Anyone recommend the best (trustworthy Seller) place to buy this guy. I've been away from scene for over a year and just coming back.

He looks great, I own Sphinx but TE really nailed their version!

 

It's not just the money, there's way more stuff there that you can't find anywhere else.

In the drawing, it looks good and works, but on the toy, I feel it will be still too plain, IMHO.

 

many sellers were dumping returns w/ increased odds of defects and no warranty. Best bet would be Show.z's latest batch since they have after-sales support

 

It's a waterslide set, isn't it? Pretty sure those are all individual decals so it'd be easy to just skip the ones you don't want or cut them out.

 

You could try to drop the Goodyear logo, and just go with the 26 and Elf, with the Autobot symbol in between.

 

personally if i were to add and use the decals, i would go the same route as the first example but move down everything to make room for a slightly larger autobot faction symbol. here are a few photoshop mock-ups i did for you. note you'll have to properly adjust the width of the pin-stripping at the front of the nose so it's wide enough to set the "26" down low. the original 2nd photo for the bot mode, the person made it more narrow compared to the 1st alt photo, who set it wider to allow for it. so i photoshopped the pin-stripping wider for the 2nd photo below.

 

Hmm, that might work if the red lining can be spread wide enough.

 

I recently got TE's Optimus figure and I'm really happy with it.

The show Z price made me buy this figure as well to replace OM Sphinx.

Just to clarify; I'm either going to get mis-assembled hips, green ankles or a good one?

Not bashing it though, it looks amazing and the transformation looks fun just like their Optimus figure  

 

I do care about toy accuracy (or at least inspiration), so this would be of interest to me.

But waterslides... It's been years since I used one of those and only on model kits. Back then they had the big advantage of being easy to apply and you could correct your mistakes. But they're not the most durable. On modelkits there was the need to to flat/sating coat (or even beter, varnish) the model kit to protect the labels, since they were not only fragile, but would also dry out over time and crumble. Has this improved, because else I'd be afraid to even touch the figure.


As for the Autobot symbol, I hate it on the chest. With MMC Sphinx I put it on one of the shoulders and would do so the same with this version. It would mean he would be without a badge in altmode, but I even prefer that, being Robots in Disguise and all.

 

Can't say for sure what you'll get, but I know a couple of us got our $50 ShowZ Speed Stars with blue ankles and no hip issues.

 

I ordered and have received three (one for me, two for a friend of mine) of this V3.0 of Mirage and had no misaligned hips or green ankles.

 

Thank you both! It definitely makes me more confident with my purchase. 

Can't wait until he is here, I'm absolutely in love with their Optimus!  

 

Just got mine from ShowZ and everything seems fine except for the right arm forearm panel not closing. There's some tension that makes it pop out. Anyone got a fix for this? I don't want to go through 167 pages looking to see if someone fixed this. Or do I start unscrewing parts and see what happens?



Edit-OK I started unscrewing parts and fixed it.

I unscrewed the forearm screw and the flap came off easy.


The hinge part had a tab that stops movement pass a certain point. I guess when everything works Thats needed but it wasn't working this time.



So I shaved it off to let the flap move past that point and fully close.



And that did the trick and now the forearm fully closes and nothing is left open.

 

Well, I finally transformed my copy. The alt mode has some weird proportions, and the legs weren't exactly fun to transform. But, I still have Sphinx if I want a good-looking race car. For a typical bot-mode display, though, Speed Star wins hands down, and at $50 (now up to $55, but hey even at $60 or $70) you'd be crazy not to get him. After looking at their renders, I can't imagine Fans Toys doing anything so dramatically different and better to justify spending triple or more what Speed Star will run you.

 

I just got mine today. Other than the forearm gap (thank you @Ultrastreak for the fix), mine is perfect. Blue ankles and no hip issues. Just transformed him to alt mode, and I think both modes look cartoon and great! I'm so glad I snagged this guy!

 

Just got mine today from ShowZ. I can't believe this guy was only $50! No issues. What a steal. He is fantastic!

 

I'm really happy to see the amount of good copies getting to people for this price point. I paid a couple of bucks under $70 and I felt he was worth it. He really did get a bad rap with his backwards hips (fixable) and later versions with that green ankle piece (not so fixable). This is a great toy that seems to know how to do that cartoon accuracy without being boring. It's cool getting to see so many new people enjoy this figure.

 

Agreed! He has so much personality!

 

Glad to see everyone caught a lucky break on these for that price!

 

Just got my $50 batch from ShowZ and its perfect in both modes!