Hey there... seeing there's so many folks here that do kitbashing... there any decent KOs that make for good Kitbash Fodder?

I'm still a bit... reluctant, to tear apart official figures unless I manage to get duplicates or really hate the figure. (Un?)Fortunately, I've only found/bought figures I like, so I'm having a tough time cutting them up. >__<

Recently I bought a few items off KOToys.com... a KO Classics Ultra Magnus, Mirage, Superion, and CHMS Ramjet.

Magnus is intentionally mispainted. Magnus' joints were very solid, minus a problem when transforming at the shoulders. Interestingly, he *did* fit into an FP City Commander armor, with a loose left arm and absurdly tight right leg. (I have actually acquired an official Magnus, but it's worth noting.) For only 12$ base price, he's not bad at all if you want to grab the figure for parts and/or repaints.

After seeing reviews that the CHMS knock-offs for Seeker Jets were good... I'm a bit disappointed in Ramjet. Some areas had overspraying, some lacked spraying. Some joints were a bit touchy feely, but you can transform and pose him. The figure's plastic is pretty good. Overall not too bad... him and other seekers are 12$ atm, so I guess it's worth it for parts.

The Mirage was *garbage*. It didn't survive transforming, the driver seat underside snapped. Interestingly, the legs were sturdy enough to replace it off an official Mirage who had only half a torso, so he's displayable, LOL.

Superion was laughable. It has only a vague resemblance to the original figures, the plastics flimsy and STINKS!!! Avoid it like the plague.

 

The knockoff adage applies here.. "you get what you pay for."

Hastak's factories have safety standards, pay their workers at least minimum wage, and have Quality Control. So they get done right... Most of the time, anyways.

Knockoff (and, like it or not, third-party like FP) factories use whatever slave or else cheap labor they can get, conveniently ignore safety laws, and have no QC departments.

The bottom line is: Knockoffs will always be inferior product. Expect bad paintjobs and ill-fit parts.

 

I bought the starscream, skywarp, & thundercracker ko's from kotoys, and although some stuff was loose, it was nothing a little super glue & nail polish couldn't fix... But those are the only ko's I own. I do plan on getting the KO SG Rodimus... Chances are they'll come out with a KO shadow scyther too... And I'll get it, just because I missed out. From a distance they do their job as good display pieces lol. I'm all for KO's & seemingly reasonable priced 3rd party stuff.

 

Oi... wrong topic for this... It's obvious that KO's are inferior quality.

The topics about decent enough figures worth using in kitbashes...

 

If you didn't know already, all of the KO Prime mold's shoulder/upper arm joint are misassembled, so transformation to alt mode is a bit dodgy. Just open them up flip around the joint that fits around the post in the shoulder so the flat part faces inward and the angled part out, and it's thumbs up. One of the best bangs for your buck in terms of KOs.

 

I buy knock offs for the sole purpose of kitbash fodder and nothing else.

I bought a KO Shadow Commander set because I wasn't willing to pay full price for it only to repaint and mod it.