The Energon Pub

I locked em both down at BBTS to mull it over. Might cancel Swoop after doing some image comparisons with old blue. Ricochet is a keep and his deco is slick. That side flame gives me a bit of hot wheels vibes though. Love the deco

DecepticonFinishline wrote:I wouldn't mind that, actually. It could help me pretend that Red Swoop and Blue Swoop are different characters. Like Jet Blast Off and Shuttle Blast Off. *Shrug emoji*

I'm weird when it comes to things like that. If a repaint is clearly a new character, I'm all for it. If it is 2 toys with the *same name* but are clearly different molds, I can work with that too.

Its just that when 2 toys, have the same name, and are from the same mold (only the paint is different)...I can't work with it, unless I can easily re imagine it such as Golden Lagoon Starscream, I can easily pass as Sunstorm.

I think I'm the only one who thinks Stepper is still a prototype.

o.supreme wrote:

DecepticonFinishline wrote:I wouldn't mind that, actually. It could help me pretend that Red Swoop and Blue Swoop are different characters. Like Jet Blast Off and Shuttle Blast Off. *Shrug emoji*

I'm weird when it comes to things like that. If a repaint is clearly a new character, I'm all for it. If it is 2 toys with the *same name* but are clearly different molds, I can work with that too.

Its just that when 2 toys, have the same name, and are from the same mold (only the paint is different)...I can't work with it, unless I can easily re imagine it such as Golden Lagoon Starscream, I can easily pass as Sunstorm.

Blue Swoop is Swoop, Red Swoop is "The Veteran".

carytheone wrote:I locked em both down at BBTS to mull it over. Might cancel Swoop after doing some image comparisons with old blue.

I did some comparisons too. From what I can tell, Red Swoop is only different in two ways. One is obvious. All of the blue paint on the torso from the regular retail release of Power of the Primes Swoop is swapped with red paint on this new version. The only other difference is that they picked out the "teeth" from the sculpted lower jaw on the torso with gold! It looks nice. That detail is easily missed in the regular retail version, as they're painted over in blue with the rest of the torso. Everything else is seemingly the same, including the tampographs on the chest, the turquoise lines on the wrists, and the blue eyes on the face.

Sabrblade wrote:Blue Swoop is Swoop, Red Swoop is "The Veteran".

Or Ptero!

NO! It has to be another name that begins with a S!

I think I'll call Red Swoop Autobot Divebomb and have him be a past version of blue swoop.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

carytheone wrote:I locked em both down at BBTS to mull it over. Might cancel Swoop after doing some image comparisons with old blue.

I did some comparisons too. From what I can tell, Red Swoop is only different in two ways. One is obvious. All of the blue paint on the torso from the regular retail release of Power of the Primes Swoop is swapped with red paint on this new version. The only other difference is that they picked out the "teeth" from the sculpted lower jaw on the torso with gold! It looks nice. That detail is easily missed in the regular retail version, as they're painted over in blue with the rest of the torso. Everything else is seemingly the same, including the tampographs on the chest, the turquoise lines on the wrists, and the blue eyes on the face.

Sabrblade wrote:Blue Swoop is Swoop, Red Swoop is "The Veteran".

Or Ptero!

1. That's blue/red plastic you're talking about with the torso, not paint. His torso isn't die-cast like G1 Swoop's
2. That's.. that's not a "sculpted lower jaw" on the torso o.O It's just greebling. What gave the impression it was a sculpted lower jaw?
3. What about the lack of gold paint on the inner face of the upper beak?

EDIT: What is it with that glitch of an extra closing quote tag randomly getting inserted in layered quotes?

RiddlerJ wrote:NO! It has to be another name that begins with a S!

Strafe?

I had hoped since PotP was still young that they'd release red Swoop eventually. I love the look of blue Swoop and want to display him separately while the red one creates a more color coordinated Volcanicus. Wish granted it seems! Ricochet looks amazing and is an easy buy, but I am infinitely disappointed they didn't give him a Targetmaster partner. The molds are available. Total missed opportunity.

Lore Keeper wrote:I had hoped since PotP was still young that they'd release red Swoop eventually. I love the look of blue Swoop and want to display him separately while the red one creates a more color coordinated Volcanicus. Wish granted it seems! Ricochet looks amazing and is an easy buy, but I am infinitely disappointed they didn't give him a Targetmaster partner. The molds are available. Total missed opportunity.

Yeah, well, Hasbro's anal about their price uniformity and has been for ages.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

RiddlerJ wrote:NO! It has to be another name that begins with a S!

Strafe?

There's a thought, although he might get mixed up with Grimlock's son by the same name.

ZeroWolf wrote:I think I'll call Red Swoop Autobot Divebomb and have him be a past version of blue swoop.

Marvelous. Simply marvelous.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Lore Keeper wrote:I had hoped since PotP was still young that they'd release red Swoop eventually. I love the look of blue Swoop and want to display him separately while the red one creates a more color coordinated Volcanicus. Wish granted it seems! Ricochet looks amazing and is an easy buy, but I am infinitely disappointed they didn't give him a Targetmaster partner. The molds are available. Total missed opportunity.

Yeah, well, Hasbro's anal about their price uniformity and has been for ages.

Not when it comes to exclusives, but it looks like Selects will follow the traditional Size Classes, as it is, for all intents and purposes, like a regular line.

Wolfman Jake wrote:I did some comparisons too. From what I can tell, Red Swoop is only different in two ways. One is obvious. All of the blue paint on the torso from the regular retail release of Power of the Primes Swoop is swapped with red paint on this new version. The only other difference is that they picked out the "teeth" from the sculpted lower jaw on the torso with gold! It looks nice. That detail is easily missed in the regular retail version, as they're painted over in blue with the rest of the torso. Everything else is seemingly the same, including the tampographs on the chest, the turquoise lines on the wrists, and the blue eyes on the face.

Actually, it looks to me like they also left the dino head as clear only without the gold under paint.

Man, with all of this and the news involving WfC and its potential version of Greenlight, Slamdance, & Skywarp, I can't help but be excited.

When it comes to my thoughts, Swoop looks pretty good in red, (Rwoop? Sroop? eh...) but it'll be a hard sell considering I do actually perfer the blue cartoon acurate colors. Might get this one and repurpose it as another character. Maybe someone related to Slash?

Then there's Ricochet, who, holy cow he looks fantastic. He rocks the Jazz mold like it's nothing at all. Does somewhat suck that he doesn't have his targetmaster partner, but they could release him in siege seperatly, and it's not like battlemasters cost much.

Now my hopes for Artic Megatron are even higher. But now my question is, who's next?

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:My hopes for this line:
* Combiner-limb Sideswipe from the CW Breakdown mold (To complete the homage to "Masquerade")
* Combiner-limb Windcharger from either the same, the Wheeljack variant, or the Dead End mold (Again, to complete the homage to "Masquerade")
* Scorn (retooled from Grimlock)
* G2-colors Shuttle Blastoff to correct Combiner Wars G2 Bruticus
* G2 Defensor to round out the Combiner Wars G2 stuff
* Amalgamous Prime with Waverider Decoy Armor
* Regular releases of the other relegated Prime Masters, again with Decoy Armor ideally

Forgot something:
G2 PotP Dinobots

These days the idea of Entertainment Earth exclusives seems to mean they get a slightly better price and Hasbro promotes them while they're still available everywhere else including Gamestop like we saw with the gold Bee Movie Bumblebee. I pre-ordered mine from TFSource so I can get them shipped for free with Big Powered and blue Big Convoy.

Emerje

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I think I'll call Red Swoop Autobot Divebomb and have him be a past version of blue swoop.

Marvelous. Simply marvelous.

I thank you

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:1. That's blue/red plastic you're talking about with the torso, not paint. His torso isn't die-cast like G1 Swoop's
2. That's.. that's not a "sculpted lower jaw" on the torso o.O It's just greebling. What gave the impression it was a sculpted lower jaw?
3. What about the lack of gold paint on the inner face of the upper beak?

EDIT: What is it with that glitch of an extra closing quote tag randomly getting inserted in layered quotes?

1. Oops! I think you're right. I don't have my Blue Swoop in front of me right now, so trying to imagine it in my head, I thought it had thick, glossy blue paint slathered on the torso. I guess not!

2. What gave me the impression is that the greebling looks like a nice row of teeth, lol! Take another look. Even if it's accidental, it's an uncanny resemblance.

3. You're right, I did forget about the gold paint under the beak. They left Red Swoop's upper beak completely clear. It's another nice distinction, I suppose. Technically, though, that means that Red Swoop is being sold with probably LESS paint than the regular retail version, for MORE money!

Manterax Prime wrote:I think I'm the only one who thinks Stepper is still a prototype.

Curious, why do you think that?

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:My hopes for this line:
* Combiner-limb Sideswipe from the CW Breakdown mold (To complete the homage to "Masquerade")
* Combiner-limb Windcharger from either the same, the Wheeljack variant, or the Dead End mold (Again, to complete the homage to "Masquerade")
* Scorn (retooled from Grimlock)
* G2-colors Shuttle Blastoff to correct Combiner Wars G2 Bruticus
* G2 Defensor to round out the Combiner Wars G2 stuff
* Amalgamous Prime with Waverider Decoy Armor
* Regular releases of the other relegated Prime Masters, again with Decoy Armor ideally

Forgot something:
G2 PotP Dinobots

It seems you and I have similar tastes. I don't need the G2 Dinos, though, to be honest.

I would also add Translucent Prime Masters.
Combinable-Chromia.
Combinable-rumored-Greenlight.
Leozack from the Starscream mold.
Legends class Jellguar from Beachcomber?? Maybe?
Retooled combiner Grapple. (DO SOMETHING COOL WITH THE CRANE TO HIDE THE COMBINER HEAD!)

Wolfman Jake wrote:2. What gave me the impression is that the greebling looks like a nice row of teeth, lol! Take another look. Even if it's accidental, it's an uncanny resemblance.

*shrug* It's always looked more like just pipe greebling to me. I've taken plenty of close looks at it - it's a detail copied directly from the original Swoop toy (pictured below), which I have repainted twice (once for cartoon accuracy, once as a do-over because of sloppiness and paint wear) and will likely repaint at least the torso of a third time now that I have metallic dark blue paint.

Wolfman Jake wrote:3. You're right, I did forget about the gold paint under the beak. They left Red Swoop's upper beak completely clear. It's another nice distinction, I suppose. Technically, though, that means that Red Swoop is being sold with probably LESS paint than the regular retail version, for MORE money!

Well, you could call the gold paint detail app you noted an equivalent, but still.

EDIT: Thought of another good idea for this line:
Cartoon-colors Slag as a counterpoint to Red Swoop

Couldn't they have picked someone else to be the retailer damn it.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:2. What gave me the impression is that the greebling looks like a nice row of teeth, lol! Take another look. Even if it's accidental, it's an uncanny resemblance.

*shrug* It's always looked more like just pipe greebling to me. I've taken plenty of close looks at it - it's a detail copied directly from the original Swoop toy (pictured below), which I have repainted twice (once for cartoon accuracy, once as a do-over because of sloppiness and paint wear) and will likely repaint at least the torso of a third time now that I have metallic dark blue paint.

Interesting. I've never had the G1 Swoop toy, so that detailing is news to me. I guess it could just be segmented piping as you've said. It's still very evocative of the kind of tooth detailing we seen them do before on figures like T30/Legends Rhinox, so that's where my mind went at first. It's weird that Hasbro decided to pick out that detail on this release of Swoop when it's not colored like that on the original toy or in the cartoon character model (or in the mass release modern update, for that matter). They might as well have used the gold paint the saved on by keeping the clear plastic beak unpainted and added a few more toy-inspired "sticker" details/tampographs to really drive home the "G1 toy version" idea.

Nemesis Maximo wrote:

Manterax Prime wrote:I think I'm the only one who thinks Stepper is still a prototype.

Curious, why do you think that?

The somewhat sloppy gold paint on his waist.
The metal flake paint on the clear plastic (why do they not learn ), it clashes with the rest of the figure. Should've been a flat black.
Overall, it looks like somebody just took a Jazz figure and gave the Stepper treatment as quick as they could for the photos.

Manterax Prime wrote:

Nemesis Maximo wrote:

Manterax Prime wrote:I think I'm the only one who thinks Stepper is still a prototype.

Curious, why do you think that?

The somewhat sloppy gold paint on his waist.
The metal flake paint on the clear plastic (why do they not learn ), it clashes with the rest of the figure. Should've been a flat black.

1. Why would these make you think it was a prototype? A prototype would more likely be all-painted.
2a. That's almost surely not metal flake paint, it doesn't catch the light right for that. It's more likely regular paint showing op oddly because of the light shining into the clear plastic. Also, this is a Hasbro-led toy not a Takara exclusive.
2b. No, it should not be flat black. Flat black would look hideously dull next to the shiny black plastic.