Anyone having trouble sending an email on here? A big thank you to pwrdoff for selling me his SOC Voltron. I cant write back in email to say thank you! I will take good care of him Now I can display both in Voltron form and have the lions next to him! Thank you again.
Hats off to pwrdoff for helping out the fellow forum community. Glad you could find your SOC Voltron a good home
Anyone see the preorder pics of the die cast Voltron LD figure yet? Voltron The Legendary Defender Lion Die-Cast Figure - Case of 5 - Voltron Figures So are they the actual Die Case lions or are they just using placeholder pics?
They look a little bit like 3D printed prototypes. But that may just be from how grainy those pics are.
Just noticed that too...and I think those are the actual die-cast figures. You definitely need to squint to see the differences though; apart from a more anime-accurate chest, they really are downscaled versions of the original. I'm curious to see what collectors think of this one. The die-cast and smaller footprint are draws, but the proportion issues might be less forgivable on a collector's piece than a toy. $100 is not a particularly bad price if the build-quality is ok.
Keep in mind with modern production techniques we typically no longer see unique or completely individual sculpts for something like this. Playmates is working off the 3D models used to render the show. Scaling, beyond some engineering design work is simply a function of what size you send to the 3D printer.
Preordered! I did 1 set, but was contemplating maybe getting 2 and keeping one sealed up. I have the larger ones already but I kept those sealed in their packaging. Maybe I'll change it later. Thank you for letting us know. I was on their site early today but didn't see that on there.
Youll have to give us your impressions. I had this toy earlier, but there were some quality control issues so I returned it. I ended up getting 2 Soc Voltrons, but I still want this figure. I noticed the prices are coming down especially on eBAY. I got a couple sellers to come down to $330 shipped. If I can get this around $200-$250 I think I"ll bite. Do you mind me asking you what you paid for this and where? I would def love to hear your thoughts on this guy. There aren't many reviews of this toy out there. Thank you.
I threw down a pre-order for the diecast 5 piece set. I'm in wait-and-see mode at the moment. I was really bummed on the size of the current combining lions as I just don't have anywhere to display/store a set of that size at the moment. Hopefully this set warrants the 100 price tag at 8".
That's my initial reaction as well. This is a mass market retail toy by a 'cheap kid's toys' company so that price seems steep. I want to assume it'll be cheaper at stores like Target but so far BBTS has had only marginally higher prices on their Playmates Voltron toys. But this all just me pissing in the wind since I can't imagine myself NOT buying it, even at $100. -_- I'll just remain optimistic that it'll be a solid toy and worth the price.
im going to hold off buying a LD voltron until they get it look better/be more proportional to the show. I dont like the look of what they are selling right now.
I didn't have time to go through each lion's pose-ability but my first impressions in combined form...this guy is pretty awesome but not perfect. He's much bigger than I thought he'd be which was a nice surprise. He has many points of articulation for great poses but in some places wish it was more. The ankle tilt could be more but better than nothing. The arms are a bit awkward to pose. There's a swivel below the elbow, they need a swivel above the elbow joint unless it's there and I didn't use enough force. The shoulder joint was pretty clever and allows him to hold his arms almost straight out sideways. The hip swivel is lacking, almost non existent but it's there. My biggest gripe so far...because of the sculpt of the ball joint, his head will not turn perfectly sideways and he'll be looking upwards. This may not matter to others but kinda kills side shots. Also his wings are disproportionate they should be bigger. The sculpt of each lion's paws kinda suck. They look like they're wearing socks but should be more claw like. Paint overall is good, the colors are metallic but if you over study it you'll see where they cheaped out. I bought mine from TFsource and paid $400. I feel like it should be $300-350ish but I had a $200 credit so it didn't hit the wallet in one shot. Even with his imperfections he's worth owning and I'm happy with my purchase. If you can pick him up for 300-350 or less even better!
Quick correction there is a swivel above the elbow also. It's so ridiculously tight I didn't think it would move. Arms are much better to pose now.
I want this figure again! I just don't want to pay what they are asking. I really do love the way it looks and the colors of the paint apps. I don't know if I can wait until or if it will go down to what I'm willing to pay. I have yet to see any used ones on ebay although I did see a couple used Soc voltrons on there. Thank you for your thoughts and updates. We all appreciate it.
Well I think it's too much because it's only the size of an SRC and for $10-20 more you can get the much bigger plastic combining lions. In addition, the diecast versions seem to be merely scaled down versions of the plastic lions but with diecast metal. If the proportions, say for the arms, were changed, or if anything were changed design-wise aside from material, I'd be more inclined to get the diecast one. As is, I'd rather get the larger plastic combining lions. Especially if the diecast black lion can't turn its head in Voltron mode.
I imagine modern design and production tools make life easier in general...easier to do the same in less time, or more in the same amount of time. I look at "second run" efforts like MP Grapple or even the more extensive remolds we've seen in Combiner Wars/Titans Return and see perhaps, a bit more "extra mile." Not that this looks bad...
I think you are misunderstanding what I mean about scaling up and down. Don't necesarily assume that the die cast will be jointed the same as the plastic. I'm sure they aren't simply moving the slider bar to change its size, and call it a day. Both designs will start from the same place. The actual raw 3d rendered model that they use on screen. So there isn't any real sculpting and shaping like there used to be. Any version of the figure will start from the same basic shape. The curves will be the same, in the same places etc. The Toy designer than slices it up to add in things like jointing, and to allow for production. So different pieces can be made from molds. so the individual pieces that make up the Die Cast Lion will be very different than the larger plastic. They would need to be just because of needed tooling differences in production. But the end result will be much closer in shape than we are used to seeing. and yeah the ability to use the CGI Models to create masters from greatly reduces development time. Plus it makes the licensors much less picky when you send in a prototype for review. The Hidden downside is it recreates the shape seen on screen in 3 dimensions, which sometimes looks weird as sometimes the models are really designed to be viewed on a 2d medium. Probably the best examples of this are two of the Star Trek ships. The 1701-D and Voyager. Often if you get a toy or model of one of these ships it looks weird to your eye. The forward saucer sections seem bigger and more oblong than you think they should be, while the engine nacelles seem smaller than your brain tells you they should be. It's because the models were created for TV. A medium that has a fairly limited depth of field. So the models were deliberately made with a bit of forced perspective built in to give the illusion of greater depth. The front of the ship is bigger than the rear to reinforce the illusion that it is coming towards you on TV. But when you get the model created from the actual CGI in hand, it looks odd. I suspect there might be a little bit of that happening with Voltron as well. Especially with the arms. Which is why the arms on the toys feel a bit like Popeye's arms.
