The Energon Pub

Emerje wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:Calling it right now, "Drift Origin" is going to be a Generation One-inspired redeco of you-know-who.

I was thinking they'd just paint him white like IDW or Blue like the movie, but if you're thinking Alpha Trion then that's definitely a figure I'd want.

Emerje

I'd love anIDW Drift of that mold, but me thinks Origin means Cybertronian alt--His Minicon shooter figure. Unless thats already been labelled?

william-james88 wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:Calling it right now, "Drift Origin" is going to be a Generation One-inspired redeco of you-know-who.

I was thinking they'd just paint him white like IDW or Blue like the movie, but if you're thinking Alpha Trion then that's definitely a figure I'd want.

Emerje

Oh man, that sounds amazing!

Hellscream9999 wrote:To be fair, I gotta imagine hasbro's budget is spread so very thin between all the TF lines they're juggling, that some cuts had to be made, and we just happen to see it come through the rid line as a whole.

I have such a hard time buying that. They are a toy company, they are used to having different lines and there are teams on all of them with their own budgets. And we have Takara as another example of a toy company juggling different TF lines. And Takara even has the budget for making new in house molds and even making Masterpiece figures. And they are also confined to Hasbro's budget when engineering and yet they find a way of making it work without getting bankrupt when it's their turn for the deco.

But I will say one thing, I would rather have less deco than that terrible plastic from 2 years ago if they really need to sacrifice something.

Well, I always thought that has/tak shared a budget for what they both want to use and use the rest of their budget on in-house only stuff (hasbro's dumb bricks and TT exceptional new figures) but if all the tf lines are rolled under one budget, they have rescue bots, cw, rid15, the simplified line outside the U.S., shampoo bottles, and the gimmick bricks. That's a lot of design work and designers needing to be paid on top of the plastic, molds, factory allocation, shipping, storage... just sayin'

Flashwave wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:Calling it right now, "Drift Origin" is going to be a Generation One-inspired redeco of you-know-who.

I was thinking they'd just paint him white like IDW or Blue like the movie, but if you're thinking Alpha Trion then that's definitely a figure I'd want.

Emerje

I'd love anIDW Drift of that mold, but me thinks Origin means Cybertronian alt--His Minicon shooter figure. Unless thats already been labelled?

TAV24 Micron Shooter Fracture and TAV27 Micron Shooter Drift. Besides, all figures in the VS sets (that Drift Origin Mode is part of) are Warrior Class.

Hellscream9999 wrote:Well, I always thought that has/tak shared a budget for what they both want to use and use the rest of their budget on in-house only stuff (hasbro's dumb bricks and TT exceptional new figures) but if all the tf lines are rolled under one budget, they have rescue bots, cw, rid15, the simplified line outside the U.S., shampoo bottles, and the gimmick bricks. That's a lot of design work and designers needing to be paid on top of the plastic, molds, factory allocation, shipping, storage... just sayin'

Hasbro and Takara Tomy are two entirely different toy companies. They don't share a budget, but do share tasks. Typically on mass retail items like RID and Generations Hasbro will do all of the design work while TT handles the tooling, but doesn't necessarily mean TT will release the product. Hasbro usually has multiple teams working on projects, some that aren't even normally associated with Transformers like back when they had Galoob do the Titaniums line (and it showed). Extra things, be it Masterpiece or Construct Bots don't pull from the budgets of other Transformers lines. Having everything under one budget would be an enormous headache since the budget would still have to be allocated to different projects, otherwise they could over spend on one project and underfund another.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:Well, I always thought that has/tak shared a budget for what they both want to use and use the rest of their budget on in-house only stuff (hasbro's dumb bricks and TT exceptional new figures) but if all the tf lines are rolled under one budget, they have rescue bots, cw, rid15, the simplified line outside the U.S., shampoo bottles, and the gimmick bricks. That's a lot of design work and designers needing to be paid on top of the plastic, molds, factory allocation, shipping, storage... just sayin'

Hasbro and Takara Tomy are two entirely different toy companies. They don't share a budget, but do share tasks. Typically on mass retail items like RID and Generations Hasbro will do all of the design work while TT handles the tooling, but doesn't necessarily mean TT will release the product. Hasbro usually has multiple teams working on projects, some that aren't even normally associated with Transformers like back when they had Galoob do the Titaniums line (and it showed). Extra things, be it Masterpiece or Construct Bots don't pull from the budgets of other Transformers lines. Having everything under one budget would be an enormous headache since the budget would still have to be allocated to different projects, otherwise they could over spend on one project and underfund another.

Emerje

Well in that case, yeah, shame on whomever for leaving drift and jazz unpainted

william-james88 wrote:Nice! I love that idea of him sniffing for a prey's trail. And good to know the excess force doesnt hurt the figure. Of the 3 you have, which version do you like best?

Well, I like Takara's Steeljaw best for show accuracy. Their desaturated gray-blue color is the best match for his on-screen model. Next up is Phantom Jaw. I just love that police car deco and the claw painted to resemble a stylized lightbar when stored in alt mode. It's just too bad they didn't think to reimagine Prowl with a wolfy bot mode for the Aligned continuity. His name is PERFECT for such an idea. Last is obviously Hasbro's Steeljaw. It's not bad in itself, but it's got less detail and is the wrong color. Still, it was first available, and when I spotted it at TRU last December, I HAD to have it.

Also, Fun Pub, if you're reading this, PLEASE consider doing a Wolf Cop repaint of Steelejaw for a future TFCC exclusive! The people working on Wolf Cop and its upcoming sequel would love that kind of cross promotion. They already put out an action figure for the first movie!

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Flashwave wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:Calling it right now, "Drift Origin" is going to be a Generation One-inspired redeco of you-know-who.

I was thinking they'd just paint him white like IDW or Blue like the movie, but if you're thinking Alpha Trion then that's definitely a figure I'd want.

Emerje

I'd love anIDW Drift of that mold, but me thinks Origin means Cybertronian alt--His Minicon shooter figure. Unless thats already been labelled?

TAV24 Micron Shooter Fracture and TAV27 Micron Shooter Drift. Besides, all figures in the VS sets (that Drift Origin Mode is part of) are Warrior Class.

Yeah, its a versus set of 2 deluxes just like these here:





The odd thing is that this would be the first time both figures get a name alteration so I wonder if both will have a special deco.

william-james88 wrote:The odd thing is that this would be the first time both figures get a name alteration so I wonder if both will have a special deco.

They'll probably be in line with Bumblebee and Optimus Prime Supreme Mode as powered up modes, and may serve as an alternative to our Clash of the Transformers redecos.

I just want show-accurate toys of these forms (*SPOILERS BELOW*):

By the by, what are the chances of the "Clash of the Transformers" episodes airing in Japan? Since there are only a coupler as I've read, I can see Japan skipping them with the figures ending up as "USA Edition" exclusives. "Seen only in the US!"

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:By the by, what are the chances of the "Clash of the Transformers" episodes airing in Japan? Since there are only a coupler as I've read, I can see Japan skipping them with the figures ending up as "USA Edition" exclusives. "Seen only in the US!"

Aren't they just the final two episodes of season 1? There's nothing abnormal about them in the English version (meaning they don't bear the "Clash" subtitle), so I don't know why they'd be skipped. And Japan does like shows having 26-episode seasons.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

william-james88 wrote:The odd thing is that this would be the first time both figures get a name alteration so I wonder if both will have a special deco.

They'll probably be in line with Bumblebee and Optimus Prime Supreme Mode as powered up modes, and may serve as an alternative to our Clash of the Transformers redecos.

Well, the are getting the Clash figures too so this would be more of an accompaniment.

Sabrblade wrote:I just want show-accurate toys of these forms (*SPOILERS BELOW*):

So that's where those colors come from. I think I saw a solicitation for Sideswipe with these colors somewhere in RK.

fenrir72 wrote:So that's where those colors come from. I think I saw a solicitation for Sideswipe with these colors somewhere in RK.

The sideswipe with this coloring is a TRU exclusive and it will be available all over the world distributed by hasbro and takara

william-james88 wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:So that's where those colors come from. I think I saw a solicitation for Sideswipe with these colors somewhere in RK.

The sideswipe with this coloring is a TRU exclusive and it will be available all over the world distributed by hasbro and takara

Good that it isn't too hard to find then and not an exclusive exclusive.

It's a shame these are just straight redecos and don't have any of that cool armor. I am liking the look of that OP and his black leggings.

I'm pretty excited by a Takara release of Black Shadow. Bet the paint will look rad.

NuclearConvoy wrote:I'm pretty excited by a Takara release of Black Shadow. Bet the paint will look rad.

Perhaps this time, I'll buy a repaint of a remold.

It's a long shot, but I'm wondering if the Battle Grimlock will be some type of voyager-ish scale figure that converts in more than 3 steps.

I didn't see this mentioned elsewhere yet, so I thought I'd report on a few TAV things now that I've had time to open up the rest of my recent TFSource haul. Powerglide DOES unfortunately have a circular indent sculpted onto his chest for the scanning sticker. Again, as with Shrapnel and Bombshell, there's no real reason for it. I can understand that it's a dealbreaker for a lot of collectors, but I still prefer the paint jobs on these Takara versions, despite the less aesthetically pleasing remolding. Personally, I just like to think of them as a throwback to the square indents sculpted into later productions of the first few years of G1 figures to accommodate the rubsigns. Rip off those ugly scan codes and slap on a nice replacement Autobot or Decepticon logo (I'm using the recent officially licensed Ocean stickers). On the other paw, Cosmos does NOT have any remolding! He does have a scan code, but it's easily removed. It's located on the outside right leg of the figure, or the underside of it's alt mode. No weird circular indent. If you're on the fence about Powerglide, I understand, but don't pass up on Cosmos. The extra attention to detail really make him shine compared to the already very good Hasbro version from last year.

Wolfman Jake wrote:I didn't see this mentioned elsewhere yet, so I thought I'd report on a few TAV things now that I've had time to open up the rest of my recent TFSource haul. Powerglide DOES unfortunately have a circular indent sculpted onto his chest for the scanning sticker. Again, as with Shrapnel and Bombshell, there's no real reason for it. I can understand that it's a dealbreaker for a lot of collectors, but I still prefer the paint jobs on these Takara versions, despite the less aesthetically pleasing remolding. Personally, I just like to think of them as a throwback to the square indents sculpted into later productions of the first few years of G1 figures to accommodate the rubsigns. Rip off those ugly scan codes and slap on a nice replacement Autobot or Decepticon logo (I'm using the recent officially licensed Ocean stickers). On the other paw, Cosmos does NOT have any remolding! He does have a scan code, but it's easily removed. It's located on the outside right leg of the figure, or the underside of it's alt mode. No weird circular indent. If you're on the fence about Powerglide, I understand, but don't pass up on Cosmos. The extra attention to detail really make him shine compared to the already very good Hasbro version from last year.

Is PG's gun mode reflected in his instructions?

To accompany yesterday's confirmation of the Takara Tomy Transformers Adventure rumoured listings, site sponsor TFSource have also forwarded the images for the products revealed, from the TAV line proper, to the TED, TEX and Q Transformers, plus some Legends that snuck in.

Check them all out below, though the highlights we can spot are an IDW-esque Drift redeco, the confirmation of the Legends figures such as Black Shadow, and Rumble and Frenzy, and the QTransformers crossover stuff - and that incredibly intriguing Grimlock.

Grimlock and Blackshadow....sweet!

Btw, another super base Optimus? What's TAV 24 then?

fenrir72 wrote:Is PG's gun mode reflected in his instructions?

It doesn't. However, hilariously enough, it does depict Powerglide with a proper Autobot insignia on his chest for the illustrated instructions instead of the scan code sticker.

Also, YAY! New BIGGER Grimlock mold coming our way! Thank you, Takara! It's what I was hoping for most! Now if you'll release an EZ Collection Fixit with his proper screen accurate orange hue, I'll be set.

I wonder if United Rumble and Frenzy are going to have any deco differences. The photos available now just look like placeholders. Kind of strange to reissue those molds now with no notable changes.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:Is PG's gun mode reflected in his instructions?

It doesn't. However, hilariously enough, it does depict Powerglide with a proper Autobot insignia on his chest for the illustrated instructions instead of the scan code sticker.

Also, YAY! New BIGGER Grimlock mold coming our way! Thank you, Takara! It's what I was hoping for most! Now if you'll release an EZ Collection Fixit with his proper screen accurate orange hue, I'll be set.

I wonder if United Rumble and Frenzy are going to have any deco differences. The photos available now just look like placeholders. Kind of strange to reissue those molds now with no notable changes.

PG really knows how to be the prima donna doesn't he? Really really weird on some of TTs business decisions with regards to PG. Anyway, thanks and congrats you already got him. Mine is still, well stuck.........