The Energon Pub

Any meaning behind the stickers posted on the front page?

Down_Shift wrote:Any meaning behind the stickers posted on the front page?

Do you mean the stickers on the first page of Whirl's gallery? If so ... that's his sticker sheet!

Seibertron wrote:

Down_Shift wrote:Any meaning behind the stickers posted on the front page?

Do you mean the stickers on the first page of Whirl's gallery? If so ... that's his sticker sheet!

I think he means the two stickers in this image:

Va'al wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Down_Shift wrote:Any meaning behind the stickers posted on the front page?

Do you mean the stickers on the first page of Whirl's gallery? If so ... that's his sticker sheet!

I think he means the two stickers in this image:

Reference to Wild Bill from GI Joe.

CW-4 stands for Chief Warrant Officer.

Thanks guys! That was exactly what I was wondering.

As someone who grew up during Beast Wars and hasn't really ever seen a physical G1 toy, I'm always surprised to see their sizes compared to current toys. The ones I think are smaller always end up being much larger, and the ones that seemed big are actually pretty small...
'Course, I think here I simply assumed "Deluxe Vehicle" was the same as "Deluxe Class".

Noideaforaname wrote:
As someone who grew up during Beast Wars and hasn't really ever seen a physical G1 toy, I'm always surprised to see their sizes compared to current toys. The ones I think are smaller always end up being much larger, and the ones that seemed big are actually pretty small...
'Course, I think here I simply assumed "Deluxe Vehicle" was the same as "Deluxe Class".

In both cases, "Deluxe" means "larger than the standard toys" and it shows. The current "Deluxe Class" name stems from Beast Wars, when Hasbro first used fixed prices and toy sizes. The lowest was "Basic", the next "Deluxe", up to "Mega" and "Ultra". Nowadays, the main line starts with "Deluxe" so it kinda lost meaning.

Noideaforaname wrote:
As someone who grew up during Beast Wars and hasn't really ever seen a physical G1 toy, I'm always surprised to see their sizes compared to current toys. The ones I think are smaller always end up being much larger, and the ones that seemed big are actually pretty small...
'Course, I think here I simply assumed "Deluxe Vehicle" was the same as "Deluxe Class".

I've always wondered why they called those "Deluxe Vehicles". I'm assuming the term "deluxe" when applied to Transformers toys has a different connotation than it means to most toys or it lost its original meaning through the years. In the case of G1 Whirl and Roadbuster, I'm assuming "deluxe" referred to their significantly larger size than figures like Prowl, Shrapnel, and Bumblebee as well as the inclusion of many weapons and accessories. G1 Whirl comes with 4 large guns and Roadbuster has about 10 accessories from missiles, guns, vehicle attachments, etc. The term "deluxe" still gets applied to other toy lines, most notably action figure toy lines, where you usually see the same basic figure but with additional accessories, flight packs, outfits, armor, or whatever.

Now that we got a balls-to-the wall update for Whirl, I can't help but wonder how long it will be before we get a proper Generations Voyager Roadbuster.

I'm surprised that we got a Whirl that is so faithful to the G1 version. While I like the toy, it's almost too faithful to the G1 version ... it even includes a loose ball joint shoulder just like the original! While I like the new version of Whirl, I wish they had done something different with the legs to make them more poseable (that or I'm doing something wrong with his poses that seems to limit what he can do).

My surprise favorite of the new arrivals yesterday? Armada Starscream. I haven't really cared much for him up until I opened him. He's a great toy ... very poseable. It's a very nice figure. My surprise disappoint yesterday? Scoop. I was very excited about him when I saw him last year at SDCC. I thought he looked awesome. Unfortunately, his vehicle mode isn't very sturdy and it's a really basic transformation. Plus the light yellow is odd ... I wish they had used a darker yellow. Hopefully Takara Tomy does something better with his color scheme.

Noideaforaname wrote:

Sidenote about my G1 Whirl toy. His stickers were pretty bad. So I had removed them a few years ago ... probably the last time I had to pull him out for a gallery comparison (maybe Movie Whirl or Universe Whirl or something). I removed the stickers with the intention of getting repro labels or something to spruce him up. I forgot that I had done this and had put Whirl back in storage years ago without ever doing this and long before we ever got wind of a new Whirl toy. The toy itself is in great condition (except for the very loose ball jointed shoulders). I was surprised when I pulled him out of storage yesterday to see that he was missing all of his stickers! I ordered an original set of stickers off eBay yesterday from wheeljackslab so that I could make him look perfect. I'll have to ponder what to do about the ball joints. I don't want to use super glue. I have one on eBay that I'm selling currently in the Seibertron.com store that I tried to fix by taking him apart and applying a few layers of clear coat but that didn't do the trick either. Maybe it just needed even more layers of clear coat.

Looks amazing! And an excellent gallery as always. I can't wait to get mine, just waiting for BBTS to fill my Skids preorder so I can ship.

I was going to pass on this guy, but after seeing the gallery, especially his guns and walking mech alt mode, I'm totally digging it! Nice job, St.com, you convinced me to buy something I wasn't wanting originally.

This might be inspired by elements of G1, Classics and IDW, but I think the end result is distinctly G1 so I'll be skipping this guy. I suppose it is a nice looking figure though.

Well, I know one mode I won't be utilizing (hint: it's the Heliped/GERWALK mode). The chance of me getting Whirl has increased after viewing the gallery, though, so there's that.

Sooo.. since Takatoku went under in the 80's, who owns the rights to the Dorvack?

And wouldn't the owners be a little upset about this release since it so closely resembles the original toy? I might be missing something here, can anyone enlighten me?

JaffleMaker wrote:Sooo.. since Takatoku went under in the 80's, who owns the rights to the Dorvack?

And wouldn't the owners be a little upset about this release since it so closely resembles the original toy? I might be missing something here, can anyone enlighten me?

In a nutshell: Takatoku Toys was bought out by Bandai, so they own the original toy designs and molds. Bandai subsequently licensed some molds to Hasbro for Transformers as it wasn't a major player in the US market at the time.
About it resembling the original toy so much, my theory is that by law, it's not completely based on the original, therefore not a complete ripoff. Instead, the design comes more directly from other sources including the comics commissioned by Hasbro. By law, this would render Hasbro the owner of the design of the toy. The same can be said for Megatron's little Chop Shop.

We actually had a nice little discussion about it in a different thread.

hes mistransformed here! i found that you can collapse his arms into his shoulders tightening the joints and fixing his proportions. spread the word!

He looks cool, but I think he would look better if you would flip the legs by 180° in bot-mode so he has normal knees. I think the inverted knees are only for the Valkyre mode, as they make no functional sense in the humanoid bot-mode.
Plus I believe that's what's supposed to be done.

spark crusher wrote:hes mistransformed here! i found that you can collapse his arms into his shoulders tightening the joints and fixing his proportions. spread the word!

whirl.jpg

Can you show a close-up of the shoulder joint? I can't tell what you did to "collapse his arms into his shoulders".

yeah, sure. you just push the black post with the ball on into the torso. sorry for the crap pictures, its difficult to show. just make sure the bumpy bit on the black shoulder bar (see pic 2) is facing down so he still has shoulder articulation.

spark crusher wrote:yeah, sure. you just push the black post with the ball on into the torso. sorry for the crap pictures, its difficult to show. just make sure the bumpy bit on the black shoulder bar (see pic 2) is facing down so he still has shoulder articulation.

1whirl.jpg

whirl2.JPG

whirl3.JPG

Wow! Thanks for the pics. The "ball joint" literally does push in. That's hilarious. No wonder why the left shoulder "ball joint" is loose because there's very little friction because the ball is supposed to be pushed in and is only there for transformation. The instructions do not show this step, which I just double checked.

As for Dead Metal's comments about Whirl's legs ... they are supposed to be inverted knees like that because that's how he looks in the current comics. I figured out something with his knees though that allow for additional poseability (it's basically a double jointed knee which I didn't realize in my initial photographs). Taking advantage of this double joint system allows for some addition poseability that you can't really do with just one knee joint.

You can reverse the legs if you want but the feet look really awkward with one support in the front and two supports in the back. I do think that the upper legs are misassembled. Hasbro and Takara are usually really good about making sure the front and sides of the robot modes don't show hollow plastic. The way the legs are show hollow spots on the sides of the upper legs but the upper legs look much better when turned around 180 degrees. Just the knees are awkward as are the feet when you do this.

I might have to take a few more pics of his robot mode to show off both of these things.

I'm swapping the legs ... knocking pins out now.

Seibertron wrote:

spark crusher wrote:yeah, sure. you just push the black post with the ball on into the torso. sorry for the crap pictures, its difficult to show. just make sure the bumpy bit on the black shoulder bar (see pic 2) is facing down so he still has shoulder articulation.

1whirl.jpg

whirl2.JPG

whirl3.JPG

Wow! Thanks for the pics. The "ball joint" literally does push in. That's hilarious. No wonder why the left shoulder "ball joint" is loose because there's very little friction because the ball is supposed to be pushed in and is only there for transformation. The instructions do not show this step, which I just double checked.

As for Dead Metal's comments about Whirl's legs ... they are supposed to be inverted knees like that because that's how he looks in the current comics. I figured out something with his knees though that allow for additional poseability (it's basically a double jointed knee which I didn't realize in my initial photographs). Taking advantage of this double joint system allows for some addition poseability that you can't really do with just one knee joint.

You can reverse the legs if you want but the feet look really awkward with one support in the front and two supports in the back. I do think that the upper legs are misassembled. Hasbro and Takara are usually really good about making sure the front and sides of the robot modes don't show hollow plastic. The way the legs are show hollow spots on the sides of the upper legs but the upper legs look much better when turned around 180 degrees. Just the knees are awkward as are the feet when you do this.

I might have to take a few more pics of his robot mode to show off both of these things.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the inverted knees where an option. Which makes sense, since if you turn them around, you get his "ski" feet the G1 toy has.
The current comic version having inverted knees isn't really a good argument, considering that it's a completely different design, including leg design.

The leg design is closer to Movie Starscream than this Whirl, since it's based on the G1 toy and not the comics bizarrely enough.
But I have no idea what the toy would look like with the legs turned that way, because nobody ever takes pics of them that way, and just goes off of the stock photos, which is hilarious considering the track-record those have with accurately portraying the toy's intended look.

Seibertron wrote:I'm swapping the legs ... knocking pins out now.

Doh! No need to knock out any pins. You can just pop off the upper legs, but that doesn't work because the legs won't be in the right position for transformation. I have to think about this some more.

Dead Metal wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

spark crusher wrote:yeah, sure. you just push the black post with the ball on into the torso. sorry for the crap pictures, its difficult to show. just make sure the bumpy bit on the black shoulder bar (see pic 2) is facing down so he still has shoulder articulation.

1whirl.jpg

whirl2.JPG

whirl3.JPG

Wow! Thanks for the pics. The "ball joint" literally does push in. That's hilarious. No wonder why the left shoulder "ball joint" is loose because there's very little friction because the ball is supposed to be pushed in and is only there for transformation. The instructions do not show this step, which I just double checked.

As for Dead Metal's comments about Whirl's legs ... they are supposed to be inverted knees like that because that's how he looks in the current comics. I figured out something with his knees though that allow for additional poseability (it's basically a double jointed knee which I didn't realize in my initial photographs). Taking advantage of this double joint system allows for some addition poseability that you can't really do with just one knee joint.

You can reverse the legs if you want but the feet look really awkward with one support in the front and two supports in the back. I do think that the upper legs are misassembled. Hasbro and Takara are usually really good about making sure the front and sides of the robot modes don't show hollow plastic. The way the legs are show hollow spots on the sides of the upper legs but the upper legs look much better when turned around 180 degrees. Just the knees are awkward as are the feet when you do this.

I might have to take a few more pics of his robot mode to show off both of these things.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the inverted knees where an option. Which makes sense, since if you turn them around, you get his "ski" feet the G1 toy has.
The current comic version having inverted knees isn't really a good argument, considering that it's a completely different design, including leg design.

The leg design is closer to Movie Starscream than this Whirl, since it's based on the G1 toy and not the comics bizarrely enough.
But I have no idea what the toy would look like with the legs turned that way, because nobody ever takes pics of them that way, and just goes off of the stock photos, which is hilarious considering the track-record those have with accurately portraying the toy's intended look.

I took some pics for you of the legs inverted and with the shoulders properly transformed. I'll upload the pics later tonight.

I was sort of unsure as to getting this figure but I've always liked Whirl as a character and this figure looks super sharp so I will be scooping this one.

I was stoked when I got Sandstorm and Springer so I'm pretty sure this guy won't disappoint!