Some folks just don't seem to care about stuff like that. and some just need sponsors so they have to shill. not saying he's a shill. just saying shilling happens.  

 

I want Hoodlem. But I'm gonna wait and see and hope that FT releases another version with the issues fixed.

I know... It's a gamble playing the waiting game. is what it is.

 

I pulled out my FT Koot the other night, and was surprised to find that the articulation on him was even more limited than I remembered: Hip, waist, and ankle articulation are all more limited than Hoodlum. And Koot can look up—but barely.

Now that I've done some mods on my Hoodlum, he has better head articulation than Koot does. His shoulders are mostly fine now that I did the backpack mod. All in all, I can now make Hoodlum look way more dynamic and posable than Koot overall.

Hoodlum is a fixer upper and that stinks. But now that I've done those fixes, I'm pretty happy with him.

 

Koot is an old man, he won't be as flexible as these young punks

 

Could you explain in further detail what/how you modified the head? It's hard to tell from the pics. I'm sure a bunch of us would like to do the same. Thanks!

 

It's to allow hoodlum to be able to look up. Search for @unmc2001's post...

 

Haha I know. I meant what he removed from the head to allow it to look up. It's really hard to tell from the pics

 

Just sanding down the back of the head, tapered at an angle. Second pic shows it better.

 

Anytime the words "sanded down" are used in regards to a modification made to a $100+ third party figure... I subconsciously shudder

 

I've had to repaint or mod official 1/6 figures and takara figures that cost as much or more. Don't even want to think about how much I've spent on custom figures I made myself. Sometimes minor or major changes can make an okay figure much better or even amazing.

 

I dislike that it did not come with better head articulation, I hate having to mod it.

I started filing mine down. The little bit I did so far made a negligible impact. If I get a chance to do more and it makes a difference I'll try to take a photo of it that captures the amount removed.

update: I think I figured it out -- need to take material away from the lower back of the balljoint capture inside the helmet in addition to the back of the helmet, to really effect an upward look, however it would seem like something to be careful about to not remove too much and make the head too loose. Kind of a crappy catch-22, imho. They could have designed this just a little differently and facilitated a useful amount of upward tilt.

One difference is that Hoodlum's eyes are hidden by his "hat" brim, so he needs to look up a bit just to look natural.

 

All i did was use the file (as opposed to the dremmel/rotary tool) to remove the material from the back half of the helmet and sanded it smooth. I chose to keep the bottom flat to stay close to the original sculpt but at a steeper angle to allow for the head movement. He doesn't look up more than say 20-25 degrees but for my needs that good enough.

The thing is that if you want it to look up even more you'd have to start thinking about removing material around the ball joint cup, because that's when the stem of the ball joint makes contact with the edge of the ball joint cup and i was afraid that messing around that area would then not allow for the head to clamp around the ball joint securely.

Not only did i mod the helmet to allow for the head to look up, i also did some modding to the back-end of the Rodimus face so that the face would be more recessed into the helmet. Stock, his brow was closer to the brim of the helmet, i took about a millimeter worth of material off which is more than enough.

the portions overlayed in pink are the areas i worked on. Those are the points of contact inside the head so that's where you need to shave off material

 

Thanks!!!!

 

Apparently the Matrix does all sorts of useful stuff like giving someone a taller body and better head articulation. Who knew!!

 

It's hilarious to me how every single photo of this guy has him dead on front facing the camera, so you can't see the hole where his waist should be, they also pose the arms specifically so yiu can't see his popeye forearms.

All the fixes you've done you've unattached the back piece so it's sticks out more...., but complain mp hotrod had a back.

It's stupid how you'll pay 100+...,even more in the u. K, for a figure you have to repaint and modify just for it to be passable. I think some of its a case of pride and trying to convince yourself you didn't throw away your hard earned money.

 

There's a lot of that going on, look at the MP-45 thread and how hard people are trying to convince themselves that it's fine and great. Although I think the Mods "sanitized" that thread. I agree people want to make themselves believe that a product isn't as bad as it is because they don't want to feel like they have been duped. Just like the diecast chest on Hoodlum, the only reason they did that is to make it heavier and this give the illusion of quality and being "premium". Hopefully people will stop falling for this and hold companies accountable for their actions.

 

You're correct: Having done the head mod, I can confirm that I had to remove some of the rear bottom side of the ball joint "cup" to really improve the articulation. I was nervous about doing it, but I was very careful to go little by little. It definitely helped that others had already shared their pictures of the head mod, so I knew it could be done without screwing up the joint.

 

Exactly. The only way companies will take stock is if they stop getting our money.

This is no different than if people had bought that 3p hotrod bayverse figure (that was trash) but rather than say it's shit, they then spent money and time fixing what the company did wrong.

I'm not going to spend my money on something like that.

If anything, people should stop buying fanstoys.

I think there's alot of deluded people here. This is a shit figure.

Aesthetically, it doesnt even sit that we'll next to koot. Koot is like he jumped out of the screen...., I don't remember hotrod having a hollow torso in the carton.

You don't see anybody in the "this figure is great" comments having photos with him posed any other way than absolute straight on with the camera.

A figure you can only pose one way - might as well get a cardboard cut out picture of him for the shelf instead.

If you got to do that much work to a figure you paid 100+ for. You're kind of a sap for doing so.

 

All spot on points plus FT's Kup is one of my all time favourites and a hard one to beat. However until someone like Magic Square or perhaps X-Transbots have a go this seems to be the best one available sadly.