deco/alt mode (I don't do that a lot but Jazz is one of my favorites). I'm watching Jive because, wheels notwithstanding, he's still a very nice figure and probably the best Jazz around, but I still don't think I'll get him. If FT does a T version with the livery and good wheels, I'll almost certainly have to snag that.

Also, with all these 3P Jazz figures, how is it none of them has been named "Scatman?"  

 

Kinda funny how our motor-filled paths kinda converge, haha.

Loved Need for Speed and Forza when I was younger. Never got any of the former after Rivals cause fuck EA, no Forza after 6 since I ended up moving to PS (Defintely grabbing Gran Turismo PS5 but I definitely wanna grab Forza on PC). Forza 5 made me fucking feel things, haha. Beautiful game with a beautiful car selection from every generation imaginable.

But yeah, i'm personally up for either. I like the plainness of the toon, but I do love the tatted up look of the IRL. But for me personally, the flaw of the alt-mode is just that even the near-barebones toon deco feels unfinished, which I mentioned and attempted to fix earlier.

(Except for extending the line cause @Maglite made an excellent point about the blank space being ideal for the insignia)

BTW i'm gonna tell him what he deserves to hear.

@Liampope I don't give people regal titles based on expertise for just no reason. I call @chchchch the Digibash King for a reason, I call @BrutiKing the Paint God for a reason (btw doesn't matter whether you're more royal or divine, just whichever rolls off the tongue better), and you're the fucking Car God for a reason and you always show the world why. Stay gold, my guy. You help make these threads worth it.

Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't...

Would've been great to see you put some together. Personally, I wouldn't care if they were chrome or metallic (hell I think Maketoys made their's metallic to boot), but a PDP branded set on Etsy would rock.

(Or just do the wire method for the sake of your wife)

Personally I think Hova will be as good as we can get for a real-world Jazz, and my god T&R have some massive balls putting all the logos on unchanged.

Actually that brings up a good question on a different front. Forgive me for a quick off-topic pivot.

@Grifter Prime In regards to those Rainbow Racer redecoes of the Omnibots, has it ever been on an idea on the table to pull a T&R and just have the logos on unchanged, rather than the jumbling of them to be close but not exact?

Or could that be a little placeholder for now, leaving us with a little surprise when we get them in-hand?



Ahem, where was I?

But yeah, as for a hypothetical FT-48T, I personally don't see it happening. If we were talking Fans Toys 5 years ago, absolutely. The only modern repaints we had were minor changes if at all. Skyfire with a metallic paintjob instead of bare plastic, Galvatron with a more bluish-purple instead of the straight purple, and Cyclonus with a slighty lighter purple and pink instead of the white which I think the stock photos don't do it's due justice to when compared to in-hand photos. And the only one that was on the cutting room floor IIRC was a black & white Astrotrain to match the original 1985 Takara release of his toy. Which was acknowledged ONCE, but never materialized.

That aside, this Jazz IMO is gonna be an absolute knockout release, and is on track to be my favorite FT figure period. I call a lot of figures beautiful, but beautiful can't describe what I think about this Jazz, haha.

 

I don't feel that the red stripe needs to end for the autobot symbol. You can just stick a red with white outline symbol over it and it'll look fine. What you should have is a gap in the red line for the white 4 but I guess the cartoon didn't have that either (in fact the cartoon did have the red line end so I guess that's why they did it -cartoon accurate to a fault).

I asked my wife about the wire thing just out of idle curiosity and she thinks the problem would be the overlaps - they'd be way too thick unless you used a jeweler's saw to notch them and at that point it's way too much work.

 

I think might do a toy deco one after the toon one and that's what I'm holding out for now, Downbeat is good enough for me for now.

 

This is the best jazz figure I’ve ever seen.

 

wait, you couldn’t tell the difference between Downbeat and Jive’s wheels? You consider it a “trivial” difference?!? It’s pretty major to a lot of us here!

That said, if people think it’s a cool toon look, that’s cool. I don’t care for them, but I’ll display Jive in bot mode.

 

I would have probably gone my whole life with my brain never even acknowledging what they looked like if you guys hadn't brought it up in this topic here.

I've always just seen rims as a filler space between tires, which themselves are just black circles that hold up the car.

 

It's interesting hearing a different perspective - it would never have even crossed my mind that anybody would think like that. The rims are art just like every other part of the car. You could say you've always seen headlights as little plastic circles covering the lightbulbs or the grill as just some mesh thing covering the radiator. All of these things are designed to be functional but they're also designed to be aesthetically pleasing. All the functional filler pieces are the car and when you put them together you get a thing of beauty (or, y'know, ugliness depending on the car model). It'd be like saying it doesn't matter what kind of shoes a woman in a beautiful dress is wearing. Sure, shoes' job is to cover and protect feet but most people are gonna notice a worn out set of Converse and how much they clash with a black evening gown.

But I kinda feel like...   ... yes, that. Some of us value real world rims or at least semi-realistic ones and some of us don't. It's clearly a bigger deal for me than for most of the people here.

Ok, I have one final note. I find it particularly odd that the same company that is doing Powerglide as a full size slender A-10 Warthog are giving Jazz cartoon rims. Powerglide is one character I never would've demanded a realistic alt mode from because it's just not possible to get that robot mode from a real A-10 and yet they went the extra mile and pulled it off (more or less - as with all alt modes there are inaccuracies and compromises). I'm astonished by their Powerglide. And it's nothing at all like the toon in alt mode.

  Ok, ok. I'm done now.

 

The question is why the fuck?!  

TT still do realistic alt modes. Even when they do chibi proportions the wheels are realistic. XTB do realistic alt modes. Hell this is a realistic alt mode! Except those stupid toon wheels! Which are chromed for realism  .

But hey - FT Mirage's rear wheel is worse!  

Seriously, if FT are carving a path towards full toon vehicle alt modes with no realistic elements, I'm not interested.

 

That's definitely one thing we can agree on (though from opposite perspectives). Between Warpath and Powerglide I can only assume someone on Fanstoys is a military vehicle enthusiast.



(Actually, there is one venue through which I can sort of relate to this perspective. With the dinobots and other mechanical beast TFs I am willing to sacrifice some degree of toon accuracy [though I'd still prefer more toon accuracy than what we have with the FT dinos, at least in terms of proportions] for cool tech details in beast mode. I couldn't care less about real life cars, but I love the look of retro mechanical dinos and other beasts. So on some level I get it.)

 

As they should  

 

Toon is king of course, however......

If they were kind, they would include some clip-in rims for the toy people. And maybe some other bits (like Acoustic Wave).
If they were smart, they would release a toy / real world version... because Jazz always sells regardless of deco.

 

the rims suck and its just another example of why i hate slavish toon accuracy. toon accuracy is perfect for legends or mainline toys and they seem to pull it off much easier, but highly over-priced premium figures trying to look like something that is designed to be drawn fast and cheap, the animation equivalent of a happy meal. it just feels wrong to me

 

Seems to me it will sell anyway regardless 

 

I bet if they did release two versions, both would likely sell out, but also I imagine many people would double-dip.