Me finding this thread on page 5 says much about the state of 3rd party in 2018 IMHO.

Looking forward I really hope that the Reformatted and Cross Dimension lines can support themselves once the interest in 3rd Party (especially G1 Masterpiece alikes) fades.

Speaking of MMC and why they are under the "most improved company" category: MMC (and OX if we want to count them as one entity) had a bunch of awful releases in 2017 (Omne, Boreas, the bird cassettes, Mallum Militia). CZ Hazard said he thinks MMC had a pretty consistent quality over the years which I feel is not true. For example I can look through Boreas' wings. Not because there are holes in it but because the plastic is so paper think that light shines through which is something I never had on any Reformatted figure.

Even the releases of them I found enjoyable like Tyrantron (a non-transformation) and Turben (not MTMTE Whirl) had issues. In 2018 their quality went back to normal especially for Reformatted, where the Alpha/Beta/Stray mold is probably the best toy the released in this line. On the OX side the releases are still riddled with some unexplainable issues they are far away from releases like Omne who disintegrated in your hands in several places.

So quality-wise MMC was on an constant upswing till 2016, stagnated in 2016 (especially Backdraft and Terraegis), crashed and burned in 2017 and are now back to normal which is in my eyes a tremendous improvement and they are indeed one of the most improved companies in 2018.

I'm looking forward to their 2019 releases.  

 

So the trick to be Most Improved is:
1. Slip in a couple of below par releases one year.
2. Go back to normal quality the following year.

Or start with shitty quality like KFC/XTB. From then on every little QC improvement is candidate for most improved!!!

 

2019-the year of Cross Dimensions.

 

Well yes, it kind of has to be one of those two paths, you can't get Most Improved by consistently releasing great products or by starting out great and declining in quality.  

 

I don't think it's fair for me to vote since I don't own most of them (though I'd like to), but I think 2018 was a good year for third-party Transformers overall. Here's hoping we get some really killer figures this year (which it looks like we will indeed get). I can't name too many stinkers from last year off the top of my head, so that's already a good start. Now if only I had more money so I could buy everything these companies keep putting out!

 

So FT is going to win most improved this year then  

 

Only if they improve and do so in a greater way than other 3Ps.  

 

2018, the year that Cliffjumper got no love.

 

Interesting. I never thought of "MP" as being more about aesthetics, as opposed scale. I've only thought of MP as a describer of scale (especially because there are two significantly different aesthetics).

Clearly, that was their plan all along. Nabbing that coveted "Most Improved Award" on a message board.    

 

I think you should feel empowered to vote even if you had none of these on the list. You are still enjoying them, through reviews, photos, videos, and perhaps through buddies. Which ones on the list do you admire the most...even if from afar... I think that's what you could vote for.

 

Benevolent 3P Deities say: We grant you two CJ options: One with giant backpack, the other with strange waist, stubby feet, visibly cheap plastic arms with mold marks, and wonky proportions.

Yeah, neither one's going to be on the list.

 

Two? That is being generous. There are at least 3 that I could state, probably more like 4.

 

I'm going to reiterate that next year will need a Bay/Bee movie category with the number of releases now coming out in that style. Beast Wars might need one eventually too given that neither the movies or beast wars fit well into any award category or just get stomped into the ground by G1 stuff. I didn't vote or nominate since I played catch up this year with all the stuff that slipped by me last year. Much of the new stuff this year was on the weak side or had problems in my niche. Some of the stuff I did buy really didn't have a place in the categories like I mentioned before, such as Generation Toy's stupidly solid Gorilla release. Next year looks like a hurricane of hype and stand out releases though. Fanstoys combiner series, Maketoys marches on with CD and Headmasters, Planet X IDW style, the battle for MP Primes, MMC finishing off the DJD, an all-in-one Bruticus, plus Magic Square and Iron Factory's absolutely insane legends lineups are just a small portion of stuff heading our way in 2019.

I will vote for Stray as one of the two things I own in the list. I really dislike the default Stray's colors but if we're talking the Asterisk version I will support it as one of the slickest releases this year. The mold is dead solid covering all your bases, the blue and gold paint makes the mold just pop, the cape is an excellent accessory, the transformation is a breeze, and the alt mode is a very stylish slab of car. It's not perfect, but it does a whole lot of right and not a whole lot in the way of wrong.

 

I was thinking of G1 (Hasui, Cartoon)
But I guess there are more if you count Bayverse

 

I think of MP as the ultimate representation of a character, with impressive engineering and a lot of cool features (articulation, no gaps, etc) that happens to adhere to an specific aesthetic (BW, G1, Bayverse, IDW, etc)

 

I was thinking more in the line of Toy accurate, Marvel Comic book accurate, Cartoon Accurate and various hybrids of thse as well as IDW stylized.

 

My vote:

 

That's a beautiful shot!

 

MP originally started as a way to give us perfect recreations of the toys we had as kids that were in the show that eventually led to being the toys we wanted on the show instead of what we could buy in store, with that said and the reason i have an issue is this

this ^ does not look like v this


or this

inspired by, absolutely, but this is simply a leader size ver. of chug bw tm2 megs, MP is about show/toy accuracy which will come from Wing Beast later this year

 

XTB Flipout probably deserves to win...
But two nominations for the same company (just like MMC and Iron factory) are going to make it very difficult... Of course, at the same time, it's a great achievement.