The first run? I thought that was originally Vietnam. <shrug> Vietnam puts them together better but the paint job is always a question, except for reissues and repaints. China factory tend to paint better but doesn't put it together as well. It's often a crapshoot on their repaints.
And then we have whatever the fuck happened with MP Hound in the Vietnam factories, with the weirdly volatile green plastic with poor heat expansion tolerances or something.
Honestly same here... Cheetor is probably my least favourite MP just because handling is a huge mess.
Love the dynamic posing! Got any tips, tried to do something similar with Cheetor but it would just topple every time.
Alright, so obviously things got a bit out of hand with the whole upscaling thing. So here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to do one final post on the topic. It is going to be a thorough explanation with pictures from multiple angles and explanations, and anytime someone comes in and uses the U-word, or says Cheetor and Tigatron share the E-word, I'm going to send them to this post. If you've been sent to this post, hey man! You probably have no idea why this is an issue at all, but this has become a wierdly sensitive issue in these forums, to the point where moderators had to come in and delete a whole bunch of posts because it was getting far too long-winded and taking up basically every ounce of conversation. But you might have used the word "upscale" or said "shared engineering", which is why you are now here. So, future poster, I'm going to help you out and let you in on something that has excited us all: Cheetor and Tigatron share no engineering! I know, that seems like a strange thing to say, they look so similar, but it's true! Here, let me show you! The first thing to point out is that Tigatron's chest is actually the real tiger head, rather than a false head like cheetor. Here, take a look! See how the heads are the same size and shape? The mouth closes and the eyes change, but that is all that is actually different. The two are identical otherwise. Compare this to Cheetor's chest, and you'll see Cheetor's is squished compared to the cheetah mode But there is so, so much more, this is just a starting point. Here's the thing, Cheetor's false head is contained in his cheetah belly that collpases in front of his actual cheetah head. As it is currently designed on Cheetor, that false head will get in the way of any real head. There is no way for the real head to end up in front of the false head, it's a solid piece. It would need to be a bit further back in order to end up behind the real head, but alas, if you look at it from behind you'll see that it is on the other side of a cavity where the gut gun goes: This just doesn't work with a real head. But let's go even further. Cheetor's mid-section ends up really nice and clean when you pull this all in together: Basically, the cheetah belly is two sections that collapse in on themselves, including the false head. These sort of acordian into one another, with one section just fitting into the other. However, with Tigatron, here is his side view: You can see a whole bunch of panels in the mid section. There is simply no way you can have these panels on cheetor's mold, because they would get in the way of the collapsing. You can also see that his side view looks basically entirely different. But you can also see from these two side-view images a number of other differences: - Cheetor's upper thigh has a hinge that allows his leg to flip all the way around, needed for transformation. Tigatron does not. - You can see Tigatron's crotch piece has a panel attached to the side of it. In fact, on a front view you can see it actually splits up into three pieces, while cheetor's does not: - I mean, really, the side view is entirely different. I cannot see how a figure with a similar transformation with cheetor can physically end up with a side view like Tigatron's. Now let's look at Tigatron's legs: From that image you can see: - The robot thigh ends up on the Tiger waist (green arrows) - The robot shin ends up as the tiger thigh (blue arrows) - The robot ankle ends up as the tiger knee (red arrows) Compare this to Cheetor's legs where the thigh becomes the thigh, shin becomes shin, etc. Even looking at Cheetor's and Tigatron's arms, while similar, have some differences. Above cheetor's elbow joint is another joint that allows the arm to fold fully flush so that it curls up nicely in the back of Cheetor's cheetah. Tigatron's arm has no such joint. In fact, Tigatron's hand has been discovered to have an index finger joint, unlike cheetor, making even the hands different: Now, what we CAN say is that it is very likely that Tigatron was indeed helped in the very initial stages by having a similar design to Cheetor. Basically, the initial computer model of Cheetor could have been upscaled and adjusted to make Tigatron. But after that, the way Tigatron's model was cut up, designed and worked on is very different. The transformations appear to have basically nothing in common. If you still want to debate this, well, I would be willing to. But it's been debated so much that the mods have understandably put their foot down and decided no more. So this is my last statement on it. If I've sent you to this link, I'm sorry to tell you that I cannot help you more than this.
Appreciate the complements! Thanks! I typically start with the upper half of the figure then end with the legs. I move the feet around on a flat surface until I find the right balance. Cheetor’s feet being able to pivot on the front half definitely helps. Takes patience with some figures that’s for sure!
There's a Figure King coming out at the end of the month... so probably then. ...and you're response is to post another far too long-winded post with the potential to kick off the debate again and take up basically every ounce of conversation... I jest, it's a good post and very useful.
Hey, what is that white tab sticking out of Tigatron's armpit in this picture? Is it maybe an excess of glue? Or is it actually part of the figure?
I hope it's glue. Either that, or someone got a little too excited by the Tigatron reveal... I hope it's glue. Definitely not a design element.
Yikes... I've never actually seen glue on the display figures before. I mean, it makes perfect sense, they obviously don't want someone standing at the booth trying to pose them just right, but I've just never seen it. Also, if they take so much care to pose them with glue and all that, how the hell did the botch blackarachnia's reveal os bad if they actually transformed it before hand and glued them and everything?
I'm not sure if the hot glue treatment is actually standard practice. Could be that something was actually broken on this display piece (probably still hand-painted resin), and required a hasty touch-up job on site.
