The Energon Pub

I've watched and re-watched the last few episodes of Beast Hunters, mainly to find good images of Optimus to help me with my kitbash. This also made me want Beast Fire Predaking even more. When I discovered that Beast Fire Predaking's price had dropped from 50 to 37.49 on Toysrus.co.uk AND they offered free shipping (I don't live near a store) I jumped on it and bought one. Unfortunately he's a bit crap, certainly not worth the original price, in my opinion.

-Dragon mode: lame because, thanks to that neck gimmick, he's constantly looking up. What on earth could he ever have to look UP at? He's too big to need to look up. He has only slightly more articulation in this mode than a car TF.

-Transformation: pull his tail off, stand him up and remove his hat. Pathetically simple and completely uninteresting. I don't mind simple if it's still interesting, like Classics Windcharger.

-Robot mode: average poseability. Ankle ball joints are so limited that balance can be a problem. Wings can't be folded away to replicate the cartoon. Lack of ball joint neck really hurts this figure.

There are a lot of things I'd like to improve about this figure, but I'm not sure all my ideas are practical. Having said all that he looks very impressive standing (looming) near Megatron so I think he's worth the discount price for that and I don't regret buying him.

This is a shame. I really like the TFP Predaking character design. The Voyager class toy looks great to me but I think that to be of appropriate stature to match up on display with Deluxe and Voyager TFP/BH toys, Predaking needs to be Leader class size or so.

What are some of your ideas for improving the toy?

I say kitbash him in a way that his robot-mode become useless, basically make his dragon mode as close to the toon as possible while giving him more articulation in it. Then use that for Dragon-mode displays and use the Voyager for bot-mode displays, since he shrinks while transforming to bot-mode.

Maybe cut his neck apart and use ball-joints to make it super pose-able.

In dragon mode he is way to small for my collection, in robot mode he is perhaps a little on the tall side but scales much better. Turn a TF into a non-TF? No thanks! I want both modes.

Ideas:
-Neck articulation (rectangular cross section makes this a challenge, I may have to settle for removing the springs and adding a single ball joint under the head,
-tail articulation (time consuming, boring, repetitive),
-Split lower jaw (not much room, very tricky),
-finger articulation (ten fingers, time consuming, boring, repetitive),
-Ball joint head in robot mode,
-scratch built arm weapon.

That's all I've got so far, although it's a long enough list! I'm concentrating on finishing BH OP, who also needed many mods.

Oh yes, more wing articulation as well.

Convotron wrote:The Voyager class toy looks great to me but I think that to be of appropriate stature to match up on display with Deluxe and Voyager TFP/BH toys, Predaking needs to be Leader class size or so.

Predaking isn't much taller than Megatron in robot mode on the show; why not display the Voyager like that?

PrymeStriker wrote:

Convotron wrote:The Voyager class toy looks great to me but I think that to be of appropriate stature to match up on display with Deluxe and Voyager TFP/BH toys, Predaking needs to be Leader class size or so.

Predaking isn't much taller than Megatron in robot mode on the show; why not display the Voyager like that?

Cos they'll be the same height! The larger one does look very nice as a display piece next to Meg and Screamer.

He's not dissapointing, you can take of his wings in robot mode to have a somewhat more accurate screen appearence. And if you do some tinkering with the figure, invisible wires, you can have him better posed.

Mykltron wrote:

PrymeStriker wrote:

Convotron wrote:The Voyager class toy looks great to me but I think that to be of appropriate stature to match up on display with Deluxe and Voyager TFP/BH toys, Predaking needs to be Leader class size or so.

Predaking isn't much taller than Megatron in robot mode on the show; why not display the Voyager like that?

Cos they'll be the same height!.

Voyager Predaking is [a little bit more than] half a head taller than Voyager Megatron, while in the show he's around a full head. Not that big a deal...

Fair point.

It won't work on my shelf though, because I extend Megatron's feet a bit to make him taller so he wasn't dwarfed by FE OP. Why oh why do they always make Megatron too small?