The Energon Pub

[Va'al]

Beating our usual source to the punch, Facebook page Loopaza Mega Store has posted some high-res clear scans of issue #218 of Figure King, the Japanese hobby magazine. This issue features colour images of the following upcoming Transformers figures from Takara Tomy: MP-32 Optimus Primal (thread here); Transformers Adventure arrivals, with the armour Minicons (thread here); the Legends line, with the Japanese releases for the Titans Return figures for Galvatron, Hardhead and Skullcruncher (thread here). Check them out below!

[Powered Convoy]

If anyone is interested, here are my scans. I received the issue Friday but didn't have a chance to scan them until this morning.

https://goo.gl/photos/GnmAhEa8XtYL8aDP9

[Overcracker]

Not sure, why Primal continues to have a blue chest. But he still looks pretty cool.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

I'm not sure anybody noticed, but...

Optimus Primal is no longer designated a Masterpiece!

... or rather, the magazine has a misprint, giving him the number TAV40. That's the same number as Adventure Ironjam & Bumblebee Koutetsu Armor. Woops?

btw that round thing next to Furos is a 5 Yen coin, about a 1/10 of an inch in diameter.

[Sabrblade]

Not sure, why Primal continues to have a blue chest. But he still looks pretty cool.

Wrote the following on this in the main MP Primal thread:

I'm glad to see that most agree that the gorilla chest, gorilla faces, and robot chest are too blue when they should be silvery gray with a slight hint of a blue tint.

The most understandable speculated-explanation I've seen comes from something TF_JW wrote elsewhere:

Whatever color, it should definitely be the same color as his hands and feet in gorilla mode. It's all exposed gorilla "skin".

I think what happened is that as Season 1 progressed, the animators found that blue light sources cast the most dramatic shadows/highlights across Primal's skin tone. So while in early episodes there's a lot of "natural" light causing the gorilla skin to be more flat/gray, they kept playing with the lighting in different situations and really came to like the blue. I certainly remember him being in dim lighting with a blue light on him on more than one occasion.

And while this makes sense for why he's blue here, I'm with those who feel that the gorilla skin (face, chest, hands, and feet) should have all been the same shade of shiny gray, and the robot chest as almost the same gunmetal as his robot waist and robot toes.

Much like this:

[Hellscream9999]

Definitely still too blue, not sure what color it is though, like a metallic slate, or soft gunmetal, very weird looking either way