The Energon Pub

When a figure comes with a weapon it can hold in its hands, do you pose them with it in their left or right hand?

I usually go right handed unless group posing calls for left handed.

I like to mix it up. I figure robots are ambidextrous. And like you said, sometimes the pose/grouping I want dictates which hand I choose.

Sometimes I feel like Decepticons should be lefties because, as everyone knows, the left hand is the Devil's hand and all lefties are evil.

Depends on which arm is less loose... Some times the right arm just cant hold the gun up.

For my classics, I've displayed them Autobots on the right side and Decepticons on the left and they pointed weapons at each other. That makes Autobots all right handed and most of the Decepticons left handed. If I have time, I might switch them around.

gavinfuzzy wrote:Depends on which arm is less loose... Some times the right arm just cant hold the gun up.

I've never made any conscious decision as to which hand holds the gun..but looking at my collection, they all are right handed...just like me!

Makes me wonder if left-handed collectors do the same?

I've always wondered when this topic would come up as it's something i've wondered myself.

Going against what Death Shed (love that name btw) said, i'm right handed but find my bots tend to dress themselves on the left.

Eh, when I was younger I didn't really keep the weapons in their hands. I have a box full of weapons I need sort out, but now I actually care about the weapons (mainly my DOTM line has their weapons). Actually, for me, it all depends on which side it looks better on. For Example: Ironhide's gun looks good on his right hand, but Jolt's looks good on his left to me.

My Universe Ramjet has two left hands. Other than him, the others are either right-, or two-handed.

This is something I've often thought about. I try to mix it up, but I don't get very far before forgetting that I'm trying to do that, so they almost always end up right-handed.

I'm betting that for most people, the figures have the same dominant hand that their owners do.

oddly enough, as a lefty all my figures are righties. i used to be big into gundam, and all the lineart portrayed them as righties, and it stuck. if it weren't for gundam, they'd all probably be lefties.

If the figure comes with 1 gun only, it goes into its right hand. If it comes with 2 guns, the bigger one goes in its right hand. If the guns are the same it doesn't matter, obviously. If the figure has a shoulder mounted weapon (such as various Megatrons) a gun goes in the opposite hand if there is a gun also. If the figure comes with a gun and a different type of weapon (sword, mace, spear, whatever) the gun goes in the left hand and the other type weapon in the right.

I'm left handed.

The figures are always portrayed as right handed so that's how I display them, apart from Classics Mirage. With his triangular body, tiny waist and broad shoulders I thought "he looks like me!" and made him right handed. I might gradually change them all to lefties and see if anyone notices.

Just realised: in DOTM when Sentinel first fires his gun it's in his left hand, then he switches to the right, then finally he switches back to the left before jumping the fence and driving off.

Mykltron wrote:I'm left handed.

The figures are always portrayed as right handed so that's how I display them, apart from Classics Mirage. With his triangular body, tiny waist and broad shoulders I thought "he looks like me!" and made him right handed. I might gradually change them all to lefties and see if anyone notices.

Just realised: in DOTM when Sentinel first fires his gun it's in his left hand, then he switches to the right, then finally he switches back to the left before jumping the fence and driving off.

Weird, I don't recall Mirage having bacne....

Looking over my collection quick, I've noticed it's pretty mixed up. But, I have noticed a few key things that I seem to adhere to:

*Weapon placement is primarily decided by how the toy is posed on the shelf. Sometimes, the way I have it there just isn't space to put it in the left hand, so it goes in the right, or vice versa. There's only been a few instances where a shelf was so crammed that I just had to remove the weapon entirely - at that point you couldn't see it anyway, so it's not like it mattered

*If there's an existing shoulder, arm, hip, or any other body weapon I'm more likely to place a hand weapon in the opposite side to give a feeling of balance. So, most incarnations of Soundwave are left-handed. But sometimes it doesn't matter, since my God Ginrai is ambidextrous anyway

*If a character has multiple weapons, I like putting as many as I can within reason (I like the "armed up and ready to go" look, but don't want them to look like they can't walk under all that weight @_@) and weight distribution, connectivity (Megatron's arm cannon, for instance, is always on his right arm, so any hand weapon would instinctively go to his left), space on the shelf and just how it looks all affect the type of weapons I use, how they're held and how they're posed. It's one thing to look like a walking lot of spare parts and one stray bullet could send you sky-high, it's another to give off the message with a look "Yeah, I could kill you. If I felt like it. And your sister. And your puppy too. Oh, and the whole town, why not. And you know what? I'd still have enough ammo to go stick up that AM/PM "

Because only bad guys go to AM/PM.

well im right handed so i figured my TFs should be. ^_^

Some TFs(particularly Decepticons) are made to be right/left handed via either a weapon being specifically affixed to said side, or because there's only one fist hole. Most of the time I'd just make them right handed for the sake of it being the common thing. If a shoulder mounted missile can only be put on one side however, I'll put the handgun on the opposite side of the missile, since it would seem a bit superfluous to have a gun and missile mounted on the same side.

Being left handed means you visualize in 3 dimensions, right handers tend to visualize/conceive in a linear fashion, that being said, I took a quick consensus and found the numbers to be roughly even, slightly favoring the left hand, of which I am.

Interesting question! When I look at my collection I notice they're ambidex. So would that mean I don't project myself on my Transformers?

Starwave Prime wrote:Being left handed means you visualize in 3 dimensions, right handers tend to visualize/conceive in a linear fashion, that being said, I took a quick consensus and found the numbers to be roughly even, slightly favoring the left hand, of which I am.

I'm righthanded and can visualize like nobody's business. Tell me one 'your mom' joke and I can see it in horrifying detail.

Seriously though, being lefthanded or righthanded makes only a marginal difference in braindelevopment. There's no hard rule about what makes you visualize what and in what dimension.

FellintoOblivion wrote:

Mykltron wrote:I'm left handed.

The figures are always portrayed as right handed so that's how I display them, apart from Classics Mirage. With his triangular body, tiny waist and broad shoulders I thought "he looks like me!" and made him right handed. I might gradually change them all to lefties and see if anyone notices.

Just realised: in DOTM when Sentinel first fires his gun it's in his left hand, then he switches to the right, then finally he switches back to the left before jumping the fence and driving off.

Weird, I don't recall Mirage having bacne....

Was there any need for such pure rudeness? FYI that's a scar.

FellintoOblivion wrote:

Mykltron wrote:Just realised: in DOTM when Sentinel first fires his gun it's in his left hand, then he switches to the right, then finally he switches back to the left before jumping the fence and driving off.

Weird, I don't recall Mirage having bacne....

Was there any need for such pure rudeness? FYI that's a scar.[/quote]

Was i the only one who thought he was trying to spell "bacon"?
omnomnom...

Most of mine are right-handed, well those that actually have two hands However, it all depends on the weapons used:

1 Melee Weapon / Long Range Weapon: right-handed
2 Melee Weapons / Long Range Weapons of equal size: ambidex
2 Long Range Weapons of unequal size: bigger weapon in right hand
2 Melee Weapons of unequal size: right handed
1 Melee Weapon + 1 Long Range Weapon: Melee in right hand, long range in left.

FellintoOblivion wrote:

Mykltron wrote:Just realised: in DOTM when Sentinel first fires his gun it's in his left hand, then he switches to the right, then finally he switches back to the left before jumping the fence and driving off.

Weird, I don't recall Mirage having bacne....

Was there any need for such pure rudeness? FYI that's a scar.[/quote]

Was i the only one who thought he was trying to spell "bacon"?
omnomnom...

Most of my guys are in vehicle mode, so at first I didn't think I'd be able to reply. But then I remembered that I have photos of many of my guys. So let's see...



Kup: Seems he's a lefty.
Ultra Magnus: He's duel weilding, but his BFG seems to be in his right hand.
Wreck-Gar: Righty.
Rodimus: Duel weilding, hard to say.
Arcee: Duel weilding, hard to say.
Springer: Duel weilding, gun in right, sword in left.
Blurr: Both hands on one gun, but the main handle is in his left. Lefty?
Wheelie and Grimlock: Neither is holding a weapon in this pic.

So in that photo... seems pretty evenly spread out.

Seems to be the case in other photos I have, too. (And many of those are solo photos, so it isn't just a case of what was necessary for the posing in the above photo.) For example, going through photos of my Optimi, the final tally (not counting any duel-weilding ones, or any such as the first movie's leader class Optimus where toy design dictated which hand held the weapon) was 12-11 in favour of righties. Lefties took an early lead with the G1 Optimi, but had a surprise last minute surge when I got to Animated.

I, myself, am a righty. My mom is a lefty, though. While I am predomanantly right handed (for example, I could never write with my left) I do figure I get a bit of ambedextarity from that, for reasons such as if I was sitting next to her in a restaurant as a kid, if I ate right-handed we'd be bumping elbows the whole meal.

I'm right handed, so I think subconsciously all my TFs are right handed to.