New Galleries: BotCon 2012 Gigatron, Metalhawk, Treadshot, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave and Turbo Tracks

I just


Seriously, that's super creepy.

Metalhawk's Visionaries head is freaking me out a bit, yes.

It is good that they went with a new head sculpt for the character, but I'm not sure the Pretender Shell look works.

Also, Treadshot with the speakers on his gun makes hit look like a Targetmaster. I was about to call foul play at him getting his own wee dude, when Soundwave doesn't come with any of his "Minicon" minions. Then I realised what it was I was looking at.

I'm not very impressed with the headsculpts of Soundwave, Gigatron, or Metalhawk.

I finallt got around to taking the set out and displaying them all and I have to say..Soundwave is very underwhelming..If i wasnt a completionist I would sell the POS..


Treadshot FTW....

Stormrider wrote:I'm not very impressed with the headsculpts of Soundwave, Gigatron, or Metalhawk.

I like Gigatron's head. It's a nice reference to Last Stand of The Wreckers. I only wish that the body asthetics could match the head to give us a proper Overlord.

I'm very pleased with this years set. Yes Soundwave doesn't quite look like himself. But I still think he's a very good and catchy looking figure. And as for Gigatron, be happy we got him at all. And pretender shell Metalhawk is a very unique convention piece.

So when does the headband come out?

Mkall wrote:

Stormrider wrote:I'm not very impressed with the headsculpts of Soundwave, Gigatron, or Metalhawk.

I like Gigatron's head. It's a nice reference to Last Stand of The Wreckers. I only wish that the body asthetics could match the head to give us a proper Overlord.

I completely agree that the face reminds me of the Last Stand of the Wreckers. And I am with you - Gigatron's face and body do not go well together. One is cartoonish, the other is movie.

Stormrider wrote:

Mkall wrote:

Stormrider wrote:I'm not very impressed with the headsculpts of Soundwave, Gigatron, or Metalhawk.

I like Gigatron's head. It's a nice reference to Last Stand of The Wreckers. I only wish that the body asthetics could match the head to give us a proper Overlord.

I completely agree that the face reminds me of the Last Stand of the Wreckers. And I am with you - Gigatron's face and body do not go well together. One is cartoonish, the other is movie.

I suspect that within a year we'll catch news of at least some armour/accessories to turn Gigatron into a better Overlord. At least I would hope so.

I don't think it's the fact that the body's "movie" makes it wrong here. I think it's more the "robot skeleton" thing Bludgeon had going on just doesn't work for a TF with a normal sort of face.

Every time I see that SG Magnus head it makes me really convinced it was supposed to be for a Scourge. It's still very Prime-like only twisted and evil. Everything Scourge is.

Also, I think it'd be helpful to have a Shattered Gladd subgroup under Convention exclucives. I mean, sure they're all in the greater botcon and club category, but it'd be nice to have them all together. Unlike most other sets it's a real theme that's been going on for quite a few years now.

Stormrider wrote:

Mkall wrote:

Stormrider wrote:I'm not very impressed with the headsculpts of Soundwave, Gigatron, or Metalhawk.

I like Gigatron's head. It's a nice reference to Last Stand of The Wreckers. I only wish that the body asthetics could match the head to give us a proper Overlord.

I completely agree that the face reminds me of the Last Stand of the Wreckers. And I am with you - Gigatron's face and body do not go well together. One is cartoonish, the other is movie.

This face is a terrible Transformers face. It's not what his face looks like in LSOTW. The overall shape of the head is, but the face itself is proportioned very poorly. To demonstrate my point, I put this montage together of various headshots of Overlord/Gigatron from the LSOTW comics, the BotCon prequel comic, Overlord's original box art, and the Invasion box set artwork. It's obvious that the LSOTW face/head was what they were going for, but the end product just fails miserably. Not sure if the oddly angled eyes are what's wrong, or the long nose, or the way-too-human lips (which look terrible on Nick Roche's artwork as well), or way too large of a space between the nose and the upper lip (the philtrum) ... but altogether the face is just proportioned poorly. Maybe it's because I'm an artist and I can clearly see that the facial proportions are incorrect that this face bothers me so much. I see what they were trying to do, it just didn't work out well. They should've stuck with a traditional Transformer face.

Seibertron wrote:

Stormrider wrote:

Mkall wrote:

Stormrider wrote:I'm not very impressed with the headsculpts of Soundwave, Gigatron, or Metalhawk.

I like Gigatron's head. It's a nice reference to Last Stand of The Wreckers. I only wish that the body asthetics could match the head to give us a proper Overlord.

I completely agree that the face reminds me of the Last Stand of the Wreckers. And I am with you - Gigatron's face and body do not go well together. One is cartoonish, the other is movie.

This face is a terrible Transformers face. It's not what his face looks like in LSOTW. The overall shape of the head is, but the face itself is proportioned very poorly. To demonstrate my point, I put this montage together of various headshots of Overlord/Gigatron from the LSOTW comics, the BotCon prequel comic, Overlord's original box art, and the Invasion box set artwork. It's obvious that the LSOTW face/head was what they were going for, but the end product just fails miserably. Not sure if the oddly angled eyes are what's wrong, or the long nose, or the way-too-human lips (which look terrible on Nick Roche's artwork as well), or way too large of a space between the nose and the upper lip (the philtrum) ... but altogether the face is just proportioned poorly. Maybe it's because I'm an artist and I can clearly see that the facial proportions are incorrect that this face bothers me so much. I see what they were trying to do, it just didn't work out well. They should've stuck with a traditional Transformer face.

Sorry, but IMO that montage (to me) validates my opinion of the head. They were going for a Roche-inspired head, and they mentioned that at the TCC panel IIRC, and they got all the elements more or less accurate: chin, lips nose, helmet. Given what they were aiming for I'd say they did a decent job of it. Now did they get a good homage to the Original Overlord? I think you and I can agree they didn't.

I don't mind, however, given that more and more my collection appears to be shifting towards IDW-styled figures; with Perceptor's sniper rifle and Kup's Cygar. Thus I think I'm just more accepting of it because of it.

I think the head's look could be improved with a better application of paint on the eyes. In your gallery, and my figure, the paint-apps are sloppy and there appear to be a slant-eyed look that could bely a more angry or determined visage which may or may not work well with the figure's face. We'll never know though.

TL;TR - I don't mind the head, you do mind the head; let's agree to disagree.

EDIT: In looking for pictures of G1 Overlord, there aren't many out there that I could find where the head is shown clearly aside from tfu.info's page. It could be the flash playing off the head, but I think there's lips on it as well. Thus until I'm proven wrong, I thus believe this to be a decent homage to the original Overlord, but not as good as it was to Nick Roche's

Definitely have to agree to disagree. I threw this very quick mock-up together in photoshop. After playing around with his face for a while, I figured out where I feel the biggest changes need to be made ... it's mostly in the eyes. The eyes are too high up, the top part of the bridge of the nose by the eyebrows needs to go, the "eyebrow"/forehead space between the top of his eyes and the bottom his helmet needs to be reduced signifcantly after moving the eyes lower on his face, plus the lines/indentations around the eyes need to be added. Again, this is a real quick mock-up (i.e. not perfect) to demonstrate some changes that should've been made to the final model. Hopefully this will demonstrate what I'm trying to express better.

Seibertron wrote:Definitely have to agree to disagree. I threw this very quick mock-up together in photoshop. After playing around with his face for a while, I figured out where I feel the biggest changes need to be made ... it's mostly in the eyes. The eyes are too high up, the top part of the bridge of the nose by the eyebrows needs to go, the "eyebrow"/forehead space between the top of his eyes and the bottom his helmet needs to be reduced signifcantly after moving the eyes lower on his face, plus the lines/indentations around the eyes need to be added. Again, this is a real quick mock-up (i.e. not perfect) to demonstrate some changes that should've been made to the final model. Hopefully this will demonstrate what I'm trying to express better.

I think you nailed what I was saying; fix the eyes, fix the head.

Mkall wrote:EDIT: In looking for pictures of G1 Overlord, there aren't many out there that I could find where the head is shown clearly aside from tfu.info's page. It could be the flash playing off the head, but I think there's lips on it as well. Thus until I'm proven wrong, I thus believe this to be a decent homage to the original Overlord, but not as good as it was to Nick Roche's

The original Overlord's face wasn't much to brag about either. It's OK ... but no where near as awesome as it should've been, though it definitely has that early 80s "Diaclone" look to his face.

The BotCon 2012 figures have moved up some older figures that need some gallery love. G1 Overlord has moved toward the top of my list, along with Road Rage and Crosscut, and "Diaclone" Ultra Magnus so that I can provide all of you with comparison pictures. Once I bust out those figures, I'll be sure to update the existing BotCon 2012 galleries of those versions of the characters with comparison pics.

I'm really looking forward to doing Overlord's gallery. I've owned him for 4 years and have never transformed him. Should be awesome.

Whoever does their sculpting seems to have a problem with eyes. Astrotrain comes to mind, as well as this guy and this year's SG Soundwave.

El Duque wrote:Whoever does their sculpting seems to have a problem with eyes. Astrotrain comes to mind, as well as this guy and this year's SG Soundwave.

There are a lot of examples where the heads just aren't right.

Club exclusive Counterpunch's shrunken head comes to mind, as does the lack of paint apps on Club Cheetor. Beast Wars Megatron's eyes are wrong as well. The black lines below or around the eyes are inverted or whatever, which the Club acknowledged at some point (if I recall correctly) by stating that the overseas sculptor misunderstood what was intended by the line art. Unfortunately, I can't find any links to back up that claim at this moment other than vague BotCon memories.

I don't understand how they don't get the chance to get these issues fixed before the production run. I wonder if it's a cost issue. Costs $??? more to proof the sculpts ahead of time but is cheaper if they skip that step. Seems odd that problems with the heads keep happening over and over again.

Apologies in advance if this has been documented elsewhere, but, what is SG Soundwave's headband made out of? I was looking at that horrible official rubber one on eBay, (even though it should have been included with each fig), I'll be damned if I'm forking out for that....

I just bought a length of Lime-Green 3mm ribbon on eBay, then saw that plasticky goodness in the gallery -what IS it?!?!?

NaM3L3sS wrote:Apologies in advance if this has been documented elsewhere, but, what is SG Soundwave's headband made out of? I was looking at that horrible official rubber one on eBay, (even though it should have been included with each fig), I'll be damned if I'm forking out for that....

I just bought a length of Lime-Green 3mm ribbon on eBay, then saw that plasticky goodness in the gallery -what IS it?!?!?

I used something called Rexlace lacing.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... reen&ajr=0



I picked up a 100 yard spool of the lacing at my local Hobby Lobby for $1.99 or $2.99. There's enough here for me to me headbands for everyone that wants one, but at that price, you should just go down to your local craft store and buy your own. Use a pair of wire cutters to cut the ends at a slight angle to make it look a little more dynamic and you're all good to go! I managed to tied it in a double knot. It's not perfect, but for display purposes it's fine.

Just a slight warning though ... the paint isn't applied that great to Soundwave's head. If you look at the tips on the top of his head in some of the later pictures in Soundwave's gallery, you'll see that a very small amount of paint came off from removing the headband as many times as I did during the gallery shoot. Not a big deal ... just something to be mindful of.

EDIT: After looking at the very early pics of the figure, it looks like the same amount was gone from the tips so maybe it's just a flaw with my Soundwave ... can anyone else confirm if their Soundwave is like that as well?

Soundwave is embarrassingly bad. I mean he looks like a cheap KO. Happymeal Transformers have had better paint.