The Energon Pub

Wolfman Jake wrote:

shajaki wrote:This is only a problem for those who have some sort of objection towards 3rd parties.

Hell, I think the 3P's have already done MP's of the Monsterbots.

Well, a lot of people have some sort of objection towards 3rd party products. They're not official. No matter how much they may try to ape the "Masterpiece" work of Takara, they're not made by the same people and are technically not sold under that label either. They may fill gaps in a display to the undiscerning eye, but they will never "complete" the actual Masterpiece line as officially sold by Takara.

Well, that's for ea h collection for to decide for themselves. But yeah, if you do have an issue with 3rd party figures, your jut out if luck, and it might be time to change direction in your collection.

Emerje wrote:Combiners are really only a small part of the problem. What do you do about mini vehicles that don't necessarily have a real world equivalent like Cosmos and Seaspray? Making Bumblebee's VW Bug mode a little smaller scale than the rest of the MP cars is one thing, but what about the tiny robots that turn into massive alt modes? I don't know how they'll pull that off in MP. Or what about Powerglide, how do you make him work with both bot scale and still make him look OK next to the Seekers? I'll really be surprised if these three are ever given the MP treatment.

Emerje

I'm pretty sure that alt mode scale is not Takara's concern with Masterpiece. It's all about robot mode. Shockwave and MP-36 Megatron are ENORMOUS in alt mode compared to their appearances in fiction. Even for a real world gun replica, Megatron is still too big to be accurate. A small plane Powerglide is probably not much of a problem, honestly. I'm more worried about triple changers, honestly. Getting three "screen perfect" modes in one figure is going to be VERY hard. What Takara comes up with will probably cost quite a bit to cover the R&D costs and that fact that many triple changers don't have a lot of repaint or retooling options.

I'd expect triple changers to come up to bw megs cost if they happen at all. It's a shame but I'm doubt we'll ever see a mp Astrotrain.

Emerje wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:I'm pretty sure that alt mode scale is not Takara's concern with Masterpiece. It's all about robot mode. Shockwave and MP-36 Megatron are ENORMOUS in alt mode compared to their appearances in fiction. Even for a real world gun replica, Megatron is still too big to be accurate. A small plane Powerglide is probably not much of a problem, honestly.

I'm not entirely sure I agree. Yes, bot mode is more important than alt mode, but they seem to try to keep similar alt modes in scale as well. All of the Autobot cars are pretty close to the correct scale (except for Bee), the Seekers' cockpits are about the same size as Saber's jet mode, and Soundwave and Megatron's alt mode are re-world 1/1 scale (MP-36 is a proper sized hand gun, but not a real world gun so they can mess with the shape a bit, MP-3 is very oversized). I think comparable alt modes are a bit of an issue.

I don't agree about MP-36. It's not just wonky proportions or embelished shapes, since he's based on a modified Walther P38, a real life handgun. I recall when Masterpiece MP-36 Megatron first came out last year, someone on the boards here posted comparison pics with an actual Walther P38. The Masterpiece figure is still quite a bit bigger than the real deal, though admittedly, not as absurdly as the MP-5 Megatron release. (Side Note: Takara should have waited a bit longer to release Megatron as MP-38. That would have been perfect! )

Emerje wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:I'm more worried about triple changers, honestly. Getting three "screen perfect" modes in one figure is going to be VERY hard. What Takara comes up with will probably cost quite a bit to cover the R&D costs and that fact that many triple changers don't have a lot of repaint or retooling options.

There's plenty they can do. Astrotrain's got cartoon colors and cartoon head, purple and white with toy head, and black and white with toy head. Blitzwing has cartoon/toy colors and Diaclone gray and green (Overcharge).

Emerje

Yeah, Astrotrain and Blitzwing would be about the only ones Takara could get multiple uses out of. Then, come Springer, Sandstorm, Broadside, and Octane. What then? At least since those guys are all "Season 3" characters, it'll probably be a long while until we get to them. Astrotrain and Blitzwing will almost certainly have priority in the release schedule.