Last December I ordered my first 3rd party Transformer figure. I chose Fansproject's Comera from their Lost Exo-Realm series. I chose this figure because she looked like she had good articulation, a good design, and wasn't overly expensive and because I might like robot ladies, get off me I don't tell you what to buy and why. Also because she's one of the few original characters that a 3rd party company made that isn't a direct rip-off of an existing character, though Dinobot Slash was released by Hasbro later that same year. So I placed an order, taking advantage of US black friday sales, and she arrived at the beginning of December! She immediately broke due to either shoddy construction, or giant clumsy ogre hands. It could be either one as afterwords I learned that ankle breakages were common for this figure. Unfortunate, but I guess that's how 3rd party figures do things. Glad I got her on sale.
Recently however, I purchased some Gorilla Glue! After using it to fix the roof of my G1 Jazz and being VERY impressed with how well it holds, I applied some to Comera's shattered ankle and taped it up so it would remain immobile. Two days later I removed the tape and now she's (almost) good as new! So despite my wounded image of this figure I can say that after finally being able to have a good look at her, she's actually pretty sweet!
I don't know if I'll continue to buy 3rd party figures. I might pick up more Fansproject stuff as they have a number of original characters that I've been interested in who are still on the market for not unreasonable prices. I might pick up Echara (Comera's sister), but I'm not gonna go down the rout of buying characters who are clear rip-offs of existing characters. But I keep seeing that Fansproject Sigma-L is still available, and that figure is seriously testing my resolve.
Sadly, due to my Gorilla Glue solution, and my aversion to wanting to move her ankle too much, Comera will never transform again. Honestly, that doesn't bother me too much since her velociraptor mode is kinda goofy looking. It's clear that she was designed with her robot mode first and raptor mode second. I mean the dino-mode hands are literally tacked on to the point where they can be removed and attached in other places. Really, all the dino-mode parts could be removed and you'd still be left with a decently articulated and sexy robot!
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I said what I said!
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