New BotCon Exclusive Galleries: 2010 Sky-Byte and Sharkticons

The splashes of water are a nice effect.

So outside of their bio-cards, what exactly is different about each of the Sharkticons enough to warrant 3 galleries for them, besides the fact you were crass enough to splash water on one of them?

Dear Mr. Seibertron,

You, sir, are a jerk for taking such amazingly stellar pictures of such toys as these. Normally, I would pass them over, thinking, nice, but I don't need them. But now, my face hurts from your evil counterpunch. Thanks a lot. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to check eBay for a less-than-an-arm-or-leg rate for these sweet-looking figures. You should be proudly ashamed of yourself, sir.

Sincerely,

The broke guy

Shadowstream wrote:So outside of their bio-cards, what exactly is different about each of the Sharkticons enough to warrant 3 galleries for them, besides the fact you were crass enough to splash water on one of them?

Each character regardless of toy gets its own gallery. Despite the fact that the three toys are completely identical, each represents a different character or drone type if you wanna get technical. Same thing with the BotCon 2009 Sweeps. The BotCon 2005 Virulent Clones however represent clones of a single being, so only one gallery for them.

Think of it this way, the three galleries combined give us a far more detailed look at the toy.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Each character regardless of toy gets its own gallery. Despite the fact that the three toys are completely identical, each represents a different character or drone type if you wanna get technical. Same thing with the BotCon 2009 Sweeps. The BotCon 2005 Virulent Clones however represent clones of a single being, so only one gallery for them.

Think of it this way, the three galleries combined give us a far more detailed look at the toy.

Quite frankly you're the last person I wanted an answer from in regards to criticisms about the galleries, and furthermore I'm not swallowing that as an excuse for more than 1 gallery.

Shadowstream wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Each character regardless of toy gets its own gallery. Despite the fact that the three toys are completely identical, each represents a different character or drone type if you wanna get technical. Same thing with the BotCon 2009 Sweeps. The BotCon 2005 Virulent Clones however represent clones of a single being, so only one gallery for them.

Think of it this way, the three galleries combined give us a far more detailed look at the toy.

Quite frankly you're the last person I wanted an answer from in regards to criticisms about the galleries, and furthermore I'm not swallowing that as an excuse for more than 1 gallery.

We've had the same kind of discussion with the distinction between Action Master accessories and Action Master partners, which both serve the same function. What constitutes a character and what doesn't?

Hey, how Seib takes pics for his galleries is his business. I'm just thankful that he takes such time and effort (and expense) to bring us these in-depth looks at figures that I'd otherwise not see and enjoy.

C'mon people...a little more "glass half full" would go a long way. Show some appreciation!

So my opinion is moot and I have no place to judge? Typical.

Shadowstream wrote:So my opinion is moot and I have no place to judge? Typical.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I decided to have some fun with these since each one was supposed to be unique and has its own unique bio card. I even went so far as to do things in the gallery to differentiate each "type" of Sharkticon: Air Shark is dry but the background has water on it (I was picturing the figure flying over water), Land Shark has no water in its gallery, and Sea Shark has water on the figure and on the background (kind of like it was either submerged in water or had just come out of the water).

Not sure why there's a debate about how or why I did this. I did, I had some fun with it, enjoy the pics!

Every unique character gets its own gallery. The only exceptions to this rule are the Action Master partners (because of the inconsistencies within that series) and Masterpiece Starscream's Dr Archeville (for obvious reasons).

Shadowstream wrote:Quite frankly you're the last person I wanted an answer from in regards to criticisms about the galleries, and furthermore I'm not swallowing that as an excuse for more than 1 gallery.

Woah! Someone's a mean drunk.

Unless you have some kind of compulsive disorder that requires you to look at every photo of every gallery, what's the issue? If they're all physically the same figure, then just look at one gallery. It's always best to have the option available for those that may want it than the other way around. It was Seibertron who spent his time and resources doing all three galleries: I don't know why that would hurt you.

I must admitt though that I'm rather disliking Seibertron myself right now. I'm not a fan of this mold. Nor do I like to acknowledge that the Quintessons even exist. But at this point in time, after looking at the photos, I really would like those Sharkticons.

DISCHARGE wrote:The splashes of water are a nice effect.

Thanks! I had a lot of fun with these 3 galleries, particularly Sea Shark's gallery.

Double standards like that are the primary reason I feel the whole gallery section is a cluttered mess. Don't think I don't appreciate the effort put into the galleries and the pics themselves, they are brilliant. I just think it could be organized with a greater degree of professionalism, and excessive gallery numbers for what is essentially the exact same figure only serves to exacerbate things.

Sodan-1 wrote:Woah! Someone's a mean drunk.

No, just that last time I tried to discuss my issues with the galleries I made the mistake of taking Jelze's word as truth. not that it wasn't true.

Thanks Seibs!

It looks like you had a gob of fun doing these!

I know I enjoyed looking at them!

In light of the criticism on this thread, really, my earlier comment was strictly tongue-in-cheek. I love your galleries and appreciate the time and effort you put into them. I'm just sad that I want both (sic) these toys.

Shadowstream wrote:Double standards like that are the primary reason I feel the whole gallery section is a cluttered mess. Don't think I don't appreciate the effort put into the galleries and the pics themselves, they are brilliant. I just think it could be organized with a greater degree of professionalism, and excessive gallery numbers for what is essentially the exact same figure only serves to exacerbate things.

There's approximately 3 dozen exceptions out of almost 2,700 galleries. If you mean examples like Cyclonus and his Targetmaster partner Nightstick should be one gallery, I disagree and that's not up for debate as this is a character driven database and each individual character should have its own gallery. In most "partner" galleries, you should see the other partner in the "Other galleries you might be interested in ..." area that are below the thumbnails in a particular figure's gallery (Examples: Targetmaster Cyclonus, BotCon 2010 Exclusives). The Action Masters exceptions drive me crazy but I'd prefer not to make an exception for 1/2 the Action Masters who have animal/mechanoid partners from the ones that have vehicle accessories.

If you mean something entirely different, I am always up for suggestions and would welcome your elaboration/clarification about what makes you feel like this is a cluttered mess and that it could be organized with a greater degree of professionalism. The figures are organized by series, then by characters. I've even got the Hasbro and Takara galleries separated out (though there needs to be some database updates to make sure that a Japanese exclusive figure isn't showing up in the US side of the database). Plus, there's a search box that enables you to search by character name which should help you easily find what you're looking for.

There is always room for improvement and I welcome your suggestions and ideas. Thanks.

Seibertron wrote:If you mean something different, I am always up for suggestions and would welcome your elaboration about what makes you feel like this is a cluttered mess and that it could be organized with a greater degree of professionalism. The figures are organized by series, then by characters. I've even got the Hasbro and Takara galleries separated out (though there needs to be some database updates to make sure that a Japanese exclusive figure isn't showing up in the US side of the database).

On this note, I've been thinking that I should organize the Convention galleries by breaking out the BotCon sets into a sub-category. Instead of the Sky-Byte and Sharkticon galleries being part of the Convention series, they would be part of the BotCon 2012 sub-series (with the Convention and Club exclusives category being the parent category). This works well for anything since 2005, but for the previous years, it'll leave a lot of content to be desired because there will only be one or two figures in each BotCon year in some of those. Unless I do a "BotCon pre-2005 Exclusives" which covers all BotCon figure exclusives from 1994 to 2004. Any suggestions?

Seibertron wrote:

Seibertron wrote:If you mean something different, I am always up for suggestions and would welcome your elaboration about what makes you feel like this is a cluttered mess and that it could be organized with a greater degree of professionalism. The figures are organized by series, then by characters. I've even got the Hasbro and Takara galleries separated out (though there needs to be some database updates to make sure that a Japanese exclusive figure isn't showing up in the US side of the database).

On this note, I've been thinking that I should organize the Convention galleries by breaking out the BotCon sets into a sub-category. Instead of the Sky-Byte and Sharkticon galleries being part of the Convention series, they would be part of the BotCon 2012 sub-series (with the Convention and Club exclusives category being the parent category). This works well for anything since 2005, but for the previous years, it'll leave a lot of content to be desired because there will only be one or two figures in each BotCon year in some of those. Unless I do a "BotCon pre-2005 Exclusives" which covers all BotCon figure exclusives from 1994 to 2004. Any suggestions?

Since the amount of figures per con has multiplied 5-fold since 2005, I'd say do it, and chuck all pre-2005 figures in one single section. If you need further justification, BotCon 2005 was the first one run by Fun Publications after the Sentinel Maximus mess the previous year, so it's pretty significant. Kind of a turning point (for better or for worse, who cares?), wouldn't you say?

Last time I got fobbed off with something along the lines of 'this is the way I do things, if you don't like it then lump it', so forgive me for not being hopeful.

What I'd really like is a more straitforward system that categorizes figures solely by named line and not mish-meshed based on (perceived) continuity or whatever. I know a few things may end up in odd places either way, but at least this way things are narrowed down.

Sub-sections, especially for convention figures(a few of which get repurposed for other botcon sets) might be too confusing in the long run.

Shadowstream wrote:Last time I got fobbed off with something along the lines of 'this is the way I do things, if you don't like it then lump it', so forgive me for not being hopeful.

I apologize if you felt that you were given a confrontational answer pertaining to any concerns you had expressed previously. That is not my way of handling things normally and that's not how I like my business to be operated. I've got a pretty thick skin after running this site for 12 years. Perhaps you caught me on an off day or perhaps someone else answered and that response was misinterpreted as a response from me. If that was how I responded to you, again, please accept my apology.

Shadowstream wrote:What I'd really like is a more straitforward system that categorizes figures solely by named line and not mish-meshed based on (perceived) continuity or whatever. I know a few things may end up in odd places either way, but at least this way things are narrowed down.

There appears to be some confusion somewhere. The toys are organized by named lines and there are no perceived continuities with my galleries. If you feel this is incorrect, please provide some specific examples so that I may address your concerns or provide an explanation about why some galleries are organized in a certain manner.

During the beginning years of Seibertron.com's galleries, I used to have the original G1 years organized by their Japanese series titles simply for the fact that since G1 every series has had a name. About three years ago, the galleries were at the point where there was enough content that I could have the Japanese series be separated from the US series. The American G1 series is currently broken down by year (examples: G1 1987, G1 1990) and the Japanese series continued to keep their distinctive titles (examples: Headmasters, Masterforce, Victory).

Is it perfect? Not at all, but all of the figures should be able to be found that way. I acknowledge that some US exclusive figures show up in both the Hasbro and Takara sections (and vice versa), but I would rather have them show up in more places than not enough so as to avoid confusion about where to find galleries of interest.

One exception to the rule off the top of my head is the "Hunt for the Decepticons" movie universe subline. I know some fans call it "Transformers 2010" and lumped in all of the other non-movie figures that came out that year with the movie-verse figures. It seemed more logical to stick with the "Hunt for the Decepticons" since there was a sticker on just about every movie figure that year that said "Hunt for the Decepticons". Not only was I confused about that "series", but I think Hasbro was also ... it was obvious that they were just keeping SKUs active that year.

Shadowstream wrote:Sub-sections, especially for convention figures (a few of which get repurposed for other botcon sets) might be too confusing in the long run.

All of the BotCon, Convention, and Club exclusives would still fall under the parent "Convention and Club Exclusives" section, they would just be further divided into more organized segments, which seems like it would be more organized like you proposed in your original post to which I responded.

I wonder if he means that there are so many sub-categories? I personally feel it's good that there is a lot of...cross-sectioning? I'm sure that's not the correct term, but you can search under Series and Subgroup, so even if you don't know the actual name of the figure you're looking for, as long as you know basically what series you came from, you can still find it. I don't know how many times I've forgotten the name of some Energon Scout or a G1 combiner limb and been able to still find what I was looking for.

It makes sense to me to have 3 galleries because they were sold only in sets of 3 to represent 3 different characters.

Anyway, on to these galleries! I still need to get me one of these! Looks like you had a lot of fun with it, it's always fun when you get creative with the galleries. I have to say I'm really liking the new backgrounds. Somehow it makes the galleries look just that little bit more professional. Not to mention, it allows white or black figures to stand out.

I hate this mold but I'm not gonna lie I like the grey and pink version is very nice but every other variation of this mold sucks. Why does hasbro keep recoloring shitty molds especially for botcon or their TFFC

I admit it's been awhile since I looked at the list, so I may have missed a few changes. What gets me is some of the more overarching categorized listings, such as Classics and Movie Universe, and most annoyingly how RtS has been split between them. That's the kind of sub-categorization that annoys me when I'm looking through the listings. It really doesn't help that there are so many categories and subdivisions on such a long list, and a few of them are still mish-meshed with counterpart lines, like how there are Classics and Universe galleries under the Henkei listing, or how Car Robot and RID are nearly the same no matter which list I select.

I think just having the galleries based only on the line name they come from, with some possible, simple sub-categorization within would make it easier than the other way around. As for lines that retain the same name on both sides of the pond... Iunno.

As usual a brilliant job. I like the added "Elemental" details

Shadowstream wrote:I admit it's been awhile since I looked at the list, so I may have missed a few changes. What gets me is some of the more overarching categorized listings, such as Classics and Movie Universe, and most annoyingly how RtS has been split between them. That's the kind of sub-categorization that annoys me when I'm looking through the listings.

Take a closer look at how carefully the list has been organized. For the most part, it even handles inconsistencies between Hasbro and Takara and even within those companies. It's setup so that you can't miss galleries and it clearly says under the name of the gallery which figure comes from which series. Reveal The Shield wasn't the best example to provide because I go out of my way with the database organization to ensure that both camps of fans are happy (those that want the movie-verse RTS figures separated from their Classics figures).

There's the general "Reveal the Shield" section that includes all of the figures from that series (both Movieverse and Classicverse): http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... hield/142/

Then there's the ones that are clearly Classics styled figures, so they're ALSO included in the Classics Reveal The Shield sub-category: http://www.seibertron.com/toys/index.ph ... type=exact

And then there's the ones that are clearly Movie styled figures which are under the Movie Reveal The Shield sub-category (though I don't remember the reasoning for putting Mindset with the movie figures): http://www.seibertron.com/toys/index.ph ... type=exact

Now that the line has been completed, it might make more sense to move all of it as a sub-category under the Classics Universe. Hindsight is always 20/20. When this line was initially revealed, I had no idea how many figures were going to be released nor did I have any idea how many movie or classics styled figures would be put into the line. I did what I thought was best so that everyone can find the content that interests them the most. This is just one of those things that Hasbro does that makes it challenging to organize these toy lines, especially when you end up with a line that has figures from multiple universes. I setup the database in a way that makes it easier to find the figures of interest.

Shadowstream wrote:It really doesn't help that there are so many categories and subdivisions on such a long list, and a few of them are still mish-meshed with counterpart lines, like how there are Classics and Universe galleries under the Henkei listing, or how Car Robot and RID are nearly the same no matter which list I select.

I think just having the galleries based only on the line name they come from, with some possible, simple sub-categorization within would make it easier than the other way around. As for lines that retain the same name on both sides of the pond... Iunno.

It's done this way so that content of interest can be easily found. I will never own every single version of Hasbro and Takara so the idea of having content be further divided like your suggesting would only further complicate the issues and make it more difficult to find galleries of interest.

Like I said, it's not perfect. It's just done in such a manner that you should be able to find what you're looking for relatively quickly via a couple of searches or clicking around. It's less about whether or not everything is correct and more about can you find content that is of interest to you.

for what it's worth I usually find what I'm looking for in the galleries pretty quickly. Except those rare occasions where I'm looking for something I don't know what line it's from, and think it's called one name, but is actually called something else entirely.

I'd question the presence of Lugnut in that sub-section more than Mindset(but I'm not gonna get into that argument again...), and I don't think there should be that kind of split AT ALL.

And while I can understand the 'content of interest' thing, I would still prefer the more concise approach, irregardless of low gallery number per listing. That's just me though... if that's being too nitpicky then... bah!