The Energon Pub

I discuss my thoughts on Toy Fair 2018 and the Transformers reveals shown officially. Studio series looks amazing, Cyberverse is a mixed bag, at best, but the stars may have been Ambonimus, Optimal Optimus and Predaking. Overall, while I have some interesting thoughts, good and bad, I was more pleased with this year's than last. Thanks for your time and support. It means so much. Please remember to SUBSCRIBE!

This is something I have often been asked about. This is also a beginners guide to filming action scenes for stop motion animation. The short answer is that there are things to consider throughout pre-production, during filming and in post production.
Pre - Decide on the goal of a scene, what you want to accomplish. Then check out the figure's range of motion. Choreograph each part of the scene, like making sub-scenes.
During - Take pictures and focus on one movement at a time , one punch, one kick or one reaction, for example.
Post - Decide the relative speed of natural movements, adjust frame rates accordingly and add audio. May even mean saving a scene, watch playback and go back to re-edit
That might sound overly simplified, but that's the basic process. yes, it is time consuming and patience is a must, but this is well worth practicing if you wish to keep getting better!

I was asked to answer a transformers questionnaire on many topics...so I did. I'd love to hear your answers though.
1. favorite figure?
2. most expensive in your collection?
3. worst figure you own/ how many are in your collection?
4. best/worst place for you to buy figures?
5. what figure do you want most?
6. what figure would you like to see made that isn't yet?
7. what is your opinion on ko's?
8. favorite character?
9. what's your favorite tf show?
10. love or hate the movies?
11. Was Hot Rod responsible for Prime's death in the 86 movie?

A fun little stop motion take on the class late-night talk show genre with Cybertron Tonight - Starring Springer. His guests include Optimus Prime and Hound, each discussing upcoming toys in the Siege and Masterpiece lines!
All goes well until the audience participation section of the program when a surprise guest in the crowd reveals his true identity!
It is absolutely ridiculous...enjoy!

Since this is both NYCC 2018 weekend AND Canadian Thanksgiving...here's my thoughts about the Transformers toy reveals from the con and how excited I find myself for a lot more coming up than I expected to be, I'd count that as something to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

I personally LOVED the Bumbebee movie....and I have never, ever liked the character before! However, objectively speaking, there is the good, the bad and the...awkward!
Spolier free first 5 minutes.

The 2018 Holiday haul of Transformers! Everything from a heat reactive mug, to the Beast Machines box set, to, ornaments, to power of the primes Inferno to Combiner Wars Liokaiser and MORE!

Hi there! Awesome haul. Wanted to share something similar, but I'm having issues embedding my YT link. Pasting my embed link doesn't show on my preview. How do you do it?

I used to have the same problem. Your link probably starts with https://youtu.be/ followed by a series of letters. Well, highlight the letters and cut them. The rest of the link can then be deleted. When you start a post, there is a series of buttons you can use. 1 of them is for a set of YouTube tags, or bumpers, or whatever you want to call them. The bumpers look something like this
[youtube][/youtube] Now, simply put your cursor between them and paste the part if the link you previously cut. Hit post and you're done. I hope that helps.

Following my look at Siege Ultra Magnus, MANY people asked how I successfully removed the battle damage paint apps, so many in fact that I was asked to show the process step-by-step. So, since I still had Megatron and Optimus to go, I figured why not do just that, as well as, explain several other customizing options I did to make both of them just that much more G1 accurate...especially Optimus' truck cab. Hope it helps those seeking to do the same thing.

After a few requests, here is a long overdue discussion of the Transformers (official and unofficial) toy rumors and reveals in 2019 so far and the outlook for collections as the year unfolds. Here in part 1 I discuss the new we hear in January.

My Transformers 2019 toy reveals and rumors discussion rolls on with part 2! This time, we look at the news that came in early February as we draw closer to a couple of major toy conventions. This covers, again, official and unofficial AND will serve to only further address the outlook for the year ahead for collectors!

My Transformers 2019 Reveals and Rumors discussion continues with part 3 and covers what we saw coming from Japan at Wonder Festival!

The 4th and FINAL part of my 2019 Transformers toy reveals/rumors discussion focuses on what we saw coming out of Toy Fair. I also, finally, give a score for how I think the outlook is shaping up for collectors as we move boldly through the rest of the year!

Discussing my reactions to reveals from TfCon LA 2019!

So, coming off the heels of mine and Starscream Wife's wedding, a few odds and ends items seemed like they could be lumped into one little review, who knows, maybe you too will have a formal occasion where you too want to let your geek side shine!

While it is personal to everyone and depends on how they collect, we all have had our "Holy Grail" toys, those that we, as collectors, have craved and hunted for for a long time. Mine keeps changing and has at one time or another ranged from deluxe class figures to titans. But, who is the grail of grails? Who is your holy grail transformer toy?

In my latest livestream I discussed a Custom Siege Blaster I am working on, , the art of toy reviewing but most importantly, a couple of reveals, a few rumors and a possible Siege Ratchet street date that came by my ears.

In this week's livestream show we talked about a surprise pick up, a question from Starscream wife, the next Universal Collision trailer, and first impressions from SDCC, TFCon and Unicron.

The last week has introduced a lot of chaos among transformers fans (pardon the pun) with the announcement of Unicron. And, if you are anything like me, there has been so much information dispensed that it has become very overwhelming to try to digest it all. Two very different sides have lined up - backers and non-backers, with several folks on the fence. So, in the spirit of fairness, and because both sides have a barrage of valid points, I went back to find as many boards, news posts with discussions and comments all across various social media to try to amass as many of the arguments, BOTH for and against, AND objective and subjective, as I possibly could. The point here is merely to provide as broad an overview of both sides of the debate as I can for anyone who feels like they could use such a summary of both sides. Herein, "GotBot" will argue for backing this project, and "Dennis" will argue against it. It is a comprehensive summary of the arguments for both sides though may not be exhaustive. It's about high time we give the devil, his due, even though it is giving me a split personality!

Sticking with the wave of recent reveals, the third party train rolls up with many showings coming out of Tf Con Toronto. However, just how impressive were the reveals? How much of it was a rehash of things we had seen before? What companies were missing? And, perhaps most interestingly, does this give us an idea about what the future of 3P collecting might be??

With SDCC out of the way, as well as its many Transformers that were on display, I am left wondering...was it worth the Hype? Outside of it being the obvious Unicron show, what else did we see and how much of it was actually new reveals?

The livestream this week focused on many topics, including my thoughts about SS Helicopter Drift and MP-10 G Ghostbuster Prime, as well as invlovment this week with "Around 30 Minutes" and the SITREP, plus Starscream Wife joins in the show and plays "Who's that Bot?"

So, in response to a request, and to add to my stop motion tutorials for beginners, here's a look at one easy way to handle driving and transformations. I like to call it how to Transform and Roll-out! Note: These techniques are meant for those who are just starting out. Are there better, different or more advanced techniques? For sure, but for someone looking to get started in stop motion, a few hints on how to handle these things might just help....plus, I was lucky enough to have Siege Springer take time out of his busy schedule to help me out!

This week in the live show, we go over the reveals from ACG Hong Kong and Wonder Fest from Tokyo, as well as a few others, and ask if those showings were more impressive than SDCC this year. We also recap the entire story arc for the stop motion series Transformers: Universal Collision season 1 before the premiere of season 2 tomorrow!