And that's why people generally use the reference image that the animators went by rather than any particular animation still. Some of us still consider them a little too simplified and yes, sloppy. It was necessary to simplify the character designs quite a bit (all the sticker details and much of the greeblies) to make them more friendly to being repeatedly drawn over and over, but when you're creating the character as a 3d figure, no such need exists. What we (that is to say those who don't like extreme toon accuracy) want is what the cartoon tried to capture, not what the cartoon literally showed. Optimus with chrome smokestacks and grill. Cars with glossy metallic paint (where applicable, of course). Clear windows and headlights. Nice details on the figure reminiscent of the original toy design as opposed to huge blank panels. And there's room for some artistic interpretation, of course. I don't think anybody wants all those weird squiggly lines and gauges on Megatron's arms.


Personally, I'm pretty happy with most of the decisions that Fanstoys has made. I'm not keen on unannounced last minute changes but I actually liked the colors they used on Blurr and I liked the metallic effect in their paint. I like that they gave us both clear and opaque windows for Kup and Blurr. I'm still not keen on blue windows, but I concede that I'm like the only one who cares and therefore my opinion really doesn't matter. Blue headlights are stupid, though.

 

That's what I'm talkin' bout.

 

Fair enough. And me personally, I'm not a total stickler for some of those color choices...but TT isn't either. MP-44 has a chrome grill and smokestacks.

 

As much as I hate to admit that TT gets it, they kind of do. Now if they could learn that huge backpacks and butt flaps along with $400 prices are not acceptable compromises to achieve those goals, that would be pretty nice.

 

Agree with everything except the cell shading bit.

 

See for me, it’s weird that people profess nostalgia for the cartoon but don’t want figures to look like it.
I mean, I loved the TMNT cartoon from the 80’s/90’s, and I have no interest in looking at TMNT figures modelled off the recent Michael Bay movies.
I loved the Inspector Gadget cartoon when I was younger and have zero interest in a toy that looks like Matthew Broderick.

My nostalgia is for the cartoon, so if it doesn’t look like the cartoon, it’s not going to speak to that nostalgia and I just don’t see the point in it.

That’s why folks love the toon aesthetic. People can rant all they want about the “low-quality animation” but that animation is exactly what toon accurate fans love and want to portray.
And I like the cell shaded aesthetic and if I could afford it, I’d get my entire collection custom painted to look like that. But I’m weird that way.
Toon aesthetic:

‘Realistic” aesthetic:

Toon Aesthetic:

“Realistic” aesthetic:

Toon aesthetic:

“Realistic” aesthetic:

 

Going to wait on the repaint, and see if I like it better. If they used BadCube's colours on this sculpt, they would have my money. Right now, those forearms are a deal breaker.

 

it's easy to use bad examples to make your point, just like I could pull 1000 images from the toon that look like shit and say see, this is why I hate toon aesthetic. If the characters are supposed to be rough estimations of a vehicle then why is OP specifically listed as a Freightliner WFT-8664t cab-over semi, instead of just a generic semi, why are the carbots specifically listed as Datsun/Nissan or Lambos? Just because the crtoon was made as cheap and fast as they could doesn't mean we should settle for vague attempts at vehicle designs.

 

And the prize for completely missing the point goes to... you.

 

I'm not even really following this conversation...

I legit want that Dolph Lundgren He-Man, is that a custom or an actual legit figure?

 

So I get that but the thing is your comparison is flawed. We're not talking about nostalgia for the old TMNT cartoon versus nostalgia for the Bay movies. A better comparison would've been the live action TMNT movies from the '80s/90s though I'd still say it's not the same thing.

See, with Transformers, at least the early ones, we got toys that looked like realistic cars, trucks, and planes (more or less) but that usually transformed into pretty crappy robots. Starscream with his skinny arms and legs that started with his knees right below his hips. Optimus with his cut out wheel well arms, wasp waist, and complete lack of anything resembling a back. So naturally the cartoon reimagined them a little better looking. Nobody is saying we don't want the toon designs at least as far as bot mode.

But five year old me didn't see a weird bloated car that kinda resembled a VW Beetle and had painted windows. He saw a VW Beetle That had been drawn badly and simply - badly for the proportions being all over the place and simply for the lack of detail and the flat windows. So my nostalgia is satisfied by mp-21, not mp-45 (though I would argue that mp-45 has bigger problems than just its slavish accuracy).

C'mon man, you gotta admit you cherry picked your examples and you chose the worst possible "real" modes to try make your point seem stronger. First off, the He-Man you chose for your cartoon version is the more realistic alternative while the Super7 MOTUC He-Man is the cartoon accurate one. The Dolph Lundgren version was already considered a completely unfaithful interpretation back when that movie came out. I already commented on using the ridiculous Bay Turtle movie over the old, much better received 80s movie. And seriously? That's the "realistic" Inspector Gadget? You just used a ridiculously built cheap kid's toy for your comparison against an extremely well made adult collectible version of the cartoon character.

So yeah, I get your point and I'm sure @Tazman66gt gets it too (it's not so complicated that it's going to go over anybody's head). But you undermined it with your choices for comparison. It'd be like if I wanted to do the opposite and I used MP-10 for the "realistic" version of Optimus but rather than MP-44 for the cartoon version, I used that cheap shampoo-bottle-plastic version that was at Walmart a year or so ago. If you really wanted to make your case fairly, you'd have compared mp-44 to mp-10 or mp-45 to mp-21 because those are the "realistic" figures we want, not some ridiculous Bayformer.

Personally, I actually really like FT Brawn. I'm not sure how realistic his alt mode is because I have no idea what vehicle it's supposed to be so that makes it easier to overlook any inaccuracies whereas an inaccurate Beetle or Countach would be much more difficult to overlook. I just wish they'd made it more realistic. Smoked black windows rather than blue (or at the very least a sky blue rather than the deep dark blue so it actually could be mistaken for reflecting the sky) and clear headlights, not blue. They weren't even blue in the cartoon - why would headlights ever be blue?

 

None of those are 'style' differences. They're design differences. Those are not the same thing.

What's funny is that your MOTUC example isn't even the cartoon styled version. It's a version much like what others like. The toon design but with added realistic elements. Similarly, the TMNT figures you posted aren't pure toon style, but they are toon design. To depict toon styling, there are much better examples, like the figuarts or NECA figures.

 

Well, some of us love the 80s transformers cartoon, so we don't want this:



But neither want this:



Just want something like this:



It's not so hard.

 

Yeah far enough. I did go a little off base with the comparisons but I think you all get the point. I was using hyperbole to make a point, just like the hyperbole from people pretending they don’t understand the appeal of the toon accuracy trend.
The key to the toon trend is nostalgia. What tickles one persons nostalgia may not be what tickles someone else’s. But there is no right or wrong.
The point was that these constant complaints from people “claiming” not to understand the appeal of toon accuracy are just BS. We all understand the idea. Some might not agree with it or feel it themselves, but it’s very simple to understand.
Why can’t people just say “I don’t like the toon aesthetic because I prefer something different”?
The constant attempts to belittle both the design ethos and those who like it just feels petty. Worse, so many also feel the need to attack the cartoon itself with claims of “crap animation” - ignoring that its that 35 year old animation and the equally aged 35 year old toys that started the whole genre we’re all interested in.

We get it, some of you don’t like the toon trend. That’s fine. More power to you. But it would be awesome if we could stop the constant belittling of those who do like it and especially the attacks on the cartoon itself.

 

I don't like the toon aesthetic because I prefer something different.

 

so now that certain people don't like the toon aesthetic they are picking on the cartoon. ok, I get it, you just hate having any sort of real world detail in your attempted examples of bot that turn into vehicles. Yes, I am being a smartass and taking it to the raged edge of reason and am just messing about. We both like the same thing, just prefer going different ways to get there.

 

This isn't difficult: TF had a physical toy product in the '80s alongside the cartoon. They are inseparable when going for a nostalgia play because both were typically parts of the TF experience as youths. That is why the best MP evokes elements of each, usually a nice alt mode that looks like the real-world vehicle, which is generally what the toy alt modes were aiming for, while the botmode looks like the cartoon character. If you had an a-typical childhood entirely without one or the other, such is life, but the product can't and shouldn't cater to the outlier.

The same goes for the TMNT example used above - what was shown as the preferred one is preferred because it reflects both the cartoon AND the original toyline of the same vintage.

There's no getting around it, try as one might, the aim of masterpiece is to take the most nostalgic elements of the original toy and toon, and bring them together. This is why masterpiece grade figures will have a bit more detail, because the alt mode is going to be aiming for a fairly real-world take (when applicable, i.e., earth vehicles) based on the intended vehicle the character transformed into, and some of that will carry over to the botmode, but the botmode primarily looks like the cartoon figure. It can't be overly plain, devoid of detail, because it has to carry some of the alt-mode detail in it. It can't be overly detailed as that would take away from the toon feel as well. The other reason doing an overly plain design looks bad is because it would be making the error of trying to replicate HOW the cartoon was made (cheap, rushed animation), rather than WHAT the cartoon was trying to convey, which is the character's full aesthetic that the animators often failed to do well because reasons. And we have reference source material that the animators worked from as our guide.

Just like masterpiece improves on the G1 alt mode attempt at looking like a real-world vehicle, it improves on the animators' attempt at recreating the character's botmode. Just as Hasbro's toy line was limited by cost constraints and technology available at the time to create a nice alt mode, the animators were limited by similar factors when trying to create the botmodes. We should expect masterpiece, freed significantly from those constraints by comparison, to deliver a higher grade of product that is what the adult some 30 years later recognizes instantly as the character from the toy and toon of their youth. There is an identifiable target for what the animators and the toy creators were going for, and that target can be achieved better today than it was 30 years ago. To try to recreate the limitations of 30 years ago is where things go awry. In that case, just get the things from 30 years ago.

 

Someone who can articulate the feeling on "Toon accurate". We want the representation of the characters. As someone who wants toon accurate, I want Devastator, not 6 random construction vehicles.

 

what is going on in this thread? FT Hunk right?

 

You may have missed part of his point, which appears to be that we want a Devastator that looks like it is built out of six construction vehicles (his first image), not a handful of poorly drawn scribbles that looks nothing like Devastator or the construction vehicles team members (the second image). The combined mode of individual team members is based on a modification of their alt modes, after all.